History TheArtifact / LiveActionTV

** That's because the show was originally designed as a "youth" vehicle, and Trevor Bannister and Wendy Richard were to play the main characters. The producers' mistake was in assembling a stellar and highly professional cast in the shape of Creator/FrankThornton, Creator/MollieSugden, Creator/JohnInman and Arthur Brough, who outshone the "stars" of the piece. Eventually Trevor Bannister left - not because he had been promised a starring role and he kept getting upstaged, but rather because he felt that the scripts were getting too repetitive.

** That's because the show was originally designed as a "youth" vehicle, and Trevor Bannister and Wendy Richard were to play the main characters. The producers' mistake was in assembling a stellar and highly professional cast in the shape of Frank Thornton, Creator/MollieSugden, Creator/JohnInman and Arthur Brough, who outshone the "stars" of the piece. Eventually Trevor Bannister left - not because he had been promised a starring role and he kept getting upstaged, but rather because he felt that the scripts were getting too repetitive.

** That's because the show was originally designed as a "youth" vehicle, and Trevor Bannister and Wendy Richard were to play the main characters. The producers' mistake was in assembling a stellar and highly professional cast in the shape of Frank Thornton, Creator/MollieSugden, John Inman and Arthur Brough, who outshone the "stars" of the piece. Eventually Trevor Bannister left - not because he had been promised a starring role and he kept getting upstaged, but rather because he felt that the scripts were getting too repetitive.

** That's because the show was originally designed as a "youth" vehicle, and Trevor Bannister and Wendy Richard were to play the main characters. The producers' mistake was in assembling a stellar and highly professional cast in the shape of Frank Thornton, Mollie Sugden, John Inman and Arthur Brough, who outshone the "stars" of the piece. Eventually Trevor Bannister left - not because he had been promised a starring role and he kept getting upstaged, but rather because he felt that the scripts were getting too repetitive.

* In ''Series/The700Club'''s case, the fact that it still airs on TeenDrama-heavy Creator/{{Freeform}} makes it The Artifact for CBN, the channel Pat Robertson built and sold off. This one is justified, however; Robertson wrote a clause into his contract that required the show to be given a permanent time slot and ProtectionFromEditors, plus a lengthy {{telethon}} on the last Sunday in January, no matter who the station would be sold to in the future.[[note]]Contrary to popular belief, however, the contract did not state that the word "Family" had to be included in the channel title; this was proven with the change from "ABC Family" to "Freeform".[[/note]] This does say something for his lawyers, as not even Creator/{{Disney}} could worm out of it. The show also contains an example of ArtifactTitle -- ''The 700 Club'' refers to Robertson's first 700 donors.

** Jake Sisko on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. After [[TheScrappy how badly]] [[CreatorsPet Wesley Crusher]] was received on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Jake was conceived almost as the anti-Wesley, i.e., a perfectly normal child, and it was his friend Nog that got into Starfleet Academy whereas Jake became a writer. Unfortunately, around the time Nog left for Starfleet, tensions between the Federation and the Dominion were worsening before erupting into the Dominion War, which occurred right around the time Nog graduated from the Academy. So Nog got more to do while Jake, as a civilian, got very little to do in the later seasons. This got JustForFun/{{egregious}} in the final season, as Cirroc Lofton, Jake's actor, [[AbsenteeActor appeared in very few episodes]] whereas recurring characters like Weyoun and even [[EnsembleDarkhorse Morn]] appeared in more episodes than him.

** Adric was introduced in season eighteen as a space-age ArtfulDodger to the Fagin-esque Fourth Doctor. In season nineteen, with a new Doctor and Nyssa and Tegan joining, that idea went out the window and he was jostling for attention. Unsurprisingly, when it was decided that the TARDIS was too crowded, he was killed off.

* As the page quote implies, the TARDIS in ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' maintains its old police box disguise long after the once-omnipresent police boxes have completely vanished. (The only one still standing in Britain is basically a monument to the series.) Ironically, the police box disguise in itself was originally a case of CoconutSuperpowers; it was easier to just keep reusing the same prop over and over rather than make a new one for every new environment.

* The idea of responding in the form of a question on ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''. It originated as an inversion of the typical question-and-answer quiz show formula (as a response to the quiz show scandals of TheFifties); contestants were given answers and had to respond with the questions. In the early days of the show the clues were indeed phrased as reasonable answers to the required questions; today, however, most of the clues are written much less straightforwardly, and there are many categories where the clues are simply quotes or titles that the "What is X?" response format makes no sense with.

* The idea of responding in the form of a question on ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''. It originated as a response to the quiz show scandals of TheFifties, an inversion of the formula where the contestants were given the answers and had to provide the questions. In the early days of the show the clues were indeed phrased as reasonable answers to the required questions; today, however, most of the clues are written much less straightforwardly, and there are many categories where the clues are simply quotes or titles that the "What is X?" response format makes no sense with.

* In ''The 700 Club'''s case, the fact that it still airs on TeenDrama-heavy Creator/{{Freeform}} makes it The Artifact for CBN, the channel Pat Robertson built and sold off. This one is justified, however; Robertson wrote a clause into his contract that required the show to be given a permanent time slot and ProtectionFromEditors, plus a lengthy {{telethon}} on the last Sunday in January, no matter who the station would be sold to in the future.[[note]]Contrary to popular belief, however, the contract did not state that the word "Family" had to be included in the channel title; this was proven with the change from "ABC Family" to "Freeform".[[/note]] This does say something for his lawyers, as not even Creator/{{Disney}} could worm out of it. The show also contains an example of ArtifactTitle -- ''The 700 Club'' refers to Robertson's first 700 donors.

* On ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'', Topanga's ''name'' was one. Her character was given that name to emphasize her GranolaGirl personality and overall weirdness (the name comes from Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles, where a lot of hippies reside), but after her character was retooled in season two and those aspects of her character were dropped, she just became a normal girl with a weird name. In light of this, there were several jokes about her name throughout the series.

** ''Series/ReturnOfUltraman'', despite its name, features a completely new Ultra hero named Ultraman Jack rather than the original Series/{{Ultraman}}. The non-indicative title was a leftover of the series' extremely early developmental stages, as franchise creator Creator/EijiTsuburaya wanted to do a revival of his classic series, only to [[DiedDuringProduction DieDuringProduction]]. As a result, his son Hajime Tsuburaya retooled the series to star a new Ultraman and a new cast of characters. However, the title stuck, and in the show Jack is only referred to as just Ultraman, even when Ultraman himself shows up. In fact, ''Jack'' was not his designated name until 1984 (nearly 15 years after the show ended!), with the rest of the Showa series calling him "New Ultraman", "Returning Ultraman", and even "Ultraman II".

** Vampires themselves became an Artifact on the show. In the first three seasons, vampires posed a serious threat and the Big Bads of seasons 1 and 2 were vampires. However in later seasons, the Big Bads became Frankenstein's monster-esque half-human, half-demon cyborgs, evil hell gods, and the First ever evil itself. As a result vampires on the show had pretty much become little more than Mooks to be quickly dispatched to demonstrate Buffy's strength. The show was called "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" so she had to be shown slaying some vampires even if she had bigger threats to deal with. By the final season of the show "normal" vampires were becoming rare even as mooks, with Buffy last facing one five episodes before the finale; after this point their spot was taken by the Turok-Han a related but more bestial and powerful type of vampire described as like the relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans.

* The long-lived Spanish sitcom ''Siete Vidas'' ("Seven Lives") was [[ArtifactTitle named]] for its premise of "HormoneAddledTeenager falls in a coma at 15, wakes up 18 years later, and [[FishOutOfTemporalWater has to get used to the current world]]. HilarityEnsues." Not only was this premise dropped halfway into the first season, but said main character was eventually PutOnABus. WordOfGod later claimed that the title referred to the seven main characters since there were 7 mains at the time... but afterwards there were seasons with 6 or 8 mains.
** In Spanish, the stock phrase is that a cat has seven lives, rather than nine as in English. The main character's "resurrection" was compared to what you would expect of a cat. Following on this, the title logo included the shape of a black cat... and continued to do so for the whole 10 seasons, despite 8 of them airing without the original main character. Same for the ExpositoryThemeTune, which was all about the main character waking up and reuniting with his pre-accident girlfriend ("Who could imagine that I would come back from this trip? Maybe I missed talking to you after such long time. If you give me what I lost, I will give you anything you want. Because I'm the key to your door, and I got seven lives...").
** The SpinOff ''Aída'' also continued after its main and namesake character left. And just like in the mother series, the Expository Theme Tune remained despite being about her and sung in the first person ("About time, now it's my turn. About time, now it's my turn. So tired of going from here to there, with my children in tow, and the house hanging on..."). There was an attempt to handwave this by introducing Aída's long-estranged granddaughter also named Aída, but she was a tertiary character at best.

** ''Series/ReturnOfUltraman'', despite its name, features a completely new Ultra hero named Ultraman Jack rather than the original Series/{{Ultraman}}. The non-indicative title was a leftover of the series' extremely early developmental stages, as franchise creator Creator/EijiTsuburaya wanted to do a revival of his classic series, only to DiedDuringProduction. As a result, his son Hajime Tsuburaya retooled the series to star a new Ultraman and a new cast of characters. However, the title stuck, and in the show Jack is only referred to as just Ultraman, even when Ultraman himself shows up. In fact, ''Jack'' was not his designated name until 1984 (nearly 15 years after the show ended!), with the rest of the Showa series calling him "New Ultraman", "Returning Ultraman", and even "Ultraman II".

