History DependingOnTheWriter / LiveActionTV

** Susan had originally been intended as a CreepyGood ActionGirl with PsychicPowers but was {{ReTool}}ed into a "normal girl" after the unaired pilot. The result of this is that her character fluctuates wildly between scripts: in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild An Unearthly Child]]" she is a nice girl who [[IJustWantToBeNormal wishes she were normal]] but shows a little NightmareFetishist behaviour ("I like walking through the dark. It's mysterious.") and physically attacks a massive, armed caveman to save her friends; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks The Daleks]]" she is a KiddieKid who displays exaggerated fear about walking through the dark and the few times she's allowed to speak it's to make stupid suggestions ("First we all lie down and pretend to be dead..."); in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E3TheEdgeOfDestruction The Edge of Destruction]]" she [[TheOphelia drifts around in a long dress, babbles about creatures inside her and threatens to shred Ian with a pair of surgical scissors]]; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E4MarcoPolo Marco Polo]]" she is a TotallyRadical sixties teen who thinks everything is "gear"; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E5TheKeysOfMarinus The Keys of Marinus]]" she is a DistressedDamsel; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E6TheAztecs The Aztecs]]" she has nothing to do; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites The Sensorites]]" she [[CallingTheOldManOut has a fight with her grandfather and saves the day with her telepathic powers]]; and then in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E8TheReignOfTerror The Reign of Terror]]" she [[TheMillstone refuses to attempt to escape from a prison when she and Barbara are due to be guillotined because she's scared of the rats and then develops a fever for plot convenience]]. It's such a horrible mess you can tell the writers were relieved to start again with a blank slate when she got replaced with SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute [[PluckyGirl Vicki]].

