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  • 24/05/2025
This bunch of actors knew straight away that their TV show wasn't destined to be a hit.

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TV
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00:00From a set of Disney Channel sensations quickly figuring out that a titular show was a bad move
00:05altogether, to one of the galaxy's most adored bounty hunters also not being a fan of the
00:09direction his character was written to head down, each of these TV actors could sense a bumpy road
00:14ahead from the get-go. The always doomed Gareth here from WhatCulture.com and here are 8 actors
00:20who knew their TV show was doomed on day one. 8. Colin Baker Helped Produce a Doctor Who
00:26charity single pleading for its comeback. While the BBC's iconic Doctor Who series may
00:31currently stand as one of the most cherished and respected small-screen franchises ever to warp
00:35into our lives, the show was definitely on the ropes towards the end of its first run in the late 80s.
00:40In fact, things got so bad when it came to the overall quality of the sci-fi time-traveling
00:45property with Colin Baker at the wheel of the Doctor that the show was put on ice for 18 months
00:50in 1985. On the back of BBC One controller Michael Grade feeling it had just become too violent and
00:55a very clunky studio show. Then, in a move that still needs to be heard to be believed,
01:00the decision was made by British songwriter and Who superfan Ian Levine to assemble a collection
01:05of artists together to record a universally panned charity song by the name of Doctor in Distress
01:10to drum up support for the series edging towards cancellation. Clearly sensing he needed to do
01:16something in a bid to keep his failing Doctor dreams afloat, Baker himself also agreed to appear
01:21in the ill-fated tune, with Hans Zimmer of all people playing the song on a synthesizer.
01:26All of the jarring beats in the world couldn't save Baker from eventually getting the regeneration
01:30treatment after just three years including said lengthy hiatus in the Time Lord saddle though.
01:367. Clayne Crawford's Lethal Weapon Honesty
01:38Being handed the chance to lead a TV adaptation of one of the most cherished action movie series of all
01:44time isn't something most actors would be in too much of a rush to turn down.
01:48And sure enough, when presented with this exact opportunity a couple of years back,
01:52Clayne Crawford was happy enough to sign on the dotted line and commit himself to the role
01:56made famous by Mel Gibson of Martin Riggs in Fox's incoming Lethal Weapon action series
02:01alongside Damon Wayans' Roger Murtill. However, in the time after the dust settled on his eventual
02:06firing from the production, a few years into its run due to alleged misconduct on set,
02:11Crawford was quick to note how he sensed he wasn't in an environment suited to him out of the gates.
02:15As he'd tell UPI in 2020,
02:18I was surrounded by people that didn't care that much about the artistry of it,
02:21and I should have known that going in.
02:23Classing the entire project, one that would come to an end following its subsequent claimless season,
02:28as nothing more than a cookie cutter, and feeling wholly unfulfilled by the experience on the back
02:32of appearing in the critically acclaimed Rectify show, Crawford seemingly knew from the get-go that
02:37chasing the money may not have been the wisest call on this occasion.
02:406. Chris Harris Knew That A Top Gear Reboot Was Doomed From The Start
02:45News of the trio who helped turn the petrol head delight that was the BBC's Top Gear into the
02:50household name it eventually became, not returning to the show on the back of Jeremy Clarkson decking
02:55a producer over some steak, left the series' future in doubt in 2015.
03:00Hellbent on keeping the Top Gear legacy alive despite Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond opting
03:04to take their brand of calamity to Amazon Prime though, the BBC ultimately decided to relaunch the show with
03:10a completely new line-up of hosts. But from day one, one of said new faces in the form of Chris Harris
03:16could sense this particular attempt to keep the Top Gear brand going was doomed from minute one.
03:21As Harris would admit to Metro when talking about how the show managed to eventually strike the right
03:25balance with later attempts at recapturing some genuine chemistry between the hosts,
03:29The first time I did this in 2015-2016, I thought, oh god, what have I done?
03:34Noting how former Radio 1 host Chris Evans, no, not that one in particular, was doomed,
03:39because people were always going to hate it because it wasn't Jeremy, Harris was understandably relieved
03:44to find that the BBC had got the chemistry right upon his eventual first day alongside current co-hosts
03:49Andrew Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness.
03:52Number 5. Tamura Morrison knew he talked too much in the book of Boba Fett
03:55After finally making his live-action return and ultimately getting his mitts back on his iconic
04:00Beskar armor over the course of Disney Plus' The Mandalorian, news of Tamura Morrison getting yet
04:06another opportunity to strut his stuff as the immortal Boba Fett, in his own damn book,
04:10was enough to leave most Star Wars diehards needing a long soak in a bacta tank.
04:14Unfortunately, though, said long-awaited book of Boba Fett didn't exactly deliver on the promise of the badass bounty hunter,
04:21getting a chance to really remind fans why they had clamored for so long to see him given the spin-off treatment
04:26he so richly deserved. And this is a sentiment seemingly shared by the leading man himself from early on in the show's production,
04:32with Morrison eventually going on record to note to E.T. how he wants the character to get back to his badass ways
04:38if he returns later down the road.
04:40In another conversation, this time with NME, Morrison would also express his desire to have Boba remain
04:46as an often silent assassin instead of having him talk too much throughout shooting,
04:50admitting to trying to pass off some of his dialogue to co-star Ming-Na Wen at one point.
04:55As he put it,
04:55This scene tomorrow, I'm talking too much. This bubba doesn't talk this much.
04:59I've got all these paragraphs here. I think we should get rid of it.
05:02And John's gone to Atlanta, so don't tell him.
05:04Next morning on the set, I got a call from Atlanta.
