Many Happy Returns

It's always an event when a recurring character on a classic TV show returns after its portrayer quits or is written off.

Such things happen all the time on soap operas – right now two characters believed long deceased on General Hospital are back, alive and well. But it’s less common with prime time shows, and thus usually more exciting when it occurs.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few, but here’s a list of the top ten returns I enjoyed the most, ranging from the milder “oh, good to see you again” to the astonished “Wow – I never thought that would happen.” Add your own to the comments if you like.

10. Bo and Luke Duke

I’ve ranked this lowest only because they weren’t gone very long.

The Dukes of Hazzard was raking in bucks from merchandising – nearly 200 products and $190 million in sales. John Schneider and Tom Wopat were supposed to get a cut, but when they didn’t get enough they decided not to show up for the show’s fifth season. There were other issues as well, including complaints about scripts, but Warner Bros. wasn’t listening and instead hired two lookalike actors to replace them – Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer were cast as Coy and Vance Duke.

Would it matter? Critics thought the car was the star of the show, but Cherry and Mayer had no chemistry with each other of the rest of the cast. Ratings plummeted, and after 18 episodes Bo and Luke were back, and enough viewers also returned to keep the series going for another two seasons.

9. Tasha Yar
Denise Crosby was disappointed in how her character of Enterprise Chief of Security Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation was being utilized and asked to be released from her contract. The series obliged and Tasha was most definitively killed by a malevolent puddle of black goo in the episode “The Skin of Evil.” But apparently that bridge wasn’t burned too badly as Crosby returned in the third season episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” which was partially set in an alternate timeline in which Tasha never died.

8. Lionel Jefferson
Sometimes the actor leaves but the character stays, as was the case when Mike Evans left The Jeffersons, after playing Lionel in season one and previously on All In the Family. Damon Evans (no relation) took over the role, but Mike came back and appeared in four more seasons. 

I’ve referenced my lack of enduring interest in Norman Lear’s shows before, so this wasn’t a big deal to me and was mostly a no-harm, no-foul switch, at least judging by the ratings, but I’m sure fans were happy when the original actor returned.

7. Jaime Sommers
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a return, since viewers who watched Jaime die in the same Six Million Dollar Man episode in which she debuted may have believed they had seen the last of her. But enough of them wrote to ABC to prompt a change of plans, so it was revealed that Jaime was kept alive in suspended animation until her condition could be stabilized. That cleared the path for a successful spinoff and an Emmy award for Lindsay Wagner.

6. Becky Connor
Of all the replacement character situations on this list, Roseanne delivered the most bizarre. Lecy Goranson played the Conners’ oldest daughter, Becky for five seasons, and then Sarah Chalke took over the role in season six. And then Goranson came back and then left again and Chalke returned. And in one episode they both appeared. References to how Becky kept changing were written into the script, and the whole thing was treated as an “It’s only TV” meta joke.

5. Jan Brady
Eve Plumb opted not to return to her TV family when they were reunited in The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which debuted in 1976 and disappeared in 1977. Some would say she made a wise choice, and thus was born “Fake Jan,” aka Geri Reischl.

But when “The Brady Girls Get Married” aired in 1981, Plumb was back with her siblings and would return for several subsequent reunions.

4. John-Boy Walton
Richard Thomas’s Emmy-winning portrayal of the Waltons’ sensitive oldest son was the heart and soul of this series. When Thomas left in season eight he was replaced by Robert Wightman, aka the human equivalent of watching paint dry. 

Thankfully, Thomas returned to the role in three Waltons TV movies in the 1990s.

3. Jill Munroe
This one should have been so much better. Farrah Fawcett returning to Charlie's Angels, the series that launched her to icon status, was supposed to be an event, even if she was only honoring a negotiated contractual obligation to appear in four more episodes. Season three’s “Angel Come Home” came closest, but perhaps too much had happened off-screen for the cast to recapture their previous chemistry. Scenes with “sisters” Jill and Kris Munroe seemed forced. Still, this viewer was always glad to have her back.

2. Bobby Ewing
Is this the most famous character return in TV history? Or the most infamous? In Dallas’s eighth season, 300 million viewers in 98 countries saw Bobby Ewing murdered in a hit-and-run by jealous nutcase Rebecca Wentworth. It was an on-screen death, complete with a deathbed scene in which he said goodbye to his family. “Bobby is gone and can never come back,” Patrick Duffy would assert after filming these scenes. “I appreciate my public and would never fool them.”

And then Dallas lost four million viewers, and Bobby popped up in the shower at Southfork. How? Turns out the entire season, including his death, was “all a dream.” Yes, it took some brass you-know-what to try and pull that off, but once fans stopped rolling their eyes they were happy to have him back. So was Larry Hagman. “I was flabbergasted myself,” he told me when I interviewed him many years ago. “I know we lost some viewers, but we also stayed on for another four years. And those were my big money years. I was making $250,000 an episode, so I was very happy to have him back.”


1. Sarah Jane Smith
When a beloved character returns to a beloved series after a season, or a couple of years, it’s a happy moment. But when a beloved character returns to a beloved series after 30 years…there aren’t any words to describe it, since before the Doctor Who episode “School Reunion” there was no precedent for it. How many shows are even on that long?

Elisabeth Sladen joined Doctor Who as journalist Sarah Jane Smith in 1973, during Jon Pertwee’s wonderful run as the title character. She stayed until 1976, by which time she had become many viewers’ favorite companion alongside Tom Baker, who had become the most popular Doctor of the show’s original incarnation.

When Doctor Who was revived in 2005, it was reticent about whether it was an extension of the show’s original 1963-1989 run, or if we were starting fresh with the run from Christopher Eccleston to Peter Capaldi (I don’t acknowledge what happened after that – you are of course free to do otherwise).

But those questions were answered in 2006 when Sarah Jane returned, once again alongside the most popular Doctor of the era. Every moment of their reunion was so beautifully and perfectly played, from Sarah’s first glimpse of the Tardis to David Tennant’s reaction, and the jealousy of current companion Rose Tyler (which thankfully didn’t last).

It wasn’t just a great episode, it was a substantive one, as it addressed the nature of the Doctor’s relationships with those who travel with him. “You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can’t spend the rest of my life with you,” he tells Rose. “That’s the curse of the time lords.” It also raised questions about how someone who is shown the universe can adjust back to their old life and routines. Could anything else ever be as exciting?

I don’t get choked up easily, but when the Doctor and Sarah said goodbye this time, it got me. And when Elisabeth Sladen passed away just five years later, it hurt me like no other celebrity death. I’m glad Sarah got the closure she needed, and I hope that Lis’s travels continue as she delights in the adventures of the afterlife.