* Practically every example of ContinuityDrift in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has this trope to blame.
** Captain Archer on ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''. On alternating episodes he'd go back and forth between no-morals-hardass and morals-are-the-most-important-thing paragon. One episode he threatened to shoot someone out of an airlock and in the next episode he refused to do something that was far more justifiable.
** Same goes for Captain Janeway on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. Rebel? By the book? Violently gung-ho? Depressive and self-recriminating? No matter what she decides (usually without conferencing with her officers beforehand, something which Picard did regularly), the script will be on her side. Creator/KateMulgrew, a talented actress, was rather displeased with the way her character would change from script to script. She commented once that she thought [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Janeway had some sort of mental illness,]] namely Bipolar Disorder.
*** Neelix is another example. Some days he's a BunnyEarsLawyer whose expertise is invaluable to the crew despite his annoying them, other days he's [[TheMillstone dangerously incompetent at everything he does]] and [[TheLoad contributes absolutely nothing to the crew besides bad jokes]].
*** B'Elanna's anger issues either define her entire personality or don't exist, depending on whether or not her getting angry at another crew member would advance or hinder the plot of a given episode. Additionally, there are some episodes where she's largely indifferent or even hostile to Klingon culture, and others where she goes to great lengths to fulfill obligations under Klingon culture ("Barge of the Dead", for example).
*** The Kazon are also victim of this. Sometimes they're portrayed as {{Genius Bruiser}}s who are frequently able to trick the main cast. Other times they're the epitome of DumbMuscle, to the point that their idea of holding someone captive is to draw a line on the floor and tell the intended prisoner not to cross it. Eventually, Seven mentions that the Borg took a pass on assimilating them because they considered it a step backwards in their quest for perfection.
** This kind of thing goes all the way back to Spock in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''; sometimes he was portrayed as an earnest pacifist unwilling to use a phaser and uncomfortable with the idea of hurting others under ''any'' circumstances, and sometimes he was portrayed as a cold tactician who was willing to ShootTheDog at a moment's notice, if such an act was for the greater good. (Also, his Vulcan disdainfulness of anything human or illogical was sometimes played up to the point where he could, at times, enter {{Jerkass}} territory.)
** In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Picard will do everything imaginable to avoid violent conflict, even with entities or aliens that seem to be nothing but CardCarryingVillain, he will make certain that violence is the only way before resorting to it. Amongst other things he refused to commit genocide against the Borg, and this was after [[spoiler: he was made into Locutus]]. 'Movie' Picard, however, considers diplomacy that obligatory 'stop or I'll shoot' line, before proceeding to go about killing.
** Q is strongly subjected to this. He could either be detached and sinister ("[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E1EncounterAtFarpoint}} Encounter at Farpoint]]", "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E16QWho}} Q Who]]", "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E6TrueQ}} True Q]]", "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E24AllGoodThings}} All Good Things...]]"), wild and silly ("[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E9HideAndQ}} Hide and Q]]", "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E20Qpid}} Qpid]]", and his subsequent appearances on ''Deep Space Nine'' and ''Voyager''), or a third personality in that of the educator ("[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E14Tapestry}} Tapestry]]" where Q teaches Picard something about himself or "All Good Things..." where Q is [[spoiler:actually trying to help Picard, without the other Q actually knowing about it]]). Then again, this ''is'' Q we're talking about.
** The application of the PrimeDirective by various captains also qualifies. Sometimes, it means not interfering in the affairs of only pre-warp civilizations; other times, it means not interfering in the affairs of ''any'' civilization. It was also inconsistent internally; supposedly you could break it to prevent an injustice to one member of your crew, but at the same time it's considered so important that you should sacrifice your entire ship to preserve it! In the original series, there was a specific exemption for saving cultures from natural disasters; in later series policy was to let them die even if the whole race is wiped out. The latter interpretation was also a plot point at the beginning of ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', so even the reboot TOS doesn't remain consistent with its source material.
** During TOS, the crew used English units of measure exclusively until "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS2E3TheChangeling}} The Changeling]]", where they start using metric. However, for the rest of the series, they went back and forth. Starting with TNG they used metric exclusively.
** The warp factor scale has never really been rigidly defined beyond "Warp 1 is lightspeed and Warp 10 is [[LudicrousSpeed infinite speed / you're everywhere at once / really weird things start to happen]]". And even then, it took a few series of explicitly referring to speeds greater than Warp 10 before finally establishing Warp 10 as the absolute maximum way to quantify travel speed.
*** It's [[AllThereInTheManual never explicitly stated]] onscreen, but the warp scale in the original series and the prequels is also not the same scale that's used in The Next Generation and beyond (in and out of universe). The most striking difference is that TOS set Warp 10 as a fixed point, with the "Warp 10 is infinite speed" not coming into play until the TNG-era charts, but it also means that relative speeds don't match between the series.
* Rodney [=McKay=] of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' changes personalities constantly for the first three Seasons, sometimes competent and worried, sometimes an incompetent whiner, sometimes brave, sometimes a coward, sometimes an egotistical twit who saves the day but won’t shut up. Season Four, he makes the transition to reluctant hero. [=McKay=] is the guy that the writers forgot that walked 6+ miles just from the Stargate and back and forth and back for a total of at least 24 miles without breaking a sweat or falling behind while carrying a heavy rifle and bearing a full fifty to seventy pounds of field gear in Season Three’s Vengeance -- with the writers constantly poking fun at him for being out of shape in dozens of episodes. There are times that you can actually like the guy instead of wanting to sacrifice him on a suicide mission. There are other times... such as when the writers can’t resist bringing back the whiny old Rodney-type from Seasons 1 to 3 to later Seasons in episodes like Season Five’s “the Lost Tribe” after you’ve gotten used to the “new and improved” reluctant hero model that’s had the impurities burned away. It’s like he’s had his reset switch hit, right back to Season One. Poink!
** Add to this his portrayal in ''Series/StargateSG1,'' where the cockiness was emphasized and the whininess was all but nonexistent. Once SGA debuts, he (and everyone else) acts like he was always his SGA self whenever he pops up in SG-1. Several years pass between his original SG-1 appearance in season 5's ''48 Hours'' and his first ''Atlantis'' appearance in ''Rising'', which is the equivalent of season 8 of the former show. Plenty of time for off-screen CharacterDevelopment to occur.
* This is one of the biggest complaints about Alexis on ''Series/UglyBetty''. Alexis was a shadowy BigBad figure for the first half of season one. Then she had a HeelFaceTurn while retaining her aggressive, competitive personality. From then, it was on. The writers just couldn't decide if she was a good guy or a bad guy. This got so bad that Rebecca Romijn - the actor who plays Alexis - decided to quit the show. Romijn has said that
-->"They made a tremendous amount of changes, especially with the writing staff [during the writers' strike]. And while I know I'll be coming back next season, with all the changes, I'm not sure they can take care of my character they way they have been. So I'll be leaving, back in a recurring capacity, but time for me to leave and find something else."
** It didn't quite happen this way. Alexis was PutOnABus, but did not return in a recurring capacity and, in fact, was never seen again.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** Dean can either be a [[TheBrainlessBeauty complete bimbo]] or [[ObfuscatingStupidity just playing dumb]] depending on who writes him.
** Sam can either be {{Determinator}}, passionate about getting things done at any cost but sometimes making mistakes, or a [[LeeroyJenkins complete loose cannon]] guaranteed to mess things up if Dean is not there to supervise him every second.
** Castiel's original nature as a [[FishOutOfWater fish out of water]] now often suffers from {{flanderization}} from writers who knows he says quirky things, but don't quite seem to understand the difference between quirky and idiotic.
* Done to a frustrating degree in the last two seasons of ''Series/DawsonsCreek''. Take your pick from the supporting cast: Charlie, CJ, Eddie, or Natasha will happily go back and forth between being kind, sweet and understanding and complete jerks.
* On the latest BBC series of ''Series/RobinHood'', Guy of Gisbourne can range from a sadistic, remorseless killer to a tortured Byronic anti-hero. Sometimes he's both ''in the same episode''.
* ''Series/TheShield'' has this by the barrel: Shane Vendrell, villain or morally conflicted anti-hero who possesses the self-awareness that is completely absent in Vic Mackey? Claudette Wyms, the only character with a conscience on a show filled with moral ambiguity or a hypocritical bitch who is willing to let corrupt cop Vic Mackey do as he pleases (let alone cover up her own partner's complicity in corrupt antics) so long as Vic doesn't do anything to threaten her own Alpha Female status. Vic Mackey, who can go from anti-hero to heroic sociopath to villain, within a matter of a couple of episodes.
** Arguably, the show never tried to differentiate between any of the possibilities on purpose. That all were possible at the same time (this being a very [[CrapsackWorld crapsack kind of show]]) is entirely likely, given the persona each character would have to have for the given situation and the circumstances around them.
* The very nature of the universe in ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' varied depending on the writer. Inconsistencies existed from the start, but they were really severe by season three, when most of the show's original creative staff was [[ScrewedByTheNetwork gone]]. The remaining original writers continued writing it as a hard science fiction series, while the new staffers wrote it as a way-out space fantasy whose physics and technology (and often plots) were a hodgepodge of TV sci-fi cliches. Things like faster-than-light communication and forcefields would exist in one episode and be nonexistent the next.
* Prior to Season 6, ''Series/{{House}}'' could either be a simply eccentric curmudgeon/{{Jerkass}} spouting sarcastic one-liners ("Yes, feel free to exclude any symptom if it makes your job easier!") to a {{Wangst}}-filled NietzscheWannabe with no regard for anything but solving the puzzle ("If your life's no more important than anyone else's, sign your donor card and kill yourself."). Fortunately, these fluctuations could be easily [[HandWave Handwaved]] away as the side effects of his Vicodin addiction.
** Sadly, these fluctuations seemed to have come back in Season 7, this time [[HandWave Handwaved]] away by House's alcohol use and subsequent return to Vicodin.
* The transition from season 1 to season 2, with different writers and more ExecutiveMeddling, left a few characters in ''Series/{{Carnivale}}'' out in the cold:
** Stumpy was a rather complex character in season 1, but during season two he suddenly developed a gambling addiction when the (new) writers felt they needed something to pad out an episode or two, and became a straw racist when the writers suddenly realized that they'd never bothered to write a black character with any degree of complexity and needed to cover their arses.
** Similarly, Ruthie, a well-written, subversively sexual character (considering she's past a certain age), became a cliched recipient of Lodz's ghost, leading to lots of hammy acting and the elimination of any vestige of the effectual presence she used to have in the story beyond being something of a MacGuffin.
* Dr. Temperance Brennan of ''Series/{{Bones}}'' can be anywhere between a DeadpanSnarker who makes fiery political commentaries and an EmotionlessGirl with NoSocialSkills who can't get a simple joke. Within one season.

