The original post: /r/television by /u/phantom_avenger on 2024-05-12 01:38:44.
Whether it’s an actual fact or just a feeling you have, where you felt like a certain character wasn’t meant to last for a certain amount of episodes or were only supposed to be in one season. But their popularity influenced the showrunners to let them stick around a lot longer than they intended.
One example of this for me is Ruby from Sex Education!
In the last season, so many characters from the other seasons (which include Rahim, Lily, Ola, Steve, etc.) were dropped from appearing due to moving to a different setting for the school they attended and saw it as an opportunity to introduce new characters.
I can’t help but feel like Ruby was meant to be included as the characters they meant to drop, but because of how popular and viral Mimi Keene’s (Ruby) chemistry was with Asa Butterfield (Otis) that it created a massive social media shipping war and how impressed the audiences were with how they wrote her character in S3 where she was given more depth.
They decided to keep her around and turn what was meant to be an on-going “will they, won’t they” story between Otis and Maeve into a love triangle arc involving Ruby which also included the “will they, won’t they” trope!