The 11th Hour Message Board, always a hotbed of debate and gathering of towering intellects, recently raised the topic of one such departure. Detective Ray Vecchio (David Marciano), of Due South (hey, Due South's genre! Does it not have a ghost? And a frighteningly intelligent wolf? And that doctor chick from Earth 2?) was ickiness incarnate, and yet had his own appeal that left us all heartbroken when he left. In a complicated plot device involving under-cover police work, deadly mobsters and secret identities aplenty, Callum Keith Rennie replaced Ray on the show and in the show. Weird.
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And not only did Doyle die too soon, but he died too horribly.
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Other non-death departures have included such beloved characters as seaQuest DSV's Captain Bridger (Roy Sheider), lost to retirement -- as though the show weren't sucky enough -- three of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Zack, Jason and Trini, went to Vienna one day and only one of them ever bothered coming back, and, of course, Buffy's Angel and Cordelia left Sunnydale for the less-Hellmouthy environs of L.A.
Which brings us back to Doyle.
Whatever the true story of Glenn Quinn's departure from Angel -- and, frankly, I don't really care -- it cannot be any more diabolical than Mutant Enemy's Official ReasonTM. And not only did Doyle die too soon, but he died too horribly. Even those of us who saw it on Realplayer and not on a WB affiliate were affected deeply -- and kinda grossed out.
Was that really necessary? we wonder.
Some say yes. They give excuses like the character did nothing for them, its only a TV show, and it's not really our business what the creator of a series does, writes, or brutally destroys at the hands of a thing that looks like the ancient ancestor of a disco ball.
Salient points, all. There is a flipside to every coin. Two perspectives on every story. Always a darkness to emphasise the light. Always a Pepsi for every Coke. Always too many metaphors for a single paragraph.
And for every rabid fan's lamenting yin there is also an opposing, don't-care yang.
Which I don't get. At all.
But the less-devastated do have a point. After all, when we are visitors in the sometimes thrilling, sometimes terrifying worlds of wonder that people like Rick Berman, and Joss Whedon, and even Chris Carter bring into our lives, shouldn't we be grateful for what they have done so far, and may yet do in the future? Doesn't the ever-present fear of death heighten our senses, and the experience? If we knew, for certain, that no character with even a single fansite was ever going to die -- well, it'd be like watching Sesame Street all the time. Safe, predictable... and probably with counting, too!
Oh, wait! Didn't Mr. Hooper die? Mr. Hooper, to whom Big Bird could always tell his troubles, and who sold birdseed to Bert?
That's it. Where's my List?
That Children's Television Workshop is going down.
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