Angels ending was on the annoying side. A cliffhanger done on purpose? At least there are the comics that continue the story.

Season four of Enterprise was quite good, aside from the last episode that can be labled one of the worst in Star Trek History.

You should probably spoilerize that part of your post.

As for Angel's ending...

I think its because most great shows don't know when to end, and that is because the creator usually get paid the big $$$ in the latter seasons.

The Soprano's is a perfect example. I remember reading an interview with David Chase during the 2nd season saying he had material for 4 seasons. Then HBO coughed up I believe 25 million for him to extend the show a few more seasons, and you could see the quality dropped after that.

Can I blame David Chase for taking the money? No, as I probably would have done the same thing, but quality always suffers when its met when there is more money to be made by milking something great.

How I Met Your Mother didn't have a very good last season and had a horrible finale but the season as a whole was better than the 2 or 3 before it.

Along with the reasons that have already been posted, I do think people tend to have overly high expectations for the last season. Either they're expecting a good show to get better or they're expecting a show that hasn't been good for awhile to be good again.

People also tend to link final seasons with the finale. A good season could be completely undone by a bad finale. Shoot, a good show can be completely undone by a bad finale. So if the show doesn't knock the finale out of the park people will look down on the final season as a whole.

I hate to hear the talk about Boardwalk Empire ending poorly. I am behind on it and am only at the beginning of the third season but I thought the first two seasons was some of the best TV ever.

The show that disappointed me most was True Blood. Such a fantastic show and then it just becomes total and utter shit. I still haven't finished it because it got so bad. Don't know if I can.

And I loved the ending of Angel. And as someone else said, Buffy should have ended at Season 5.

This is very true. Series Finale rarely deliver, as it just creates anger towards the show for years after. I have actually tempered my expecations for Series Finales in the past few years, as I don't expect the ultimate ending anymore. After being let down by The Sopranos, I will never get too excited for a Series Finale, and it has worked for many shows that I have finished in the past few years.

I reject the premise of your assertion (See Breaking Bad)

I really liked (but didn't unreservedly love) the final Boardwalk Empire season. They obviously had to rush things along to wrap up every storyline -- which they did -- but it felt a bit like too much, too quickly.

But they cannot compare to how horrible the 1st and 2nd seasons were. Those two are virtually unwatchable.

I've never seen the show but I've read from multiple places that the series finale of Six Feet Under is one of the best tv finales ever.

S2 of TNG actually isn't as bad as I remembered. The first season, yes, but season two saw the show starting to find its feet. "Q Who" and "Measure of a Man" are some of the best episodes of the whole series, "A Matter of Honor," "The Emissary," and "Peak Performance" are all good, and "Where Silence Has Lease" and "Elementary, Dear Data" are solid. The show is still finding its feet, but it's nowhere near as bad as season one.

I really quit watching the show regularly about season 6. The premise was starting to wear really, really thin by that point.

But born out of that is the "Mosby Limit". Which is that shows should be forced to stop at 6 seasons. No more beyond that.

I assume you're talking about scripted shows? Because there's a lot of shows that run far longer than that (game shows, talk shows, reality, news, sports, etc.)

Even then I don't think 6 seasons is a good hard limit. Seinfeld quit after 9. The Simpsons had 9 to 12 good seasons, depending on who you ask, although many agree it's been on too long now. South Park is still running strong with 18 seasons, and American Dad is at 11 seasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...evision_series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...evision_series


I think a lot of it depends on the situation. South Park, for example, has changed its production schedule to meet the desires of the creators so they don't get burned out on it and can do other things (movies, stage musicals).

How I Met Your Mother suffered from a limited premise that it eventually had to deliver: they built the end-point right into the title. When you do that, going on for too long just seems like you're dragging out the show, wheras a show with a more open-ended premise can shake things up to keep it fresh (see E.R. changing cast a lot over its 15 seasons, although I didn't watch any past the first 3 or so).

Pokémon and Power Rangers are still going strong and just ended two of their best seasons yet, one after 17 years, one after 21 years. Of course, their last seasons are nowhere to be seen just yet, so we'll have to await the outcome when that comes (hopefully within my lifetime).

Yea. The good ones are the ones that decide to end, instead of being forced to end.

The norm is for a show to start, get really good, run out of ideas, and limp for the last season or two, before being forced into cancellation.

We should have more 4-5 season series.

English TV tends to cut a lot if it's best shows short. Only usually a few series at the most and don't milk it. Classic example is the Office. UK version 2 series and a special. US version.....waaaaayyyyy too many.

I don't think BE ended poorly. I thought the final episodes were excellent and creatively interesting.
It was just pretty obvious that they were rushed to fit everything in a limited number of episodes.

No season 6 means no Once More With Feeling

I agree that TNG's last season was starting to go down hill. DS9 had a good final season though, I think in part due to knowing in advance they were going to do 7 (at least I think they knew in advance, same with voyager) Enterprise was really starting to get good and they canned it

as to the topic in general, I think it's often due to running out of ideas, or the staff or cast starting to get bored with the roles. At least that would be the case for long running series

I miss Judd, Jackie, and Koichi on PR .

Quantum Leap had an interesting final season as it was the most gimmicky, but in some ways the most fun and interesting. The episode, "Lee Harvey Oswald" is my pick as best episode of the series, and I've warmed up to the series finale, "Mirror Image".