I’m not looking for jump the shark moments here. Rather I’m thinking of shows that were great at one point in their live which someone became vile dreck, and yet lingered on for years until they were mere parodies of their former brilliance.
My first nomination: ER.
:: shuddering ::
What IS it about this show these days? Why does anyone continue working at County General, given that it gives every indication of being built on an Indian burial ground? Why, why, why, why has NBC kept this on so long?
But that’s just me. Anybody else?
They got that way 5 seasons ago. Everything about that show now makes me cringe. What happened to pseudo-smart Homer? He’s a freaking buffoon.
The Cosby Show got that way. Some time around when Oliva showed up.
Friends was very good for at least 4 seasons, but they blew the Rachel Ross thing too soon and that was the only thing that held the show together. After that everyone became a caricature of their former selves.
I’m not sure that Family Guy is really any worse than it used to be. I think that it might just be a show that some people can only watch for a little while.
I know that its brand of humor totally fizzled out with me after its first run. By the time the series came back, its random absurdist humor did absolutely nothing for me because I was expecting a bunch of random and offensive references to 80’s television or whatever. I still catch it occasionally when my roommate has it on, but I haven’t laughed at the thing in years. It just got really old, really fast.
I think that “getting that way” is an understatement when talking about the Simpsons. As far as I’m concerned, the show had been an increasingly crappy shadow of its former self since about 1996. I still watch it fairly regularly, and have very little good to say about any episode I’ve seen in the past twelve years.
The show I would really nominate for this category is Alias. It went from being one of the freshest, coolest, most exciting things on television to a boring and nonsensical drag during its last three seasons.
You’re so right about that. The first couple of seasons were fantastic. My understanding is that the studio told the Abrams that they had to make the show more episodic so that people could start watching the next season and not feel like they had no idea what was going on. It became GOD AWFUL immediately.
And, obviously, the studio was right about that. I mean nobody wants to watch something with a long arc like that. COUGH LOST COUGH
Family guy is much, much worse than it was in the beginning. I don’t watch the show anymore, but the first 3 seasons is some of my favorite television ever.
And it is pretty annoying, since now the shows critics are right, they’re offensive just to offend.
It’s hard to defend ER. I hate the cockamamie hostage plots and shootouts, the contrived drama in the personal relationships, and the bizarre stuff they come up with for season finales.
But I think if someone who’d never seen it before watched a random midseason episode, they’d think it was pretty good. The actors are fine, and so is the dialogue. Can’t quibble about the production – it looks like a real hospital. The show’s just been on so long that the writers think they have to go farther and farther out to keep us watching.
My vote is for Desperate Housewives. The first season was fine, but those writers fell into the ER trap about 12 years too soon.
Since I never watched ER I can’t say whether or not it fell the farthest. But I did watch West Wing. It was about as brilliant as any show ever, then Aaron Sorkin left. What remained was an ugly parody of itself.