How many seasons is too many for a TV show?

Off-Topic Movies, TV and Entertainment
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Hi this is just purely my opinion, but I’ve made this observation, that it seems a lot of the time, that when TV series go on for too many reasons, it all goes downhill.

These are in my opinion series that did reasonably okay;

1-The Star Trek shows of the late 20th century (Next Gen, DS9, Voyager)…these series were memorable, and usually lasted for about 7 seasons.

2-Merlin (5 seasons). This show had me hooked right until the very end, so I was sad when it ended, though in all honesty, given that the King died at the end, and a Queen ascended to the throne of Camelot, it’s probably good that it did end there, as I fear during the current climate, if it had continued it would have gone the way of Dr Who, with all this identity politics etc being shoved down our throats. I mean let’s be honest, this is what tends to happen.

3-Xena Warrior Princess (6 seasons). Even anti-feminists liked that show.

Series that started okay, but usually after 7th season, started to go downhill…some examples…

1-The Simpsons. Let’s be honest, after Season 8, that’s when the show stopped being funny. I guess in terms of blunt humor, South Park kind of took over, as South Park became the show to turn to for blunt non-politically correct social commentary.

2-Dr Who. Let’s be honest, after the Matt Smith era, while it wasn’t entirely Capaldi’s fault, the stories just started to get more and more boring in my opinion, and I slowly lost interest. I mean nobody had a problem with the gay/lesbian characters in the Smith era, it literally wasn’t a problem, but when they introduced Bill, I mean…it felt like identity politics was being shoved in your face, don’t get me wrong, in the episode with the monks, when she made a difficult decision out of love, that did bring tears to my eyes, so there were some good moments, but I still felt that being black girl, lesbian, with a guys name was just a bit too much, I mean if it was something that didn’t feel forced I would have been more accepting of it. Then I feel that by the time the first female doctor appeared it just went full on identity politics. That said, I did enjoy some of the episodes, the new years episode with the Dalek I really enjoyed. So I am not saying it was ALL bad. I just felt that too many issues overshadowed things.

3-Popular opinions seems to be that Season 8 of game of thrones sucks, so sounds like they should have finished it with a big two series finale after Season 7. Most of the commentary of Season 8 has been bad.

But here is the thing, I can name one show that was short, not too many seasons that in my opinion was bad, and a show that went on for about 10 seasons that was actually pretty good the whole way through.

Star Trek Enterprise, I think was very bad in its early seasons, but towards the end it began to pick up, and the stories got more interesting, but in the end because it suffered from a really bad first season, it just didn’t get people interested I think.

In contrast, one series that I think was reasonably okay for 10 seasons was Stargate SG-1. For some reason, that show never seemed to go downhill to me, maybe it’s just because I’m a sci-fi fan, but did anyone else watch that show and enjoy it all the way through?

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It depends on whether the series is American or British / Australian.

Americans tend to do 12 episodes on average, per “season”, for cable shows, and anywhere from 18-24 episodes, per “season”, for regular broadcast series.

Brits and Aussies, on the other hand, usually stick to between 4 and 8 episodes per series. And, they tend to do fewer series overall.

IMO, it’s rare for an American television series churning out 20+ episodes per “season” to fare well when looked at as a whole. Many of your examples support this. I also agree with you on Star Trek being an exception, though I think Next Gen was a better example, as they went seven seasons with like 25 episodes per. X-Files is another one that comes to mind. Ditto ER. All of these fared well having done nearly 200 (or more) episodes each.

Other than those, though, I much prefer the UK/Aus approach to TV series. Six-ish episodes per series is perfect, IMO. Keeps things fresh and prevents a lot of the, “oh, we have to do this now because we ran out of original ideas.” See any American prime-time comedy in the 200-episode range for proof of this, LOL (Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, etc.)

Of course, the Brits and Aussies are also masters of the long-form reality show, which we don’t have here. Shows like BBUK (R.I.P.) were on seven days a week for three months at a time. Ditto the earlier seasons of I’m a Celeb AU and Masterchef AU which were seven days a week for two and three months, respectively, as well. Every one of these was an excellent show.

Go figure LOL…

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Yeah, I got no idea why that is, maybe we are just more prone to voyeurism here in Australia? But to me ‘reality shows’ like BIg Brother are not accurate, because let’s be honest if you know you are being constantly watched, you are going to act differently than if you felt like you weren’t.

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Depends on the show and whether or not there is still a story to tell.

Take Grey’s Anatomy. It felt stale to me at season five. It is still running several years later. Why? I’ll never know. I can’t think of one drama that made it past season six that I continued to watch, it becomes just recycled garbage.

Science fiction is different, because the writers have the entire universe as their canvas. SG1 had ten seasons worth of stories to tell. We tuned in for each episode wondering what would come next, where are they going, what are they going to see…etc… when you can do that with a show, then I see no reason to put a limit on seasons. But, it seems that only sci-fi can do that, and the best ones usually only get a season or two, Defying Gravity…grr, my absolute favorite sci-fi show got one season, it would have been a perfect 4-5 season show and it got one. Firefly (not a personal favorite) had many wishing for more.

Comedies are different, I’d say 7 seems to be the sweet spot, except my favorite comedy is It’s Always Sunny and it had 13 seasons, with one (I believe) still to go. Each episode is absurd, but different. Whereas, The Office was great, but they built this huge arc around Pam and Jim that ruined it after they got together. That is common for too many shows that continue far too long past their prime.

I agree with you, there seems to be a lot of pc force-feeding in television. It appears to me there is a common theme, those that pump pc into the veins of their watchers get the green light to continue forever, and those that don’t disappear long before their time. Dr Who is a perfect example of this.

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I don’t think it’s a length of time really but the writers and actors that determine when a show has been on too long. I’ll use two shows I watch religiously.

South Park. It’s been on 20 seasons but each season still feels fresh to me. I think it has to do with the fact they don’t follow a strict story (so there’s no “lore” to break), they make fun of current events and the show has never changed hands. The same people that voiced Cartman, Stan and Kyle in 1998 is still voicing them in 2019. Same with the main writers and directors.

(Didn’t include Kenny because who cares what muffled voice is doing him?)

Another show I watch is Law & Order: SVU. I do it out of habit because it should have ended the day Christopher Meloni (spelling?) left. This show can’t really evolve because there were child predators in the 90s and there are still child predators today. They try to spice up the show with the revolving door of lawyers or Olivia getting kidnapped… again but it doesn’t work. The writer of the show has gone full blown liberal which alienates his audience. He used to be down the middle.

Anyways, the point I’m making is these are two shows that have been on air the same amount of time but one should have ended years ago and the other is fine with doing 10 or 20 more years. The difference is one has a revolving door of actors, writers, directors, political views and the other hasn’t changed that much but they still manage to keep their audience engaged.

So yeah like I said: the people in charge, not the length of time. However, I’m a big fan of short shows. People complain and complain about Firefly but I think short and sweet is the way of the future. More shows like Stranger Things, please.

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Definitely however many the Simpsons is on, and definitely not the amount Futurama got.

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I totally agree. The entire genre should never have been named this. It makes no sense. That being said, whatever the genre is, I’m a junkie LOL.

I miss BBAU as well. Y’all did it on just enough of a different angle from the UK as to make it totally worth it. A bit more family-friendly. A MUCH larger house. A stadium audience for evictions. And I miss “Friday Night Games” with Fitzy to this day.

For (so-called) “reality” TV, it’s always been a bigger production down under: Big Brother, Masterchef, I’m a Celeb, etc.

Sorry to derail a bit, I do love Australian TV. Not just reality; some of the comedy you guys turn out is just crazy good LOL. :smiley::smiley:

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I’ve been spoiled by Korean dramas. They air from start to finish with each drama usually lasting between 12-20 episodes. Occasionally, they do a second season or a spinoff, but they begin and conclude the story in one season. Waiting a year or two for an 8-10 episode US series makes me lose interest.
Also, I completely agree on the Simpsons. I was a huge fan back in the 90s and could still watch those episodes back to back without getting tired. Now, I can’t even finish a single new episode.

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The problem most Sci-fi shows have is that they get canceled before they can finish their story.

Farscape is probably my favorite ever and it did well with a movie finishing its story after the show ended with a cliffhanger.

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The simpsons instantly went down the garbage shoot when Matt Groening left to work on Futurama.

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Depends on the show honestly, if the writers are able to keep it fresh it works, if not it doesn’t. i don’t think there’s any set “time” when a show goes bad, I’ve seen shows with great first seasons that just completely blundered the second and shows that have been going on for 20 years and are still good.

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Just at the moment it seems to be on average its the seventh season that things start to go a little downhill…but this is usually due to original writers and so on, leaving

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however many seasons guiding light ran for is definitely too many seasons for a show, especially considering it was a soap opera.
i think it was like… 57 seasons? 72 if you include the 19 years it ran on radio first

as a serious answer i’d agree that six or seven seems to be the sweet spot for how long a show stays “fresh”.

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The problem was, that the Simpsons used to make of society back in the 1990s, but in the 2000s, we’ve had shows like South Park that are so outrageously offensive, showing absolutely no mercy for who cops the joke, that it made a point of taking things WAY too far

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A lot of shows start to cannibalize their own lore after about 5 seasons.

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Episodic shows (like police procedurals) can pretty much just go until the writers run out of mojo.

Serial shows, though, need to have a large-scale arc that they respect. “Lost” is the best example of a serial drama that had no idea where it was going, they just kept spinning new mysteries and stringing viewers along until it petered out. Totally ridiculous experience. Bab 5, on the other hand, is one of the best examples of a show that had a big story to tell and they told it. Seasons 2 through 4 are some of the most satisfying in sci-fi television history.

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I ended up LOVING that show, very disappointed when it ended. That was right when it got cool.

I’d add “Dark Matter”, which also got really cool. Then it was cancelled =/

Stargate SG-1 was great. I think it would have kept going, but lost momentum when Richard Dean Anderson basically left. Ben Bowder, a favorite for me from the excellent “Farscape” (another cancelled show=/ ) , did fine but I saw the writing on the wall.

“Buffy” - Loved it but had the dumbest series ending ever.

“The Expanse”

One of the view times that worked! This show started off slow then got INCREDIBLE! I’m so glad it moved to Amazon.

“Supernatural” - I think this next season is finally going to be the last, but more by choice from the two leads. Hopefully it won’t go out too horribly, since it has also been pretty good.

“Lost” - Oh yeah, I forgot how poorly that ended. That show carried a lot of promise, then also went out really lame.

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The Expanse is great sci-fi, and has almost single-handedly restored my faith that a good sci-fi series can still be made. I like it so much I’m rationing the episodes to prevent myself from binging through large portions of it.

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Although it depends on what kind of show it is, in general I’d say seven seasons is a solid number

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It really does depend on the quality and passion of the show staff. Two of my favorite shows, Invader Zim and Gravity Falls ended after 3 seasons for Zim and 2 for Gravity Falls because the show writers wanted it to end there rather than push out lackluster content.

As my name suggests, MLP has had some real stinkers for episodes but it’s 9th and final season hasn’t had a bad one yet.

With some longer running shows, it helps you know someone that can warn you about filler episodes and which ones to skip.

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