Get him into an exam room with that guy from Numb3rs. AND HE’S GOT A KNIFE!
I basically think that everything else pales before seasons 3-5 (and significant chunks of season 2, although I agree that the first two seasons aren’t that great).
I know that I’m way outside the norm on this one, but I’d say the quality started declining immediately after “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”, although of course I do like episodes from the late 90’s more than recent episodes.
I’m going to sort of agree with winterhawk11 on shows like Trading Spaces and What Not to Wear. In that case, though, it’s not that the shows are any worse. It’s just that it gets boring watching a million mostly similar makeovers. I still watch What Not to Wear occasionally, but at this point I’ve seen Stacy and Clinton tell a frumpy woman that she needs to get a better bra and some dark, wide-leg jeans four hundred times already. I’m mostly just watching to ogle Clinton at this point.
I second “Heroes”. It could have been about the the psychology of super-powers or how the real world would be affected by super people. Instead it turned into action/adventure, slapstick and teenage romance. Better for ratings but not nearly as interesting as it could have been.
Judging Amy started as an interesting twist on the lawyer/courtroom drama with added family side-plots, reminiscent of ER in its prime. It degenerated into focusing on broken home relationships and endless chains of self-pitying failed relationships and pushed any interesting legal drama to the side.
I’ll see your five seasons and raise you ten.
Season six was the last time The Simpsons were consistantly funny and season 8 is the point where I started disliking more episodes than enjoying them.
The point I stopped watching was when I realized that the “We’ve been on so long that we’re not funny anymore!” had been done so many times they weren’t funny anymore. That’s pretty bad.
That’s what I came here to post. I still watch it, only because there’s still an occasional good episode. But I no longer care about any of the characters . . . nor do I even know the names of half of them.
I’m currently in the middle of Season 1 of Alias via Netflix and I think it is great. Are you saying I should stop watching after I finish Season 2? Damn.
From what I understand he basically did. When he made Futurama, he stopped doing as much with The Simpsons, leaving it in the hands of the other producers. He’s basically admitted that he no longer considers it “his show,” so he didn’t feel the outrage he might have otherwise when the quality took a nose dive.
Well, the winner of the question would obviously be the show that covers the greatest range between greatness and suck.
And so I’m going to have to go with The Simpsons. Seasons 4-7 were arguably the best television ever made. I had actually forgotten how brilliant those episodes were until they came around the syndication rotation recently. Literally every other line of dialogue is brilliant, and the lines that aren’t are simply setting up the ones that are.
So to go from that peak to the way the show is now clearly gives the title to The Simpsons. It’s not even recognizable anymore. I finally saw the movie on HBO last night. Where was the funny? I mean Christ, Shrek did edgier humor than that. Every gag just reeked of please-laugh-at-this-bit desperation.
Alias suffered from lower than expected ratings. Because of this, the network forced them to switch to more self-contained episodes. It hurts the show, but it’s basically watchable if you don’t think about it too much.
It was far better the first two years, however.
Meh to each his own. To me the last season was just as good as the first. The second season moved too slow but they seemed to have fixed that problem. In fact to me setting an end to the show seems to have cured all its problems. I have high hopes for next season.
Funny but I never made a conscious decision. I just realized at some point that I hadn’t watched it for a while and didn’t care to go back to it again. And it was a never miss show for me. Even at the end of my run there were some pretty powerful episodes. The one where whatshisname flashes back to when his family was killed in Croatia was very well done. And totally depressing.
I’ve been perusing the forums at TWOP and it seems that the episodes in seasons 3-5 have a higher average grade than do the episodes in seasons 1-2. I guess I’ll give season 3 a shot and see if its worth watching.
I’m sure I’m the only person who will go here, but I’ll throw out She Spies.
Season 1 was a clever send up of Charlie’s Angels and it’s ilk.
Season 2 saw a re-imagining of the show of a serious action-drama-failure-something. This was the very thing the show was originally intended to ridicule.
I’ve never seen any show change so much from one season to another. Imagine if season two of I Love Lucy had been a half-assed drama about a mixed race couple trying to make it in New York. Were we just supposed to forget season one ever happened?
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
A very, very promising pilot - supposed to be one of the best shows on TV. By Christmas it was painfully awful dreck.
I liked the Drew Carey Show but by the last few seasons to me it became unwatchable.
I can…sort of. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t find it incredibly annoying when it was first broadcast. Remember, I had no idea what was coming. Even now, though, I just don’t like those episodes. They strayed way too far away from what the show was originally supposed to be about.
I can believe this but Groening didn’t focus on Futurama for very long and its cancellation was largely to him saying he was more interested in focusing on his other projects (and given that the only other production with his name on it is The Simpsons I can’t think what else that could be). So he must have gone back to it post-Futurama and yet still the show sank further and further into the mire.
Family Guy still rocks. I love that show.
The Simpsons are way past the good ole’ days.
I’ll nominate 24. The first two seasons were fun to watch. After that it became cliche filled. I bet I know what’ll happen next season: “A bomb in L.A! Oh no!”, “We have no time!”
I can’t believe I’m the first to mention Mash, it was just a tired tired thing by the time it ended.
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