** Rachel was consistently a poor waitress but her performance and interest in her fashion career later on varies very wildly. In some episodes she is a gifted, ambitious, hard working employee who is ''so'' good at least one boss sabotages a possible promotion to keep her around. In other episodes she is depicted as incredibly lazy, not particularly competent and even somewhat dishonest or sleazy, hiring an underqualified subordinate solely so she could oggle him.
* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': It pretty much applies to all of the characters over their core personality:
** Sheldon Cooper. Since he is "''the crazy"'' character, he can jump from one type of ''"crazy"'' to the other. He can swing wildly from being an extreme contrarian who disagrees with every tradition and social convention (''"Why should we give presents on birthdays? It makes no sense."''); or be a crazy-obsessed, ultra-defensive authoritarian capable of rationalizing everything. (''"Going to the movies and don't buy popcorn? Are you out of your mind?"''). Also, Website/TheOtherWiki mentioned that Howard can be either extremely elated over no longer being Sheldon's friend (''the Friendship Algorithm''),or hurt and offended when he's deemed simply an "acquaintance" (''the Bozeman Reaction'').
** Leonard can range between being a sympathetic, cheerful nice guy who almost always does the right thing, stands by others and simply has trouble asserting himself and being a whiny, short-tempered, holier-than-thou horndog who has no problems mocking and dismissing his own friends, putting up with anything if it means there's a chance he will get sex out of it, being totally willing to sell out his own beliefs and likes the moment it will benefit him and going around acting as if the world owes him something.
** Penny is either a sweet, kindhearted woman of average intelligence who is simply fun-loving and assertive, or an arrogant, hypocritical, ungrateful, aggressive, dismissive, potentially alcoholic brainless beauty, who expects good things to just come to her, happily mooches off her friends, and has no problems bullying and manipulating others into going along with her plans.
** Howard is either a misguided sympathetic fun-loving man who just wants love and intimacy, but has very little idea or understanding of how to act around women and a loyal friend, or a completely misogynistic and perverted jerk, who just wants to have sex with anyone and has little to no regard for women as people, who will happily abandon or turn on his friends the second he feels it will benefit him. The writers fixed this with some major CharacterDevelopment, making him neither.
** Raj is either realistically lonely and slightly desperate for affection, as well as being in touch with his feminine side, or a completely whiny and potentially delusional jerk who blows all his good luck by turning arrogant to a level beyond Sheldon's the second things start going well for him.
** Bernadette is either a sweet, kindhearted, highly intelligent young woman, who is understanding, cheerful and friendly, but is not afraid to assert herself or put others in their place, or a pint-sized arrogant, condescending ball of fury, constantly ready to break down anyone who annoys her, and is potentially abusive towards her spouse.
** Amy is either slightly less socially awkward than Sheldon, more or less normal but still posing a few quirks here and there or seemingly more normal, but really [[NotSoAboveItAll just as loopy underneath it all]].
** The characters have become more consistent over the years due to character development, but they still crop up now and then.

