The Other Marty / Live-Action TV

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• Happened with Jenna in 30 Rock. In an unaired version of the pilot, she was played by Rachel Dratch.^note Who left Saturday Night Live after the 2005-2006 season so she could work on the show, just like Tina Fey. The character's original surname was "DeCarlo". Months after the original filming was completed, Dratch was replaced by Jane Krakowski. The part of Cerie was also recast between the two pilots. You can see the cut footage here.
• It's hard to picture anyone other than Dirk Benedict as Templeton "Faceman" Peck on The A-Team, but in the pilot, he was played by Tim Dunigan. Even Dunigan himself felt he was miscast as, being born in 1955 and looking even a little younger than that, it was difficult to accept the idea of having been a veteran of the Vietnam War, which ended when he was a sophomore in high school. Series creators Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell had written the role with Benedict in mind from the beginning, but NBC objected to the former Starbuck being cast, so the intentional other casting may have been done on purpose.
• In the original unaired pilot of Adam Adamant Lives!, Georgina was played by Ann Holloway. In the series proper, Juliet Harmer played her.
• The role of Emma Peel on The Avengers was originally given to Elizabeth Shepherd. After one episode was completely filmed and a second in the process of being filmed, she was let go and replaced with Diana Rigg. The first Emma Peel episode was completely reshot to accommodate the change.
• The obscure, short-lived CBS show Baby Bob has a rare alternate version of its pilot in circulation via a screener copy. The pilot had to be massively reshot when its male lead was recast.
• Susan Kellerman was originally cast as Na'Toth in Babylon 5, but left before shooting due to being too uncomfortable with the heavy prosthetic makeup. She was replaced by Julie Caitlin Brown.
• Nearly everyone from the Being Human original pilot was recast in the actual series, with the exception of George.
• In the remake of the Bionic Woman, Mae Whitman was originally cast as Becca Sommers in the pilot. The character was retooled for the series and Lucy Hale was cast instead.
• In the original pilot for Birds of Prey (2002), Harley Quinn was played by Sherilyn Fenn, but in the series proper, she's played by Mia Sara.
• The original (unaired) pilot for Blackadder's first incarnation (The Black Adder) was not only set in a more ahistorical period of history, but featured Philip Fox in the role of Baldrick, and not Tony Robinson who became the (second) most important character in each of the series' iterations.
• In Boy Meets World, originally, Harry Barandes played Eric in the pilot but he was the same height as Ben Savage so Will Friedle was cast and his parts were reshot. Matt McCoy had also played Alan Matthews in the original pilot, but was replaced in reshoots by William Russ.
• For the Buffy the Vampire Slayer original pilot, Riff Regan played Willow, but apparently she was never intended as playing the series character, just a stand in for the "proof of concept" pilot. The pilot also had Stephen Tobolowsky as the principal.
• In the unaired pilot for Charmed that was made to sell the show to The WB, the role of Phoebe was played by an actress named Lori Rom. When the show got picked up and went to series, she (and several other actors) were replaced, and the pilot was reshot. While no footage of Rom seemed to survive to the aired pilot, it is noticeable that some footage from the unaired pilot survived. The two pilots were shot at different times of the year, as the trees and greenery showed.
• Doctor Who:
  • Nicholas Courtney was originally cast in the role of Captain Knight in "The Web of Fear", and accepted a last-minute "promotion" to the role of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart when the initial actor wasn't working in the part. He thought his performance was mediocre and underprepared and was surprised when he was asked back to become a companion (after Lethbridge-Stewart's promotion to Brigadier).
  • "The Invasion" initially cast another actor in the role of Sgt. Benton, but he was constantly late and delayed shooting. The director, Douglas Camfield, sacked him and gave the part to John Levene, an untrained extra and monster actor who he noticed got on very well on-set with Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines (having danced about in his Yeti costume for their amusement while shooting "The Web of Fear" last season). The UNIT extra played by Levene (with a different costume to Benton) is still visible in "The Invasion", crammed right at the back of shots behind more major guest characters. Levene had signed up to play an extra, and ended up being a companion to three Doctors.
