TV shows that hung around a year too long

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by DaleClark, Jun 9, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    For me, the final season of Star Trek - The Next Generation featured two of my favorite episodes: The Pegasus and Masks. Both were great episodes, and some other episodes I enjoyed were: Dark Page, Parallels, and First Born. I scanned the episode list on Wikipedia and found that I liked between four and six episodes in each season. As an example, although I've picked up that its not a well-liked episode of the First Season, I like Too Short As Season.

    Returning to the topic, I'm going to mention Doctor Who. Since it essentially becomes a new show when The Doctor regenerates, I'm going to consider each regeneration as a separate show for purposes of this thread.

    That said, I think The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) time on the show was one or two years too long. After Romana regenerated (going from Mary Tamm to Lalla Ward), the show seemed to lose something and it wasn't as good as it had been.
     
  2. groundharp

    groundharp Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

    Location:
    California Day
    Or 10.

    Robert Altman hated the show.
     
    fr in sc likes this.
  3. Duke Fame

    Duke Fame Sold out the Enormodome

    Location:
    Tampa, FL
    I don't know what the consensus is, but I lost interest in "Rescue Me" before it ended its run.
     
  4. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    Yes he gave a number of interviews where he b!tched about the show "vulgarizing the film and cheapening the war" etc etc...

    But Larry Gelbart said he met Altman at a party and RA admitted he was simply pi$$ed b/c he got no money from the show
     
    Chris DeVoe likes this.
  5. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    Really OT, but to me MASH the movie hasn't aged well like a lot of other "hip" 70's films.
    MASH the TV show went on far too long but who's gonna quit on a show that still gets enough ratings to stay on the air?
    11 seasons and even formerly minor characters like Jamie Farr are set for life.

    Another example would be Northern Exposure.
    The last season was limp but it's still a job.
    As far as my memory only Rob Morrow & John Corbett did much of anything after that.
    Janine Turner was in a couple of movies. Barry Corbin had been a long time TV character actor.
    John Corbett has had a lucrative career in voice over for commercials and did Sex in the City.
    The others forget it, they got their one lucky break and that was it.
    Living in Seattle at the time the show was a bit bigger deal as both Corbett & Cynthia Geary started a dance club\bar and restaurant respectively.
    They're both long gone.
    Plus they did locale shooting in Roslyn.
     
  6. Jay_Z

    Jay_Z Forum Resident

    Altman didn't deserve any money from the show. He didn't create any of the characters. He was just a hired gun. Hornberger didn't get any money from the show either, kind of seems like he made a poor deal for himself. Sold the rights too cheaply.

    I respect the movie. Surgeons in their 20s are a pretty arrogant lot I imagine, and putting them somewhere they didn't want to be with little moral investment in the society wasn't going to help them behave. That was the way Hornberger was anyway, another surgeon who wrote a book and consulted for the TV show (Otto Apel) had a far different personality and experience.

    The movie is Altman's best work. For once the material matched his sour, jerky worldview. Don't much care for the rest of his work.
     
    ohnothimagen likes this.
  7. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    I'd be inclined to think that when it came to M*A*S*H Altman wasn't crazy about anything that wasn't his vision of it. He gutted Ring Lardner's original script for the film beyond recognition for one thing (which understandably pissed Lardner off even though Altman's script doctoring was definitely an improvement). No question, though, that other than the fact that both the film and TV series both took place during the Korean War in a Mobile Surgical Hospital and the characters had the same names the similarities between the two more or less ended there. Having just seen the film version for the first time in years a while back, IMO not only hasn't it aged particularly well in the PC era we live in now but Sutherland and Gould's portrayals of the main characters make Hawkeye and Trapper out to be decidedly unpleasant people to be around compared to Alda and Rogers' characters on the TV show.
    As a big Denis Leary fan I loved Rescue Me but after the first three seasons or so Leary's ego just got the better of him and the series sort of devolved into becoming "The Tommy Gavin Show featuring some other firefighters, plus a few secondary characters we may or may not kill off at the end of the season." I thought they ended the show well compared to other finales but I found seasons four and five particularly rough going at times.
     
    Chris DeVoe likes this.
  8. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    That’s the one I was going to pick. In fact, I just finished watching that last season on dvd, I hadn’t seen those before. There were some decent eps and the little girl was charming but it really wasn’t the same show without Mike & Gloria and they should have just hung it up. I’m still trying to get through Archie Bunker’s Place since I bought it but I’m not sure I’ll make it!
     
    905, troggy and Benno123 like this.
  9. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I thought Monk improved greatly in it’s final season, after the previously disappointing season.
     
