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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE
Mar 31, 2010


VaultAggie posted:

Why did Under the Dome last longer than one commercial break?

Its dead now but the only thing more insane than the story is the ratings the show got while it was still kicking.

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JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

pentyne posted:

Earth: Final Conflict: gently caress this, milk the Roddenberry name as hard as we can.

Andromeda: Another Roddenberry IP? Rape it into the ground. Oh, Sorbo want's to direct? Let him, no one gives a gently caress. Slash the budget for season 5 and set it all on a dusty western planet.

I think both of those shows had legitimately really good first seasons, but after that they had a massive decline.

Lois and Clark probably should have ended either when Lois discovers Superman's secret identity, she accepts his proposal or with the wedding. The series kept dragging out the wedding, throwing in clones, Lex Luthor and past lives, etc and I think it really derailed the sort of charm the series had up to that point.

mclast
Nov 12, 2008

catchphrase over

Tiggum posted:

It's only had one season though?

Gotham is really good if you only watch Penguin and Fish, but that's a lot to ask an audience.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


mclast posted:

Gotham is really good if you only watch Penguin and Fish, but that's a lot to ask an audience.
FTFY.

Also, even if it was bad to begin with, it still wouldn't be relevant to this thread since it's about shows that started good but went on too long.

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.
Not cancelled yet but The Simpsons. Dear god, The Simpsons.

JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!
MTV's Real World probably should have maybe been cancelled after the second or third season. After season 2, I know I just stopped caring about the show entirely. I don't know exactly what changed, but it seems like it felt more scripted after that. I think I heard someone say some of the original showrunners left after Season 3, so maybe that's a reason.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

JediTalentAgent posted:

I think both of those shows had legitimately really good first seasons, but after that they had a massive decline.

Lois and Clark probably should have ended either when Lois discovers Superman's secret identity, she accepts his proposal or with the wedding. The series kept dragging out the wedding, throwing in clones, Lex Luthor and past lives, etc and I think it really derailed the sort of charm the series had up to that point.

Lois and Clark was weird, because it struggled for the first season (back then less then 10 million viewers was cancel territory) but the third season it was a massive ratings hit, then in season 4 it was cancelled despite not slipping that much. It seems more likely someone high up at ABC was just looking for an excuse to axe it.

BSam
Nov 24, 2012

Firefly.

JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

pentyne posted:

Lois and Clark was weird, because it struggled for the first season (back then less then 10 million viewers was cancel territory) but the third season it was a massive ratings hit, then in season 4 it was cancelled despite not slipping that much. It seems more likely someone high up at ABC was just looking for an excuse to axe it.

This was a rumor for a while back in the 90s. Someone claimed there was an atmosphere of unhappiness with the show at ABC because some execs felt it was too long and too expensive, and they'd rather have a few cheap sitcoms. Didn't ABC eventually pit it against 60 Minutes at one point?

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

JediTalentAgent posted:

This was a rumor for a while back in the 90s. Someone claimed there was an atmosphere of unhappiness with the show at ABC because some execs felt it was too long and too expensive, and they'd rather have a few cheap sitcoms. Didn't ABC eventually pit it against 60 Minutes at one point?

quote:

During the fourth season, ABC had announced a fifth season of the show; its producers and writers were unprepared when ABC later decided that no new episodes would be produced. The series had weakened in its Sunday 8:00 pm timeslot and had been shifted to 7:00 pm in January, and was moved to Saturdays in the spring.[11] The ratings dropped even further, and the show finished its last season at 104th place. It was removed from the schedule in May 1997.[11] ABC made up for its commitment to Warner Bros. by ordering thirteen episodes of a Debra Messing drama called Prey. In November 2013 fans named Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain as the best Lois and Clark combination ever covering both TV and Superman films.[citation needed]

Quickest way to kill a show? Toss it around on the network so no one can find it.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


JediTalentAgent posted:

I think both of those shows had legitimately really good first seasons, but after that they had a massive decline.


