24 TV Shows With Characters Who Unexplainably Disappeared

TV shows might seem like entries in an ongoing narrative, but the truth is much more complicated.

Television series involve lots of different people, including actors whose situations might prevent them from continuing to play even beloved characters. Sometimes, budgets shrink and the network can’t afford to play an actor anymore. Other times, actors go on for better, more lucrative offers. Sometimes, the focus of a show changes and certain characters are no longer needed.

In the best cases, writers provide an explanation for a character’s removal from the show. But the disappearance of these characters still leaves television fans scratching their heads.

1. Chuck Cunningham – Happy Days

The most famous example of a disappearing character occurred on the long-running sitcom Happy Days, which took a nostalgic look at Milwaukee in the 1950s. At the center of the show was the Cunningham family, consisting of teen son Richie (Ron Howard), father Howard (Tom Bosley), mother Marion (Marion Ross), and daughter Joanie (Erin Moran).

For the first and second seasons, the cast also included oldest brother Chuck, played by Ric Carrott, Gavan O’Herlihy, and Randolph Roberts at various times. When the character disappeared from the series, fans coined the term “Chuck Cunningham Syndrome” to describe someone who the series dropped without explanation.

2. Mandy Hampton – The West Wing

Given his idiosyncratic dialogue, it should come as no surprise that The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin would have his own version of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. Sorkin and The West Wing staff talk about “Mandyville,” referring to Mandy Hampton, the White House media director that Moira Kelly played in the first season.

Moria’s rocky tenure in the communications team of fictional president Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen) drove many season one episodes. But when the show returned for a second season, Mandy was gone and the term “Mandyville” was her sole legacy.

3. Judy – Family Matters

One of the clearest examples of a generational divide between TV fans exists in words for disappearing characters. Older fans talk about Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, but Millennials and below know about Judy going upstairs.

Family Matters began as a spin-off of Perfect Strangers, focusing on the Winslow family, which included youngest daughter Judy (played first by Valerie Jones and then Jaimee Foxworth). But as the nerd next door Steve Urkel (Jaleel White) became the breakout star, Judy went upstairs in one season four episode and was never seen again.

4. Ben Geller – Friends

For much of Friends, Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) was a sad-sack with a complicated family life. His marriage to Carol (Anita Barone and Jane Sibbett) ended before she gave birth to their son Ben (first portrayed by Charles Thomas Allen and John Christoper Allen and then by Cole Sprouse).

Most of the time, Carol and her wife Susan (Jessica Hecht) raise Ben, and Ross just jumps into his life to check-in. So it’s not too surprising that Ben would drop out from the cast, but it does seem that Ross would have at least acknowledged his kid.

5. The Others – Lost

The sci-fi mystery series Lost has a reputation for unanswered questions, as big plot points like Hurley’s numbers or the three-toed statues getting dropped or waived away. Even by that standard, the disappearance of the Others raises eyebrows.

The Others were inhabitants of the island before the protagonists crashed down. They serve as major antagonists for much of the series, introducing major characters such as Ben (Michael Emerson). At the end of season six, antagonist Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) attacks the island and the Others’ settlement. Some of the Others die, some of the Others live, but most just get ignored from here on out.

6. Yeoman Janice Rand – Star Trek

Like most network shows of the 1960s, Star Trek often had a rotating cast, with various crew people getting a lot of attention for one or two episodes and then never appearing again. But Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) seemed like a regular, as she appeared in several season one episodes and had a romance with Captain Kirk (William Shatner).

However, Rand disappeared after the first few episodes and was never mentioned again, at least not in the series. Whitney appears as Rand in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and even gets a couple lines in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Flashback.” But her prolonged absence from the Enterprise is never mentioned.

7. Mr. Turner – Boy Meets World

With his long hair and motorcycle, Mr. Turner (Anthony Tyler Quinn) seemed like a natural fit in the sitcom Boy Meets World. While precocious lead Cory (Ben Savage) clashed with the uptight Mr. Feeny (William Daniels), he could bond with Mr. Turner.

After season four, Mr. Turner never returned to the show outside of flashbacks. Like Yeoman Rand, however, Mr. Turner did get some resolution in a revival show, when Mr. Turner reconnects with the adult Cory, and his daughter Riley (Rowan Blanchard).

8. Boxey – Battlestar Galactica

The 2000s reboot of Battlestar Galactica took the series in a very different direction than the original series from the 1970s, but it included a few winks to the earlier, cornier show. One of those winks occurred in the miniseries that launched the series.

