10 Worst Ways TV Characters Were Written Out
1. Livia Soprano - The Sopranos
In the first two seasons of The Sopranos, mob boss Tony’s greatest antagonist wasn’t the cops, or a rival gangster - it was his own mother, Livia Soprano. A biting, bitter, hate filled old woman, she was the only person able to get to the rising mafioso. Their relationship was key to the story and to understanding Tony as a man.
At the start of season three, actress Nancy Marchand sadly passed away. The character continued to be important to Tony’s psyche, but the writers had to figure out a graceful way to move Livia on.
Unfortunately, they did not do this. Instead, they turned to some pretty primitive 2001 CGI to recreate the character, using line readings from previous episodes to allow her to have one final chat with her son. Then, they killed her off.
The inelegance of the CGI job is compounded by the fact that this was so unnecessary. The conversation they splice into the episode achieves nothing but to give the character a tiny bit more screentime. This is a minor blip in a show like The Sopranos, but all the same it was a misstep, and a comical one.