23 TV shows with characters who inexplicably disappeared

On the sitcom Schitt’s Creek, Tim Rozon played Mutt, the ruggedly handsome son of Mayor Roland Schitt (Chris Elliot) and the one-time love interest of Alexis Rose (Annie Murphy). His character departed to harvest pine cones with his new girlfriend in Season 3 before returning, single in a single episode of Season 4. It looked as if Mutt returned to once again complicate the love life of Alexis, but his character doesn’t appear in the remainder of the season or the remainder of the show — which ran for a full six seasons!

Sometimes, characters appear in a show’s pilot episode but don’t appear in any other installments once the series gets picked up, and that’s exactly what happened with Detective Daniels on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Said to be better at desk work and making coffee than being an actual police officer, Daniels was part of an inept cop group that also included Detectives Hitchcock and Scully (Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller). But after the very first episode, that trio became a duo, and Daniels was never seen again.

What the heck happened to Isaac Lahey (Daniel Sharman) in Teen Wolf? He became a Beta Werewolf in the pack led by Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin) at the beginning of Season 2 and appeared as late as the Season 3 finale, but not in any of the final three seasons. According to series creator Jeff Davis, Isaac went to France with Chris Argent (JR Bourne) and decided to stay permanently, but in reality, Sharman left the MTV series to join the cast of the CW’s The Originals.

Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) is pregnant for pretty much all of Season 3 of Glee. She has a baby girl in the Season 4 premiere, and that’s it. While her motherhood could have made for some interesting storylines, especially given Sue’s notoriously cold, demanding nature before having a child, the show basically forgets about Sue’s child in the show's final two seasons.

When discussing Meghan Markle’s acting career, people usually talk about her time on Suits, but few mention Fringe. This is probably because Markle’s character on Suits had a complete seven-season arc, while her Fringe character only had a short stint. On the latter show, Markle played FBI Special Agent Amy Jessup, who was called in to assist the Fridge Division on an investigation into a mysterious crash. But after just two episodes, it seemed like the next mystery to be solved was the case of the missing character…but no one ever acknowledged her absence.

The story of Monica Dawson (Dana Davis) didn’t end when most Heroes viewers thought it did. As far as most people know, the character, who can mimic any skill she witnesses, was last seen narrowly escaping from a burning house at the end of Season 2. However, she returns in a third-season deleted scene in the episode “One of Us, One of Them,” which can only be seen on the DVD box set.

In Seasons 2 and 3 of Gossip Girl, we’re introduced to Scott Rosson (Chris Riggi), the once-secret love child of Lily van der Woodsen and Rufus Humphrey (Kelly Rutherford and Matthew Settle). The third-season episode “Rufus Getting Married” ends with Scott leaving for Boston but saying Lily gave him an open invitation to return, and he will “take her up on that.” He did not and was never seen or mentioned again.

Remember Santiago Herrera (Benjamin Ciaramello) on Friday Night Lights ? After being released from a juvenile detention center in Season 2, he was taken in by Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland), who encouraged him to join the Panthers while Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) honed his football skills. But after Season 2, the storyline and character were completely abandoned due to the 2007 writer’s strike. Ironically, his last appearance was in an episode entitled “Leave No One Behind.” 

(Spoilers ahead!) In Showtime’s Weeds, the arc of Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins) takes her from insufferable housewife to city councilwoman to a foil in the marijuana-dealing business of Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) — and that’s just the first three seasons. She also gets addicted to cocaine, travels to Mexico, gets held hostage by her estranged daughter, and forms her own weed business at the end of Season 5… then her character is not seen again, even though Weeds had three more seasons. (To be fair, Celia is vaguely mentioned in passing a couple of times.)

Countless Dunder Mifflin employees and other characters came and went throughout the nine seasons of The Office, but one disappearance is especially troubling to us. In the Season 7 episode “WUPHF.com,” we are introduced to Senator — State Senator — Robert Lipton (Jack Coleman) and his young son. Lipton soon strikes up a relationship with Angela (Angela Kinsey), who eventually has a son purported to be the senator’s. We won’t delve into those details because we’re more concerned with the mysterious disappearance of the senator’s first son. He can’t be with his mother, as she’s deceased, making this puzzling plot hole significant enough to get mentioned on Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer’s Office Ladies podcast.

A lot of characters have cycled through Grey’s Anatomy during its two decades on the air, but the disappearance of Leah Murphy (Tessa Ferrer) has long confounded us. The character appeared in Seasons 9 and 10 but ultimately got the ax in her second year of surgical residency. However, Murphy proved herself deserving of a second chance, and the character triumphantly returned in Season 13…only to be completely forgotten about.

Our younger readers may recall that Nicole Bristow (Alexa Nikolas) was a main character on Zoey 101 for the first two seasons of the show — she was a roommate of Zoey (Jamie Lynn Spears), after all. But Nicole is said to be suffering from OMGD (Obsessive Male Gender Disorder, a.k.a being boy-crazy) in the Season 2 finale and is shipped off to an all-girls school. Zoey said Nicole would be back, but aside from a mention in the Season 3 premiere, she was never referred to again. Nikolas later claimed she left due to conflicts with Spears and series creator Dan Schneider. 

