When franchises go bad…

Cafe Society
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When I say franchises, I mean books, or films, or programmes, that go on for a bit, and have a kind of recurring mytharc – usually sci-fi or fantasy. I’m not sure if ‘franchise’ is the best word, but anyway.

My question: are there any that haven’t gone bad – jumped the shark, or changed direction, or just completely lost it? Examples:

Buffy – nuff said. Five seasons of greatness followed by two seasons in which nobody did very much except behave out of character and have lots of hot sex. Almost saved by a good final episode which however failed to tie up the myriad of loose ends preceding it.

X-Files – also nuff said, only the greatness lasted for (almost) seven seasons. Except that the ever-more-elaborate conspiracy got silly and ended up with Mulder in Mobyland, which can’t be right. Doggett and Moronica – why? Baby William – also why? Not at all saved by a boring and stupid finale. There, I’ve said it.

Farscape – lovely and nice, but cancelled, dammit.

**Babylon V ** – I’ve never seen it, but I understand the producers gave the Strachinsky writer guy an extra season that blew apart his neat pre-planned mytharc and verily, it was rubbish.

Star Wars – perfect trilogy ruined for ever by silly CGI and adventuresome bland people 20 years later.

Hitchhiker’s Guide – first three books of the TRILOGY ace and wrap up the story; Adams forced to write a couple more and takes revenge on his publishers by droning on in a semi-parodic manner about lady cello players and dolphins. Then he kills everyone off! Hurray! Or – not.

Star Trek – Borg queen. Comedy Q. Pah.
So are they all doomed to failure? Are we expecting too much from money-grabbing producers and writers? Or is it impossible to follow through a successful mytharc in any of the media now available to us?

Me, I think geeks are being punished. :smiley:

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Babylon 5 My understanding is that he was forced to cut short his planned Five Year Arc when they cut him back to four seasons. Then, after he had wound it up, they gave him the fifth, very disappointing season.

Sliders Started off well enough, but once John Rhys-Davies left the series and the O’Connell brothers got their hands on it…

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Quantum Leap - I don’t think this one ever went bad. But it was also cancelled before its time (only lasted 4 seasons).

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Of course it went bad. Did you notice the amount of celebrity-oriented episodes in the last season? The network wanted to make some changes to the show, which led us into Elvis and Marilyn Monroe every week. They wanted to eventually make it so that Al was pursuing Sam through time, but thankfully the shows creators gave up. You should read the history of the show’s end, it gives an example of how networks screw up good shows.

UnuMondo

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The X-Men movies are still doing well.

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Twin Peaks.

All copies of the last half of the second season and all of the third should be rounded up and destroyed, for the good of future generations.

“Let’s ROCK!”

Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.

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Um, hello?

Batman.

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Both Mask of the Phantasm and Sub-Zero were excellent. Or are you talking about the other Batman movies.

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Babylon 5 went bad? I thought it just kept getting better. The last season was my favorite. Except for the very last episode, I’d also say that Quantum Leap never went bad either. Each of these shows got more votes for “never jumped” than any other category at jumptheshark.

I nominate Lord of the Rings as a franchise that never went bad.

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You know, I get tired of hearing this. The last two seasons of Buffy were perfectly fine, with some of the best episodes of the series (e.g., “Once More With Feeling,” Tara’s Death and the final episodes, “Conversations with Dead People,” the series finale). They were certainly better than the first season (when the show was feeling its way) and the 4th (Adam was the worst of the Big Bads).

And, at the same time, the final season of Farscape sucked large boulders. Only one fairly tolerable episode the entire time, and the rest as bad as the worst of Space 1999.

Yet so many people say “Buffy jumped the shark” and “Farscape was cancelled too soon.” I think their just parroting Internet opinion instead of actually watching was was on the screen.

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I’ll cover some stuff…

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Went from being very good fantasy to lots and lots of padding and clothing descriptions. One of the very few series I finally quit reading. I could not make myself slog through 100 pages of “It was cold. Really cold. Boy, it sure was cold.”

