The original post: /r/television by /u/bkat004 on 2025-08-17 13:30:27+00:00.
Hate to say it but it is in the minority for a showrunner to have control over the vision of a TV show from start to finish.
A great example of this would be David Chase who stayed on “The Sopranos” from start to finish.
However, more often than not, showrunners do leave TV shows due to many reasons and hand over the reins of the show to someone else.
Armando Iannucci begun “Veep” but soon missed his family life back in the UK and decided to return to his home country after Season 4, handing the show over to David Mandel, who drove the show home from Season 5 to its end. It was such a successful transition, I only learnt about the handover years later.
There’s also “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. There had been TV reboots before, but noneso on the scale for the original Star Trek show. But with Gene Roddenberry’s guidance, the first Season did well. But soon after Roddenberry was shut out by the studio - due to his demanding behaviour. Having said that, surprisingly, the show leapt and excelled after Roddenberry’s departure.
These are two rare examples of a show doing really well after the original showrunner left.
On the other hand, Bryan Fuller begun “American Gods”, then left due to creative differences - leaving the show to scramble with two other showrunners, where the show unfortunately tanked in quality.