Billy Burke appeared in three episodes of Season 3 of Gilmore Girls as Alex, the kind, considerate, outdoorsy boyfriend of Lorelai (Lauren Graham). She mentions dating him later in the season — specifically when her feelings for Max (Scott Cohen) resurface — but he is not shown on screen again, and their assumed breakup is never explained nor mentioned. 

Halfway through the first season of The West Wing , creator Aaron Sorkin realized Mandy Hampton — the White House media director played by Moira Kelly — wasn’t working out, and he and Kelly made the decision to phase out the character. That’s understandable, but instead of being written out in a storyline, Hampton’s character was simply not mentioned at all after the first season. In a situation similar to “Chuck Cunningham Syndrome,” fans of The West Wing started referring to characters who mysteriously disappear from shows as “Going to Mandyville.”

We’d argue that two notable characters disappeared without a trace on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens . In the first season, Carrie (Leah Remini) had a half-sister named Sara (Lisa Rieffel) who seemed destined for a regular role after appearing in five of the first six episodes, but she was never seen again, and Carrie was subsequently referred to as an only child. Doug (Kevin James) also suffered a loss in the series when one of his closest friends, Richie, inexplicably disappeared after actor Larry Romano asked to be let out of his contract to star in a new sitcom…which ended up getting canceled after just six episodes.

In the first season of That ‘70s Show, Donna (Laura Prepon) had a younger sister named Tina, played by Amanda Fuller. However, after only one appearance that season, the creators decided they wanted Donna to be an only child, and Tina Pinciotti was never mentioned again…with one exception. At the end of the Season 2 episode “Vanstock,” in a spoof of soap opera cliffhangers, a dramatic voice-over announcer asks, “And whatever happened to Midge's daughter Tina?!”

Anthony Tyler Quinn had a regular role on Boy Meets World , as he wasn’t just a high school teacher but also something of a father figure to Shawn (Rider Strong). However, after getting badly injured in a motorcycle crash, Mr. Turner never appears again after Season 4, even though the ABC series ran for another three years. Additionally, Topanga (Danielle Fishel) is shown to have a sister named Nebula (Krystee Clark), but she only appears in the Season 1 episode “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not”...unless you count Clark’s return as an entirely different character named Valerie in the Season 2 episode “Wrong Side of the Tracks.”

On Family Matters, the Winslow family had two kids, Eddie (Darius McCrary) and Laura (Kellie Shanygne Williams)...but wait, what about the youngest child, Judy (Jaimee Foxworth)? Judy appeared in the show's first four seasons but not the final five. This was one of the most notable cases of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, as, exactly like the Happy Days character, Judy walked upstairs one day and was never seen or spoken about again.

We know why Tori Scott had a short stint on Saved by the Bell . Actress Leanna Creel was brought in to replace both Kelly and Jessie (Tiffany Amber-Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley) while they were briefly absent from the fourth season, and she caught the eye of both Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and Slater (Mario Lopez). However, when Kelly and Jessie returned, Tori was never seen again — even in the graduation episode!

Seinfeld changed in a few ways after its pilot episode. It initially appeared that a bubbly waitress named Claire (Lee Garlington ) would be part of the main cast, as she worked at Pete’s Luncheonette, where Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) and George (Jason Alexander) spent a lot of their time. However, Claire was essentially replaced by Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in the show’s second episode, and Pete’s Luncheonette was replaced by Monk’s Café. 

Although Marisa Tomei is an accomplished, Oscar-winning actress, we’ll forgive you if you don’t remember her time on the spinoff of The Cosby Show, A Different World. Tomei had a major role in the first season as Maggie Lauten, a military brat, journalism major, and one of the only white students at the historically Black college (HBCU) Hillman College, but she did not appear in any of the remaining four seasons, and her absence was never acknowledged. (Tomei simply left the show.)

If the guy in the top-left of this photo looks upset, it might be because he just found out his character on Happy Days, Chuck, will disappear sometime in the show’s second season. Although it’s never explained or acknowledged, the eldest Cunningham child’s absence was noticeable enough to audiences that the character’s name has since been used to refer to the mysterious disappearances of characters in other shows — a phenomenon known as “Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.” Actor Gavan O’Herlihy actually only lasted a single season as Chuck before quitting the show, with Randolph Roberts replacing him in Season 2.

Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) had a big part in the first season of the original Star Trek series. She appeared prominently in classic episodes like “Charlie X” and “The Naked Time,” and was intended to be a love interest of Captain Kirk (William Shatner). However, Yeoman Rand’s parts were cut and recast throughout the latter part of Season 1, and in a mystery still remembered by many Star Trek fans, she eventually stopped appearing altogether. This wasn’t the end of Rand, though — the character had a part in three of the Star Trek films, with Whitney reprising her role.