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poliphiloThe problem with American TV is that successful shows are allowed (no, required) to run and run until every last drop of vital existence has been squeezed out of them. Until there's nothing left but rind and pips. It's a terrible shame.
Most of the shows I have loved in recent years have died the death long before they were finally put out of their misery.
Deep Space Nine
The X Files
Xena
Buffy.
I fear for the Simpsons. There have been some really ropey, unfunny episodes recently. And then there's Deadwood- which is showing alarming signs of being all washed up after a single season.
And here comes Lost, which seems expressly designed to be so open ended it can run forever. I watched the first double episode and fidgeted. The whole point of it is delay- deferred gratification. Do I have the stamina to stick with it for seven, eight years until all becomes clear? I doubt it. I know from sad experience that by the time we get there the whole concept will have become so jaded, the plotlines so tangled and far-fetched, that I will long since have ceased to care.
Most of the shows I have loved in recent years have died the death long before they were finally put out of their misery.
Deep Space Nine
The X Files
Xena
Buffy.
I fear for the Simpsons. There have been some really ropey, unfunny episodes recently. And then there's Deadwood- which is showing alarming signs of being all washed up after a single season.
And here comes Lost, which seems expressly designed to be so open ended it can run forever. I watched the first double episode and fidgeted. The whole point of it is delay- deferred gratification. Do I have the stamina to stick with it for seven, eight years until all becomes clear? I doubt it. I know from sad experience that by the time we get there the whole concept will have become so jaded, the plotlines so tangled and far-fetched, that I will long since have ceased to care.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-12 03:08 am (UTC)I first noticed it with situation comedy: you'd have a bright idea about a situation which would generate one or two, three if you were very lucky, seasons of funny shows. After this, you'd run out of ideas about that situation, but you'd have an audience which was familiar with the characters and the style (the brand, in fact), so you'd carry on: think Drop the Dead Donkey, which stopped being about news media, and Third Rock from the Sun, which stopped being about aliens. And it would take the audience a couple of series to notice that this wasn't fresh or funny any more, and get it dropped.
But it happens with books, too, a formula that's so successful that the author can't resist the pressure to do more of the same: Conan Doyle killing off Sherlock Holmes - and then bringing him back (it isn't even a recent phenomenon).
The solution is in our hands, I suppose: if we stopped demanding more of the same - stopped watching, stopped buying the books - they'd stop giving us it!
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Date: 2005-08-12 04:32 am (UTC)I'm so glad that Ricky Gervais baled out of the Office after two seasons and a couple of specials. That was entirely the right decision.
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Date: 2005-08-12 11:52 am (UTC)Exactly. Well said.
I liked the early seasons of Andy Griffith, about the small-town sheriff and his son, back in the sixties. By the end, the series had become a caricature of itself, but it was delightful and occasionally moving in its first seasons.
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Date: 2005-08-12 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-12 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-12 04:07 am (UTC)I wish Australian TV would model itself more on British TV than American TV. We tend to make 22+ ep/season dramas and stuff and they spread themselves so so thin.
And it's like... British TV is so pithy and dense, and I've watched some of my favourite British shows over and over and gotten more out of them each time. American TV tends to be throw-away.
But, I must say, I really liked some of the stuff that came out of the last couple of seasons of Buffy, and thought some of it really transcended the earlier stuff. As crap as the last few eps were.
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Date: 2005-08-12 04:46 am (UTC)It never descended into complete naffness. The story arc was completed. But I wish they'd decided to quit while they were really on top of the game.
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Date: 2005-08-12 05:59 am (UTC)The name comes from a "Happy Days" episode when virtually the entire cast of the show had left and the producers resorted to having Fonzie jump a shark on water skis.
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Date: 2005-08-12 06:31 am (UTC)Even without shark-jumping moments, familiarity breeds contempt.
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Date: 2005-08-12 06:29 am (UTC)Being plugged into current events should keep it fresh.
We have a satirical news quiz called Have I Got News for You. It's been running for ages and is still as good as it ever was.
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Date: 2005-08-12 11:48 am (UTC)And at Mr Blair.
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Date: 2005-08-12 06:58 am (UTC)If a show ends for creative reasons it's often because the show is a headliner act (ala Seinfield) and the lead(s) walk away when their contracts expire.
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Date: 2005-08-12 11:40 am (UTC)But I guess you could have said the same about "Golden Age" Hollywood.
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Date: 2005-08-12 07:13 am (UTC)I had the oddest experience with Lost: I'd catch it on the car radio driving home from choir practice, so the plot was mostly about stumbling around, occasional screams, yelling, and confusion--then Alias was being played at roughly the same time, and I thought the Lost crowd, at least some of them, had happened upon a secret Communist community on the island! How DUMB, I thought.
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Date: 2005-08-12 11:47 am (UTC)But as time went on it became clear that there wasn't any Big Mystery and that the writers were making it up as they went along.
Lost isn't as well written as the X Files and the characters are far more stereotypical.
You can pick up TV shows on the car radio? I don't think that's possible in the UK.....
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Date: 2005-08-12 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-12 08:17 am (UTC)Dead Like Me being the most recent one. (for us)
I still love watching the old Monty Python shows and many of the other (usually comedy) shows that are still run from the UK, and some of the old shows from here too.
But you are right... some of the shows just run for too long.
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Date: 2005-08-12 11:15 am (UTC)There's a Scottish cop show called Taggart which is still in production even though the actor who played the character Taggart died about ten years ago.
It must be a unique instance of a show that is named for a character who isn't in it.
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Date: 2005-08-12 08:20 am (UTC)I think Ally McBeal was the last prime time show I watched consistently. And I do miss X Files, although I never watched it religiously.
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Date: 2005-08-12 11:18 am (UTC)