* ''Series/{{Merlin 2008}}'': Due to their HiddenDepths, Merlin and Gwen are the only two characters who have managed to sustain some degree of consistency, as most of the time they come across as shy and humble, but can take charge when the occasion calls for it. As for the others...
** [[AntiMagicalFaction King Uther]] will either respond to the threat of magic with scepticism and bluster or with paranoia and deadly force.
** Gaius will either be urging Merlin to keep his head down and not interfere with anything, or telling him to step up and embrace his destiny.
** Arthur can be intelligent and sensitive, or an idiotic bully.
** The male writing staff write Morgana as a gleefully evil FemmeFatale, whilst the show's sole female writer Lucy Watkins tries to give her some shades of grey.
* In ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', the characterization of Sylar changed from episode to episode. Firing all the writers in Season 4 and bringing on a new team certainly didn't help matters. He was constantly shifting between hating what he'd become and trying to be better, and rediscovering that EvilIsCool. He was on the good side of the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor when the series ended.
* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In the later seasons. It's particularly noticeable because in the first season, each script was written by the showrunner with assistance from the script editor, so the characters tended to be internally consistent and have nice, smooth arcs. Then things started to disconnect: Servalan's priorities and competence, the state of Avon and Vila's relationship (it's always argumentative, but its balance varies widely; sometimes they trade barbs, sometimes Avon simply insults Vila, and sometimes they casually team up to scam a casino). Vila's intelligence also varies - in Terry Nation's scripts he's highly intelligent and competent, but will [[ObfuscatingStupidity play the fool to avoid dangerous situations.]] In Chris Boucher's scripts he's an incompetent alcoholic. Tarrant's character lurches from being the cold and calculating mercenary he was originally conceived as, to heroic and chivalrous, and back again. Cally is either a passionate fighter or a passionate pacifist, depending on the script. At actor Creator/MichaelKeating's request, Creator/ChrisBoucher wrote the third series episode, "City at the Edge of the World". While Vila's fearful nature is still in evidence, the episode also features him at, arguably, his most intelligent and skilled as a safecracker. He's even the romantic lead in the story, and does some genuinely heroic acts.
* ''Series/YoungDracula'': How evil is Ingrid? Sometimes she's a JerkWithAHeartOfGold, and other times she's a bloodthirsty, power-mad lunatic.
* Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit: The character's views on, and the show's message about justice, rehabilitation and psychology change drastically from one episode to the next. Sometimes they say rape is always about control, where sometimes it's about sex. Sometimes they're outraged by the notion of people being locked up when they've done their time and/or may not reoffend, sometimes they act as if rapists can't be helped and should be locked up forever.
* ''Series/GossipGirl'' had this in spades, though it can almost be said to be a case of Depending on the Showrunner. Josh Safran, writer turned showrunner, saw Dan Humphrey as his self-insert and wanted him to be with Blair (the most popular female character). However, Blair was already in a relationship with Chuck Bass and Chair was by far and wide the most popular ship on the show. Safran solved this problem by having Chuck trade Blair for a hotel so that they would break up and people would dislike Chuck. After that point, the characters became yo-yos depending on who was in charge of writing them. Chuck alternated between being loving/supporting and possessive/petty. Dan alternated between being a judgmental hypocrite and being always in the right. Blair went back and forth between seeing Chuck as her soulmate and not wanting to be around him, and seeing Dan as a friend and just as an annoying minion. The latter half of season four and the entirety of season five suffered pretty badly from trying to retcon previously established characterizations and plotlines in an attempt to shoehorn Dan and Blair together, while still having occasional episodes that wrote the characters the way they'd been prior to this. Then Safran got fired and the sixth season focused on re-establishing the Chair relationship and bringing back Dan's negative character traits and cranking them up to eleven. The finale makes it all even more confusing with the revelation that [[spoiler:Dan is Gossip Girl and [[EasilyForgiven everyone suddenly forgives the eponymous character they've all hated]].]]