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Was a pretty enjoyable, fairly light series until the second-to-last book, which involved the main character sitting in a city while Goodkind ranted about the horrors of communism. In the late 90s. Hey Terry, the Soviet Union fell in the 80s. Move on. Possibly the only series that could be resolved by having 3 of the main characters sit down and actually talk to each other over tea. Another one of my “quit/refuse to read ever again” series.

Hmm, those are actually the two I’ve quit…

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Perhaps this is a good place for my theory on movie series? Every series of movies must end with two bad ones. It goes something like this:

A movie is made, and it’s good. Word gets out that it’s good, and lots of people see it. The movie makes a lot of money. The people who made the movie go “Hey, that made a lot of money! Let’s make another one!”.

A sequel is made, and maybe it’s good. If so, repeat step one.

Eventually: A sequel is made, and it stinks. But people don’t know that yet, and they remember the other good movie(s), so lots of people see it opening weekend. Word gets out that it stinks and people stop going, but it’s already made a lot of money in the opening weekend. The people who made the movie go “Hey, that made a lot of money! Let’s make another one!”.

Another sequel is made, and it stinks. But this time, people are suspicious. They wait a while before seeing it, and word gets out that it stinks. So they never go. The movie bombs. The people who made the movie go “Hey, that bombed… We’d better stop making those.”.

There are many examples which fit this pattern. Alien, Jurassic Park, and the recent Batman movies all come to mind immediately. Some series, like 007, are established enough that they can weather a few bad ones, but few movie series ever go that long.

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I didn’t even know there WAS a third season.

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Yes. Yes, that’s it exactly. There I was, just cruising along watching a show I’d been fanatical about for five years when all of a sudden I saw a negative review on the internet.

It changed my life. Once I realized that someone on the internet had suggested that BtVS was no longer as good during season six as it had been in season three, I had no choice but to start hating it just because of that suggestion.

It had nothing whatsoever to do with my own thoughts or opinions, or any issues involving theme, character, continuity, or any other flabottin. Having seen an opinion expressed on the internet, I began to parrot it immediately.

Thank you for pointing out the error of my ways.

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Hear hear on XF. I actually liked Baby William though…call me a sucker if you like, but I thought it was very fitting that Scully finally conceived and that she and Mulder fell in love and all. But c’monnnn…like an adoptive family is REALLY going to deter badass alien types with one-track minds? Oh well. Still waiting in eager anticipation for the next movie–you KNOW they’ll make it, for better or for worse I suppose–and hoping that they make it well.

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James Bond

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I don’t think Buffy went that bad. It was just less good than it was. Still better than most TV. Mind you, I haven’t seen the end of season 7 yet. We’re maybe two thirds through so far here.

I loved the idea of season 6, but would have liked better execution. Big Bad Willow drunk on power, oh my yes, what a brilliant concept! Willow as a magic-crack-addict, no, that’s just wrong.

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What annoyed me about Buffy, which was concreted in the last episode, was that there was a sense that it was building up to something. And that something never occurred. It’s like being massively turned on but then having an orgasm that makes you go ‘meh’. And either that big build up is diffused by lots of crazy stupid stuff (X-Files), or they carry on the build up, and you think to yourself – well, this is weird, but clearly it’s leading to something. And it doesn’t. And that’s bad.

I do think LOTR may be okay, but since it hasn’t been completed, I can’t say.

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I think Sliders has to take the award for the series that wouldn’t stop degenerating. Each season was progressively worse.

Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street had a run of about 1 good movie, then endless drivel.

A series that hasn’t degenerated…

How bout The Simpsons.

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Ignoring the sarcasm, I’d say thanks for admitting that :wink:

Season 6 was really bad, I agree with that. They should have cut the whole 3 evil kids storyline and should have set had Willow as big bad all along, because the last two episodes of season 6 were great and saved the season from complete failure.

Season 7 on the other hand was great: The actions of the villains leading up to the finale were plausible for once (Glory’s restraint and the overall idiocy of the villains in season 5 was amazing) and the finale was fantastic: Following all the hints, I expected Buffy to die and I expected Spike to turn evil again. It was pretty good to have the episodes go into a totally different direction and delivering an ending that actually changed things.

On the other shows, except for Buffy, I kinda agree with you though :wink: