Sonny Corinthos

Many iconic television shows lived surprisingly short lifespans. Batman, Star Trek, Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space and Wonder Woman sadly lasted just three seasons. Pop culture progressed faster back then. On the other hand, series like Gunsmoke and My Three Sons logged hundreds of episodes across one or two decades.

For whatever reason, for those that make it, the fifth season tends to be a year of change for a television series. Cast changes, location changes and new characters always seem to arrive and shake things up in the fifth year.

The Andy Griffith Show Season five was in the middle of a transitional period in Mayberry. It was the first season after Gomer left for his spin-off Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., which had a pilot of sorts in the finale of season four. Filling his shoes was Goober, introduced late in the fourth season and given a bigger role in five. This would also be the final batch of episode shot in black & white, as the show went color in 1965.

The Brady Bunch The Brady Bunch grew a little bigger with the addition of a bespectacled blonde boy. Cousin Oliver.

Cheers In the season finale, "I Do, Adieu," Diane decides to persue her career as a writer and leaves behind Boston — and Sam — forever. Well, Shelley Long would reprise the character in the series finale.

CHiPs At the start of the fifth season, Erik Estrada walked on the show over contract disputes. He would return, but in his absence, in half a dozen episodes, former Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner, then Bruce, slipped on the uniform to ride alongside Jon. Larry Wilcox, Jon himself, would leave the show at the end of the fifth season, which concluded with a backdoor pilot about a squad of ninja cops called "Force Seven".

Full House Twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen swapped off playing the same child, but another set of identical siblings added in season five would get to play an onscreen twosome. Mop-tops Nicky and Alex were added to the cast as the sons of Jesse.

Good Times Sensing a theme here? Janet Jackson jumped onboard as Penny, the adopted daughter of Willona Woods (Ja'net Dubois). There was reason for the casting shake-up as matriarch Esther Rolle left the series at the conclusion of season four. The fifth season would be the only season without her character of Florida Evans.

Happy Days Ah, and so we get to the big one, the episode that coined an English language idiom. Yes, this is the season in which Fonzie jumps a shark, in "Hollywood: Part 3." The calamitous impact of this 1977 stunt has been greatly overstated, however, as Happy Days carried onward until 1984, and remained the third most popular show on television in season six.

Love Lucy In truth, I Love Lucy was always changing, always pushing forward and pioneering the sitcom. In season two, Little Ricky is introduced in the episode that stopped America in its tracks, "Lucy Goes to the Hospital." In the sixth season, the Ricardos move to the country in Connecticutt. Yet season five has its share of landmarks. Lucy and Ricky spend much of the season traveling Europe. Who can forget smashing those grapes?

Mission: Impossible New producer Bruce Lansbury took over the show for Paramount in the fifth season, and with new leadership came changed. The typical European locales and Cold War villains were replaced with American missions and a nefarious gang syndicate called, er, The Syndicate. Addtionally, Sam Elliott was injected into the cast as Doug Roberts, as a hopeful replacement for Peter Lupus's IMF role of Willy Armitage. This was also the second season to heavily feature Leonard Nimoy, who joined the team as Paris after the demise of Star Trek.

My Three Sons Speaking of I Love Lucy, series vet William Frawley (Fred Mertz) went to play Bub on My Three Sons, the maternal grandfather that lived with the family. Sadly, health issues forced Frawley to step away from the show in season five. William Demarest, portraying Bub's brother, replaced Frawley that year. At the end of season five, My Three Sons also jumped networks — and eldest son Mike departed shortly thereafter!

http://metv.com/lists/11-television-...r-fifth-season

cleaver

Fringe was dramatically different in season 5

TheBigDave

Buffy changed a lot during it's 5th season. Dawn appeared. Joyce died. Buffy died. And the show, which was usually lighthearted while facing an oncoming apocalypse, started to get depressing and gloomy.

Goat3001

I've never written for TV but I imagine writing multiple 22 or so episode seasons and keeping it entertaining is very difficult. It's too easy for shows to get stale, especially in today's age as there are a never ending amount of TV options making it very easy to bail on a show that's not as good as it used to be.

In order for a show to stay fresh for the long haul, it needs to pivot. Season 5 does seem to be the turning point.

