Shows That Stayed On For Too Long

[VisionBoy]

We had a thread about shows that got cancelled too early and as I thought about it, I ended up thinking of shows that I wish had kicked the bucket before they actually did; so as thetopher suggested, here's a thread for the opposite. What shows do you think went on (or continue to go on) for longer than you believe they should have?

The shows that came to mind for me are as follows:
Two and a Half Men
Charmed
My Family
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Smallville
The Vampire Diaries
Heroes
One Tree Hill
New Tricks
Glee
Skins

Wow, that's a longer list than I realised.
I was tempted to put The Big Bang Theory, but I actually think the most recent season has picked up a little, so there may be hope for it.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Dexter
True Blood
Weeds
X-Files

 

[Blaze]

This is a tricky one for me, because I'm of the mentality that if people still enjoy it, it means that it still deserves to be on the air. If a show manages to be important to one person, than it's one person more that might have their lives changed by the show. God know Buffy is very important to me, for all 7 seasons, but some people would probably debate it should have ended at s5. Anyhow, those are the shows that I stopped watching because I personally think that they started to suck after a while lol.

One Tree Hill
Pretty Little Liars (I still watch this one, but the writing...ugh)
Glee (I'm starting to see a pattern with Ryan Murphy, he seems to lose his mojo after like 2 or 3 seasons)
90210
Misfits

But, aside from maybe Misfits, none of those shows were that great to begin with.

 

[thetopher]

I'm thinking mainly of shows that were on the air for too long, and stagnated as a result. I don't really think 'two extra seasons' is too long, if those seasons resolve character arcs rather than meander directionless for ages without any clear sign of where it was going.

The X-Files: This is the big one for me- given the utterly lame, confusing, contrived alien conspiricy stuff at the end. (Bees? I mean, bees? C'mon!)
Plus there were those 'exclusive' video releases (remember them? The ones that were later shown on television for free?) and the two lousy movies.
Lost- Even the creators admit that this was a victim of its own popularity, so they drew it out for far too long.
Dexter
Heroes- Pretty bad after that great first season.
Glee
Grey's Anatomy
Smallville- It was called 'Smallville', not 'Metropolis with the Blur and Green Arrow'.
ER
Charmed- should've ended after they destroyed 'The Source', because afterwards it was a huge drawn-out mess.
Bones

Every reality show ever devised involving people from certain areas of the US/UK doing nothing except being shallow/vapid, rich husbands looking for wifes/'true love', self-contained houses under constant serveilance, people stranded on islands having to form teams and perform pointless tasks to win stuff...😡

...Sorry, I just had to pu that last one in.🙂
I feel better now.

 

[brinkster130]

Bones
Prison Break
Supernatural
That 70's Show
The Office

 

[VisionBoy]

I should probably explain the thought behind some of mine:

Two and a Half Men- Not only did the title become less and less relevant, it just morphed so much after Charlie Sheen left that I'm not even convinced they have an actual premise anymore. It's become like clay that they can just mold into anything they want as and when the next cast member flies the nest... and consequently, it has become a stretched out misshapen mess. To be honest, I thought it had gotten pretty weak before Charlie had even left.

Charmed- I enjoyed the first 4 seasons. Season 5 was a glorified costume party and just crapped on everything they did well in season 4. They actually admitted to making up season 6 as they went along and boy did it show? Season 7 was okay but the Avatar arc made no damn sense, the second half of it was saved mostly by Oded Fehr playing the main villain... and the less said about season 8 the better.