  • "The Time Warrior" initially featured April Walker in the role of Sarah Jane Smith. However, when Jon Pertwee showed his dissatisfaction of her casting (according to him, her stature was too strong to fit the role of a Doctor Who companion), then-producer Barry Letts recast Elisabeth Sladen in the role with Pertwee's approval.
  • The opening episode of the fourth series, "Partners in Crime", was to feature Howard Attfield as Donna Noble's father Geoff (Attfield had previously played the role in "The Runaway Bride"). Attfield died after filming, and rather than recast the actor, Bernard Cribbins' character Wilfred Mott was retconned to be Donna's grandfather (his one prior appearance having already fit closely enough with the characterization of Donna's father), and Attfield's scenes were reshot with Cribbins with no changes to the script. Attfield's scenes were later included in the DVD release for series 4.
  • The DVD release of "The Day of the Daleks" had a version of the story with the original Dalek voices redubbed by current Dalek voice Nicholas Briggs, after the original voices were deemed poor: because the Daleks were already retired for five seasons at the request of Terry Nation, the BBC couldn't grab original voice actors Peter Hawkins and Roy Skelton in time and had to make do with actors who had no prior experience in the role. This, combined with the lack of an available ring modulator (thus forcing the VAs to attempt to recreate the Daleks' harsh, clipped voices themselves), resulted in what are commonly considered the worst Dalek performances in the show's history.
• When Drake & Josh's pilot was remade into the proper first episode, Jonathan Goldstein took over the role of Walter Nichols from Stephen Furst (of Animal House and Babylon 5 fame) and stayed in the role for the rest of the series.
• Eight is Enough initially had a pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill playing the role of oldest son David. He was replaced after the pilot by Grant Goodeve. Besides Hamill, there were two other Other Martys in the pilot: Kimberly Beck as Nancy and Chris English as Tommy. They would be replaced by Dianne Kay and Willie Aames respectively.
• The pilot for Firefly had Rebecca Gayheart as Inara. Joss Whedon knew it wasn't going to work out with Gayheart, so he had all of Inara's scenes filmed separately, so when he finally cast Morena Baccarin, it would be easy to replace them all.
• An early version of the Free Spirit (1989) pilot features Christopher Rich and Shonda Whipple as Thomas and Jessie, respectively. They soon became replaced by Franc Luz and Alyson Hannigan.
• Bob Saget replaced John Posey in Full House; this is why Michelle seems somewhat older when Danny walks in the room. Reportedly, series creator and executive producer Jeff Franklin wanted Saget from the start, but he was unavailable due to being employed as a "comic correspondent" for CBS' short-lived Morning Program newscast.
• It happened for a lot of characters on Game of Thrones between the original pilot and the series proper:
  • Daenerys Targaryen went from Tamzin Merchant to Emilia Clarke. In a 2021 interview with EW, Merchant admitted she felt the role wasn't right for her and that she was initially talked out of turning it down, so she doesn't regret the casting change and saw it as a learning experience.
  "Shooting that pilot was a really great lesson. It was an affirmation about listening to my instincts and following them, because I tried to back out of that situation and, during the contract process, I did back out. I was talked back into it by some persuasive people. Then I found myself naked and afraid in Morocco and riding a horse that was clearly much more excited to be there than I was."
  • Catelyn Stark went from Jennifer Ehle to Michelle Fairley. This is a particularly odd case, in that when Sansa was brought up by Catelyn to the top table in Winterfell to meet Cersei in the first episode, only Catelyn's shots were reshot, with the Sansa shots from the pilot retained. This explains why Sophie Turner (the actress who plays Sansa) is noticeably younger in this scene than in the rest of the episode (the pilot was filmed about a year and a half before the eventual episode 1).
  • Magister Illyrio Mopatis went from Ian McNeice to Roger Allam.
  • Gared went from Richard Ridings to Dermot Keaney.
  • Ser Waymar Royce went from Jamie Campbell Bower to Rob Ostlere.
