My Other Self

The first three seasons is some of the best comedy I've ever seen on TV.

Everything after that was hit or miss, with Season 8 and 9 being some of the worst TV I've ever seen.

Seriously, the decline in quality is just jarring. So you didn't miss much.

I don't think I've ever given up on a long-running show that has already ended. The longest one I've consistently watched is SVU, but that's still airing and I'm only a season behind.

dfmaverick2

Watched all but the final seasons of:

Sopranos
Dexter
Six Feet Under
True Blood

TimeandTide

Gave up on the final seasons of Buffy and 24.

mwbmis

It's easier to stay with shows in the DVR era. You don't have to go through the effort of finding a blank VHS tape and remembering to record it. There are more than a few recent shows that I would have quit if it hadn't been the final season (Dexter, True Blood, Big Love, The Office, etc..), but I found a way to slog through all of those knowing that the end was coming.

I quit on the Simpsons somwhere in the mid-teens, but the show has gone on so long since then I'm not sure of my percentage.

ER is a good example. NYPD Blue as well (I quit somewhere in the Rick Schroeder years..never made it to Zach Morris) I don't think I made it through all the final season of Homicide.

Technically I guess I'm still "watching" New Girl, but I have a lot of episodes piled up at this point.

Hazel Motes

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/tv-talk/621...y-gave-up.html

I'm flattered you decided to start a cover thread.

Abob Teff

Your thread was pretty strong for the first 3 or 4 pages. After the fifth page though ... The concepts were starting to get ridiculous and you were replacing DVDTalkers with new members. I just couldn't stick with it.

Abob Teff

That's what I had heard and that's why I was never interested in going back. I wish American shows (networks) would use the British model.

I won't say we watch SVU every week, but my kids have it on constantly ... Either on USA, NBC, or Netflix. The quality of SVU has been VERY up and down over the years. The cast has pretty much always been strong, but the writing (situational, thematic and dialogue) gets pretty shaky every so often.

My Other Self

I thought this thread sounded familiar.
I've liked 13 episode seasons for cable shows and shorter seasons for network programming for that reason. British TV seems to have gotten that right. Instead, we stretch everything in to 22 or 24 episodes where a good chunk of a show's season are forgettable. Less is more doesn't equate here because of advertisers. Most recently, Gotham's 22-episode order felt like it cheapened what the show was initially going for. I liked the initial short-order, and was hoping it would follow Sleepy Hollow's model. Fox couldn't pass it up though because most of their other programming sucks.

SVU was its best in the early years. It's quality has been inconsistent for awhile. Once Stabler left it was a shell of itself, and now that they've ousted Belzer and Dann Florek my interest has been minimal at best. It's a good background show.

DeanoBKN

Seasons 7 & 8 are coming out soon.

For me, it was 24. After season 4 I just stopped caring. I even tried getting into the new season earlier this year but only lasted an episode or 2.

My Other Self

I watched the first season over a couple of months earlier this year, started the beginning of Season 2 and haven't gone further than that.

To me it's a very difficult show to binge-watch. The real-time aspect can hurt it when watching episodes back-to-back. It just drags on. Maybe I'll get around to finishing it some day.

morriscroy

The final few seasons of Simon & Simon.

The only reason I watched Simon & Simon at all, was that is was on after Magnum PI for many years.

Once S&S was moved away from its post-Magnum time slot, I largely didn't really care anymore about following it.

In hindsight, it seemed like S&S was very dependent on its Magnum lead-in. If S&S didn't have the Magnum lead-in back in its second season, most likely S&S would not have had 8 seasons.

DJariya

Most British shows are government funded and have no commercials. They simply don't have the funding to produce more than 10 episodes per season. The Musketeers, which recently aired on BBC America got that episode order number. Plus, they have much smaller writing staffs and simply don't have the manpower to film more. Most of the time, I see their shows get 6-8 episode seasons (which IMO is ridiculously short) Luther had like 3 or 4 episode seasons. I personally don't like super short seasons, but the gap between them is way too long. Sometimes up to 1 calendar year.

I know for most here keeping up with more than a handful of 22-24 episode series can be extremely difficult and time consuming.

But, factors like advertising, streaming, syndication, international sales contribute to studios needing to produce as much programming as feasibly possible. Programming in the UK from the looks of it doesn't have nearly the same kind of demand as U.S. cable and broadcast shows.

A studio like Sony would never want to only produce 10-13 episodes of The Blacklist per year. The show costs too much, especially paying an actor like James Spader, to film so little. U.S. talent salaries are another reason why they need to maximize filming programming. Plus, they need to sell as much content as possible for their international AXN Networks in other territories.

morriscroy

More recently, there's been shorter seasons on network tv such as The Following and How To Get Away With Murder (15 episodes).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...-murder-739743

DJariya

Those are an exception because Bacon and Davis are feature film actors and only agreed to film limited episodes so they could be available for film roles.

That's why an actor like Vera Farmiga is only filming 10 episodes per season on Bates Motel. She still gets film role offers and filming a short season on TV will leave her available most of the year.

The Antipodean

I skipped the last couple seasons of "Dexter" only to watch the last episode. And while I have been kind of interested in the show as I never watched it while it aired, I've only seen a handful of "Smallville" episodes as 10 seasons of not-Superman is just too bloody much to invest my time in.

PhantomStranger

Watch the first two seasons; then skip ahead and start watching again in season six or seven. It really became a different show once they moved on from Lana as Clark's true love.

RichC2

This was an issue for me with quite a few shows that came out in the last 15 years. Thankfully, Netflix fixed most of that.

Now they just need Boston Legal.

madcougar

X-Files - missed the last season for obvious reasons.

Friends - lost steam for me after season 6.

ER - watched the first five seasons and then lost interest when cast started changing.

majorjoe23

From your list, this one is worth riding out.

I watched the first four seasons of Smallville. Then I watched the Pa Kent episode and the finale. No interest in revisiting.

starseed1981

I can't do the Ashton Kutcher version of Two And A Half Men. If Charlie came back I'd be back instantly though.

Obi-Wanma

I stopped watching the office when Steve Carell left the show. I don't think I even finished out that season (there were 3 or 4 episodes left in the season when he left). I think I watched the Will Ferrell show the next week and then I never saw anything after that. I think there were 2 more seasons. It had been steadily getting worse for years anyway, and I didn't see the point in continuing after Michael's plot lines were wrapped up.

Noonan

Fringe. Gave up a few seasons before it ended; around the time they started going to the other universe and met the other versions of themselves.

RichC2

That was roughly the time I started to find that show interesting. Regardless, it should have ended with Season 4.

Patman

Supernatural - around season 7
NCIS - around 2 seasons ago
NCIS:LA - around 2 seasons ago
CSI - around 2 seasons ago
The Vampire Diaries - 2 seasons ago
True Blood - 2 episodes into season 6
Orange is the new Black - 2 episodes into season 2 (just haven't gotten back to it)
Parenthood (should have quit 3 seasons ago)
Orphan Black - lost interest 5-6 episodes into its first season, will revisit it soon.
Once Upon a Time - 2 seasons ago
Under the Dome - 1 season ago
The Leftovers - quit after about 5 episodes into its first season
American Horror Story - quit after season 1
Nurse Jackie - about 2-3 seasons ago

Noonan

I enjoyed it much more when it was a "case of the week" type show. The overall story arch they created didn't interest me at all.