The changing face of Dr Woodard

[pooter]

Ive just reached the end of disc one of DVD collection 4. Woodard has seen Barnabas materialise in front of him. But what happened to the old Dr Woodard? I know that even he was a replacement but I had really got used to his protrayal of the doctor and got frustrated when after months of investigating and finding nothing, he finally met Sarah...but had changed to another actor! Anyone know what happened to Dr Woodard?

[IluvBarnabas]

Robert Gerringer, the Dr. Woodard we had all grown to know and love, was apparently fired for refusing to cross a picket line. Stupid firing him over something like that. 

When Peter Turgeon took over the role, Dave Woodard did something sooooooo stupid that I can't in a million years imagining Gerringer's Woodard would have done: [spoiler]going to Barnabas and telling him he had seen his sister Sarah. With that painfully stupid admission, Dave Woodard (Turgeon) just signed his own death warrant. Hell, he might as well have gone to Eagle Hill and start digging his own grave![/spoiler]

[loril54]

I do wonder if it had turned out differently. If Gerringer would have crossed the lines.

[spoiler]About this time wasn't Barnabas and Julia susposed to get killed. Barnabas to kill Julia and then someone killing Barnabas. I just think Dan did the killing off of the charactor because he didn't want Gerringer to come back. But you must admit that killing made everything very tense[/spoiler]

I do hear that Grayson said that the show must go on. "There's no business like show business...."  an immortal phrase.

[Darren Gross]

I think Woodard's death was planned for awhile. The story was building to it and Turgeon was only in it for a very brief span of time. The change in casting robs the character's death scene of a great deal of emotion. Gerringer was a warm, likable actor, and his interplay with Grayson Hall, believable. His death at Julia's hands would have been powerful, haunting and devastating.

Turgeon is a cold, wooden actor, seemingly much older than Gerringer and it robs Woodard's death of its intended power. it's still strong stuff, but about 15% of what it could have been.

[pooter]

I totally agree that the change of actor took a great deal of the emotional impact of these scenes away. It was a shame because I really liked the fired Dr. Woodard. You are right. His replacement is pretty awful. So his death isnt quite as shocking.

[Lydia]

I think Woodard's death was planned for awhile.

But lots of plans were cancelled, like the destruction of Barnabas and the death of Julia, and with Anthony George declining to stay beyond his basic six months, some interesting uses could have made of Dr. Woodard.  I've also been wondering whom Robert Gerringer might have played in the 1795 storyline, and envisioning an expanded Riggs role - but that's unimaginative; more likely there would have been a completely new character added to the mix.

pooter, I like the title that you gave to this topic.

[MagnusTrask]

I totally agree that the change of actor took a great deal of the emotional impact of these scenes away. It was a shame because I really liked the fired Dr. Woodard. You are right. His replacement is pretty awful. So his death isnt quite as shocking.

Imagine a Gerringer-slaughter.    A pivital moment in American television maybe, but the end of DS for then and always.

[Joeytrom]

[spoiler]If Gerringer was playing Woodard at the time of the characters death, Barnabas may not have been as popular as he became.  It would have been one of the most heartbreaking killings on the show as we known Woodard for about six or seven moths at this point and he was a part of the DS family[/spoiler]

Could Gerringer have played older, middle aged Jeremiah as Barnabas described to Julia if he wasn't fired and remained on the show?
Interesting that in the 1991 DS, Joshua was Woodard's lookalike.

[IluvBarnabas]

One problem with Gerringer playing Jeremiah and that is Barnabas earier on had associated Burke Devlin, not Dave Woodard, as the image of Jeremiah. That bit about Jeremiah being a middle-aged man must have been a slip-up that was not caught in time on the part of the writers.

Hated seeing Gerringer go, but I can't for the life of me picture him as Jeremiah. Especially during Jeremiah's kissy-kissy scenes with Josette.....as Dave Woodard, he was almost like a second father to Kathryn's Maggie....to have seen them as lovers.....something rather a bit too incesterous about that.

[Ben]

The change in casting robs the character's death scene of a great deal of emotion. Gerringer was a warm, likable actor, and his interplay with Grayson Hall, believable. His death at Julia's hands would have been powerful, haunting and devastating.  Turgeon is a cold, wooden actor, seemingly much older than Gerringer and it robs Woodard's death of its intended power. it's still strong stuff, but about 15% of what it could have been.

Yes, well said about the 15 perecent shock value of Woodard's death.  Turgeon's portrayal of Woodard lacked Gerringer's warm and folksy bedside manner.  His confrontation of Barnabas seemed incredibly reckless and naive to the point where I actually felt unsympathetic toward him -- almost as if he deserved his demise for tempting fate (at one point, wasn't he even smirking at Barnabas?).  I'd like to think that Gerringer would have played the same script with more subtlety and without the bravado.  Gerringer projected a dedicated and moral doctor, whereas Turgeon projected a man who took a perverse delight and lack of fear in confronting the supernatural -- something I could not see Gerringer embracing.

To Turgeon's credit, I seem to recall that he rescued both Sharon Smyth and Jonathan Frid when they blanked out on their lines.

Ben

[Nancy]

I believe Turgeon's acting career was mostly in the theater.  I don't know how much TV work he had done prior to his stint on DS.  Maybe the cameras and TV production process intimidated him into being cold and wooden in performance.  Just speculating.  Nancy

Turgeon is a cold, wooden actor, seemingly much older than Gerringer and it robs Woodard's death of its intended power.

[Joeytrom]

Peter Turgeon played an annoying passenger on Airport, who was responsible for the chaos that ensued.  Though a priest punched him in the face and knocked him out in a later scene.

Dan Curtis could have waited a little longer for the strike to end like the producers of all the other soaps did.  They got their audiences back once the strike ended.

[onyx_treasure]

  I loved that scene, Joeytrom.  I thought Turgeon's acting was great in Airport.  He was an obnoxious pain in the ass the entire movie.  Of course, if he was obnoxious in real life than I guess his acting wasn't so great.

[loril54]

I don't think that there was much leway between shows, filmed one week played the next. At that point it was cheaper for him to pay the fines than to have the show go dark. Just my thought.

[michael c]

i agree that dr.woodard's death scene was a major,major moment that was robbed of alot of it's emotional impact due to the change from robert gerringer to another actor.with gerringer the sense of betrayal would have been devastating.

i don't know if it was so much that gerringer was "fired" per se so much as that they had to recast his part when he made the choice not to cross a picket line.since he was probably aware that he was about to be killed-off(and certainly not aware that this thing would live on for decades)at the time it just probably didn't seem worth the trouble and expense to him.

alas.