latetothehudsonandrexparty

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Hudson and Rex fandom, if you're going to direct your anger for the current situation somewhere, make sure it's aimed at the right people.

I mentioned this before but as there are more and more people who are seeking out Luke Roberts' socials to hate on him and are generally displaying a behavior that I deem completely unnecessary not to mention beyond rude, I feel it deserves its own post. The guy is the absolutely last person at fault here. He took on a role, not having any idea about what was going on. Hell, I don't think there was even a contract offered for S8 when he got the role in S7. No matter what the production was planning at the time, they wouldn't have let him in on it. Why would they? He was just an actor that got hired to fill up a space.

And now, yes, he's the one they deemed suitable to replace John Reardon because he'd already worked, albeit briefly, with the dogs. Again, not knowing what had transpired behind the scenes. For the record, on the only post Luke Roberts has made about Hudson and Rex, there was this exchange in the comments

(directedbypaul is director Paul Kaufman, an established director who has worked with John Reardon in the past.)

From the entire production of Hudson and Rex, Luke Roberts is the only one who was comfortable enough (or not "in the know") to be able to say that he's heard great things about him. Great things from where? Guess. From the same set an "anonymous source" was trying to convince fans a few weeks ago that John Reardon wasn't who he seems to be and that "the entire set knew about it". Well, Luke Roberts has "only heard great things". And he said so eponymously, not hiding behind an anonymous Reddit account.

Anyway, my point is that he's not the problem here. He wasn't the one who took advantage of John Reardon's absence to benefit professionally. That was other people.

Please make sure you can separate the actor from the role, always.

When we're talking about Temu Hudson and Rex, we shouldn't mean either Luke Roberts or Dillon. We are not criticizing their work. In my blog, whenever I talk about Mark Hudson, I mean Mark Hudson, the caricature that the production came up with to be able to continue the Hudson and Rex brand without needing any rebranding. I don't mean Luke Roberts. I mean that this show was very specifically about Charlie and Rex from the start, and while they had to recast the part of Rex due to Diesel's passing, they certainly did not have to make the idiotic decision to get rid of Charlie and John Reardon.

I have once talked about the fact that the production cast someone for the role that is now older than when they cast John Reardon for Charlie. That's not Luke Roberts' fault. That is something the production should have considered when doing the casting. Luke Roberts said yes to a role, he probably had no idea about anything behind the scenes, and some of the things that we now know probably hadn't even happened yet back when he said yes. Either way, saying yes to a role that the production has made it seem like it's available (because of course they wouldn't make it appear any other way) is not a crime.

There are people from the production that deserve our anger. There are people who may have facilitated John Reardon's exit very intentionally (unfortunately, it seems more and more like this is true) and are now parading on social media trying to victimize themselves with cheap PR tactics, toxic positivity and gaslighting. Either way, Luke Roberts wasn't the one working on that show for years. He doesn't know John Reardon personally. He doesn't owe him anything and actors shouldn't be blamed for taking a job without prior knowledge of what has transpired.

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Random thoughts on the "Hudson & Rex Official" FB group

I never liked the fact that the "official" FB fan group was apparently moderated by some people who worked on the show. I know not all the moderators worked on the show but clearly some did and a very high profile person on the show is sometimes in the comments section, which affects the dynamic of the group. Even back in season 6, any fans who posted about how they were disappointed at the lack of Charah scenes or the disappearance of the relationship/personal stories (what ever happened to Karma and Vanessa???), were met with "Stop being a negative!!!" type of comments. And now of course, that the very worst (and ridiculous) thing has happened, no one is allowed to talk about it on there or if you do, you are accused of negativity, meanness, harassment (which I have seen ZERO of, btw) and basically told to shut up and keep watching. And oh my gawd, if I see another "it's just a cliff hanger" comment! 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

Anyway, I have left that group for all of the above reasons. You know what's more harmful than "negativity"? Toxic positivity. That's what.

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🤣😂🤣

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TEAM JOHN! 💓

This is actually the exact date when John Reardon and Diesel were in the same festival in Monte Carlo in 2019.

