10 Actors Who Left Hit TV Shows And Then Came Back
1. Patrick Duffy (Dallas)
Never before or since has a television show so brazenly ridiculed its fans for paying attention.
Patrick Duffy spent several seasons leading the show as Bobby Ewing, Duffy was looking to pursue other opportunities. His decision to depart did not sit well with the writers of the show, leading to them opting to mercilessly kill his character. After breaking up his marriage to Pam, Katherine is distraught when she doesn't choose her over another woman, Jenna, and she viciously runs him over with her car.
But a year later, Duffy decided he wanted to return to the show. Faced with the issue of how to bring back their formerly-very-dead protagonist, the writers settled on one of the most infamous shortcuts in television history. After airing an entire season of the show, developing a story set in the aftermath of Bobby's death, the 1986 season began with a sequence in which Pam discovers Bobby in the shower and he tells her;
"It was all a dream."
Everything the show had been building to for the past year was suddenly chucked out the window, all in the name of Duffy's return.