Characters come and characters go, at least that’s the case for these beloved shows. Whether it’s on one of the best sitcoms of all time, an exhilarating epic fantasy series, or crime dramas holding down a spot on the primetime lineup for decades, these programs all have one thing in common: they lost a fan-favorite before the final episode (or even final season).
Here are 32 TV shows that lost their lead character during their run…
The Office (2005 – 2013)
best character on The Office for the show’s first seven seasons, Steve Carell’s Michael Scott left Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton office back in 2011. Though he would return in a guest capacity in the final season, the absence of the awkward, excitable, yet hilarious regional manager could be felt in the series’ final days.
Charlie Sheen left Two and a Half Men and stopped playing fan-favorite Charlie Harper, following the hit sitcom’s eighth season in 2011. One of the most popular shows on TV at the time, the CBS comedy would continue for four more seasons, with Ashton Kutcher coming on to play Walden Schmidt
killed off in a spectacular way or George Clooney’s Doug Ross departing following a major scandal, ER lost several of its main characters throughout its 15-season (and 331-episode) run on NBC. However, the show always seemed to rebound from even the biggest losses.
late Suzanne Somers became a household name for her portrayal of Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company back in 1977. One of the three leads through much of the show’s run, Somers departed the series after its fifth season. The sitcom would run for three additional seasons after Somers left.
Zach Braff’s Dr. John Michael “J.D.” Dorian was technically part of the Scrubs cast until the very last episode of Season 9 (he’s also returning for the upcoming reboot series), he only showed up in less than half of the final run. Maybe it was for the best, because those episodes were of a far lower quality than the previous eight seasons.
Darrin Stephens character on Bewitched was written off, but instead recast near the end of the show’s run. Played by Dick York for the first few seasons, Elizabeth Montgomery’s on-screen husband was later played by Dick Sargent in the final years of the landmark sitcom about a witch trying to hide her true nature from the world around her.
nightmare for their co-stars and crew members, and that was the case when Anna Faris departed the hit CBS comedy Mom in 2020. Though the show continued for one more season after Christy Plunkett was written off, the absence of the former lead could be felt.
One Tree Hill was a perennial favorite of The WB (and later The CW) through much of its nine-season run. However, the good times didn’t last the whole time, as Chad Michael Murray, who played lead Lucas Scott, departed after season 6 alongside Hilarie Burton’s Peyton Sawyer.
Patrick Dempsey’s Derek Shepherd, aka “Dr. McDreamy,” who was killed off in the show’s 11th season.
died at the age of 31.
The Walking Dead, which is to be expected considering it was a show set in the zombie apocalypse. However, one of the biggest departures came in the show’s ninth season when Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes was written off the massively successful show.
House of Cards was a show with one shocking moment after another, including the time the Netflix series had to find a way to get rid of its main character before the sixth and final season. After Kevin Spacey found himself in legal trouble, the show’s producers decided to kill him off and carry on.
the late Shannen Doherty, was one of the main characters in the first three seasons of Charmed. Though her fate was initially left up in the air following a Season 3 cliffhanger, it was later revealed that Prue died after her run-in with a powerful demonic assassin.
Sean Bean’s Ned Stark was one of the biggest in the first season. Creating one of the most shocking moments in TV history, Ned lost his head before the end of the first year, which set the tone for the unpredictable nature of the series moving forward.
The Wire’s cast was full of incredible actors playing some of the best characters to ever grace the small screen. One of the major players in the landmark HBO series’ first three seasons was Idris Elba’s Stringer Bell, a ruthless and ambitious drug lord who aspired for more than running the corners in Baltimore. However, he made far too many enemies and he was brutally killed in the show’s Season 3 finale.
Roseanne Barr, was fired in the fallout of a controversial tweet. The show was quickly cancelled and morphed into The Conners, which ran for seven seasons before coming to an end in 2025.
people have left NCIS over the years, but the CBS crime drama continues to be one of the most popular shows on network TV. Perhaps the biggest character to come and go since the show’s 2003 debut is NCIS Supervisory Special Agent and Special Agent in Charge Leroy Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon, who stayed on through the 19th season. Talk about longevity.
show that went on way too long, Homeland had its fair share of shocking moments and final episodes for major characters. At the top of that list is Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a former prisoner of war whose true alliances are ambiguous through much of the show’s first three seasons. However, his time would come to an end a few years into the run when Brody was hanged in a public execution in Iran.
multiple fan-favorite characters to be killed off during Downton Abbey during the show’s original run. The third-cousin, once removed of the Earl of Grantham, the character didn’t make it all that long in the grand scheme of things before dying in a car accident during the show’s third season.
Sons Of Anarchy (2008 – 2014)
Sons of Anarchy had an epic run on FX in the latter part of the 2000s through the early 2010s, and in that time, so many fan-favorites got killed off. The most horrifying came in the show’s fifth season when the beloved Opie (Ryan Hurst) was brutally murdered in prison. Some never came back after that.