  • The series proper also ended up recasting several roles, including Ser Alliser Thorne, who was originally to be played by Derek Halligan and ended up being played by Owen Teale. The biggest change, however, was Grand Maester Pycelle. Originally, Roy Dotrice had been cast, and he was the personal choice of George R. R. Martin, due both to Dotrice playing Father on Beauty and the Beast, which Martin wrote for, and also because Dotrice was the man who read the audio versions of the books. Dotrice even filmed a scene for the pilot, which was cut, but was scheduled to keep the role when the series began filming. However, he was not in the best of health at the time, and dropped out, replaced by Julian Glover. He later played the smaller role of Hallyne.
• Leonard Driscoll, the head of the secret agency Intersect from Gemini Man was played by Richard Dysart in the pilot, and recast with William Sylvester by the time the series began filming. Both actors can be seen playing the same part in Riding With Death, a TV movie combining a few episodes of the series, which was famously made into an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• Graduados was initially written with Andy Kutznetzoff as the lead actor. And so, the lead character was filled with Actor Allusions: the character is named Andy as well, he is jew like Andy, he works as a dog walker and Andy Kutznetzoff has the radio show "Street dogs"... but there is a problem: Andy resigned. All the character design stayed, but another actor played it, Daniel Hendler. It got more weird when Andy Kutznetzoff changed his mind and joined the production in mid-year, with a character that the others dubbed as "Goddzer 2".
• Growing Pains had a different actress, Elizabeth Ward, playing Carol in the pilot; her scenes were reshot with Tracey Gold. This has been mysteriously forgotten about; Ward's name is rarely, if ever, mentioned, and little to nothing is known about her.
• In the original Heroes pilot, Matt's wife Janice was played by a different actress and there was also an Arabic character who was later reworked into Ted Sprague.
• The Nickelodeon show Hi Honey, I'm Home! went through this. The unaired pilot has Dee Hoty and future Backstreet Boy AJ McLean as Elaine and Skunk, respectively. They would be replaced by Eric Kushnick and Susan Cella when the series went to air.
• Home Improvement:
  • Jill Taylor was first played by Frances Fisher, but was then replaced after audiences reacted poorly to her performance. Patricia Richardson played her for the rest of the series.
  • Richard Karn, who plays Al Borland, was nearly this. He was a fill in for Stephen Tobolowsky, who was supposed to play a character named Glenn, but was busy at the time with a film role. Karn was permanently cast as the role for Al on Tim Allen's recommendation, and the Glenn character was dropped.
• Richard Kiel, Jaws from James Bond, was originally cast as the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (1977). It was decided, however, that the Hulk needed to be more muscular rather than just towering, and Kiel was let go because he possessed more body fat than the producers deemed ideal. Lou Ferrigno eventually replaced him. Kiel can still be seen in some shots in the opening credits. Kiel stated that another reason he was let go was because he developed a bad reaction to the contact lenses used for the Hulk.
• For the Walloon version of the Studio 100 Flemish series Kabouter Plop, they hired new actors to play the roles of the four main gnome characters due to Belgium having two separate languages in its Flemish and Walloon regions. The show is called Lutin Plop in the Walloon (French-speaking) region of Belgium.
• Christopher Reeve was originally cast as Alan Breck Stewart in the 1995 TV movie adaptation of Kidnapped. However, after his horseback riding accident that same year, the role was recast with Armand Assante.
• Law & Order initially had Roy Thinnes in the role of District Attorney Alfred Wentworth. After the pilot was shot, Thinnes could not commit to the series and was replaced by Steven Hill as District Attorney Adam Schiff. The original pilot was shown Out of Order, so viewers saw a handful of episodes with Schiff, one with Wentworth, and then immediately returned to Schiff.
• Colm Meaney as Gene Hunt and the rest of the Los Angeles cast from the initial pilot episode of the American Life On Mars. Replaced by Harvey Keitel and a setting switch to New York City.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Tom Budge was originally cast as Celebrimbor, and filmed scenes for several episodes, but after production halted he was recast with Charles Edwards.
• Lucifer had an unaired, different pilot episode which features Nicholas Gonzalez as Dan Espinoza. When the show was ordered to series, Gonzalez bowed out, so all of his scenes in the pilot were reshot by Dan's new actor, Kevin Alejandro. This caused a minor but noticeable issue regarding Trixie, whose actress (Scarlett Estevez) stayed the same despite clearly being picked to match with Gonzalez appearance-wise, so now we have the brown-eyed, tan-skinned Trixie being the biological daughter of two blue-eyed, light-skinned parents.
• The unaired pilot of Married... with Children cast different actors as both Kelly and Bud. Here is some of the original footage.
• The pilot for Masked Rider featured different actors for Molly and Albee as well as different voices for Magno and Chopper (the former having a male voice, rather than female as seen in the final product).
• On Melrose Place, the role of Billy Campbell was played by Stephen Fanning in the pilot, but he was let go when the producers determined he had gained too much weight. Andrew Shue eventually took over and his scenes were reshot.
• The original pilot for The Mothers In Law featured Kay Cole as Suzie. She was replaced by Deborah Walley when the series was greenlit, resulting in Cole's scenes being reshot with Walley. Glimpses of Cole do remain, however, including a brief shot of her face at the very end.
• The demo reel for The Muppets (2015) has former Even Stevens actor Margo Harshman as Fozzie's (human) girlfriend Becky. On the show itself, Becky was played by Riki Lindhome.
• When Carla Bonner replaced Emma Roche as Stephanie Scully in Neighbours after a few weeks of filming, almost all her scenes were reshot. However, Roche can be seen briefly through the car window when Steph drives her sisters into Ramsey Street.
• Once Upon a Time: Paula Marshall was first cast as Maleficent, but was later replaced by Kristin Bauer.
• Only Fools and Horses: Lennard Pearce pre-filmed the location scenes for "Hole in One" just a few days before his death, requiring them to be reshot after Buster Merryfield was hired to play Uncle Albert. In the finished episode, the scenes of Mike looking up at the Trotters are taken from the shoot with Pearce, as only Granddad/Albert's arm and shoulder are visible, and it avoided having to rehire Mike's actor, Kenneth MacDonald.
• The BBC's 2017 adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel Ordeal by Innocence originally featured Ed Westwick as Mickey Argyll. The programme was filmed and completed, and promotional material featuring Westwick was released, with the serial planned as the centerpiece of the BBC's Christmas scheduling... and then, just over a month before broadcast, Westwick was accused of sexual assault by multiple women. The drama was shelved, and in January 2018 the decision was made to reshoot Westwick's scenes with Christian Cooke so the show could air at Easter 2018.
• Peacemaker (2022):Chris Conrad was originally cast as Adrian Chase / Vigilante, but left due to Creative Differences and was replaced by Freddie Stroma.
• Power Rangers:
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers featured a different actress (Audri DuBois) portraying Trini in the original pilot version of "Day of the Dumpster". She was replaced with Thuy Trang. The only shot of her that remains in the final version is when the Rangers exit the Command Center. A different voice actor was also used to voice Finster, who was likewise replaced.
  • Likewise, Erin Simms was originally cast as Maya in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, but left after the first two episodes.
  • Power Rangers Wild Force originally cast Natasha Allas as Princess Shayla, and an early episode retained in-show artwork of Natasha's likeness. Sandra McCoy was also originally cast in the role as Alyssa, and before being recast as a two episode love interest, she recorded audio for an early promo that made its way to TV.
  • Power Rangers Ninja Steel originally cast Chantz Simpson as Calvin, the Yellow Ranger, who appeared with the rest of the cast when they were announced at Power Morphicon. Simpson suddenly left the show early on and was replaced by Nico Greetham.
• Alexis Denisof was originally cast as Byron on Pretty Little Liars, but was replaced after the original pilot by Chad Lowe.
• Red Dwarf:
  • Alfred Molina was originally cast as Arnold Rimmer until Molina's constant demands for changes to the character proved too much.
  • Alexandra Pigg was originally cast as Kochanski. An electricians' strike in 1987 delayed the shooting of the first series for a few months, and Pigg became unavailable, so she was replaced by Clare Grogan.
  • In "Camille", Lister's vision of Camille was originally going to be played by Tracey Brabin, who bore a very strong resemblance to Grogan. She was later replaced by Suzanne Rhatigan, Craig Charles' girlfriend at the time, who looked sort of like Grogan but not as much; some lines about her resemblance to Kochanski were cut, but Rhatigan is still credited as "Kochanski Camille".
• Nancy Valen actually wasn't the first choice to play Nurse Jennifer on the Season 2 episode of Saved by the Bell, "From Nurse to Worse". Kathy Ireland was initially tapped to play her but she was dismissed due to the producers not being satisfied with her high voice and lackluster table-reading.
• Schitt's Creek: In the 15 minute test pilot for the CBC, Abby Elliott played Alexis Rose. By all accounts she did a great job, but she was unavailable when the show went to series so Annie Murphy was cast.
• Seinfeld:
  • The first episode to feature George's father Frank Costanza originally aired with the character being played by John Randolph. Later, when the role was recast with Jerry Stiller, producer Larry David had those first scenes of the character re-shot with Stiller, specifically for the series' syndication.
  • George was supposed to have been played by Larry David himself. However, David ended up handing the role over to Jason Alexander because he was uncomfortable with performing in front of a camera. Since George was simply a fictionalization of David, à la Jerry, the event made for an interesting anecdote in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
  • He also did the same for Newman. In his first appearance, Kramer is shouting to him from Jerry's apartment window. The voice of Newman shouting back was originally Larry David. When Newman later became a regular character with Wayne Knight cast in the role, David had the original scene redubbed with Knight's voice for syndication.
  • Morty Seinfeld was played by Phil Bruns in his first appearance. When Barney Martin was cast, they initially planned to reshoot his scenes as they had with Jerry Stiller. The changes to Jerry's apartment set, coupled with the ages of the other actors, though, meant they would've looked out of place with the rest of the episode.
• At least some of the first episode of Sharpe was shot with Paul McGann as Sharpe, but owing to an injury he had to be replaced by Sean Bean.
• Smallville had the entire pilot filmed with Cynthia Ettinger playing Martha before they reshot it with Annette O'Toole. The original version is out there listed as either "Unaired pilot" or "Episode 0".
• Scott Glenn filmed the pilot episode for Sons of Anarchy in the role of Clay Morrow, but Kurt Sutter was not happy with the end result and recast the role with Ron Perlman, who then re-shot most of Glenn's scenes. Glenn can be seen running from the explosion in the pilot.
• The Sopranos: Fairuza Balk played "Danielle Ciccolella"/Agent Deborah Ciccerone for the character's first appearance in "Army of One". The writers decided to bring the character back as a recurring role, but Balk declined to return, so Lola Glaudini was cast. To keep reruns consistent, all of Balk's scenes were reshot with Glaudini.
• Stacked: Tom Everett Scott was originally cast as Gavin, and even appeared in an early trailer for the series. The producers eventually decided that Scott was too laid-back and they wanted the character to be more uptight and neurotic. The character was recast with Elon Gold, and the pilot episode reshot mere weeks before it was due to air.
• Star Trek:
  • The original Star Trek: The Original Series pilot, "The Cage", was unaired except as part of the 2-part episode "The Menagerie", before finally being aired as a proper episode in 1988. In the pilot that ultimately aired, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", as well as the episodes that followed, the entire cast was replaced with a different set of characters played by different actors, with the sole exception of Leonard Nimoy as Spock. The only other actor from "The Cage" to appear in the show was Majel Barrett, playing "Number One" in "The Cage" before being recast as Nurse Christine Chapel.
  • John Drew Barrymore was originally cast as Lazarus in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Alternative Factor". On the first day of filming, Barrymore failed to appear on set and no one could get in touch with him, so he was quickly replaced by Robert Brown. Barrymore was suspended by the Screen Actors Guild for six months over this.
  • The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Most Toys" was originally cast and some scenes shot with David Rappaport as Kivas Fajo. He attempted suicide during production,^note although that attempt was not successful, a later one was, and he died three days before the finished episode would air and the part was recast and reshot with Saul Rubinek.
  • Geneviève Bujold was originally cast as Nicole Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager. When she bailed from the show after only a day and a half of filming, she was replaced by Kate Mulgrew and the character was renamed Kathryn Janeway.