* On ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' how sympathetic Michael is depends on the episode. He can range from a JerkWithAHeartOfGold to an InnocentBigot, to being just plain unintelligent.
-->'''Gene Stupnitksy'''[[note]]who wrote 15 episodes[[/note]]: There are lots of different versions of Michael Scott. Some writers would write him as childish, others would write him as incompetent, some would write for the version of Michael Scott when he was at his best.
* ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'': Illya is usually fairly indifferent to heterosexual romance (and sometimes even implied to be a CelibateHero) -- but when Alan Caillou is writing him, he suddenly becomes interested in girls.
* ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'': Yuki Jojima has two primary character traits: her compassion and her love of outer space, but exactly which one gets emphasized depends on who wrote the episode in question. Showrunner Kazuki Nakashima focused on the compassion, writing Yuki as TheHeart of the Kamen Rider Club and the Ego of the PowerTrio, balancing out [[TheHero Gentaro]]'s passion and [[TheSmartGuy Kengo]]'s smarts. Riku Sanjou focused on the love of space, portraying Yuki as a goofy {{Otaku}} who waves around a hand puppet of the ''Hayabusa'' space probe. Unfortunately this also had an effect on her intelligence: in Nakashima episodes Yuki's knowledge of space travel legitimately impressed the show's BigBad, himself a former astronaut; in Sanjou episodes she's a ditzy airhead who (in one very unpopular story arc) started praying to the "space gods" in the middle of an aptitude test.
* On ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}},'' Paige is the most gung-ho about magic--so much so that she's going to dedicate herself to doing magic full time! The only problem is that she has no life outside of magic...jeez, maybe she should get a job. Which she will then quit to spend more time on magic.
* Earlier seasons of ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' couldn't seem to decide whether Gina is an ultimately decent, if overly blunt and self-centered, JerkWithAHeartOfGold who in her own way looks out for her friends and colleagues, or an out-and-out narcissist whose genuine lack of esteem for anyone but herself is played as ComedicSociopathy. Later seasons seem to mostly have settled on the first option, though.
* On ''Series/TheNanny'' Maxwell waffled between knowing Fran has feelings for him and being oblivious, (same with C.C. for that matter) and his intelligence tended to wander back and forth between GenreSavvy and a complete buffoon. Fran shifts back and forth between being aggressively protective about her age and joking about it (although by the later seasons this mostly shifts to the former) and knowing her voice is incredibly grating and being oblivious to it.
* On ''Series/{{Haven}}'', it's pretty consistently implied that Nathan and Duke were friends growing up, but their present relationship shifted between either VitriolicBestBuds or outright enemies that [[EvilFormerFriend used to be friends]].
* Downplayed in ''Series/KolchakTheNightStalker''. Episodes vary about Kolchak’s physical prowess; in some episodes, he can be a BadassNormal who can at least temporarily hold his own against the monsters he fights, while others depict him as severely outmatched and lacking physical strength for the most part, having to rely on his wits alone. Other episodes and ExpandedUniverse materials simply merged the two, having him be a physically capable albeit aging man who has some physical prowess, but someone who faces off against monsters that are far stronger than him or simply more deadly in hand-to-hand combat, and thus used every opportunity to get an advantage over his opponent.

