Why are there are only five bandmates instead of six in Daisy Jones & The Six?

The first three episodes of Amazon's Daisy Jones & The Six were released on Friday, March 3, 2023. 

Fans devoured the first three episodes of the 10-part series and loved seeing the best-selling book come to life on screen. However, there was one question that bugged a lot of viewers who were familiar with the book.

In Daisy Jones & The Six, the band originally begins without Daisy Jones, just as 'The Six'. In the TV series, this comes about because they are sitting in a diner and trying to come up with an alternative name to The Dunne Brothers (the original band name). 

While they are brainstorming, Karen suggests that they call themselves 'The Six'. Although there are five members of the band, there are six of them sitting around the table (including Camilla, Billy's girlfriend who is almost an honorary member) and after Billy says something about the six of them never being able to agree on a name, Karen suggests 'The Six'.

They then joke that they couldn't be 'The Five' because of the Jackson Five, and The Dave Clark Five, and they decide that it's fun that they are The Six, even though there are only five members of the band. However, that is not exactly how the story went in the book. In the book, there was in fact a sixth member of the band... 

In the novel Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, there is a sixth member of the band called Pete Loving. In the book, Peter plays the bass and is the brother of Eddie Loving. In the book, Eddie Rountree is a combination of these two characters and takes the most important parts of the two characters.

In the book, Pete isn't a major character, and he eventually decides to leave the band after the tour is over so that he can start a family with his girlfriend Jenny. Pete is the one who originally bought Eddie into the band after their other bandmate is drafted and dies at war (another change made in the book as their former bandmate pursues dentistry at college instead of going to war).

Fans of the book didn't love that Pete was written out of the show, and some took to social media to complain.

"Am i the only one that feels it's weird they completely took pete out of the daisy jones and the six show? like i get it might be symbolic because Camila is like the last member but pete was so wholesome in the book???" said one frustrated fan.

"IM SO MAD SO ISNT IT DAISY JONES AND THE FIVE NOT DAISY JONES AND THE SIX?????? IT MAKES NO SENSE WHY WOULD THEY COMBINE PETE AND EDDIE????? IM SO UPSET," said another.

"I’m so pissed about the Pete erasure in the daisy jones and the six series," said yet another.

Speaking about why Pete was written out of the TV series, Showrunner and writer Scott Neustadte told TIME magazine that it was a difficult but necessary decision.

"When you adapt things for television, changes inevitably happen,” Neustadter tells TIME. “But this one didn’t stress us out too much. The Pete character serves a function in the novel, but he doesn’t have much to say, he’s not the most dramatic. We knew if we were going to cast Pete, the actor might want more to do. It felt like eliminating Pete enabled us to do more with the characters that we had in the ensemble, which was already a pretty big group of people. And I hope everyone, especially the Pete stans, forgive us after they watch the show."