After the evil robotic Cylons attack humanity’s home planet, members of the Battlestar Galactica crew rescue a few people, including a little boy named Boxey (Connor Widdows). Boxey is, of course, the name of the boy from the original series. Played by Noah Hathaway, Boxey received a lot of screen time from the first series, but the updated version goes away after a couple scenes.

9. Detective Daniels – Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Detectives Hitchcock and Scully (Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller) are the not-so-dynamic duo of NYPD’s 99th Precinct. Free of shame and full of junk food, Hitchcock and Scully make the goofballs on Brooklyn Nine-Nine look like hot shots.

The pilot to Brooklyn Nine-Nine started the duo as a trio. Detective Daniels, portrayed by an uncredited actor, is described as someone good at making coffee and nothing else. Sounds like she fit right in with Hitchcock and Scully, but she never came back after the pilot.

10. Harriet Hayward – Twin Peaks

Lots of weird things happen in Twin Peaks, the cult series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. One of the weirdest involves the Hayward family, respected citizens whose oldest daughter Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) was best friends with the murdered Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee).

Most of the Hayward family gets a lot of attention throughout the original series and the revival Twin Peaks: The Return, but not poor Harriet Hayward (Jessica Wallenfels). Like most middle children, Harriet seems like she’ll be important in the pilot, but then drops away midway through the second season.

11. Claire – Seinfeld

Speaking of pilot episodes, Seinfeld’s debut episode “The Seinfeld Chronicles” feels very different from the sitcom phenomenon it would become. Jerry is present, as is his pal George (Jason Alexander) as is his oddball neighbor played by Michael Richards, then called Kessler instead of Kramer.

However, the show did not yet have Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Elaine Benes. Instead, the woman’s touch came in the form of the spunky waitress Claire (Lee Garlington). Claire has a back-and-forth with George and Jerry in the episode and never comes back again.

12. Abby Day – New Girl

New Girl also had a shaky pilot, but it both explained the departure and the return of one-time roommate Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.), Rather, 1New Girl’s mystery character came in season three, in the form of Abby (Linda Cardellini), sister of main character Jess (Zooey Deschanel).

Abby seemed poised to become a regular character, maybe even moving into the central loft where the main characters lived. After her three-episode run, Abby returned to Oregon, which would have been a fine closing. But from that point on, neither Jess nor her parents ever acknowledged Abby again, as if she was erased from existence.

13. Agent John Doggett – The X-Files

Late in its original run, The X-Files stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson stepped away from the show. Rather than cancel a hit series, the Fox Network replaced Fox Mulder and Dana Scully with Agents Reyes (Annabeth Gish) and Doggett (Robert Patrick).

Fox tried to switch the original characters’ dynamic, with Doggett playing the doubter and Reyes the believer. The ploy worked enough to keep the show going long enough for Mulder and Scully to return. But after the regular series ended in season nine, no one brought up Doggett in the movie The X-FIles: I Want to Believe or the revival series, even though Reyes comes back.

14. Ellie Walker – The Andy Griffith Show

In the first season of The Andy Griffith Show, the name Elinor Donahue appeared over images of Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and his son Opie (Ron Howard, in his second appearance) walking to the fishing hole. Donahue played Ellie Walker, the main squeeze of widower Andy.

By the second season, both Ellie and Donahue’s credit were gone. Andy has a few more girlfriends over the years, up until he marries Opie’s teacher Helen (Aneta Corsaut), who sticks around until the Taylors move away from Mayberry.

15. Seven – Married… With Children

Like Chuck Cunningham and Judy Winslow, Seven is a legendary forgotten character. But because he disappeared from the sitcom Married… With Children, Seven becomes a punchline.

Played by Shane Sweet, Seven joined the cast of Married… With Children in season seven, when producers hoped to replace the now-grown kids in the Bundy family. But fans rejected a new cute kid and producers stopped mentioning Seven, save for his picture on a missing person announcement on a milk carton.

15. Doctor Katherine Pulaski – Star Trek: The Next Generation

After a pretty terrible first season, the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation retooled the series a bit. La Forge (LeVar Burton) and Worf (Michael Dorn) received promotions and moved to the stations they would man for the rest of the show.

One less welcome change occurred in the sick bay, when Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) left for a post in Starfleet headquarters and was replaced by the prickly Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur). Pulaski got off on the wrong foot, bullying fan favorite Data (Brent Spiner). However, she got a few good episodes by the end of the season, just to be off the Enterprise at the start of the third season as Crusher came back.

16. Harvey Dent – Gotham

Most nerds know Harvey Dent as Two-Face, one of the most important bad guys in Batman’s rogues gallery. The Batman adaptation Gotham dug pretty deep into the Dark Knight villains, so it’s no surprise that they would include Harvey Dent, played by Nicholas D’Agosto.

Dent never gets splashed with acid and never gets locked up in Arkham Asylum. After eight episodes in the first two seasons, Dent lives on in a few passing comments and nothing else.

17. Amy Jessup – Fringe

Fringe dealt with doppelgängers and alternate realities, so when FBI Agent Dunham (Anna Torv) gets injured at the end of the first season, producers could have just brought a different Dunham over from the alternate reality.

Instead, Agent Amy Jessup joined the cast to serve as liaison to the Fringe Division and the rest of the FBI. But when actor Meghan Markle joined the cast of Suits, Jessup never came back to work, nor did anyone mention it.

18. Valerie Brown and Melody Valentine – Riverdale

Riverdale features a lot of characters from the Archie comic book series, albeit reimagined for a soapy drama. However, it is strange that Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray) would be such a prominent character without her usual sidekicks Valerie Brown and Melody Valentine (Hayley Law and Asha Bromfield).

As in the comics, the trio played together as Josie and the Pussycats. But when Josie embarks on a solo career, she leaves her old bandmates behind, where they’re forgotten by everyone.

19. Ser Ilyn Payne – Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones introduced and killed off many characters with unusual names, so some readers might not recall, the mute executioner who killed Ned Stark (Sean Bean) in the first season.

Played by Wilko Johnson, Ser Ilyn went on to serve Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) and Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), fighting in the Battle of Blackwater. The show still had plenty of bloodshed and executions after its second season, but short of a passing mention, Ser Ilyn didn’t get to participate in any of them for the remaining seasons.

20. Karen – Home Improvement

Poor Jill Taylor (Patricia Richardson) of Home Improvement often had to contend alone against the chauvinist nonsense of her husband Tim (Tim Allen). However, she had an ally for a while in the form of Karen, her best friend, played by Betsy Randle.

Intelligent and willing to pick a fight, Karen served as a great sparring partner for Tim. However, when Randle took a role as the mother of Cory Matthews in Boy Meets World, Karen went away and Jill had to fight alone.

21. Professor Michelle Slater – Community

Apropos of the learning institution where it takes place, the sitcom Community had an eclectic main cast, with people of different ages and different walks of life. That made it difficult for the usual sitcom dynamics, which is why grown man Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) was romantically paired with a teacher instead of one of the students, most of whom were younger than him.

Professor Slater (Lauren Stamile) taught statistics when she encountered Winger, and the two tried to make it work. Things seemed to go well until Professor Slater disappeared and writers decided to just let Winger date other main characters instead.

22. Maggie Lauten – A Different World

Marisa Tomei is an Oscar-winning actress and one of the most recognizable faces in pop culture. But back in 1987, she was expendable. So while she got to play Maggie Lauten in one season of A Different World, she didn’t get to stick around longer.

In fairness, the show positioned Lauten as the child of a military family, who often had to move and make new friends. That dynamic helped her get along as one of the few white students at the traditionally Black Hillman College and also gave writers a reason to avoid explaining her leaving the show.

23. Sidney Glass – Once Upon a Time

Sidney Glass is one of the most important figures in the Disney fantasy world. But most know Sidney as just “the Looking Glass,” the magic mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In the live-action series Once Upon a Time, the Looking Glass gets human form and takes the name Sidney Glass, where he’s played by Giancarlo Esposito. At least, he takes that form for a while. After Season One, Sidney gets just a few appearances and is completely absent from the finales and specials.

24. Dr. Grace Miller – Scrubs

Scrubs producers had such a hit character with the abrasive Dr. C (John C. McGinley) that they tried to double up by introducing a female version. Dr. Grace Miller (Bellamy Young) comes to Sacred Heart Hospital in season three, where she butts heads with Dr. C.

However, the producers soon decided that the dynamic didn’t work. Instead of writing out Dr. Miller, she just stopped showing up, proving that Dr. C always wins in the end.