Why Clayne Crawford's Martin Riggs Left Lethal Weapon

Broadcast TV has seen a surge in recent years. As streaming splinters the viewership of the United States even more, the good old broadcast model has been waiting in the wings to deliver some acceptable programming that's bringing more people on-board than ever before. But what makes a broadcast TV winner in the digital age? Is it banking on an old property that everyone loved about 30-40 years ago, or is there more to it than that? For Clayne Crawford, he definitely fell into that second camp, and audiences agreed with him on that point, or at least they did when it came to "Lethal Weapon" on Fox. The actor's disagreements with how the project was formatted played a massive role in his eventual exit from the well-liked TV procedural, and the behind-the-scenes details are fascinating.

First things first, "Lethal Weapon" was a TV series reboot of the popular Mel Gibson and Danny Glover movie franchise. Crawford starred as Martin Riggs alongside a charming Damon Wayans as Roger Murtaugh, and the show ran from 2016-2019. As far as buddy cop action-comedies go on TV, "Lethal Weapon" was a crowd-pleaser that benefitted from its association with the aforementioned films starring those massive actors, and it would've been easy to imagine the series running for much longer if creative differences hadn't doomed it to an early end.

It was season 2 that saw Crawford's Riggs written off the show, at which point Seann William Scott was brought in to replace him as a new character. However, the fans didn't exactly love seeing one of the show's familiar faces depart, which led to a drop-off in ratings. But, maybe more interestingly, there was a core struggle going on behind the scenes on "Lethal Weapon" that sped the series' demise up by at least a couple seasons. Eventually, Crawford would go on to make some of his displeasure public despite his mostly warm departure from the show. Looking back on that period, a split just made sense for both sides. Be that as it may, the concerns that Crawford has voiced in some interviews have made fans lament what could have been if the shake-up in season 3 never happened.

"Creative differences" is one of those glorious showbusiness terms that's just vague enough not to point to one simple fissure point but, rather, a bunch of microfractures that end up resulting in a big break that can't be easily repaired. It feels like a cop-out. Nevertheless, in the case of "Lethal Weapon," it's the absolute reality of what happened with the series. After his departure, Crawford gave an interview to UPI in 2020 where he talked about regretting his decision to join the show, as the star believed that the material could have been more elevated. Unfortunately, that's not how things go for a lot of primetime broadcast TV series.

"I was surrounded by people that didn't care that much about the artistry of it, and I should have known that going in," Crawford explained. He went on to add, "I thought that maybe we could make something that's more cable for Fox. I should've known better, [a show airing] Tuesday night at seven, I was going to get a cookie cutter."

That's a pretty harsh assessment, but the actor isn't completely wrong in that framing (especially when it concerns the "Lethal Weapon" series). A lot of the big weeknight timeslots on networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX all play to that crowd-pleasing middle of the road. That doesn't mean the shows aren't enjoyable; in fact, the current resurgence of broadcast TV series suggests that a lot of people love this mode of storytelling. A broad, mostly surface level buddy cop show just wasn't the right fit for Crawford, and that's okay. Add in some behind-the-scenes strife with Wayans, and the series' creative team made the decision to move on without Crawford entirely. The only problem was audiences disliking the loss of his character, which proved to be too much for "Lethal Weapon" to overcome in the long-run.

Once bringing Crawford back was no longer an option, Scott was inserted into season 3 as Wesley Cole, a new cop on the beat who has to learn his way around Los Angeles with Murtaugh's help. They made for an affable pairing, but the writing was already on the wall. Wayans had enough by the end of the season and basically departed the series as a result, which meant it would've been too much to ask the show to hire yet another replacement actor to keep this zombie of a buddy cop comedy going, and that's a shame. Fans really did like "Lethal Weapon" and the tone was a huge reason why. Nevertheless, replacing one of the main actors ended up being a bridge too far for them. It's a sorry state of affairs and one that happens in Hollywood more than our memories would like to remind us (and it will most likely happen again).

Crawford's initial point about being able to push the boundaries a little bit sounds even more sweet to the ear now, as the more successful shows on broadcast right now (like "Matlock") have found inventive ways to tweak their longstanding formulas, especially in the case of a genre like a police procedural or a comedy. Maybe "Lethal Weapon" was just a bit ahead of its time — a victim of that weird in-between era when everyone thought that streaming was going to be a magic bullet that solved everything and broadcast would be defined by the same rigid structures that had governed it through the late '80s. There's room for everything now, and "Lethal Weapon" stands as an example of how not to handle a solid broadcast performer, especially if you want to keep people coming back for more.