replacement actors for popular characters - are they ever better?

[joko]

I was just wondering if anyone could think of any characters in shows that have had the actor replaced - and have actually been better than the original....?

i can only think of neil stuke in game on, being better than ben chaplin... not by a huge margin, but still better i thought.

( i don't mean kids growing up and coming back as adults, like adam ricket in corrie)

[spudqueen]

NO WAY was any Kochanski better than Claire Grogan. Not only that but they changed the character COMPLETELTY. How could the cool, funky Kochanski as played by Claire Grogan become that southern horsey boarding school person? There's NO WAY that Lister would ever fancy her.

[Craig007]

I have to disagree with you joko, Ben Chaplin was brilliant in Game On and although Neil Stuke did an admirable job as his replacement he wasn't anywhere near as good.

[lankeela]

Victoria Sugden - that ginger minger was the worst actress ever, although the new one is not much better.

[lynbrown]

I wish i could remmeber what the last Peter Beale looked like- its driving me crazy!

[dr john]

Speaking of Red Dwarf, Holly the computer was played by Norman (I, Lovett) Lovett, then Hattie Hayridge, then Norman Lovett again. On balance I think Lovett was better, if only for the chess-playing scene ("Prawn to King Prawn...")

[Maggoty]

In roseanne, I think the actress changed back to the original becky at some point. Emmerdale's had loads of "new faces", Jack, Sarah, Victoria, Robert - maybe its something to so with the Sugden gene??

[lankeela]

Talking of Robert Sugden, is one of the former Roberts now in Kingdom?

[reinganum]

Of course, this sort of thing happened on the radio as well: in The Archers, Harry Oakes (Dan Archer) was replaced by Monte Crick; in Mrs Dale's Diary Ellis Powell was replaced by the former musical comedy star Jessie Matthews; and there have been several others.

Interesting to see viewpoints on best Dr Who; most Who fans rate Tom Baker as the best, with Patrick Troughton or Jon Pertwee fighting it out for second place.

I have to say I preferred the first Becky in Roseanne.

And what about A for Andromeda? In the original series the 'creature' was played by Julie Christie; but in the second and final series The Andromeda Breakthrough, she had somehow 'morphed' into Susan Hampshire!

[Octavius]

Lynbrown,

Thomas Law http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/12/ Peter_Beale_ee.jpg is the fourth actor to appear as Peter Beale, his predecessors being James Martin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Peter_Beale 9.jpg , Joseph Shade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Peterbeale_ josephshade.JPG and Alex Stevens (sorry couldn�t find a pic).

The transition between actors was obviously smoothed over with the blonde, brunette, blonde actor rotation system that is never mentioned!