Remember the episode “The Long Con”? That was the series in a nutshell.
“Lassie”, of all things, seems to have done pretty well once the Martins replaced the Millers since people seemed to prefer Lassie rescuing Timmy over Jeff when the dumb kid fell into ditches and caves. Actually the second group who played the Martins (Hugh Reilly and June Lockhart) over the first group (Cloris Leachman and Jeff Shepodd) they had the highest ratings. But “Lassie” was such a strong franchise it worked with a Forest ranger, a ranch and the mutt wandering on its own.
Eh, I dunno. They actually had a fairly plausible in-universe explanation for it. It wasn’t quite out of nowhere. Similarly, the musical episode had a plausible in-universe explanation, unlike most musical TV episodes.
…Dexter’s sister falling in love with him. Wtf was that.
I’d go with Emily, Raj’s creepy girlfriend who hates Penny because of that one time when Penny & Raj had drunken sexytimes. Long before Emily came along. Now THAT’S toxic jealousy.
I’d also like to add True Detective:
Season 1 - Awesome.
Season 2 - ??? (we got to the second episode and gave up.)
Hannibal:
Season 1 - Awesome.
Every other season - just a montage of dream-like scenes with loud, trippy music.
The very last season of Parks and Recreation.
“Scrubs” - that very last season with the new doctors.
Amen! I can’t stand Emily, and I’ve never seen the point of having her in the cast. I keep waiting for a cliffhanger episode where she has Raj blindfolded and tied down on a bed. He thinks he’s about to have the best sex of his life, and the last thing we see before the credits roll is Emily quietly approaching the bed with a scalpel in her hand.
**THAT **would be a great way to end the series! 
I actually liked her. She made a worthy opponent to Sheldon when she broke down his Roommate Agreement, and she was civil to Penny, even though Penny loathed her. She served her “fly in the ointment” role well.
I don’t normally bring Mrs. Morbo into the boards, but I felt like my contributions to threads like these was getting stale, so I asked her opinion.
Her response: “Felicity’s haircut. Someone will know what I mean.”
Speaking of a great way to end a series, I always thought that Downton Abbey should have ended with Lord and Lady Grantham paying for the family and staff to fly to the US on the Hindenburg. Who cares about the year as none of them aged anyway:)
Hiring Ted McGinley
Firing Frank Darabont from The Walking Dead.
“Moonlighting” David and Maddy getting horizontal. A memorable episode but all the sexual tension was gone and it left them in a what-do-we-do-now situation not helped when Maddy married a guy she met on a cross country train trip.
That Maureen McGovern song is going through my head as Al Molinaro and Pat Morita vied for my attention with their Arnold’s characters in “Happy Days”.
There might have been some shark-jumping in this show IIRC. Joanie and Chachi were bothersome, and when they got their own show that was double bothersome.
The lovely Darlene getting replaced by Brian as Hank’s assistant in “Larry Sanders Show” was a bummer.
I think The Daily Show was stronger with Jon Stewart at the helm than Trevor Noah.
In defense of Ted McGinley, I thought he was a good replacement for David Garrison on Married With Children.
This is the winner,
Signed, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Whoever remarked that it was just building up to a pretty decent finale is right.
I never liked Priya either, and was glad to see her go. On the other hand, I think the actress who played her did a great job. I don’t think we were supposed to like Priya. I also loved her sibling interaction with Raj.
I like Emily, because I like it that the woman Raj has finally attracted is so weird, and Raj has yet to think “What does this say about me?” He was so desperate, he just went with anyone.
I thought the story arc on Mad about You, when the whole premise was that they were a happy couple was messed with by their having problems, and then worse, they made a decision to solve things by having a child.
My personal bugbear is the doctor on ER who gets a woman pregnant right after having an HIV scare.
Now, full disclosure: I was not a fan of this show, and only started watching when TV Guide announced there would be an HIV positive healthcare worker character; I wanted to see that. The doctor who had a scare because he’d slept with this healthcare worker, but lucked out and was negative, should have learned a lesson he, as a doctor, should have known in the first place about using protection
and getting your partner tested. There was nothing in the story about getting tested along with his new partner, and obviously they weren’t using condoms (if one had failed, I think there would have been some discussion, but he accepted being the father pretty easily). I really wanted to see the doctor’s behavior affected by his recent scare, and I didn’t. Big disappointment. I watched a while longer, because the resultant kid turned out to be Deaf, and two Deaf actresses of my acquaintance were on the show, briefly, but I eventually gave up.
Honestly, so did I, I was mainly goofing on his rep as the sitcom reaper.
Fargo s2 – random alien spaceships tried really hard to ruin a good season of TV.
True Detective s2 – s1 was a fantastic, slow-burning character study of two fascinating people. s2 was an incoherent mess filled with losers. I gave up after 3-4 episodes.
The second season of “Mork and Mindy” tried to get younger viewers by dropping Mindy’s father and his mother-in-law. There was also a two part episode where rival aliens (Raquel Welch and two other women) kidnapped Mork that was memorably bad. The ratings dropped badly and although the characters returned in season three the damage was done. Season four: Mork laid an egg and Jonathan Winters appeared. 'nuf ced
Re: Dexter. For me, the major turn towards the bottom was when they got rid of Rita. She provided balance for the show. After that, it was all an onslaught of bad people vs worse people.
Actually, I liked season four with Mearth. But yeah, replacing Fred and Cora with Remo, Jeanie, and Nelson was forced on the producers by ABC, who wanted to attract a younger demographic to the show and was a resoundingly bad idea. I just wonder why nobody remarked on the resemblance between Mearth and Mindy’s Uncle Dave, who was also played by Jonathan Winters.
Here’s an interesting article on the history of the show. When you consider it came from one of the worst ideas ever for a TV show (Garry Marshall said his eight year old son wanted an alien from outer space on “Happy Days”) it did about as well as could be expected.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/mork-and-mindy-was-one-of-the-most-unlikely-miracles-in-1745289352
I particularly like the idea they had a contest on what Mork’s son should be named and they waited for someone to suggest what they had already chosen: Mearth.