Earth Final Conflict was weird because it seems like they were constantly completely retooling it everything every season.

letthereberock
Sep 4, 2004

Weeds will for me always be the prime example of the show that stayed on way past it's welcome. You had the first two fantastic seasons, then a third season where the wheels started to come off and the tone was all over the place, but still mostly solid. Then the third season finale provides the perfect place the end the show; as logical and satisfying a conclusion as could have been imagined..... and then it keeps going for FIVE more tortuous seasons, each one somehow worse than the one before.

And through it all you have the same thing over and over: Nancy makes horrible decision - the brunt of the consequences fall on other people - Nancy gets bailed out by dumb luck and/or the fact that every man on the planet finds her irresistible - Nancy learns nothing - lather/rinse/repeat.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any television other than Weeds seasons 4-8 where the creator/writers are less aware of what a horrible person their protagonist is. Like - it's one thing if a show makes the protagonist awful on purpose. I think it would have been fine if it was like "Weeds is about the terrible woman who constantly makes terrible decisions and needlessly provokes dangerous people which is constantly causing pain and suffering to the people around her until she is saved by dumb luck." But in watching the late seasons of Weeds, I was always getting the sense that from the creators prospective, it was more like "Weeds is about an awesome, sexy, powerful woman who has dangerous, sexy adventures with dangerous, sexy men and if that results in the suffering/injury/death of the various meat-puppets around her then oh well that's just collateral damage in Nancy's quest to be awesome."

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Heroes.

Kill it off after Season 1, and you have a satisfying mini-series with a pretty cool cliffhanger.

As it was, it became progressively dumber until it was unbearable to watch.

No Butt Stuff
Jun 10, 2004

letthereberock posted:

Weeds will for me always be the prime example of the show that stayed on way past it's welcome. You had the first two fantastic seasons, then a third season where the wheels started to come off and the tone was all over the place, but still mostly solid. Then the third season finale provides the perfect place the end the show; as logical and satisfying a conclusion as could have been imagined..... and then it keeps going for FIVE more tortuous seasons, each one somehow worse than the one before.

And through it all you have the same thing over and over: Nancy makes horrible decision - the brunt of the consequences fall on other people - Nancy gets bailed out by dumb luck and/or the fact that every man on the planet finds her irresistible - Nancy learns nothing - lather/rinse/repeat.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any television other than Weeds seasons 4-8 where the creator/writers are less aware of what a horrible person their protagonist is. Like - it's one thing if a show makes the protagonist awful on purpose. I think it would have been fine if it was like "Weeds is about the terrible woman who constantly makes terrible decisions and needlessly provokes dangerous people which is constantly causing pain and suffering to the people around her until she is saved by dumb luck." But in watching the late seasons of Weeds, I was always getting the sense that from the creators prospective, it was more like "Weeds is about an awesome, sexy, powerful woman who has dangerous, sexy adventures with dangerous, sexy men and if that results in the suffering/injury/death of the various meat-puppets around her then oh well that's just collateral damage in Nancy's quest to be awesome."

That's because people let Jenji Kohan do whatever she wanted and no one had the stones to tell her it wasn't about an empowered woman, so much as about a real piece of poo poo.

Shadow
Jun 25, 2002

letthereberock posted:

Weeds will for me always be the prime example of the show that stayed on way past it's welcome. You had the first two fantastic seasons, then a third season where the wheels started to come off and the tone was all over the place, but still mostly solid. Then the third season finale provides the perfect place the end the show; as logical and satisfying a conclusion as could have been imagined..... and then it keeps going for FIVE more tortuous seasons, each one somehow worse than the one before.

And through it all you have the same thing over and over: Nancy makes horrible decision - the brunt of the consequences fall on other people - Nancy gets bailed out by dumb luck and/or the fact that every man on the planet finds her irresistible - Nancy learns nothing - lather/rinse/repeat.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any television other than Weeds seasons 4-8 where the creator/writers are less aware of what a horrible person their protagonist is. Like - it's one thing if a show makes the protagonist awful on purpose. I think it would have been fine if it was like "Weeds is about the terrible woman who constantly makes terrible decisions and needlessly provokes dangerous people which is constantly causing pain and suffering to the people around her until she is saved by dumb luck." But in watching the late seasons of Weeds, I was always getting the sense that from the creators prospective, it was more like "Weeds is about an awesome, sexy, powerful woman who has dangerous, sexy adventures with dangerous, sexy men and if that results in the suffering/injury/death of the various meat-puppets around her then oh well that's just collateral damage in Nancy's quest to be awesome."

