Absolutely, so many shows fall into this pitfall. One of the major things to turn me off Parks and Recreation was how the character of Ron became as stupid as Andy.

I agree the last episode was terrific and seemed to promise the show would improve if given a third season, but there was so much terrible material to overlook (Andy and Dick parenting the devil kid, Nadine's super-strength, the pine weasel fiasco).

I agree. It's the inverse of what this thread is looking for. It had a pretty weak start but got better with the characters coming into their own and stayed good until the end.

Absolutely. After a few seasons it becomes hard to keep some characters fresh, so they devolve into stupid because it's easier to write that character.

JD from Scrubs is another example of that.

I don't think we were watching the same show.

Agreed. The characters have to evolve in some way or the show stagnates as they run out of ideas for plausible wacky situations. Since it's easier to make dumb funny and there is an upper smart limit to how smart a character can be since a character can't be smarter than the source of material (the writer), you get dumber.

Lost when they started time traveling or somewhere around then.

The Office when Michael Scott left, although maybe a little before that.

Heroes season 2.

Prison Break was a steady free fall in quality after the strong first season.

Barney left town.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sqGjb-OMdXw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So not only has Ron never heard the expression "saved your bacon", but he is too dumb to figure out the context of what everyone is talking about, leading him to honestly fear they are tampering with meat he has hidden in the ceiling.

Very lazy writing, I'm sure they could have figured out a better way to set up the hidden meat joke without making Ron appear mentally retarded.

I think this was the last episode I watched.

Friends jumped the shark for me the first ep of the next season after Monica/Chandler proposal. S6 or 7...

That bothered me as well, but it also bothered me that unrefrigerated meat turns rotten very very quickly so a ceiling is certainly not going to be a good hiding place.

Another thing with Ron: Leslie set up a scavenger hunt and the final reveal was his favorite distillery. I would think he would have pieced that together a bit faster, considering it's his...favorite distillery.

Sure that's a pretty dumb moment but that doesn't mean they dumbed down the character.

You may not appreciate this humor, that's fair enough, but can you say this character is "dumbed down"?:

https://youtu.be/RUilUzH5kx8

Can't embed.

I agree that Parks and Rec slipped a little in season five and even more in season six, but I don't think it ever truly crossed the line to "bad". I also think it rebounded and was more focused in season seven.

I can pinpoint the moment the Simpsons lost me. The fake Skinner episode. The Office was slipping in the last few Steve Carell years, but it didn't get bad until he left. Then it got REAL bad.

Here's a show that doesn't get talked about a lot on here, but Homicide: Life on the Streets went bad when Andre Braugher left, and they started replacing other members of the cast with better looking people.

Dexter- honestly looking back it got shakey after season two. Three wasn't that good but four made up for it making me think it was decent up through then. Season five and beyond are a big pile of meh. I don't even really enjoy the series at all anymore.
The Office- for me it was around season three when it was starting to signal at going downhill, but really took a dive with season four and beyond.
Weeds- got stupid after season three. I never thought it was a great series to begin with in all honesty but the first couple seasons were okay.

Mike: same sentiments with Dexter, and the crappiness of the later seasons tainted the entire series for me. And looking back, his narration was just way too much.

Yeah. Its such a shame too because Michael C Hall is a good actor and those first two seasons were amazing. The series is ruined for me though knowing how shitty it becomes by the end. Agree about the narration too. It worked at times but a lot of times it was just stupid, cringeworthy lines that took me out of the show.

Pretty much any David E. Kelley or Ryan Murphy show.

TNT showed reruns for years, and probably still is in other countries somewhere.

Big Bang Theory S6+ (or whenever this went from a smart show to a couples show like Friends)
Under the Dome S2
Lost S3
Heroes S2
Entourage S7

Michael left in season 7, but I think The Office lost its charm before that when they brought in Sabre.

Deadwood season 3. All the new characters sucked (except the Russian telegrapher) and the Hearst storyline was dragged out too long. I'm not going to count the finale as the show was already slacking off by then.

Season 4 of Rescue Me was really bad.

I also seem to remember Millenium sucked its last season.

Bones: as soon as Booth and Bones hooked-up. Never watched a single episode after that. The show ended for me.

I agree with all of these.

Dexter got so bad that I just can't get myself to watch any of the seasons. I'm just done with the character. The writing got so bad at the end there that not even Michael C. Hall could make it good.

To me the Office was great through season 3 and then became very average in season 4 and got worse as it went on. Looking back, the show definitely had way more "eh" seasons than it had good ones.

Weeds seemed to fall apart over night. I think I stopped watching during season 3.

Californication, Weeds and Dexter all had the same thing going against them. They were great ideas but the set up only had a limited shelf life. Showtime never found a way to expound on those stories or characters and instead rehashed everything season to season. Californication should have written Karen out (or made her a minor character)... Weeds should have never left the suburbs... and Dexter needed to stop doing the same shit over and over.

A lot of the premium cable shows are built around flashy concepts that can't be extended much more than a season or two with the same cast of characters.

In general, sitcom characters tend to devolve into cartoon caricatures of their original selves. It seems to happen around the 3rd or 4th season.