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😂

I just want to say that I liked the Temu Hudson and Rex joke and I'm going to use it any chance I get. Kudos to the fan who thought about it, there have been quite a few references to it already so I don't know who started it.

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Aww, you could just see how much these two guys loved each other. 🥰💓

When John Reardon posted his audition tapes a few months back, I went back and found this again. Unfortunately, I don't remember the source. He also showed it in Diesel's birthday video in 2024 from his phone or tablet. It's from back when they were getting to know each other.

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The audience has made it clear to production what we want. Production is choosing to ignore us and they think that we’ll watch anyway. Their marketing strategy seems to be “We know you don’t like this but we worked really hard so shut up and eat it!”  Except that’s not the way it works. No one *has* to watch any show. And a production company ignoring and disrespecting the fans is a sure way to make sure that we tune out.

I think they are hoping that if they ignore our pleas to bring John Reardon back, we will just “chill out” and move on. Except they think “moving on” means accepting their new zombie-version of Hudson & Rex. They’re wrong. Yes, if they don’t do the right thing and bring John Reardon back, then yeah, of course we will eventually move on. But moving on only means that we will accept Season 7, episode 2 (Room with a Clue) as the series finale. I’ll “move on” with the memory of Charlie, Sarah and Rex happy together in their new home (pictured above). Like I have done with romantic breakups in the past, I will have a “no contact” rule: I’ll stop following the show’s socials, I’ll turn my head and look away from any billboard (I live in Toronto so I am cringing in anticipation of seeing the new not-my Hudson plastered everywhere) and most importantly, I won’t watch season 8. Not without John. Not without the real Hudson.

Sherri Davis said in her social media posts that “change is difficult”. Well, yeah. But changing the channel? That’s pretty damn easy.

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One of the (many) things that bugs me, is how they’re pretending as if it’s business as usual and as if nothing has changed, as of they aren’t just replacing their titular character after seven year, as if he meant nothing… as if we didn’t spend six seasons watching Charlie & Rex’s partnership… as if charah never happened (at least that’s how I presume it will be, based on how they’re clearly trying to remove any traces of Charlie and rewrite the history of the show as a whole) I mean normally when things like this happens on TV shows, there’s articles and real announcements (not just an edited note), not what the fuck they’ve been doing… it’s just very bad and unprofessional how they’ve handled this all around

The production definitely seem to believe that not mentioning anything about anything and basically softly rebooting the show is the right course of action. I wonder what the other actors think about this. I mean, sure, they have a job to do and I imagine contracts to honor, but this has been their work for years now and the show is suddenly pretending it doesn't exist. If I was an actor on that set, whether I was able to express it or not, I'd be furious. This is not a "creative" decision. It's like taking a sledgehammer to the foundation of the show, while actively showing every single actor how much their work all these years actually matters to the production.

And yeah, usually most actors would take a look at their bank account and calm down but it still sucks to have your character retconned like that.

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Kinda pissed off that I was duped into watching those last six episodes of season 7 (which were pretty tedious without Charlie tbh) because I thought they were bringing John back. Oh, and I am never going to forgive them for that last scene in the S7 finale: making us think for a moment that it was Charlie on the beach. 😡

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The Hudson & Rex on Citytv FB account are also obviously hiding any comments that support and mention John by name so they are literally erasing him. ☹️

Sherri Davis trying (and failing) to do damage control in social media comments was not on my Bingo card.

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A little perspective on the Canadian media from a Canadian...(re: Hudson & Rex)

The production team dumping the lead of their hit show after he successfully battled cancer is the kind of story that you would THINK the media would pick up on, right? Especially since there is a huge outpouring of rage from fans on social media. Yet, the media either hasn't noticed this or has chosen not to report on it.

Sadly, I am not surprised. In the past 5-10 years, Canadian journalism has been dying. Particularly, Canadian entertainment journalism. We used to have lots of great movie and television critics. Every Canadian newspaper employed their own. But this is no more: most Canadian papers now only include entertainment supplements from American papers (such as the New York Times supplement in the Toronto Star and I believe the Toronto Sun has a Washington Post supplement for their movie reviews, etc..). So, Canadian movies and television shows (as well as Canadian books and music) are rarely reported on. Even on our news programs, the entertainment features are almost always about US shows and movies.