• St. Elsewhere: Josef Sommer and David Paymer were originally cast as Donald Westphall and Wayne Fiscus respectively in the unaired pilot but the roles were recast with Ed Flanders and Howie Mandel after several days. The relevant scenes were reshot.
• Mark Foster was played by Jarrett Lennon in the unaired pilot of Step by Step, full episode here. He can still be seen in the season 1 opening credits.
• Super Sentai:
  • Battle Fever J: Kenji Ushio played The Dragon Hedder for the first seven episodes before he was replaced by Masashi Ishibashi for the rest of the series. Ushio's episodes (except for 4 and 6) were subsequently reshot with Ishibashi as Hedder.
  • In Dai Sentai Goggle Five, Miki Momozono/Goggle Pink was originally played by Akiyo Hayasaka, and she filmed three episodes before being replaced with Megumi Ogawa.
  • Gosei Sentai Dairanger was originally going to feature Keisuke Tsuchiya in the role of hero Ryou, and Keiichi Wada as Kazu. Wada's martial arts skills and on-screen charisma led the production team to decide that the two would work better in the opposite roles, so they switched for the series proper and had to re-shoot some movie footage that had already been filmed.
  • Gekisou Sentai Carranger originally featured an enemy robot called Ballinger Z, a twisted parody of Mazinger Z, in episode 46. Its cockpit and costume footage was filmed when Dynamic Productions, the copyright holders of Mazinger Z, objected to the design. The episode was re-shot with a new robot, Norishiron Final, which used Ballinger Z's cockpit footage as its own. Ballinger Z was still featured in promotional photos fighting the VRV Fighters.
• Happened to the opening credits of Three's Company after Jenilee Harrison left the show (although she wasn't replaced, just dropped entirely). All group footage (filmed at the LA Zoo) with her in it was reshot. She can sometimes be seen very briefly at the beginning of the credits in the episodes after her departure.
• Paul Douglas was cast as Mouth McGarry for The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The Mighty Casey". Douglas completed the shoot, but upon viewing the rushes, Rod Serling thought the former looked drunk. He wasn't. Instead, he looked like he was about to have a heart attack, which was the case. As a result, all of Douglas' scenes were reshot, at Serling's expense, with Jack Warden as McGarry.
• The miniseries V originally had Dominique Dunne as Robin Maxwell. She was murdered halfway through production and was replaced by Blair Tefkin. Dunne can be seen, from behind, in a wide shot watching the Mother Ship arrive above an LA suburb.
• VR Troopers:
  • In Cybertron, the unaired pilot of VR Troopers, Jason David Frank played Adam Steel. The original plan was to to have Brad Hawkins replace Frank's character on Power Rangers after the show was picked up for more episodes. However, it was decided that Frank should return to Power Rangers, so Hawkins replaced him for VR Troopers with the character being renamed Ryan Steele.
  • In an early pilot of the show, Professor Hart was played a Caucasian actor. Footage of him can be seen in a promo included with the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Fan Club video.
• Forty episodes of Charlie O'Donnell announcing Wheel of Fortune aired after his death in November 2010. They were dubbed over in favor of the rotating pool of guest announcers^note Lora Cain, Joe Cipriano, John Cramer, Rich Fields, Johnny Gilbert, and Jim Thornton. because "it would have been too sad to hear Charlie's voice so close to his death". It happened again when Jim Thornton was chosen as the permanent announcer. All reruns with the guest announcers were dubbed over with his voice.
• The X-Files
  • The character "X", the second informant for Agent Mulder, was originally a female character portrayed by Natalija Nogulich. Producers decided to replace her with Steven Williams, feeling Nogulich didn't have the right chemistry.
  • The role of Emily Sim, Scully's genetically engineered daughter (who is three years old when Scully learns of her existence) was originally given to a then four-year-old actress named Mecca Menard. However, while Mecca coped fine during filming for the first installment of the two-part episode featuring Emily, she was so frightened by the hospital scenes in the second part that it became impossible for her to continue. This led to her being replaced by another child actress, Lauren Diewold (who was seven years old at the time, but was small for her age) which meant scenes from the first part had to be reshot to insert Lauren into the episode.

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