Name a great TV Series that stayed on too long

[Va Lefty]

There was a thread a few days back about shows that ended too soon so list some great ones that, to put it kindly, limped across the finish line.

Cheers-- some really good episodes, but overall I thought they should have ended 2 or 3 years before they did.

MASH-- See Cheers

Hill Street Blues-- downward trend began when
Michael Conrad died.

All in the Family/Archie Bunker's Place-- Loved the first 4-5 years but they should of called it a day when the Stivic's moved.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer-- Should have ended with her death in season 5

[stopbush]

1. Happy Days. Literally jumped the shark.

[MANative]

6. My thought too! nt

[underpants]

16. That was on until 1984

11 seasons. At the end it was the Fonz and the Cunningham's.

[Docreed2003]

25. In fairness, thankfully they stayed on after that episode in 1977

In Feb of 78, Robin Williams would make his first appearance as Mork, catapulting his career!

[ebbie15644]

77. LOL, you beat me to it

[LakeArenal]

2. Beverly Hillbillies. Andy of Mayberry

Matt Dillon
Moving on Up

[jberryhill]

3. The CBS Evening News

Dreadful plot lines.

When I started watching it, they had Vietnam on every night.

Now they have Trump.

They really need better material.

[Va Lefty]

9. OMG!

[genxlib]

11. I hate the expression LOL

But sometimes I actually do.

Well done

[hlthe2b]

4. Not M*A*S*H... I still watch and enjoy every single episode. Ended at just the right time IMO

[mucifer]

52. I think it gets bad when Major Houlijan gets Farrah hair (It's supposed to be the 50s) and

so many episodes are about the weather being too cold or too hot and some product or food they want that they can't get. They reused those two plots sooo many times.

But, yeah overall it was a great show.

[Iggo]

89. Hmm, the hair.

I have the same-ish observation, but it's about the...tidiness.

When the uniforms stop being rumpled and started looking crisp and clean, the show was on its downward trend.

[MLAA]

58. Me too

[gibraltar72]

5. Happy Days.

[lapfog_1]

7. Almost all of the really good ones do this

Friends
That 70s Show
Gilligans Island
MASH
The Avengers (when Diana Rigg left)
Downton Abbey (after about 3 seasons)
Star Trek... pick any of them
Gunsmoke
House

[Mike 03]

12. I agree. The writers, as good as they may be, run out of things to do with the

most popular characters, and they tend to introduce new characters that are not as interesting and new subplots and it ends up in self-cannibalism.

I would say the X-Files and, to a lesser extent, Millennium sort of went sour. Loved both of them, but they substituted plot complications when they'd exhausted their mainline stories.

I even think Twin Peaks, as great as it was, sort of derailed in the latter half of the second season. I think even David Lynch knew he'd run out of runway.

[lapfog_1]

19. Even my favorite TV show of all time

The West Wing... maybe even as early as when "Sam Seaborn" left the show.

Sorkin quit writing the episodes... and it got a little stale.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. The Finale Of STNG Is A Classic!

And ST:TOS only ran 4 years.
Lastly, Gilligan's Island was one season too long at the end of season 1.

[sarge43]

33. ST: TOS ran three years.

ST: TNG finale was a perfect hail and fair well.

[ProfessorGAC]

37. Thanks

I stand corrected.

[lapfog_1]

42. They ran out of gags about

almost being rescued about 14 shows in.

Not to mention all of the people that "drop in" on a desert isle.

[Coventina]

48. I still love the "Hamlet" episode, though.

[ProfessorGAC]

61. Spot On!

Including a rock band with electric instruments and a full drum kit.
Go figure!

[Fla Dem]

8. The one that's on now, "Scandal"

It had a great story line, but they keep adding twists and turns so that I really have no idea what the point is anymore.

[rurallib]

10. Big Bang Theory

Most shows have 5 to 6 good years BBT had 8 maybe 9.
They should have quit when the marriages started and they became common middle-class married sitcoms

[Coventina]

14. Not the cause, but when Penny cut her hair, it definitely went downhill. n/t

[Codeine]

62. That went from being a favorite

to completely ignored basically overnight in our house. They just utterly lost their way.

[rurallib]

73. same here

[Laffy Kat]

13. "ER" and it may still be on. nt

[Sanity Claws]

81. I agree

I loved the first couple of years but in its later years it became more of a soap opera.

[Bradshaw3]

15. Seinfeld

Loved it for many years but those last couple of seasons were reptetitive and mediocre at best and that finale was awful.

[Coventina]

17. Heroes and Twin Peaks (the original) should have been a single season or mini-series.

Trying to spin them out indefinitely made both jump the shark very quickly.

[Mike 03]

18. Totally agree about Twin Peaks.

It was a masterpiece until it wasn't.

[hunter]

74. Heroes never regained its footing after the writers strike.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%9308_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike

It always astonishes me how much poorly written crap Hollywood produces. Compared to the expense of everything else required for a major television or movie production, good writing is cheap.

One very positive aspect of streaming television is that it has made the concept of televisions "seasons" obsolete.

The days of three television networks doing battle with one another on fixed time slots are over.

My children can't imagine sitting down to watch some television show, other than a sporting event, at a fixed time.

The Netflix model of television production changed everything.

[Mike 03]

20. Three come to mind

Millennium
Twin Peaks
and (especially) X-Files

As I said above, I loved all three, but they ran their course, as most great TV shows do.

[Coventina]

22. Oh X-Files!!

A thousand times YES!!!

It got unwatchable by season 7 (and I might be being kind with that).

I did like the brief re-launch, though. I found it interesting to revisit the characters and see where they were down the road.

[eppur_se_muova]

21. Northern Exposure after Rob Morrow left.

They only had two good seasons. I know there was a lot of talent invested in that program, very quirky characters with developed backstories, but the exec producers were trying to launch new shows instead of nurturing the one big success they already had.

[dhill926]

27. agree...that show was fantastic...

then, not so much....had to stop watching...

[LisaM]

43. Yeah, they didn't handle that correctly.

In theory, they should have been moving new doctors in every few years, which was the premise the show is based on, doctors exchanging their medical school debt for serving for a few years in a town. In practice, it didn't work out so well for a sitcom.

[Rhiannon12866]

72. I have to agree. That was a great show with terrific quirky characters

But after Rob Morrow left it was like they no longer knew what to do with them. My job at the time was writing descriptions for CBS shows for the newspaper listings and that was a favorite, I always tried promoting the unusual plot lines.

[jimfields33]

23. House of cards.

I loved it but that last season was dreadful and the last scene? Ridiculous

[customerserviceguy]

44. We just got done

binge-watching it from discs borrowed from the library, and yes, that last season was awful.

[Aristus]

24. The West Wing.

The last three seasons, after the departure of creator/head writer Aaron Sorkin, sucked. Watching these beloved characters mouthing dialogue written by hacks unworthy of sharpening Sorkin's pencils was a dismaying experience.

[Alacritous Crier]

26. Sanford and Son

And then they went and made that terrible spinoff.

Those big dummies!!

[enid602]

30. cast

I still watch reruns to see Esther, Grady, Rollo, Bubba. Incredible cast.

[Alacritous Crier]

35. oh yes!

The casting and writing were great. The first four seasons were great but after that it seemed like they were beginning to run out of ideas.

[Archae]

28. The Simpsons

Just been on too damn long.

[Coventina]

40. They stopped hiring good writers around season 9-10ish

There have been a few good episodes since, but they are few and far between.

It's just painful to watch, so I don't anymore.
My husband refuses to throw in the towel, though.

[Mike Nelson]

29. Agree...

with...
Happy Days
Twin Peaks

plus...
The Trump Coronavirus Briefing
The Brady Bunch

[sarge43]

32. Dexter, Homeland n/t

[Codeine]

63. Once Dexter lost the original showrunner

it was just awful.

[Funtatlaguy]

34. The Office. Not good without Steve Carrell.

[Coventina]

36. Once a show becomes about marriage and having babies

(unless that was its original premise) it's over, Johnny.

[Marie Marie]

38. The Apprentice.

Ok - it was never great or even good but it went on waaaaayyyyy too long.

[Disaffected]

65. Shite

from start to finish.

[Submariner]

39. Laverne and Shirley

They gave me the false impression Wisconsin was a blue state, and I wanted to choke Squigy and Lenny.

[mucifer]

53. Wisconsin is half strong blue and half strong red no moderates nt

[33taw]

83. At the time, they were a strong blue state. Of course, we did give the country Joseph McCcarthy.

[hunter]

85. Hollywood gives a very false impression of the U.S.A...

Or damned near any police show.

The cops in my 99.44% white hometown didn't have much to do so they made sport of harassing people who "didn't belong." Mostly that would be people who were not white, but it was also LGBTQ people who refused to stay in their closets, or homeless and mentally ill people as well.

Affluent white "good old boys" could run wild. For them there was no such thing as drunk driving, date rape, spousal abuse...

[LastDemocratInSC]

41. The 5 pm daily White House corona virus show.

[customerserviceguy]

46. Wrong

The OP said to name a great television show. That was never great.

[LisaM]

45. "Newhart".

Wayyyyyyy too much Larry, Darryl, and Darryl.

[forgotmylogin]

47. True Blood

It started out as a sexy and compelling musing about "what if vampires were actually real?" with a psychic main character who felt most comfortable around them since they're the only people whose thoughts weren't broadcast into her head like unwanted music and turned into "Oh, as it turns out, everybody in Louisiana is secretly some kind of supernatural creature..."