My Family - It all went down hill after Nick left and they brought in those two insufferable air heads as replacements who weren't even relatives.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch- After the high school years, it struggled. Season 5 came across like the WB wanted a new Felicity, and the teenage witch became less about magic and all about college politics zzzzzzzzzz. Season 6 was actually quite a bit better, but then season 7 was just twenty-0dd rehashed stories and a crazy rushed relationship/engagement arc to get to a mediocre finale. With the amount of material they had left, a third movie would have wrapped it up just fine. Plus, this is just my personal opinion, but the quirks that seemed charming on Sabrina as a teenager became incredibly grating as an adult.
-------
With many shows I think they can suffer being contractually committed to full 22-24 episode runs. With quite a few series, I think they've mostly finished by the time they've had their penultimate season and just need to wrap it up, tie up loose ends. Take The Big C for example: they did three seasons and then rather than the finale being a full fourth season, they did The Big C: Hereafter; 4 longer episodes that wrapped everything up. Those episodes were some of the best the series had had in a while.
Not saying it would work for all shows, but perhaps letting them have more flexibility would prevent certain shows from stagnating.

 

[Taake]

All of the above and also How I met your mother.

 

[white avenger]

The ones that comes immediately to my mind are

"Survivors,"
"Dallas"
Every daytime soap opera
Every game show
All of the late night talk shows

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Supernatural-I know it's got hardcore fans, but I lost interest after S5 and didn't even watch season 7 or 8. I think the current season is much better, but it still should have ended after 5 imo.
Smallville-I gave up around S3 or 4 and it had like 10 seasons.
Bones-As much as I love Bones, its gone downhill. It should have ended at S8 if they wanted they could have wrapped it all up in that season.
American Horror Story-Now I know this is only in it's 4th season, but I believe they're going to do a season 5. I really wanted to like this season, I'm one of the few that liked S3. So I think it should just end after this season. If not, they got a lot of work to do to make S5 as good as the first 2. I also heard a rumor that they are trying to connect all of the seasons, which for me, is not a good idea.
One Tree Hill-Again I gave up after S2, it was getting ridiculous. And then I found out it had so many seasons, I was like really?
Grey's Anatomy-I know my sister still loves this show but it really should have ended around s7-8 I think.

Reality shows in general but specifically-Keeping of with the Kardashians and those Real Housewives shows. Ugh.
Those are all I can think of for now.

 

[VaderSpike24]

Two and a Half Men (Should have only lasted 7 seasons at most)
Charmed (Again, seven at most, but six or four would have been fine)
South Park
Family Guy

 

[Cordy_Chase]

How I Met Your Mother - It was enjoyable in the beginning but then the concept became too drawn out and the humor lost it's taste which showed across the entire fandom, new seasons were dreaded and the interest in seeing the mother even was gone, folks just wanted it over. My mother was among them and myself. I was curious enough to watch the chunk of the final season featuring the mother but the finale was complete and utter bullshit that detached the series from the title concept. In all honesty it was our girl Alyson Hannigan's character that was the most believable and best developed throughout.

Charmed - It lost me after the fourth season with the exception of one or two interesting episodes in the fifth. The defeat of Cole as the source (THE FIRST TIME) was a nice wrap up point and to end one sister unhappily while still alive would have been unique and interesting. From then on you can tell they were just throwing in a lot of random garbage to keep it airing. That should be the cue to end a show. The whole Wyatt thing was just so over the top and Billie and Christy along with the sisters having faked their deaths was extremely weak.

Possibly Supernatural - I'm only on the third season but I've heard things like Dean becoming a demon and the devil and angels coming into play that sound a bit sketchy. Even at the point I'm at the number of times Dean has already cheated death is becoming a bit ridiculous for my taste. Once is enough. Now Sam has done it once as well. I'll see and get back to you.

 

[VisionBoy]

I believe with Heroes, the original intention was to do each season with a new set of characters, but they wussed out of that and carried on with the same cast. So they had to pull new stories out of their asses for characters that weren't really meant to last that long and just kept adding more and more characters to the point where near enough everybody was terribly underdeveloped.
I think this "Heroes Reborn" they're planning is meant to start over with what they'd originally planned. As it is, I just pretend season 1 was a mini series.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Actually they had a great 5 year plan for Heroes, but the writers strike put a spanner in the works and they had to scramble and re-plan everything. They scrapped most of the ideas they were planning on doing and went a different path.