    Pete Puma likes this.
  10. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    I agree. The movie had its moments early, but by the time the got to the football game I was pretty unimpressed. Show was infinitely better.
     
    Chris DeVoe and ohnothimagen like this.
  11. groundharp

    groundharp Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

    Location:
    California Day
    ...if you trust Gelbart, which I don't.
     
  12. shanebrown

    shanebrown Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    The Following (2013-2015) certainly should have concluded after season 2. Season 3 was rather tedious. Going back further, the final series of Perry Mason was hardly the show at its best, and Burr spoke openly in later years how he wanted it to finish much earlier because he thought the writing was no longer up to scratch.

    My prediction is that, in a year's time, fans of Suits will be saying it should have finished after season 7. And I wouldn't be surprised if How To get Away With Murder also suffers the same issue next year. This latest series seemed extremely padded during the first five or six episodes, and went over a lot of old ground.
     
  13. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    I would definitely trust him more than I trust Altman
     
  14. Complier

    Complier Senior Member

    Location:
    Harrisburg, PA
    "The Wire"

    The whole fake serial killer thing was a tad ridiculous
     
    wolfram likes this.
  15. Exit Flagger

    Exit Flagger Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Oddly enough rewatching this show on Hulu I thought the last season actually rose to the level of seasons 1-3. I still think 4 and even 5 when Harmon returned the show was floundering.
     
  16. Scooterpiety

    Scooterpiety Ars Gratia Artis

    Location:
    Oregon
    The final season of NC wasn't so bad, the season before it was worse, IMO.
     
  17. BEAThoven

    BEAThoven Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    The last four seasons of Small Wonder were horrible.
     
  18. Scooterpiety

    Scooterpiety Ars Gratia Artis

    Location:
    Oregon
    The last season had a few episodes that I didn't care for. I hated those two stupid New Jersey wannabe mobsters, one of which was played by Gene Davis. The actual final episode "Deadlock in Parma", I never liked all that much.
     
  19. Scooterpiety

    Scooterpiety Ars Gratia Artis

    Location:
    Oregon
    I had no idea that stinker was actually around for FOUR seasons!
     
  20. Morton LaBongo

    Morton LaBongo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manchester NH
    Not too well-known now perhaps, but Sealab 2021. They should have just ended the show at the end of the third season after Harry Goz died. I think they had only a few episodes left, so they probably could have found some way to wrap up the series and call it quits. The replacement was nowhere near as funny as Goz' character, Captain Murphy, who drove much of the absurd humor in many episodes. At any rate, the fourth season was the last.
     
  21. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    This was a pilot for a series to have featured those characters (as was the earlier "Just Another Polish Wedding" w/ Gossett and Hayes, which is one of my favorite episodes. I wish that had sold!).

    The earlier episode with these two mafia wannabes, "The Jersey Bounce", is actually pretty good, even though Bo Hopkins has no chemistry w/Garner at all.

    Looking this stuff up on IMDb I see Davis's partner in crime, Greg Antonacci, died last year at the age of 70. RIP.
     
  22. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia


    I love the movie but yeah, hawk/trapper ('70) were a******s. poor hotlips had to join them to escape the torture and frank was driven batty (maybe not a long drive, but still)
     
    ohnothimagen likes this.
  23. I don't count that as the real final season myself - for all intents and purposes, the ninth season was a spinoff rather than a smooth continuation.
     
    LivingForever likes this.
  24. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    The last season was certainly bad, but the whole US version of the series was ill-conceived. I think the original story needed to be resolved at the end of season 1, with a new case in each subsequent season, like in the original Swedish series. I say this even though I feel season 3 was the most satisfying overall. The show had two excellent actors given compelling characters and a wonderful sense of atmosphere, and it squandered all of that on endless red herrings.

    Right, Joel leaving was the end of the story begun in Season 1. That last half season or whatever it was took a big step down in quality. None of the charm or magic were there, though to be fair it had already begun to fade before that. Season 5 was the last great one from beginning to end.
     
  25. Scooterpiety

    Scooterpiety Ars Gratia Artis

    Location:
    Oregon
    I agree about Bo Hopkins, I never liked his character and you are right, he and Jim had zero chemistry.
    I wish Gretchen Corbett as Beth Davenport hadn't been dropped from the series.
    I am on the fence with Kathryn Harrold as Megan Dougherty. I like her, but I'm not certain how I like Jims character when they are together.
    I also generally like Rita Moreno, but I am not too fond of her as Rita Capkovic.
    I liked Pat Finley as Peggy Becker, I wish we could have seen more of her.
    One of my favorite episodes is the two parter "To Protect and Serve" from season 3. Joyce Van Patten was excellent as Lianne Sweeny, I would have liked to have seen her again.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2018
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine