TV shows that should have totally been cancelled way sooner than they were

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > TV shows that should have totally been cancelled way sooner than they were

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

The final episode was pretty fun, but yeah, season 7 was weak.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2015 23:02

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 11:38

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Sealab 2021 should have died with Capt. Murphy.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 23:28

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Irish Joe posted:

Cheers stayed good until the end of its run, but like most shows, it got more insular and ridiculous as time went on. It also leaned a little too heavily on the comic relief characters towards the end (think latter day Simpsons). Overall, I'd limit 'classic' Cheers to the first 3 seasons and label anything after that (seasons 4-11) as merely above average.

This is exactly how I feel about it. Once Coach died, it lost a lot of heart, but stayed good til the end.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2015 21:52

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

To me, the worst season was Five. A lot of the Sam/Diane stuff was terrible that season. Like her basically forcing him to propose. Season six rebounded hard and aside from becoming a little too cartoony, never had any real problems.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2015 22:33

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Cemetry Gator posted:

Looking at Season 5 though, you still have a ton of great episodes, including Abnormal Psychology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAb1W6FJ2qo

Cheers was one of those shows where the quality never really dipped too far, although sometimes the season arcs did get pretty cartoony. But you have late season episodes that are still pretty strong, such as the one where Norm is painting a house for Rebecca's boss, and he's trying distract him so she can escape.

I forget why she's even in the house, but I do remember Norm explaining his dream to the boss.

Season five definitely had some amazing stuff, it's just all the Sam/Diane stuff outside of the John Cleese episode is bad to me.

Rebecca was just being a creep and got Norm to help her get in the house so she could snoop. I just watched that one yesterday.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 15:28

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Alain Post posted:

I was going to contest this for the later years of Frasier, but I forgot that there really was kind of a dead spot between about 2000 and 2004 (when Arrested Development premiered)

After 9/11, when one of the creators died, I thought Frasier got better, like you could tell everyone started trying harder, in honor of him. Been awhile since I watched it, though, so I don't know.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 01:11

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Cemetry Gator posted:

I think what really helped these shows is that they kept the characters from becoming parodies of themselves. They were smart shows that always maintained a baseline of quality.

As far as shows that should have been cancelled sooner, I'll say Newsradio. Don't get me wrong, the first four seasons are some of the best written and performed sitcoms ever, but even by the end of the fourth season, you could start to see cracks in the show's foundation. They had always balanced that line between being weird and being funny, but towards the end of the fourth season, it just started to go a little too over the top. Then the death of Phil Hartman really hurt the show. Especially since the show was built so much on the chemistry of the cast, and Phil knew how to get laughs while playing a smarmy character that you end up loving. And he and Dave Foley really worked well together and the two of them played off each other perfectly.

But they replaced him with Jon Lovitz, who worked well with Phil Hartman, but didn't really fit in the show. He just couldn't really match the atmosphere and the speed of the show, and he just didn't really fit in. And I'm sure it didn't help that Andy Dick was falling apart as a person too (seriously, when I try to tell people why Newsradio is one of the best shows ever, I just tell them it has Andy Dick in it, and if it's still funny despite that, then it has to be really good).

I just remember the stories just not really being that good. There just didn't seem to be too many memorable episodes, and in the end, the show really suffered. They were given a tough hand to deal with, but it was clear that there were other problems too that probably would have dragged down the fifth season anyway.

I kind of agree, but at the same time, I don't really think they ever did a truly bad episode. Part of that may be nostalgia from that hour block A&E did with Night Court and Newsradio back-to-back I watched as a kid, though.

egon_beeblebrox fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Sep 24, 2015

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 01:28

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Irish Joe posted:

Nolan North has a good "NPR voice" as heard in video game Destiny so he'd be cool for Cosmos.

This made me laugh.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 19:19

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Monk is really weird for me, because I liked about half of every season, and completely despised the other half. No real way of knowing, episode to episode, which way it would go.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 17:52

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Shadow posted:

that's pretty much why I stopped watching. you can only pull that so many times before it gets old. it was a good show but it probably should have gone for the 5 season standard.

how did they end up finishing?

Craig T. Nelson did it, I think.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 00:30

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 11:38

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

I liked when Tom Scharpling announced on The Best Show that Monk has died of natural causes by now. That made me laugh.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 04:37

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