* In ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' Jessica, and the series as a whole, has inconsistent views on basing a work of fiction on real people and events. In "The Skinny According to Nick Calhune", "The Sins of Castle Cove" and "The Dark Side of the Door", she's disappointed in other writers doing this, with the latter also having a publisher who sees it as an insult to the very concept of fiction. In "Murder at a Discount" she's outraged when she's accused of this herself, insisting that she writes ''fiction''. But several episodes refer to J. B. Fletcher novels that clearly share the plots of previous episodes, and the Dennis Stanton episodes are accounts that he sends to Jessica so she can compile them into a book about an insurance agent named Damian Sinclair.

** As stated in [[https://burrunjor.com/2014/11/11/an-analysis-of-the-character-of-the-doctor/ this character analysis blog]], the Doctor in general (depending on the incarnation) can be an angry, grumpy, callous, arrogant, [[PragmaticHero ruthless]] JerkWithAHeartOfGold AntiHero; a fun-loving, eccentric, clownish, childlike alien with an [[BewareTheSillyOnes unscrupulous, manipulative streak]] who pulls a [[ObfuscatingStupidity bumbling idiot façade]]; a dashing, charismatic, heroic CulturedBadass [[TheAce Ace]] with InsufferableGenius traits or a sensitive, vulnerable, fallible NiceGuy with [[GentlemanAndAScholar a keen intellect]]. In this case, it's justified because the Doctor (a) regenerates into new incarnations with somewhat different personalities, (b) is all but immortal, and we're witnessing him at many different points in his long, long life, (c) tends to conceal certain aspects of his multi-faceted character while having others on the surface.