Nip Tuck in the exact same way.


JediTalentAgent posted:

I think both of those shows had legitimately really good first seasons, but after that they had a massive decline.

Lois and Clark probably should have ended either when Lois discovers Superman's secret identity, she accepts his proposal or with the wedding. The series kept dragging out the wedding, throwing in clones, Lex Luthor and past lives, etc and I think it really derailed the sort of charm the series had up to that point.

Didn't they have some episode where people from the future came back in time and called Lois the dumbest woman on planet Earth? Someone that close to Clark & Superman yet couldn't tell that they were the same person? I found that funny.


Pedro De Heredia posted:

I don't think Boardwalk Empire should have been cancelled at all (and it was not trying to be the new Sopranos in any way, shape, or form) but I rewatched it recently and all the momentum in the show just dies after the third season finale.

Yikes, can't agree with this. Plus the last season might have been my favorite.

Pedro De Heredia posted:

Then Vincent D'Onofrio left and it was the shittiest, lamest main character departure I can remember, no one involved in that episode seemed to even give a poo poo. By this point D'Onofrio looked like a fat hobo. Show continued for an awful, miserable season with Jeff Goldblum as the main character. Really they should have just cancelled it. I think I stopped watching here.

I stopped watching CI after a while but it seemed like his character (D'Onofrio) was slowly going through a meltdown and the actor himself seemed to physically support such a storyline. What was the deal with that? Did the actor also have some serious poo poo going on? That or he takes method acting to a whole new level.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
seaQuest DSV should have ended after the first season, rather than suffer the fate of being butchered by NBC executives who wanted to play at being television producers. The last scene of the first season finale would even have made for a decent series ending, even if the episode's plot was total dogshit.


"Well... we're gonna have to build another boat..."

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


Shadow posted:

I stopped watching CI after a while but it seemed like his character (D'Onofrio) was slowly going through a meltdown and the actor himself seemed to physically support such a storyline. What was the deal with that? Did the actor also have some serious poo poo going on? That or he takes method acting to a whole new level.

He had health problems which was why they did the split character thing in the first place. Then he gained a bunch of weight for a movie part that ended up not happening. BUT D'Onofrio is also known for his extreme method acting, for example in Men in Black he wore braces on his legs in order to make walking more awkward.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Alter Ego posted:

Heroes.

Kill it off after Season 1, and you have a satisfying mini-series with a pretty cool cliffhanger.

As it was, it became progressively dumber until it was unbearable to watch.
It was really dumb right from the beginning. I watched the whole thing because I kept hoping it would get better, but the only thing it ever had going for it was Zachary Quinto and Masi Oka. If they'd been played by actors on the same level as the rest of the cast, it would have been much more obvious how terrible it was.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005

Tiggum posted:

It was really dumb right from the beginning. I watched the whole thing because I kept hoping it would get better, but the only thing it ever had going for it was Zachary Quinto and Masi Oka. If they'd been played by actors on the same level as the rest of the cast, it would have been much more obvious how terrible it was.

I dunno. I felt like Parkman was really the only unbearably bad character. Even Hayden Panettiere was passable.

Shadow
Jun 25, 2002

muscles like this? posted:

He had health problems which was why they did the split character thing in the first place. Then he gained a bunch of weight for a movie part that ended up not happening. BUT D'Onofrio is also known for his extreme method acting, for example in Men in Black he wore braces on his legs in order to make walking more awkward.

His very strange delivery in CI was intoxicating. He had that Columbo feel to him where he'd accept anything people said and then completely butcher them with his sideways glances and weird mannerisms as he picked it apart and made it clear he wasn't the buffoon they took him for. The guy pulled the role off very well.

And yeah, I remember the split. In general I liked that as a concept.

-----


For content, a show that should have been canceled way earlier than it was: That 70s Show. It's really stupid how many shows try to continue after losing their main character. Someone earlier said Robert California (James Spader) was worth Office going on, and I agree to a point, but we really didn't need 2 full seasons (it was 2 right?) without Michael and having to see Jim and Pam smugly lorde over everyone else in the office. They're the ones who should have left, not Michael.

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer

No Butt Stuff posted:

That's because people let Jenji Kohan do whatever she wanted and no one had the stones to tell her it wasn't about an empowered woman, so much as about a real piece of poo poo.

Then again Showtime actively insisted on this kind of treatment of the subject matter in Dexter (they vetoed killing him off in the end) so I'm not sure it was just the showrunner.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
I think the bigger problem with That 70s Show was "uh, what're they gonna do after high school?" They threw a bunch of ideas at it but none of them were good and they kept the worst ones (Kelso becomes a cop, etc)

Like they almost had the right idea with Hyde being a record store clerk but they managed to screw that up too. And all the stupid poo poo with Fez.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Maxwell Lord posted:

Then again Showtime actively insisted on this kind of treatment of the subject matter in Dexter (they vetoed killing him off in the end) so I'm not sure it was just the showrunner.

Showtime is planning a spin-off of Dexter, and want it to star Dexter.

Shadow
Jun 25, 2002
uh... really? Dexter as a lumberjack?

Luminous Obscurity
Jan 10, 2007

"The instrument you know as a piano was once called a pianoforte, because it can play both loud and quiet notes."
It's about his childhood as a young science geek and his wacky sister who always ruins his experiments.

Shadow
Jun 25, 2002

Luminous Obscurity posted:

It's about his childhood as a young science geek and his wacky sister who always ruins his experiments.

:golfclap:

Gaunab
Feb 13, 2012
LUFTHANSA YOU FUCKING DICKWEASEL
I always thought Fox shot themselves in the foot with That 70's Show by making That 80's Show. If they hadn't of made it they could have transitioned it to the 80's instead of spending like 5 years in 1979.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


They really hosed the show up when they decided that nobody could ever change the status quo. So you have stuff like Eric and Donna not going to college or get married, instead everybody just keeps doing the same thing.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012
21 Jump Street.

Johnny Depp, a relatively unknown actor at the time signed a 4 year contract and decide there was no way in hell he would re-sign. So after he left season 5 was just a hilarious mess of trying to make the "cops pretend to be high schoolers" thing work after 5 years. The show was never anything special other then a niche cop show but its like everything that kept the show going vanished once Depp was gone. Plus 2 other main cast members had already left by that point and it seems like their replacements were hired because they were related to one of the actors or just cheaper to pay.

The show got pretty stale by season 3, but Depp's popularity seems to have kept it afloat anyways.

MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

pentyne posted:

21 Jump Street.

Johnny Depp, a relatively unknown actor at the time signed a 4 year contract and decide there was no way in hell he would re-sign. So after he left season 5 was just a hilarious mess of trying to make the "cops pretend to be high schoolers" thing work after 5 years. The show was never anything special other then a niche cop show but its like everything that kept the show going vanished once Depp was gone. Plus 2 other main cast members had already left by that point and it seems like their replacements were hired because they were related to one of the actors or just cheaper to pay.

The show got pretty stale by season 3, but Depp's popularity seems to have kept it afloat anyways.

Oh my god, I did not know that this was even a thing. :stare:

Inspector Gesicht
Oct 26, 2012

500 Zeus a body.


I avoid a lot of TV shows because most of the time it feels like that there's just stuff happening and there's no real theme or arc to events. It's insulting to an audience's intelligence if a show has a long-running major character leave and then just have a new guy replace him as nothing had happened (That 70's Show). Breaking Bad worked because the story had an expiry date, Walt has cancer and one day the other shoe will drop and Hank will find out Heisenberg's identity. The Shield worked because Vic Mackey and friends keep digging themselves deeper with every cover-up, until the day where every little sin falls on Vic's head. What any long-running story needs, either serialised or episodic, is some kind of endgame or exit where all the major characters and themes converge and get some kind of resolution. Dexter had no endgame. He just faced a new killer every season and learnt nothing.

The Simpsons should have ended at 8 and a half seasons, before Maude died and Homer got raped by a panda.