 

[Doppelgang]

X-Files is one I was thinking of when the other list came up as I couldn't think of many programmes for the other list.
Charmed and Vampire Diaries I agree about also.
Supernatural, maybe, but considering the limited cast with just the two main characters, I think they have done well to keep it fresh so long.
I know the Hunger Games is a film rather than tv show, but for me the first of the trilogy was enough. Not much else to explore after that.
Programmes like Star Trek and its follow ons, all those are way too long for my liking.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Every comedy with a laugh track. Really? I know when something is funny. It doesn't get funnier with a canned laugh track. The worst of them is Everybody Loves Raymond. It should never have gotten one episode and the fact that it was in line for comedy awards shows the dismal state of comedy on TV.

Survivor Palau Tiga was the original reality show and was great. It had 30 million viewers. The next Survivor had 3 million viewers. Take the hint, networks! Benn there, done that, move on. Your viewers did.

Charmed is like Lenin's corpse, they just won't let it die. Maybe there is something supernatural about how this show is dead but won't lie down.

The X-Files - I was actually looking forward to seeing the movie on TV then realized as I was watching it that I had already seen it in a theatre. That is the only movie I actually forgotten I had seen. The move out of the British Columbia forest took away a lot of the atmosphere - LA studios have nothing like that.

Anything to do with the Kardashians or anything set in New Jersey.

Bones. My wife loves it but the stories are getting more alike and Emily Deschanel's screechy voice is the worst part of the show.

All game shows.

All daytime soap operas, even though Sarah Michelle Gellar was offered the part of Buffy because of her performance on All My Children.

 

[VisionBoy]

Charmed is like Lenin's corpse, they just won't let it die. Maybe there is something supernatural about how this show is dead but won't lie down.

I remember hearing an interview about the Charmed series finale that said Alyssa Milano went away to see family and Rose McGowan was away filming a movie during the filming of the episode; which is why they weren't in the majority of it. That just summed it all up for me.
Their series finale. The conclusion of an 8 year run ... and 2 out of the 3 leads weren't there for most of it because they had other plans! WOW! Even the people involved were so clearly done with it.

They just didn't have enough integrity to go out with any dignity intact. They were gonna take that already dead horse and pulverize it until somebody had the decency to bury the damn carcass for them!

 

[RomanticSoul]

Sadly I would have to say my first hardcore tv love X-Files should have ended in S5 and then continued with movies as they originally planned. They were stretching it till S7 and then it just went even more downhill with S8-9.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

I remember hearing an interview about the Charmed series finale that said Alyssa Milano went away to see family and Rose McGowan was away filming a movie during the filming of the episode; which is why they weren't in the majority of it. That just summed it all up for me.

That they would rather be doing anything else than film another episode of the show. lol

I know the Hunger Games is a film rather than tv show, but for me the first of the trilogy was enough. Not much else to explore after that.

Well The Hunger Games was a book trilogy, so clearly there was more to explore, and the second book/movie is my favorite. Haven't seen the third movie yet, but the third book wasn't as good as the first 2.

 

[Taake]

Supernatural-I know it's got hardcore fans, but I lost interest after S5 and didn't even watch season 7 or 8. I think the current season is much better, but it still should have ended after 5 imo.
.

Oh how I loved Supernatural season 1-5, me and my friend were obsessed with it and watched it over and over and were so excited for season 6. Then it just crashed and burned. I've never seen a show crash so hard. I stuck with it until season 7 but then I just gave up, it wasn't worth the disappointment. Can't believe it has gone on for so long.

 

[Blaze]

I know the Hunger Games is a film rather than tv show, but for me the first of the trilogy was enough. Not much else to explore after that.

I agree with the other ones, but this one I'll have to disagree with. The first one might seem the freshest, but as far as social commentary go (which is what Suzan Collins was going for), the third book/movie is the most important of the trilogy. It's my least favourite personally, but it is the most important.