I have mixed feelings about these creative changes. On one hand I think it's awesome that Kevin and Leah are reuniting to do a sitcom again. However, I did like Erin Hayes. I feel bad she is losing her job. I also think the writers have quite a task at hand successfully removing Donna from the fold and bringing in Leah's character. KCW is a light family sitcom. I don't really see how they will tackle something like the wife leaving. Both death and divorce seem too dark.

I don't understand why they would want to shake things up this much. Like Bay Harbour said, death and divorce seem to be a tad dark for this show. I'm also wondering what is going to become of the kids? I'm sure Kevin/Leah are going to dominate most every episode. They aren't going to be husband and wife, so I see very little things happening at their home which is where most of the kids/Chale scenes happened. This could come back to bite them in the end. To me it doesn't seem worth shaking up an already somewhat successful show just so they can do King of Queens part 2.

I get why they would want to bring Remini in. She's a fun actress and it's hard to deny Kevin and Leah's chemistry from The King of Queens. Her cop character worked well with Kevin.

I think they would have been best off keeping both characters. They could have done something funny like Vanessa was down on her luck and ends up saving Kevin's life in someway. To pay her back Kevin and Donna invite her to live in their basement until she gets back on her feet. I think that could have created a really funny dynamic with Kevin's future son-in-law living above his garage and a woman he doesn't get along with living in his basement. Kevin could go back to work part time as a cop and they could split episodes between family and cop work.

@TheBayHarborButcher said:

I get why they would want to bring Remini in. She's a fun actress and it's hard to deny Kevin and Leah's chemistry from The King of Queens. Her cop character worked well with Kevin.

I think they would have been best off keeping both characters. They could have done something funny like Vanessa was down on her luck and ends up saving Kevin's life in someway. To pay her back Kevin and Donna invite her to live in their basement until she gets back on her feet. I think that could have created a really funny dynamic with Kevin's future son-in-law living above his garage and a woman he doesn't get along with living in his basement. Kevin could go back to work part time as a cop and they could split episodes between family and cop work.

Oh I definitely get it too. I agree, it would have been better to keep both characters. The fact that they unloaded the mom tells me that Leah will become the female lead and the focus of the show will be them on the job which is going to take away from the other characters. Its going to be a totally different show now.

I don't see how they're going to use Remini. She's a cop. Does that mean Kevin is going to be working with her on more cases and they're going to do more of that silly slapstick stuff where he looks like the fool? I don't want the guy to be a cop again. The premise of the show is that he's retired. The only thing they needed to do was ditch a couple of his friends and add a couple of new ones that are more funny. And they could've gave the wife a couple of more friends and then ship those kids off to boarding school and everything would've been fine. The wife was not the problem.

I'll admit I don't think Erin Hayes was the best choice to play Kevin's wife. However, I think killing her off was a strange move. They could have had both her and Vanessa on the show at the same time. It would have added another dynamic to the series.

@TheBayHarborButcher said:

I have mixed feelings about these creative changes. On one hand I think it's awesome that Kevin and Leah are reuniting to do a sitcom again. However, I did like Erin Hayes. I feel bad she is losing her job. I also think the writers have quite a task at hand successfully removing Donna from the fold and bringing in Leah's character. KCW is a light family sitcom. I don't really see how they will tackle something like the wife leaving. Both death and divorce seem too dark.

Had to have been pretty painful for her to hear that her show had been renewed; but she had been let go.

And since the show was renewed, you’d have to think that she, as the co-star, had something to do with that success.

So, unless Hayes has some “personal problem” (that has yet to hit the tabloids), and they brought in Remini (a known entity) to savage the show; jettison Hayes seems like a VERY unwise decision by the showrunners.

Anyway, she has been very gracious in her responses to questions about her bombshell departure. I guess in this business you learn early on to always have a pair of “hip-boots” handy.