 SPOILER: In the original Riverworld novels, the hero was Sir Richard  Burton, the Victorian adventurer. The producers felt that this would  be confusing for American audiences (due to name similarity with  actor Richard Burton (I) (qv)) and that an historical British  character wouldnt elicit sufficient audience identification in the  United States. Burton was replaced as the hero with an entirely new  character, Jeff Hale, an American astronaut.