Fannish5: pain or gain?

[selenak]

Five characters that replaced departing characters, and whether you considered each a gain or a loss.

Right then. I think we'll have to exclude Doctor Who for obvious reasons, such as the freakin' format of the show since decades. So, let's see:

1) Anya in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, who essentially filled the Cordelia-shaped gap from season 4

Comments

[selenak]

Wesley in season 3: I experienced both ends of the scale, emotionally. At first I was all "poor Wesley!" during the three relevant episodes and subsequently; then, starting with A New World, I started to fall for Connor, and the Connor-Angel relationship did much to revive my flagging AtS love (s3 still is my least favourite of the seasons), and then came season 4, and then, after crying over Home, when I went back to rewatch some s3 episodes, I was all "Wesley, you idiot!" (Not that it's not possible to feel for Wes and Angel both in that situation, of course. But the emphasis of my sympathy had definitely shifted.)

He was hilarious in Expecting. Though the scene that most sticks to mind for me is the last, when he's so happy Angel invites him to stay and shares breakfeast with him and Cordelia. That was when I went from my sympathy for the fannish underdog (i.e. season 3 of BTVS Wesley, set up to fail) to falling in love with the character.

If you're interested, back when the dvds came out, I did a rewatch and review posts that should be archived either in my memories under "Angel" or via the tag.