[Coventina]

49. I'm currently in season 2 of the show.

I still enjoy it, but I'm starting to get annoyed with the Maryanne storyline.

I mean, come on, NOBODY is suspicious of her but Sam and the detective?

[forgotmylogin]

69. I forget names...is she the Maenad? (possible later season spoilers)

Hope that's not a spoiler, but I remember that was where they seemed to get the "Oh, let's make this show a bestiary of all supernatural creatures!" idea. It is fun and enjoyable most of the way so not trying to deter you.

I enjoyed some of the vampire politics in later seasons and the bat-shit craziness of that. Werewolves were fine, shape-shifters were interesting (though the main character who ends up being one seemed a serious retcon). Werepanthers got to be a little much, especially since the show seemed to suggest they were all the white-trash meth dealers. I gave up once they introduced Fae and the actually interesting vampire lore was seemingly back-burnered. I got tired of learning new rules for each type of creature and you could bet that every new person Jason Stackhouse was banging would - surprise! - have a secret supernatural identity.

Essentially, the show suffered the Cheers fate of "what do you do once your primary will-they/won't-they characters get together and run out of problems to solve?"

[Coventina]

75. yes, she's the Maenad.

I guess my biggest problem at this point with the show is:

Basic premise: vampires have gone public. What does that mean for them and society? Very interesting premise, I agree.

Now, there seems to be shape shifters & Maenads that are immortal for some reason? (They were just female human worshipers of Dionysus according to Classical lit).

I can grasp the premise that vampires kept their existence mostly hidden throughout history, but it does beggar belief that there could be so many different supes, that apparently appear with such frequency, and keep all of them secret. To be realistic, the supes would either have to a) not mix in human societies at all, or extremely rarely or b) be extremely rare.

[forgotmylogin]

92. Exactly.

I thought they did the "hidden society comes out" plotline really well and it made sense that True Blood gave them a reason since they no longer had to prey upon humans, and it made sense that most of them preferred human blood, and that there would be closeted politicians - and I wish they would have kept with that. But I think you nailed it - there's so many hidden "superpowers" that seem to not know about each other that it got a little ludicrous. Why wouldn't Bill (or Eric any of the other Vampires Sookie interacts with at some point) give her the lowdown, "Hey, there are also vampires and shapeshifters and...guess what YOU are!" If not Sookie, than any of the people who were notorious fang-bangers would surely have known. I suppose Bill might have an excuse being somewhat reclusive but you'll see in later seasons he interacts with his entire community when necessary.

The maenad plotline was actually good. If that had been a one-off baddie for that season it would have not stretched the suspension of disbelief. I actually loved the Jessica plotline and I wish they'd done more of that instead of introducing new archetypes.

[Coventina]

96. Agree about the Jessica plotline.

It is really interesting to see how a person would adjust to being undead.

That she comes from an abusive, fundie family makes it especially interesting.

The last episode I watched was her hooking up with Hoyt, another character I've come to really enjoy.

[OriginalGeek]

76. We loved the books and the show

We watched until the end and never had many complaints but it did occasionally irritate me when characters didn't get their comeuppance when I felt they should have.

The show strayed far from the books in many places but that just kept the show interesting for us.

[Coventina]

82. I'm currently reading the first novel.

It's fun.
It comes across more light-hearted than the TV show.
The TV show has a much more serious feel to it.

So far, the book and the show are very similar, except that the TV show delves much further into the characters of Maudette and Dawn. (And Jason's dalliances with them). And Tara and her storyline haven't appeared in the book at all, so far. But I do like her!

The casting is really excellent!

(I'm at the point where Grandma just got murdered & Sookie & Bill just hooked up for the first time & Sam is throwing a temper tantrum about it).

[OriginalGeek]

86. Lighthearted fun is exactly how I read them

My wife pestered me for a while to read them but I resisted because I thought they were just romance novels (she loves those too lol) with vampires but I finally read one and laughed a lot and enjoyed the story so I'd read them as she finished them. We have tried a couple other Charlaine Harris book series but haven't liked any of them as much as The Southern Vampire Series although we didn't mind the Midnight Texas TV show from one of her series (the TV show was terrible but just terrible enough to be kinda good, ya know?)

[Coventina]

87. The Sookie Stackhouse novels are in the Romance section of our local library.

But I agree, they definitely are not like typical romance novels.
(I admit to reading a few, but they rarely hold my interest, because they are sooooooo formulaic.)