** ''Series/ReturnOfUltraman'', despite its name, features a completely new Ultra hero named Ultraman Jack rather than the original Series/{{Ultraman}}. The non-indicative title was a leftover of the series' extremely early developmental stages, as franchise creator Creator/EijiTsuburaya wanted to do a revival of his classic series, only to suffer from AuthorExistenceFailure. As a result, his son Hajime Tsuburaya retooled the series to star a new Ultraman and a new cast of characters. However, the title stuck, and in the show Jack is only referred to as just Ultraman, even when Ultraman himself shows up. In fact, ''Jack'' was not his designated name until 1984 (nearly 15 years after the show ended!), with the rest of the Showa series calling him "New Ultraman", "Returning Ultraman", and even "Ultraman II".

** In Spanish, the stock phrase is that a cat has seven lives, rather than nine as in English. The main character's "resurrection" was compared to what you would expect of a cat. Following on this, the title logo included the shape of a black cat... and continued to do so for the whole 10 seasons, despite 8 of them airing without the original main character. So did its ExpositoryThemeTune, which was all about the main character waking up and reuniting with his pre-accident girlfriend ("Who could imagine that I would come back from this trip? Maybe I missed talking to you after such long time. If you give me what I lost, I will give you anything you want. Because I'm the key to your door, and I got seven lives...").
** The SpinOff ''Aída'' also continued after its main and namesake character left. And just like in the mother series, the Expository Theme Tune remained despite being about her and sung in the first person ("About time, now it's my turn. About time, now it's my turn. So tired of going from here to there, with my children in tow, and the house hanging on...").

** Cookie Monster's ExtremeOmnivore tendencies is mostly due to not originally being established as Cookie Monster when he first appeared on the show. Instead he was a nameless, voracious monster whose main trait was to devour nearly everything in sight. Even long after he's been established as "Cookie" the extreme omnivorous aspect still stands.

* On ''Series/FullHouse'', Joey would eventually end up as this by the later seasons. Unlike Jesse, he was just a good friend that agreed to move in to help Danny raise the girls. Over time, the girls had gotten old enough to take care of themselves and Rebecca also moved in after marrying Jesse. A later episode {{Lampshades}} this by having Joey openly asking why he's still living there.

** The presence of the Baratheon stag in the show's opening sequence has become this as of the sixth season, [[spoiler: since the last Baratheon branch -- Stannis, Selyse, and Shireen--were killed at the end of Season Five]]. While King Tommen wears the Baratheon name and antler crown, he is (not-so) secretly Jaime Lannister's son and thus a Lannister through and through. The only still-living person with [[spoiler: Baratheon blood]] is the bastard Gendry, whom Robert didn't even know he sired (hence why he lacks the appropriate bastard surname "Waters"). He has managed to escape both Cersei's purge of Robert's bastards and Melisandre sacrificing him for her spell, but hasn't appeared in several seasons. [[spoiler: And with Tommen's suicide at the end of Season 6, House Baratheon is officially extinct.]]
** Back when Talisa Maegyr was still going to be Jeyne Westerling, she was made a battlefield nurse so she could tend to Robb after he was wounded, like their story in the books. Then the writers decided to scrap that and make it a simpler love story, but were far enough along in production that she was still stuck being a nurse, despite it no longer serving any story purpose and not making much sense why a Volantene noble would be doing it after they decided to completely change the character.

* ''Series/TheDefenders2017'': While Daredevil is a central character, he is also the only costumed superhero out of the bunch. Several times in the miniseries, he had to take care to cover his face or run home to get his costume while the other characters had no such concern, which tended to break the flow of the series and made Daredevil stand out. This may explain why in the third season of [[Series/Daredevil2015 his own series]], he ditched the costume in favor of essentially workout gear (albeit still with a mask).

** The SpinOff ''Aída'' also continued after its main and namesake character left. And just like in the mother series, the Expository Theme Tune remained despite being about her and sung in the first person ("About time, now it's my turn. About time, now it's my turn. So tired of going from here to there, with my children in tow, and the house left hanging on...").

** Xander's lack of anything to do from Season 4 was even more obvious. Nicholas Brendon was apparently told by Joss Whedon that his story had come to an end, but since he was one of the original four, he couldn't go. Even the show itself dealt with Xander complaining about his own uselessness a few times. The season 8 comics decided to give him something to do by basically having him replace Giles as watcher. Since the Slayers are a giant international organization now, he has much more work to do than Giles did.

* ''[[Series/HermansHead Herman's Head]]'' went through this in its later seasons. Once the show had used up all the potential in the "see aspects of Herman's brain fight it out" gimmick, and moved on to slightly deeper storylines, the brain-characters were pushed further and further in the background, until eventually they would barely make anything beyond a perfunctory appearance.