RIP. I hope this doesn't mean we have to kill off Justice Quincy.
2018 Presidential Election
- Thread starter Marky Bunny
- Start date
Well, all the active actors except poor Jake Lloyd and the various residents of the Vader suit who were dubbed over by Jones (most notably the late David Prowse).
He was a talented actor and he did a great job in bringing Joe Quincy to life.
Speaking of which, the writing staff are discussing what will happen with the character of Joe Quincy with this sad development.
I haven't read all the threads yet but have been scanning. Don't the characters always die when the actors do??
That isn't always the case, explain how Martin Sheen, is still alive, when Jed Bartlet who he played is dead?
Not always. There is precedent for not killing off a character ITTL when the character who plays him dies IOTL. James Rebhorn played the senator from Alabama, Alan Garland. They didn't kill him off when James Rebhorn died in 2014. I actually messaged Mark when James Rebhorn died and asked if they were going to kill off Alan Garland or recast him, and he said no. They left things as is. Alan Garland was reelected in 2016 and retired last year.
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If Matthew Perry played a Senator or a Congressman, the ramifications would be a lot less. They could kill off the character and there would be a special election. In this case, though, Seaborn would get to replace another conservative Supreme Court justice with a liberal justice. That would be another bruising confirmation battle barely a month after Ronald Lin was confirmed. I think that is a little much.
To everyone speculating don't forget your main writing team are split across the UK and the US, the news broke here in the UK around 12.30 am this morning, so we are working on it.
Because we're talking about characters dying when the actor dies. Not the other way around
The guy that played Anakin Skywalker in the prequel Star Wars movies.
So how come Justice Quincy hasn't died yet? Matthew Perry has died and Quincy was played by Perry in the West Wing and Quincy is physically portrayed by Perry; and Bad 'Wolf as you stated "we're talking about characters dying when the actor dies", just borrowing your quote 😉
If you read further up on this page, Lord Caedus and Mark have explained.
A: Because characters don't always die when the actor does though mostly they do.
B: It's been not quite two days since Perry died in tragic circumstances and the writing team - who it should be noted are working across two continents and multiple time zones - have had the decency not to respond to the death of a beloved actor and fellow human being by immediately eliminating the character he played from their fanfiction within ten minutes of his death.
Lassister and Walken both had opportunities to place several conservatives on the Supreme Court. Now that Seaborn is in office why should he be denied that opportunity? It also reflects what has recently happened OTL just from the other side of the spectrum.
The writers don't just make things up as they go along. They had decided Alan Duke was going to be the Republican nominee before the midterms in 2020. They had decided on the final election results in the spring of 2022. I'm sure they have a pretty good idea where they have the story going at least through the midterms next year. They just had a major supreme court confirmation battle replacing a conservative justice who died with a liberal one. Killing off another conservative justice who hasn't even been on the Court very long and another big confirmation battle while Ronald Lin's seat is not even warm yet would really throw a wrench into the storyline and would stretch credibility even with the way things happen on here. If this were Hollywood, the writers would be laughed out of the studio. In my example above, they didn't kill off Alabama Senator Alan Garland when James Rebhorn, who played him, died in 2014. The ramifications would have been much less then too. There would have been a special election, not another major Supreme Court confirmation battle that would have implications heading into the midterms and possibly even into the 2026 primaries. Granted, Alan Garland was not a character on the actual show, while Joe Quincy was. But it is also not like they need to use current pictures of Supreme Court justices as they go along. I think I can count on one hand the number of times they had a picture of a sitting Supreme Court Justice on a story. I think there heave been a couple pictures of Mendoza and a couple pictures off all 9 justices with the faces photoshopped. So they can keep Justice Quincy alive.
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I was working on an update and planned to write this afterwards, but apparently I need to do it now rather than see another four or five posts asking or commenting about it.
In our story, Joe Quincy is still alive, even though his actor (Matthew Perry) has just died tragically and unexpectedly.
We generally will try to write out characters whose actors have passed away or retired from acting, but we try to be respectful and considerate of the real people involved as much as we can. There have been and are, characters who we have written as retiring from office, dying or declining to seek re-election solely because their actor has passed away or announced their retirement.
Nonetheless, sometimes, we do keep characters around because of pre-existing plot lines or for our own convenience as writers: Alan Duke, for example, was planned to be around on Election Night 2022 privately enacting the famous Downfall scene as returns came in long before his actor retired from acting in the midst of our GOP primaries because he has a degenerative neurological disease. Similarly, we planned for Duke to get creamed, and the death of William Hurt (who portrayed Jackson Hoyt) also in spring 2022 immediately caused a problem for us; if we had Hoyt die shortly after his actor, we would have had to abruptly jettison our plans and storylines we'd been setting up for months. So we opted to keep the character of Hoyt alive for another year, which also allowed me to leave hints about Hoyt's health until the time of our choosing came to write him out.
We are still discussing exactly what will happen regarding Perry's character, but like how Jackson Hoyt was on the court for a year after Hurt's death or the real-life show had Leo McGarry appear in episodes that aired months after John Spencer passed away, don't be surprised if there's quite a bit of time before we retire another beloved character who we've been lucky to take with us for so long show went off the air.
TL;DR- The writing group is still discussing what we will do with Joe Quincy now that his actor is deceased. If we decide to retire the character, it will be at a time of our choosing, when we deem it both advantageous for the story and in a way we feel is respectful to the memory of real life person who brought the character to life.
In our story, Joe Quincy is still alive, even though his actor (Matthew Perry) has just died tragically and unexpectedly.
We generally will try to write out characters whose actors have passed away or retired from acting, but we try to be respectful and considerate of the real people involved as much as we can. There have been and are, characters who we have written as retiring from office, dying or declining to seek re-election solely because their actor has passed away or announced their retirement.
Nonetheless, sometimes, we do keep characters around because of pre-existing plot lines or for our own convenience as writers: Alan Duke, for example, was planned to be around on Election Night 2022 privately enacting the famous Downfall scene as returns came in long before his actor retired from acting in the midst of our GOP primaries because he has a degenerative neurological disease. Similarly, we planned for Duke to get creamed, and the death of William Hurt (who portrayed Jackson Hoyt) also in spring 2022 immediately caused a problem for us; if we had Hoyt die shortly after his actor, we would have had to abruptly jettison our plans and storylines we'd been setting up for months. So we opted to keep the character of Hoyt alive for another year, which also allowed me to leave hints about Hoyt's health until the time of our choosing came to write him out.
We are still discussing exactly what will happen regarding Perry's character, but like how Jackson Hoyt was on the court for a year after Hurt's death or the real-life show had Leo McGarry appear in episodes that aired months after John Spencer passed away, don't be surprised if there's quite a bit of time before we retire another beloved character who we've been lucky to take with us for so long show went off the air.
TL;DR- The writing group is still discussing what we will do with Joe Quincy now that his actor is deceased. If we decide to retire the character, it will be at a time of our choosing, when we deem it both advantageous for the story and in a way we feel is respectful to the memory of real life person who brought the character to life.
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Don't mean to be the one guy splitting hairs over continuity, but the Libertarian Party is mentioned as a factor in the 2002 presidential election. Sullivan v. Commission on Presidential Debates (s4e3) is mentioned as potentially allowing a host of third-party candidates, including the Libertarians, onto the debate stage.
The article explicitly mentions that the Libertarians nominated a presidential candidate in that time frame (Dirk Madison).
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