[forgotmylogin]

94. The series did a great job of adaptation until it went wonky.

I never was interested in anything vampire but the whole setting and setup made it compelling and I was hooked. And the fact that it was on cable and they pushed it a bit more adult and made it a sexy/bloody supernatural drama/mystery/adventure instead of light romance gave it some major appeal. It's a perfect grownup couple-watch series. I mean...



Oh, and it had one of my all-time favorite theme songs for a series. I never fast forwarded the opening titles!

[Coventina]

97. When I watched the first episode, I would have SWORN that opening song

was Chris Isaak.

Now that I've heard it a bunch of times (like you, I don't fast forward!) I can hear the subtle differences.
But yeah, it's great and fits the series really well!!



I also love that Anna and Stephen are still together. Those Hollywood romances don't seem to last, but theirs apparently did!

[forgotmylogin]

95. Excellent casting: Adina Porter!

I remember her flooring me in her tiny part as Tara's horrifying but oddly sympathetic mom, and then was happy when I recognized her getting bigger roles on American Horror Story.

[Coventina]

98. Yes, she is excellent in True Blood. I'm glad she is getting more work, she clearly deserves it.

I tried American Horror Story, but it was too gory for me.

[forgotmylogin]

93. The series did some good stuff.

I was shocked to read that it was supposed to be Lafayette who bit it at the end of book 1/S1 and I'm glad they kept him around.

[Ferrets are Cool]

56. I agree nt

[Hestia]

99. Have you read the books? Good grief, the series could have ended at either Book 11

or when Claude dies. (I think that is Book 11; if not mea culpa)

"Sookie gets up, works on her tan, makes breakfast, takes a bath, washes her hair, goes to the post office, gets a coke to go at the diner."

That is literally the books. Everything after Book 11 is just is either Charlaine or her publisher whoring. She did move to Dallas, so must be her needing the money.

[First Speaker]

50. X-Files and Night Court...

...the last couple seasons of Night Court, without Reinhold Wigge, were painful to watch...

[MichMan]

51. Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory

[forgotmylogin]

71. Two and a Half Men was interesting

To the point that the actual title of the show didn't make sense anymore when Jake grew up and moved away (and left the show) and then Charlie Sheen flamed out and they were down one-and-a-half men!

I will say they did the most valiant job possible of rebooting the now-misnomered show (plot-wise, at least) with Ashton Kutcher but it should have been a spin-off with a new title in the same house. Same problem though - once AK's initial character motivation was solved (he stopped pining for his wife) it quickly got stupid again... "Let's pretend we're gay and adopt a kid!" what??? If they wanted to go full-on "The Odd Couple" they should have leaned better into that.

I did enjoy all the meta-humor with bringing back Charlie's exes to rag on him. But that was good for an episode.

[dewsgirl]

54. Dexter

[Ferrets are Cool]

55. Supernatural

[Tribalceltic]

57. Bones

Killing Sweets off destroyed it.

[smirkymonkey]

59. South Park

They just seem to be phoning it in lately. Not very funny or clever anymore.

[lkinwi]

60. Little House on the Prairie

[forgotmylogin]

70. I was just going to add that!

Me and one of my college friends used to have fun assembling "do-it-yourself LHotP" episodes with checklists. Pick one: "Does Laura feel guilty about something not her fault? Does Pa Ingalls cry? Is there a new town member who will be forgotten or killed off by the end of the episode? Will a child go blind? B-plot with Oleson family scheme?"

[BusyBeingBest]

84. Once they added that stupid Albert kid (the one who got addicted to opium)

it was time to hang it up. There was no Albert in Little House lore!

[The Magistrate]

64. Married With Children

By the last couple of years it had just got too too....

Great at the start, and a lot of fun for most of its run.

[Yavin4]

67. The.Walking.Dead.

Thread over. I win.

[Iggo]

91. Ayup.

[LoveMyCali]

68. Grey's Anatomy

it's on something like season 104 now.

I agree with the Walking Dead but feel obligated to keep watching because I have so much time invested.

[ebbie15644]

80. I still love this show, the writing this year was really good

[BusyBeingBest]

78. The Office, Parks and Rec.

The Office was over when Steve Carell left. Parks and Rec when the Ann Perkins/Chris Traeger characters were written out--it also became very maudlin, with characters constantly summing up how wonderful and special and amazing they all were: "April, you are an amazing strong independent woman!" Nobody talks about their coworkers that way.

[Sanity Claws]

79. L.A. Law

I loved the show for the first couple of seasons. It handled a lot of social issues as legal issues. But then it lost sight of what the show was about and became about love stories between various characters.

[dameatball]

88. The one where Wile E. finally dismembered and ate the Road Runner ruined that show IMHO.

[IADEMO2004]

90. Outlander HBO Fifth season now is two seasons too long at this house.

My wife was a big fan but cancer took her before second season started. I stayed for the next two but it is so grim and cruel I felt I'd seen enough.