05:07Err, John wants you to say all that dialogue.
05:09And what Favreau says goes, I guess.
05:11Number 4. Charlie Barnett wasn't fully on board with Ordinary Joe.
05:16Cut down after just one season in March of this year,
05:19NBC's Ordinary Joe getting cancelled not long after its first 13 episodes trickled onto the network
05:25didn't actually come as too much of a surprise to one of the show's stars as it goes.
05:30According to Charlie Barnett,
05:32who plays Joe's best friend Eric Payne as the former embarks on three parallel journeys,
05:37on the back of opting for three entirely different routes when faced with a life-altering choice post-graduation,
05:43the actor himself admitted to Digital Spy that he fought against it at first going into it,
05:48due to not being sure that it was obtainable.
05:50Confessing that the story itself gets really, really, really confusing,
05:54the Eric Thespian's fears of his program being a little too difficult to execute,
05:59to the point of roping in a sizable network audience,
06:02ultimately came true later down the road.
06:04With the actor eventually declaring that it was always going to be a challenge
06:07to compete with the likes of Netflix and Hulu with a show this complicated,
06:12and he was not necessarily surprised to see it dead.
06:15Number 3. John Rhys-Davis thought Slider's scripts
06:18were gibberish.
06:18Quite clearly cherishing the world he was occupying at the time,
06:22and sensing the limitless potential housed within the late 90s sci-fi fantasy show
06:27by the name of Sliders on Fox,
06:29it was this love of the concept that left John Rhys-Davis positively seething
06:33for much of his time bringing Professor Maximilian Arturo to life.
06:36As the Gimli icon would explain to Digital Spy in 2016,
06:40the entire scenario wound up being the single biggest missed opportunity of his life,
06:44due to the constant battles he found himself in with the series' writers
06:47during his time as part of the first three seasons of the show.
06:51Branding the scripts often handed to him as incomprehensible gibberish,
06:54Rhys-Davis would go further inventing his frustrations at the writers on set,
06:58stating,
06:59In the end, after Rhys-Davis departed during Season 3,
07:13Fox would ultimately opt to cancel the flailing show
07:15before it was picked up by the sci-fi channel for its final two seasons.
07:19Number 2.
07:19The Jonas Brothers just went along with it,
07:21despite Disney's writing being terrible.
07:24They may form one of the most unstoppable pop trios on the planet,
07:27and have even made some headway in Hollywood in more recent times.
07:30But the Jonas Brothers didn't exactly get off to the best of starts
07:33when it came to their detour into the world of acting.
07:36Nick, Joe, and Kevin have each all gone on record at various points
07:39to admit to sensing how much of a bad idea their first real standalone project,
07:43whilst working under the Disney Channel banner was,
07:45from the second they started to get to grips with the writing being handed over to them.
07:49With the late-naughty show by the name of Jonas, and later Jonas LA,
07:53focusing on the fictionalized version of this heartthrob boy band,
07:56Joe would tell Vulture that some of the weird slapstick humor writing was terrible,
08:00before noting,
08:01We went along with it at the time,
08:03because we thought Disney was our only real shot,
08:05and we were terrified that it could all be taken away from us at any moment.
08:09Again reiterating their regret over agreeing to the whole Disney debacle,
08:13Nick in particular would confess when talking about the show's second season
08:16during their 2019 Chasing Happiness documentary,
08:19We shouldn't have done that.
08:20It really stunted our growth, you know.
08:22I feel like it was just a bad move.
08:24Fair to say the lads have done alright since this early House of Mouse mishap, though, eh?
08:271. Matt LeBlanc knew Joey was doomed from the start
08:31Trying to follow up Agabee, the biggest sitcom ever to grace the world's TV screens,
08:35is a tall order, whatever way you slice it.
08:38Trying to do so just a few months on from its highly emotional finale,
08:41being taken in by over 50 million passionate fans around the globe,
08:45was downright insane.
08:46And sure enough, the ill-advised Friends spin-off that was Joey,
08:50didn't exactly manage to recapture lightning in a bottle,
08:53despite boasting one of the most lovable elements of that NBC game-changer front and center.
08:58But clearly feeling as though the burden of having to carry an entire episode on his back
09:02was a lot of responsibility,
09:04and the pressure was so much,
09:05Matt LeBlanc himself has since confessed to Radio Times.
09:08It was doomed from the start.
09:10In Friends, I was sharing a 22-minute episode with six other characters.
09:14In Joey, the script was all me.
09:16Going further, LeBlanc would also allude to the showrunner,
09:19who had also just finished up on Friends,
09:21and himself likely benefited from taking a year off instead of diving straight into the spin-off.
09:27In the end though, Joey was savaged by the critics,
09:29and didn't live past its second season before being canned.
09:32LeBlanc would also take a much-needed five-year break from the acting world,
09:36not long after Joey's cancellation.
09:38Before rocking up in BBC Two and Showtime's episodes,
09:41and eventually winning a Golden Globe in 2011,
09:44for playing a fictionalized version of himself.
09:46How's he doing? He's doing alright.
09:48And that's our list of any other actors who knew their TV show was doomed on day one.
09:53Then let us know all about them in the comments section right down below,
09:56and do not forget to like, share, and click on that subscribe button while you're at it.
10:00Also, if this kind of thing is your bag,
10:01then head on over to whatculture.com and find some more awesome articles,
10:05just like the one this video you're watching right this second is based on.
10:08I have been Gareth from whatculture.com.
10:10Thank you very much for watching this video today.
10:12I hope to see your faces very, very soon,
10:14but in the meantime, be very good to yourselves.
10:17Bye-bye!

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