Also, the Canadian entertainment industry is super small. No one wants to step on any toes or piss the wrong person off. Rogers owns CityTV and they also own much of the media in Canada. So yeah, I will be VERY surprised if any journalist is brave enough to take this on, let alone any news outlet brave enough to publish/broadcast this story.

If Hudson & Rex was an American show, this would be all over the news.

Because what they did to John? What they did to the fans? It's truly f*&king awful.

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Sherri's comments and her post, all dripping with toxic-positivity btw, change nothing: the fact is John Reardon had to take a sick leave during season 7 because he got cancer. While he was fighting for his life, they replaced him with this Luke guy. That's also a fact. John survived cancer and is now healthy. They didn't bring him back . Now they are acting like he - and by extension his character Charlie Hudson- never existed. Fact, fact, fact.

No, nothing has changed for me. I will still speak out and hell no, I will not watch season 8 (unless by some miracle they do the right thing and bring John Reardon back).

#HudsonandRex #justiceforjohnreardon #JohnReardon #BringJohnReardonBack

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Here, fandom, I made you a present. Feel free to post wherever.

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Seeing Sherri post about "NEW Partners" on her FB just broke my heart. I'm sorry but that's not cool. John is not some object to be replaced. He was/is just as important to the show as Rex.

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How I thought Hudson & Rex would end...

I knew it would have to end someday but I never thought it would be like this.

Instead, I imagined Sarah and Charlie getting married. Rex would be their ring bearer of course. There would be plenty of pre-wedding hijinks courtesy of Jesse and perhaps Charlie would even get a touch of cold feet and need to be talked some sense into by Joe - who would end up being Charlie's best man. Our happy couple move to the country with Rex (Charlie hinting in past episodes of how he has grown to like the country) where Rex tends sheep (Rex loves sheep as we know) and Sarah works from home as a behavioral therapist. Jesse and Joe stay on at the SJPD and perhaps even star in their own spinoff.

That's how I envisioned it, anyway. How about you?

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Dear Shaftesbury:

Hiding and/or deleting fan's supportive comments of John Reardon is NOT damage control. Sweeping our anger under the rug isn't going to make us less angry. You betrayed your lead in his time of need and you have betrayed the fans of this once-great show. You can't expect us to tune in after this. Disloyalty does not beget loyalty.

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Very well said! I agree! Also they could have had a beautiful season premiere with a heart-tugging reunion between Charlie & Rex (because you know their reunion would have been first) and then Charlie and Sarah (and later with Charlie & Joe & Jesse). It would have been heartfelt and lovely. The fandom would have rejoiced. But instead they are going with something that is going to alienate their audience and undoubtedly sink the show. So sad.

Another thing that annoys me about this situation is the wasted potential. What wasted potential, one might ask, the show is on its eighth season.

For once, they did something that could have major repercussions. Charlie could come back with actual trauma (and injury). For once, the writers would have to write something other than the usual Charlie and Rex crime solving or Charlie and Sarah fluff, which is good and all but at some point writers should strive to write something else.

Just imagine it. They way they set it up, Charlie was away from St. John's and the people he loves for months. And no matter how that happened (either he was willingly away for reasons or he was held against his will), that can fuck with a person. And then we also have the shooting which can also cause trauma.

You want that to include the rest of the characters? Well, Rex would help with Charlie's trauma, or PTSD symptoms. Sarah would be there when he had nightmares. For once we could see Jesse help Charlie by sharing his own experience when he'd gotten shot in S5. Joe would be the stoic presence in his life and a person to talk to when everyone else's care became overbearing. We would see how cases would impact him in a different way now. All this would be something new for the show.

And the marketing. John Reardon came back from a fighting cancer. It would be a real life story paralleling Charlie's survival.

And instead of going with that plot, what does the production choose? The absolute lamest option. No survival, no grief either, they bypassed that in thirty seconds. Bring a new guy, do the same stuff, and bet the house on the assumption that people haven't gotten tired of seeing dog stunts after seven years.