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.

pentyne posted:

BlackAdder (waaaaah, we get it, WW1 was bad)

I will loving hurt you.

ghostwritingduck
Aug 26, 2004

"I hope you like waking up at 6 a.m. and having your favorite things destroyed. P.S. Forgive me because I'm cuter than that $50 wire I just ate."
I haven't watched the Simpsons in years, but I'm very happy that South Park is still around. For me, every season has had at least one great episode. It's also had some stinkers, but that's how it's always been.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Xoidanor posted:

Oh my god, I did not know that this was even a thing. :stare:

You didn't know 21 Jump Street existed? You thought the movies were original properties? Or you didn't know about the post-Depp seasons?

I think the first 2 seasons of that show were good, but speaking of cop shows that went on too long, Miami Vice.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Man the 4th wall speech in 21 Jump Street must be so weird if you didn't know there was a show.

Truther Vandross
Jun 17, 2008

According to Jim

You can close this thread now

get that OUT of my face
Feb 10, 2007

The Simpsons (obviously). Season 10 should have been the last one because that was when Phil Hartman was killed and episodes stopped being memorable after that.

Family Guy after season 5. Alternatively, it should have stayed canceled the first time around.

South Park after... poo poo, I don't know. I stopped watching it regularly after the third season.

Steve Yun
Aug 7, 2003
I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.
Soiled Meat
South Park did get stale for a few years but I think in the last two years it actually got funny again

If you look over their entire history I think they actually make an effort to keep things fresh and they're willing to evolve their worldviews a little bit and take some risks by arguing against popular opinion on several political matters

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Sep 13, 2015

thrakkorzog
Nov 16, 2007

JediTalentAgent posted:

MTV's Real World probably should have maybe been cancelled after the second or third season. After season 2, I know I just stopped caring about the show entirely. I don't know exactly what changed, but it seems like it felt more scripted after that. I think I heard someone say some of the original showrunners left after Season 3, so maybe that's a reason.

I think part of it is that at the start the Real World was actually real, there weren't any auditions for stars, it was basically, "Hey, we need some cheap programming, let's grab some good looking interns and let them live in a NYC apartment rent free and we film it." The people in the apartment had day jobs, and the arguments tended to be things like, "I've got to go to work at 8 A.M. and you assholes are making too much noise at 2 in the morning." Which is a fairly standard argument among roommates.

After a few seasons the show just gave up on the concept of the people on the show having real jobs, instead they just got shitfaced and fought all the time.

Once the show took off, then they started looking for reality TV stars. I remember seeing ads in my college newspaper when the Real World audition team would come to town looking for interesting characters.

(As a side note, I was living in Austin back when the Real World was in Austin, I was out drinking with some buddies when word started spreading that the Real World people were drinking at a bar down the street. One of my drunken friends wanted to walk down the street and punch those Real World douchebags right in the face. I managed to talk him down by pointing out that randomly assaulting people who are surrounded by film cameras 24/7 was a really bad idea. Three days later, some random guy punched one of the Real World stars in the face. Austin had a whole lot of people that didn't like the Real World.)

thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Sep 13, 2015

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Irish Joe
Jul 23, 2007

by Lowtax
Person of Interest



Not to knock what the show became, but the first season of Person of Interest was a total shitshow. Yeah, it was a smash hit and, yeah, the show gradually got better over its second season,* but, my God, how could anyone watch the average first season episode and think to themselves "I need more of this!" On quality alone, it should have been cancelled after the first season.




Marvel's Agents of SHIELD


(Dutch angle, blurst angle)

Take everything I said about Person of Interest, but substitute "smash hit" with "ratings failure," and "gradually got better" with "and in many respects got even worse" and you have Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. PoI is proof that giving a shaky show a second chance can sometimes pay dividends, while MAoS is proof that giving a shaky show a second chance is an exercise in self-flagellation. Yes, MAoS might get better in its third season, but if you believe that, send me a PM because I've got a bridge I'm willing to sell you at a great price.



Steve Yun posted:

If you look over their entire history I think they actually make an effort to keep things fresh and they're willing to evolve their worldviews a little bit and take some risks by arguing against popular opinion on several political matters

Using "evolve" in lieu of "change" is the most obnoxious linguistic tick since people started using "literally" to mean "figuratively."

*this would have been a proper place to use the term "evolve," btw.

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