Whatever happened to Mandy (and other series casualties)?

Things are moving professionally. I have been offered a new job, but they seem to be in no particular hurry for me to start. In the meantime, I have leisure to clean my flat, go for walks, buy things I've wanted for a long time such as a new keyboard for my computer (which turns out to be just as rubbish as the old one - surely it can't be my typing that's at fault?), read and watch more Disney Channel than is strictly good for me.

This would have been a perfect time to discover a new exciting TV series, preferably available on a DVD box, which I could watch and blog about at some length. But there is little new stuff out there to my taste. While waiting for the new Doctor Who box set (15 November?? What is taking them so long? Are we foreign geeks condemned to be always six months behind English viewers?) I must settle for unearthing/re-watching old favourites such as "The West Wing" and "Fame".

Maybe this is as good a time as any to tackle a question which engages most of us TV-series viewers, namely How To Write A Character Out Of A Script. Or more specifically, how not to do it.

It took "Fame" some time, but half-way into season two we finally get a proper write-out of the sweet old drama teacher Crandall. He dies of a heart attack; Danny, whose favourite teacher he is, goes off the rails for a bit; the pupils do a celebration piece etc. etc. Excellent. This is how it should be done. But I was reminded of a line in the same episode: "Do I have to pass on before you can be reconciled to me?". The poor actor who played Crandall had actually died: when this happens, a series character can be pretty certain of getting a proper send-off. In other cases, though - when the actor playing a character has got another job, or left the series for another reason, or if the powers that be decide to get rid of a character because they feel he/she hasn't been a hit with the viewers - we often get no write-out at all. The series goes on without the character in question as if nothing has happened, and no-one even mentions him/her anymore. An example from "Fame" is the drama student Montgomery who was part of the Fame gang in the first season: in the second one, he is no longer there and none of his bosom pals even make a remark on the fact.

What TV series creators need to understand is that viewers don't care about what has happened backstage. They (the TV people) may not feel very charitable towards, say, an actor who has decided to abandon ship, but that doesn't mean that we viewers don't care about what happens to the character the actor plays. Even if the character him/herself is not a very popular one, the internal logic of the series demands that we are informed about what has happened when he/she is suddenly not around anymore. Take another example, Mandy in "The West Wing". Poor Mandy had a tough brief: I don't think she was allowed to be right about one single issue. She was the political consultant who had to point out how the administration's politics would "play in the media". In season two, she had suddenly disappeared. No warning and no comments made by the rest of the White House staff. It didn't damage the series: the political consultant figure was not really that necessary. But as a viewer you did ask yourself: where is Mandy? Just because she was underwritten, that doesn't mean that she didn't exist.

Here are the things I as a TV viewer would very much like TV series creators to consider when they want/have to ditch a character:

Do you really need to do it? In some cases, writing out a character from a series proves completely painless. It can also become a way to bring new people in and freshen up the plots. But in other cases, a series never quite recovers from a write-out of an important character. If the actor ups and leaves, there is little you can do, except in some cases replace him/her with another actor (the viewers will grumble at first, but we'll get used to it: we do see that there can be no Holmes without Watson and no Rumpole without Hilda, whoever plays the vital part). But if there is a question of a back-stage spat, do try to make things up before kicking ut the offending actor. When it comes to popularity, remember to give characters - especially new ones - time to develop. A rapid overturn of characters is a sure sign that a series is on its last legs. Also, it should be pretty obvious that not all characters are supposed to be particularly loveable. They may still have an important part to play plot-wise. Not everyone can be either cuddly or a charismatic villain (having said that, I'm glad they got rid of Caan in "Grey's Anatomy"- what a bitch!).

Explain what has happened It doesn't have to be an elaborate explanation. "How is Mandy doing working with Senator so-and-so?" "I miss Montgomery, he would have known what to do. I hope the LA Drama School knows what it's got in him." That kind of thing. Clumsy exposition, yes, but far better than to pretend nothing's happened. If you know beforehand that an actor is going to disappear by the end of the season, use the knowledge in order to script the character's exit properly.

Don't make the explanation too dependent on new factors which the viewers cannot know about For years, I thought I had missed a couple of episodes of "Upstairs Downstairs" when I learned that the daughter in the house, Elizabeth, was not only in the States but married to a bloke I'd never heard of. I certainly don't grudge Elizabeth a husband, but it would have been less confusing if she had only just met another man at the beginning of the series where she didn't star - the marriage could come later (still off-stage).

Show the character some respect An affectionate (or otherwise) mention of an absentee character now and then does no harm to the story. There was an amusing take on the fact that discarded characters are next to never mentioned in a Doctor Who episode, where the Doctor and his then companion Rose met up with one of his old assistants, Sarah Jane. "That's funny, because he never mentioned you", Rose comments waspishly. "Wait, let me think... no, never." It does seem a bit strange, doesn't it?

By all means introduce a new character, but make sure he/she is not a surrogate for the old one Makers of TV series are usually aware of this, but you sometimes come across a character whose only reason for existence is, say, that Molly needs a new boyfriend. But maybe Molly doesn't need a new boyfriend, at least not before he can have some other function as well and be well integrated in the plot. To create a new character who has precisely the same function as an old one is mostly a mistake.

Now I really have to change my keyboard back to the old one - this one keeps bailing out. I'm going to have to write it off.