From Symphonies and Fanfares for the King’s Supper. I had it on a record album by Quintessance. Never did get a digital recording of it.
Apparently one of the most common inquiries WGBH gets is “What’s that music? I want to use it for my wedding.”
I’ll second Gilmore Girls. Seasons 1-4 are pretty good, but then they changed lead writers in Season 5. The new writers decided they needed to shake things up, so they put the one dynamic people watched the show for in peril - they engineered a stupid fight between the titular girls. That proceeded to last a season and a half.
By the time the old writers got control back in season 7, they had a huge amount of work ahead of them to patch things up, get the storyline back more or less where they wanted it, and win back the fans. It almost (almost!) makes up for the two seasons before it.
A very similar story happened with West Wing. When Aaron Sorkin left to go into (much-needed) rehab after the end of Season 4, the writers flailed quite a bit with the formula they were given. Sorkin did his best to make it work when he came back for Season 7, but a lot of the characters were radically different from how he left them, and two were put on a bus outright.
The last season is dreadful, the worst of the worst, that whole stupid circus… ugh…
Season 2 (and really then entire rest of the show, seeing as it never recovered) was utterly gutted and massacred by the writers strike at the time. They had all these really complex plans (including a spinoff series) and it all just got shot to hell.
Then hopefully they’ll pull an X-Files with the revival.
Which reminds me of Full House, which did deteriorate, but it never was all that great to begin with, really.
Ooh, I just remembered another one - Cybill. That sort of had te same problem as Andromeda, being sabotaged by the star’s ego; Shephard demanded all sorts of changes when Christine Baranski got accolades playing her best friend while she got nada.
I don’t believe this is accurate – seasons 1-6 were all handled by Amy Sherman and Daniel Palladino. The “Rory and Lorelei don’t talk” arc was all under their watch. I think they always struggled to make Rory’s college years interesting after her freshman year.
Season 7 is the odd man out lousy season. It was a new showrunner, and the show took on a soap-ier tone and rushed pacing and didn’t quite gel with the earlier seasons.
Amy Sherman-Palladino is going to be running the revival, so hopefully it captures the original vibe better.
It’s almost the most over-stated show decay. The 5th season has a few stinkers, but it isn’t that bad. The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari is an excellent episode and it isn’t the only one. It’s a decline(for the reasons you stated), but hardly a gigantic one.
I definitely remember this, and the reruns are pretty lame.
If you want to check it all out, you’ll see that Andy rarely smiled on any of the ones without Barney, as opposed to the ones with him. Andy went around with a stick up his ass for the remainder of the series.
House MD
*CSI *(the original one)
Big Bang Theory
…all for essentially the same reason. They lost track of what they were originally supposed to be and focused more on interpersonal relationships between the characters. CSI, especially, should never have been about who’s shtupping whom–it was supposed to be about the twisty, weird cases and the characters solving them.
I never quit watching any of these, and I certainly don’t/didn’t hate any of them even when they started going downhill, but I don’t think any of them are nearly as good in their later seasons.
My other vote is for Mork and Mindy. The first season was magic, but it was all downhill after that.
Very true. The showrunners obvious hatred for Anna and Bates, plus his love for the evil Underbutler ruined the show.
Not* really* bad. Just sadly mediocre. 
It was always good, even the Movie.
ah… the skintight spandex. Which of all the sexy costumes they have shown for SCiFi woman, made more sense than any.
I agree with CSI: Las Vegas. As soon as Grissom left it went straight down the crapper.
I’m finally forced to admit that The Simpsons has tanked. The episode where Homer & Marge go to the marriage counsellor and Homer dreams that they got divorced did it for me.
Yeah, what was posted above was not accurate. The Palladinos had actually lost touch with the show by the end of their time. Watch episodes they actually wrote in the final season before they left, they don’t make sense. Everyone acts like they did in season 1–meaning years of character growth and interaction were forgotten for those episodes.
The show definitely showed its age by the end but it was not a case of creator leaving and it going to shit.
Hell’s Kitchen. Same old crap, year after year. I can’t believe it’s still on!
Yup, looks like I made a mistake. Palladino was with the show all the way from 2000 - 2006:
IMDB link
So it was just the writers sliding into mediocrity. I do like the seventh season for its return to what made the first few seasons as good as they were, but upon rewatching it does seem a little displaced.
Another show I tried rewatching recently was MacGyver. Great concept of science (and a good right hook) beating the bad guys that got heavily weighed down in later seasons. I’m still kinda looking forward to seeing what the remake has in store, whether it’s a TV series or a movie.
Now that’s an interesting one. I think that is a show that has consistently gotten better and better to date. I’m worried they won’t be able to maintain it, but so far it has been some brilliant tight-rope walking. Each to their own of course, but I really think more people should be watching if only so it doesn’t get cancelled on me before its time :D.
The Avengers: the Linda Thorson era. She did have a very touching remembrance of Patrick Macnee on her website after his death.
The League and Portlandia.