Bletcher Written Out Of Mm Because Of A

[Guest Second Coming]

I saw this on the trivia at IMDB. com:

Reportedly, the character of Lt. Bob Bletcher was written out of the series (in the episodes "Lamentation" and "Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions") because of an on-set feud between Bill Smitrovich and Lance Henriksen.

I had never heard that before. I wonder if the feud happened on the making of Sacrament.(I watched this episode last night) Blecther seemed really really ticked at Frank in that episode and I wonder if Bill Smitrovich used real life experience with Lance as motivation. And Sacrament was two episodes before his character is written out.

[Guest Frank Black]

Yeah i saw the same thing some months ago. Sad if you thing about it, i thought they where great on the show together. That episode where bletch dies is sad :(

[Guest LeHah]

My understanding is that Lance and Bill had complete professional respect for each other - but they didn't get along behind-the-scenes for reasons never revealed. I had read an interview with Smitrovich years ago - and his intonation was mostly that he respected Hendrickson as an actor and had no beef with him - but he wouldn't invite him over for a beer either.

[Guest exangel]

LeHah, if you can forgive my anal retentiveness.

It's Henriksen.

And this kind of sh*t happens all the time between actors.

Some take it better than others.

And unfortunately that occasionally dictates the outcome of a series.

This is why the most popular syndicated series (plural) in Japan are animated. None of that actorsquabbling bullmanure.

[Beerbelch]

BEER---> It's getting darker in here!

BELCH

[The Old Man]

A post has been removed from this topic.

[Guest Seraphim]

Ahh... Wonderful Japan and anime....

[Guest NUTSHELL]

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/rex-sikes/2011/04/20/rex-sikes-movie-beat-chats-with-actor-bill-smitrovich

At the 1142 Bill Smitrovich talks about Millennium….forget the whole feud rumor, Henriksen, from what I've seen and read is a true gentleman and down to earth individual.

[Libby]

Welcome, Nutshell. Good to have you aboard.

That's a very interesting interview - thanks for posting the link.

I had read somewhere that the issue was that both Lance and Bill have strong personalities, and that didn't work too well on set. But from listening to that interview, it seems that Bill had issues about the show itself, that there was too much blood'n'gore. Certainly I do recall reading that even some of the set people had difficulty coping with the crime scene settings. It does seem from that interview that Bill didn't like that aspect, that he thought it was too much sensationalism and not enough humanity. I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but if Bill wanted out of the show because he didn't like the tone of the show as it developed, then kudos to him - it's not an industry where resigning from a show is an easy thing to do. But that doesn't seem to have harmed his career at all.

I've just looked him up on imdb, and it's interesting that he gained a Masters Degree and was an acting teacher at the University of Massachusetts before he went into acting.

[Beerbelch]

BEER----> Funny thing Bill mentions in this interview. He was talking about his present character as Vice-president and hoped he could keep the role or move up while acting in "The Event', which has been cancelled. He now plays the President of the US on the new TV show 'Intelligence'.

BELCH