Temporary Substitute: Difference between revisions

 

Similar, but not identical, to a [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]], this is where a script has clearly been hastily rewritten to give one character the plot that would have been given to the character who can't make it that week—that it may involve someone being [[Not Himself]] for the week is often unavoidable. A [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]] is permanent, a Temporary Substitute is (hopefully) temporary; the lines blur, of course, when you're not sure if the original character is going to come back.

 

* ''[[Frasier]]'' has done this once, in the episode "Head Game." Originally written for Frasier, it was rewritten for Niles due to Kelsey Grammer being in rehab. The opening scene featuring Frasier that explained his absence was filmed many weeks later.

* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' had an entire season of Temporary Substitutes when Bo and Luke went off to race in NASCAR (or, in reality, contract disputes) and their strangely identical cousins turned up instead, hanging around until the other two returned. Toes the line between [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]] and Temporary Substitute.

* When JJ Jareau (and her actress AJ Cook) took maternity leave on ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', she picked Jordan Todd (played by actress Meta Golding) to fill in for her.

** An interesting case, this one. Since everyone had lots and lots of prior notice about AJ Cook's leave (her pregnancy storyline started the season before), Todd's role is not just a re-writing of scripts written for JJ: she has her own character, arc, and thematics, all of which are very different from JJ's. At the same time, she fills the same role in the team bureaucracy that JJ does.

* At the end of the fifth season of ''[[Step by Step]]'', the actor who played Cody was unavailable to shoot the two-part Disney World episode—quite a loss, since the episode revolved largely around Cody's effort to go on every ride in the park in record time. Instead, a new character named Flash (apparently Uncle Frank's employee) shows up unannounced and proceeds to do everything Cody was intended to do, making him the effective star of the show for these two episodes. He made one last appearance in the season finale, before being scrapped in favor of Bronson Pinchot as zany Frenchman Jean-Luc. Cody never returned, having [[Put on a Bus|boarded a bus for Russia]].

** In fact, he returned in "We're in the money" the last but one episode of the show. And his absence was explained during the season six episode "Bonjour Jean-Luc".