-->My performance varied from script to script, particularly after I drew the conclusion that there wasn't going to be any continuity with Adric. Then what I did was that every time I read a script, I re-developed it--as far as I'm concerned in each four episodes he was a new individual. Every time I developed a gut feeling about him, about what he should do and think, it was contradicted in the next script.

** Creator/RobertHolmes' Doctor always tends to be a bit more prickly and abrasive than others', and he went on record as saying he wrote them all the same on the page and let the actor deal with it. Compare the way the Doctor is written in (say) "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E4TheKrotons The Krotons]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E2CarnivalOfMonsters Carnival of Monsters]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers The Sun Makers]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E1TheMysteriousPlanet The Mysterious Planet]]" - bar the odd CatchPhrase or gimmick and the maturing of Holmes' writing style, they're all unmistakably the same character, even if played by five different actors.

* In ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' Jessica, and the series as a whole, has inconsistant views on basing a work of fiction on real people and events. In "The Skinny According to Nick Calhune", "The Sins of Castle Cove" and "The Dark Side of the Door", she's disappointed in other writers doing this, with the latter also having a publisher who sees it as an insult to the very concept of fiction. In "Murder at a Discount" she's outraged when she's accused of this herself, insisting that she writes ''fiction''. But several episodes refer to J. B. Fletcher novels that clearly share the plots of previous episodes, and the Dennis Stanton episodes are accounts that he sends to Jessica so she can compile them into a book about an insurance agent named Damian Sinclair.

* ''Series/TheXFiles'', for having lots of self-contained episodes, had its many writers varying on how kooky Mulder was, how skeptic and stoic Scully was, and the competence of each character. Creator/DavidDuchovny downright noted that Darin Morgan would glorify Scully while Mulder was "[[Franchise/ThePinkPanther Inspector Clouseau]] without the accent".

** Leela was a particularly bad example. When first introduced by Creator/ChrisBoucher and Creator/RobertHolmes she was relatively uncivilised but in fact highly intelligent (she is shown as abandoning all superstition when the Doctor explains science to her). In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E5TheRobotsOfDeath The Robots of Death]]" (also by Boucher), she immediately understands what's [[{{Phobia}} going]] [[UncannyValley on]] with Poul, but lacks the cultural context to articulate it to any characters other than the Doctor. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]" by Holmes, she caught on the nature of the villain almost as quickly as the Doctor. Bob Baker and Dave Martin, on the other hand, saw her as just uneducated and stupid and struggled to use her - in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E2TheInvisibleEnemy The Invisible Enemy]]" she's described as 'all instinct and emotion', and in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E5Underworld Underworld]]" by the same writers she gets hit by [[TheParalyzer stun guns]] and spends most of the story [[IntoxicationEnsues acting stoned as comic relief]]. Compare to "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers The Sun Makers]]", in which she is also comic relief for most of the story, but able to understand fairly sophisticated economic situations.

** Sheldon Cooper. Since he is "''the crazy"'' character, he can jump from one type of ''"crazy"'' to the other. He can swing wildly from being an extreme contrarian who disagrees with every tradition and social convention (''"Why should we give presents on birthdays? It makes no sense."''); or be a crazy-obsessed, ultra-defensive authoritarian capable of rationalizing everything. (''"Going to the movies and don't buy popcorn? Are you out of your mind?"''). Also, Wiki/TheOtherWiki mentioned that Howard can be either extremely elated over no longer being Sheldon's friend (''the Friendship Algorithm''),or hurt and offended when he's deemed simply an "acquaintance" (''the Bozeman Reaction'').