Cowboy Bebop. It’s an anime TV show, but what the hey, right?
Bebop had the problem of being too good for an anime series. When it wasn’t renewed (apparently, companies in Japan don’t like making money hand over fist), they had to wrap things up in three episodes. Ouch.
The big problem is that, while the characters might eventually go their seperate ways, the thrust of the show was that each one formed part of a family, and wherever you are, your family is there with you. What they actually had happen was each character went right back to the msierable life he or she led before coming on board. In fact, Faye is righteously pissed at what’s going on - she, who lost more than any of them, really found a family, but Spike won’t listen. I don’t entirely blame the show’s creators, but that was a hideously depresing and pointless ending.
The only way it could have been redeemed is if Faye, Jet, and even Ed and Ein showed up right at the end, blasted their way into the Evil Crime Syndicate’s Lai with a stolen spaceship, and then helped Spike tear Vicious a new arsehole. And then left the bastard not-quite-dead just to let him know they didn’t give a rat’s ass about him.
Oz. The first 2-3 seasons are some of the best television ever made (and were absolutely robbed every year at the Emmys– but I guess that’s what happens when most judges can’t sit through a single graphic episode). The last season is just ridiculous. I think the story is that Fontana just decided he could only take things so much further without descending into parody and melodrama, and just embraced it all.
While the ending was sad, and it did feel odd that everybody just up and went their separate ways, it sounds like you want to give it a Hollywood ending where the good guys live happily ever after, but I think that it works better as a tragedy.
Sorry for the hijack. This should really be in its own topic, but…
I wouldn’t give up on “Earl.” He’s out of jail, back to doing the list, and with Billie’s help, he has a sizable amount of money with which to help people again. It seems like that ship has righted and the first two episodes of the new season sound promising.
The Real Ghostbusters. What had been a fairly erudite cartoon drawing material from a wide variety of mythological sources became, irredeemably, a kid’s show.
Lost has lost so much of what made the island cool and mysterious. In the beginning writing it based on ideas presented by the audience on the message board was kind of cool, but then eventually everything just seems tacked together like some sort of Frankenstein’s Monster. The twists have twists. It’s still fun to watch at times, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is really driving that car.
Evangelion
The single most epic fail to cap off a series in the history of anime. I am me, me is who I am, I am what I am and that is me.
What you’re thinking of was actually a spinoff, Galactica 1980. After ABC cancelled the original Battlestar Galactica fans organized a massive write-in campaign that actually suceeded in getting the network to revive the show. Revived with a greatly reduced budget that forced Larson to set in on Earth. He was also forced to add “educational content” because of it’s new timeslot. The result was ten episodes of crap (which were later rolled into TOS’s syndication package).
The Spawn cartoon. It started off quite well, despite McFarlane’s inane opening speeches on most episodes. But it seemed like in the last season the writer’s noticed they were actually progressing the plot at a decent pace and if they kept it up the story would actually reach a conclusion and they’d have to stop making it. So they stopped the main plot in it’s tracks, brought in a bunch of new characters, and started a bunch of new subplots. And the show ended with a whimper shortly afterwards.
Sadly fear of reaching a conclusion to the main plot is one of the main reasons TV sucks. We’d be so much better off with more mini-series and less never ending stories.
That belongs in another category: a favorite show that was cancelled and then an abortive effort to renew/spinoff it resulted in a travesty. Sort of like burying a loved one in the Pet Cemetary and seeing them return as a shambling zombie.
No, I’m saying that would have been the only way to pull something worthwhile out of their trainwreck. A much beter ending would have been to simply let the characters decide they don’t care about Vicious, let him have his power and wallow in his misery, and just go on about their business. Or just kill the bastard.
Several of the shows mentioned, the producer and/or leads new the shows were essentially over before the last season. The story-line had run the course, but the people were talked into just one more season.
Except that the first season of Lost in Space was almost a different show from the last season. Doctor smith was actually evil and menacing, not just a greedy, selfish, stupid buffoon. The robot was kind of scary when under Smith’s control. By today’s standards the first season was prettly lame, sure, but no more than any other show being produced at the time.
Has anyone mentioned Highlander: the Series? i know many people didn’t like it all, but I did. the first season was pretty lame, but it got better (at least to me) after Tessa died. Then it got downright stupid by the last season.
…and I’m not even counting the movies based around the series. “The Source” was magnitudes suckier.
Well, I have to mention Red Dwarf. Hilarious and fun all the way up to when Chris Barrie left and they had Kochanski from another dimension take his spot on the show. And not even the original woman that played Kochanski. It went downhill from there.
Prison Break–It was suppose to be a two year run. The third season was okay, but this season is getting to be ridiculous. Michael had all his tats removed in one season with no sedative? Sarah’s back, but she is this weak quivering person? We have to get the six parts of this computer program or we all go back to prison?
Carnivale. And I’d have to disagree, especially as it was a set-up for a pre-planned six seasons. The first two seasons were, I believe, intended as a prequel, to be followed by two more two-season plot lines with the ultimate result being the equivalent of a trilogy of novels. Sadly declining viewership combined with high production costs ( large cast, location shooting ) scuttled them.
My wife is (still) a big fan of the show, but even she can’t bear to watch the last two or three seasons. That show, and the X-Files, are IMHO the prime examples of “hung around way too long” from the last 15 years. When you lose your main stars, and the main stars were the whole reason for watching in the first place, it’s time to go.
My nomination is for Monk, whose arc seems to be mimicking that of the X-Files. The first two or three seasons were vital, fresh, and orginal (and they had an intriguing back story, just like The Syndicate back story of the X-Files), but now it’s just turned into “How many silly quirks can we show Adrian having?” and “monster of the week.”
Actually, the story arc was written all the way through for 5 seasons. They ended up thinking they weren’t going to GET the 5th season, then they did, but Claudia Christian (Ivanova) bailed and JMS had to re-write parts of the 5th season and assign bits that were supposed to be Ivanova (and would have made more sense that way) and give them to other characters. The problems here were strictly of network management screwing up - not the writer(s) not knowing what to do.