Friends was always about the will they/won't they with Ross and Rachel but it pivoted big time in season 5 (technically the end of season 4) by introducing Monica and Chandler as couple. That drove the story for the next few seasons as they built in the "moving in together", the engagement, the wedding and a pregnancy as major plot points until the end of the shows run.

Modern Family always seems to be dropping in little changes through it's run. In season 5 they decided to have Mitch and Cam get officially married. That drove the entire season. In season 6, they put that aside and the pivot came with the kids being put in more teenage roles rather than kid roles.

Scrubs made changes in season 5 as well. They introduced a few interns, namely Keith who was involved with some major plot points for the next few seasons. Elizabeth Banks also entered as a recurring character who stuck around for awhile. They also threw in a pregnancy story line with Turk and Carla. But the big pivot came at the end of that season when JD finds out his girlfriend is pregnant.

Trevor

Fun topic, but I imagine one could come up with a similar list for seasons 3, or 4, or 6, etc.

mrhan

This show has been replacing cast members since the second season when they replaced Steven Hill with Peter Graves. I think Greg Morris is the only one that appeared in every ep. of the original run.

Season 5 of Alias sort of had a new lead when Rachel Nichols from Continuum joined the cast. Her origin was similar to the Sidney Bristow character.

majorjoe23

I think a drastic changes in season 2 thread could be interesting. There were shows that went from bad or OK to great from the first to second season, like Parks & Rec and Seinfeld.

mrhan

The new series Legend has had a drastic change from S1 to S2.

Goat3001

Good examples, throw in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia too which added Danny Devito part of the way through the second season.

albert_m

Interesting list, but Cheers didn't change in season 5. It changed in season 6. Diane left at the end of the season finale of 5.

randian

Babylon 5 was a very different beast in S5.

Geofferson

Curiously missing from the list: The Dukes of Hazzard - season 5 with Coy and Vance

DWilson

It's really going to be different in Season Three, -it's cancelled. It's a shame, too, since I've really enjoyed this version of the show. However, it was very clear as I watched it they were making a show that was far too complicated (or at least in the way that they told the story) for it to catch on with a large audience. I kind of figured "overseas sales" would be the key to its survival, since it felt like an import.

mwbmis

These Friends of Mine/Ellen went through a massive overhaul between season one and two where pretty much all of the supporting cast save Arye Gross got dumped, and he only survived into the beginning of season three.

Michael Corvin

Maybe, but every season kinda had it's own thing going.

Not to mention, I don't see Dianne leaving as all that drastic.

astrochimp

Even though Damn appeared in season five, I think of season 6 when the show switched networks as the change. Most fans count the fifth season as the last really good one.

DaveNinja

was season 5 of Justified the "bad" season?

hanshotfirst1138

God, I wish I could stream that. Didn't the network play the "you're cancelled/you're not" game so much that JMS had to change some things that he'd planned?

hanshotfirst1138

I stopped watching in season 6, it just got so relentlessly dark.

Supernatural is going to come up a lot, methinks. Much like Buffy or 24, it showed how some shows peak at that point and run out of ideas around that point and kind of start recycling.

mwbmis

Most would rank as the least successful season, but even season five didn't plummet to the depths of some other contemporary "bad" seasons. Personally, I would just consider it mediocre TV. It's no season 8 of Dexter.

Red Hood

Lost. Season 5 was bad, in part because they completely departed of what made it good and started coming up with ridiculous answers to the questions that were asked the first 4 seasons

Groucho

Dexter went off the rails in Season 5.

Season 4 examples would include Glee (half the cast graduates) and M*A*S*H (welcome Colonel Potter and B.J.).

mwbmis

Yeah, adding Potter made M*A*S*H* a fundamentally different show b/c Henry was largely a rubber stamp for Trapper and Hawkeye. Potter actually ran the camp.

Navinabob

Once a show hit 5 seasons they can start shopping it around for syndication. Show runners often jump at that point because they'll get residuals from the show so there is not that much incentive to stick around. A new show runner often mixes things up at that point which is why we get the shift in direction. Also, that's the time when budgets tend to get reduced which certainly does not help things.

Quatermass

someone already posted Alias and I would throw in Smallville. I stopped watching both early on in S5.