Flanderisation of TV characters
 

And by flanderisation I mean the grotesque exaggeration of characters' initial personality traits in the later seasons.

I'll start with Chelsea off That's So Raven being a total dumbo in seasons 3 and 4 despite actually being fairly intelligent in season 1. And Ned Flanders's from the Simpsons religious stance transforming from simple piety to fanatacism after his wife passed on.

Kinda ironic that his name was Ned Flanders :laugh:

Every character in Friends from about S5 onwards is the obvious example. I still enjoy the later seasons to be fair, but they went from (almost) realistic humans to caricatures of themselves. Especially Joey, Phoebe and Ross.

Hmmm... I suppose it's true of most long-running shows. The slow but inevitable running out of fresh material means characters become caricatures. See: Stewie from Family Guy originally being a criminal mastermind with an odd British accent but eventually turning into every gay/crossdressing joke thinkable.

His name is where the term comes from :p

Omg? I never knew this but mind you I’ve never even heard of the word before :skull:

In Chelsea Daniels’ case it was more a case of a genuine dumbing down than flanderisation because she never showed any more than slight ditziness in season 1. They were already in the process of making her dumb and dumber in season 2 but it was more of a funny stupid than the braindead hardcore vegetarian she was in the third and fourth seasons.

Sheldon from the Big Bang theory. He wasn’t completely socially inept and anti social in the first season. He also didn’t have his weird OCD about certain things. He seemed quirky and odd in season 1 but come seasons 4 onwards he is an extreme version of himself

Oh I'd have said Monica was the worst.

Rational woman with slight OCD and cleanliness tendencies becomes a big ball of neurosis from about season 6 or 7.

Good GRIEF. :joker:

Every character in Friends, especially Ross, Joey and Monica.

I think basically the only long running (American) sitcom to avoid Flanderisation is Frasier.

...in a way he kind of was Flanderised in the opposite way....there are a few characters who start more as ‘cameo’ or smaller character parts and then their parts start to become written in more as they flanderise into a main character.../..with Frasier, obviously he got his own show then from what started as a minor character in Cheers...Karen in Will and Grace, wasn’t she quite a minor character and the flanderised into a main one..?...I guess it can equally make a character...

...I love Frasier btw, Oliver...:lovedup:...

Yeah, I was going to mention Joey from Friends. Monica too.

I've never seen Cheers, so I don't really know what he was like on there? But over the course of his own show, none of the characters really were flanderised.

Yeah Karen was meant to just be a side character I think, but she was expanded as the series went on. I like W&G but I do think all of the characters became a bit exaggerated toward the end.

Me too :D

...he was Frasier on Cheers...that was were the character came from and during the progression of Cheers, his character built and built and it was obvious, he could stand alone...and it was very successful, I have no idea if it became more successful than Cheers, even...but it’s still flanderisation when you think about it, it can go either way and actually highlight and bring out a character who was more in the shadow...

I would agree with this.

the writers did chelsea dirty in later seasons, she was almost unbearable

Yeah, agreed what people have said re Friends.

Delboy from Only Fools is one that always sticks out. Went from being quite a gritty character who was pretty street savvy to somewhat of an idiot.

Every member of the Simpson family.

When do you think the transition from sensible to dumb Chelsea began?

LeatherTrumpet

:skull:

I think Diego from The Umbrella Academy may become the latest addition to the Flanderisation family after season 2 took a guy who had a temper, and had a sibling feud with Luther that was a bit more in depth in Season 1, and turned him into Patrick Starr from Spongebob Squarepants, including his dynamic with Luther being turned into two idiots mouthing off at each other.