Series as long as they needed to be

Shellhead wrote:

engineer Al wrote: Also, here's the thing about Star Trek: As much as I love TOS, sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if it was cancelled after the second season. Yes, we would never have seen a bunch of great stuff, but sooooo much of the third season is absolute crap. "Spock's Brain" for Gods sake. When we think about why we are embarassed to love Trek, it's because of the third season.

All my memories of Star Trek TOS come from endless rerun syndication thru the '70s and early '80s, so I never really had an awareness of episodes by season. But I remember reading somewhere that Roddenberry wasn't actively involved with TOS during the third season due to a clash with the network over the broadcast timeslot.

NBC announced that they were cancelling StarTrek after the second season, but a very successful (and now legendary) letter writing campaign by fans pushed them into giving the series another season. Unfortunately, they moved the time slot to Friday night which to Roddenberry was the "kiss of death" so he moved on to other projects while the series floundered in his absence.

"Brain and brain, what is brain? It is controller, is it not?"

Grudunza wrote:

KingPut wrote: For shows currently on, I was a little worried Sherlock has lost it after seeing season 3 episode 1 but episode season 3 episode 2 and 3 we're amazing [no spoilers] .

You didn't like the first one, huh? I agree that 2 and 3 were both better, but I thought they did a good job of resolving the cliffhanger with some humor and tact. The episode may have spent a bit too much time on that, and the new mystery kind of got short shrift, I suppose. But I still thought it was a great return for the series.

I rank season 3 episode 1 the empty hearse as one of the bottom 3 episodes. Maybe it's better than hound of the Baskerville and blind banker or 2 of the weaker episodes. All three episodes are better then 90% of what's on tv but not as great as some of the other episodes. My favorite episodes also tend to have great villains. My favorite episodes are season 2 episode 1 and 3 and season 3 episode 2 and 3.

engineer Al wrote: Also, here's the thing about Star Trek: As much as I love TOS, sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if it was cancelled after the second season. Yes, we would never have seen a bunch of great stuff, but sooooo much of the third season is absolute crap. "Spock's Brain" for Gods sake. When we think about why we are embarassed to love Trek, it's because of the third season.

I know, they even poo poo the third season in the DVD collection, there's a doc where they single out Spock's Brain specifically. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't still enjoy it all, including Spock's Brain. I'd be lying even more if I said that if it showed up on TV on a Sunday afternoon I'd turn it off.

I wouldn't turn it off. I own it, and I'd still sit through it. Again.

Even at it's lows, it's still better than pretty much anything sci-fi TV has ever done. The other thing is that if you cut out the third season you may as well cut out the cartoon (which is quite good) and the movies because many of the iconic characters did not become important until the third season. Season 1 and more of 2 is pretty much just about Bones, Spock and Kirk. They run the show. By the end of the third season you have the makings of a franchise.

KingPut wrote: My favorite episodes are season 2 episode 1 and 3 and season 3 episode 2 and 3.

Those are my exact favorites, too, although I'd include Season 1, Ep 1 just for introducing the series. Season 2, Ep 1 is still my favorite overall, though. I love how that all comes together. And the Hounds of the Baskervilles one is my least favorite, no doubt. I felt that "The Empty Hearse" was very entertaining, though in a way that wasn't always consistent with the series, almost being a little too self-referential or whatever. Still really fun, though.

JonJacob wrote:

engineer Al wrote: Also, here's the thing about Star Trek: As much as I love TOS, sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if it was cancelled after the second season. Yes, we would never have seen a bunch of great stuff, but sooooo much of the third season is absolute crap. "Spock's Brain" for Gods sake. When we think about why we are embarassed to love Trek, it's because of the third season.

I know, they even poo poo the third season in the DVD collection, there's a doc where they single out Spock's Brain specifically. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't still enjoy it all, including Spock's Brain. I'd be lying even more if I said that if it showed up on TV on a Sunday afternoon I'd turn it off.

I wouldn't turn it off. I own it, and I'd still sit through it. Again.

Even at it's lows, it's still better than pretty much anything sci-fi TV has ever done. The other thing is that if you cut out the third season you may as well cut out the cartoon (which is quite good) and the movies because many of the iconic characters did not become important until the third season. Season 1 and more of 2 is pretty much just about Bones, Spock and Kirk. They run the show. By the end of the third season you have the makings of a franchise.

I agree with much of what you are saying here. I'll even go further. The main characters are more fully developed and better understood by the actors playing them. Some of the very best stories are in the third season. For God's sake man, Zarabeth is there! Nonetheless, some of it really is the very worst of the worst. If "Let That be Your Last Battlefield" or "Spectre of the Gun" showed up on TV while you had friends or family over, would you say "Hey, you guys should watch this great show with me"?

Specter of the Gun...so bad..so very very bad.

It's very hard for me to say with any confidence that any series was ended right where it should have.

I don't think it's possible on Network TV for a show to achieve this. At least with a show that is popular. It requires a pre planned story arc, for that story arc to be adhered to, and then for the creative team to be willing to give it up and walk away when they are done.

Freaks and Geeks is probably as close as it gets. It would be very hard to top the first season and the ending with the boys playing D&D (the singularly greatest portrayal of RPGing ever in main stream entertainment) and what's her name deciding to become a filthy hippie (so sad). Now I don't know, but I suspect that the writers were given the heads up about halfway through the season that it was going to be a "one and done" affair and so they were able to "complete" the story.

Now look at Heroes. That first season is a contained story and it was damn good. By any artistic standard it should have ended after the first season but it didn't because...it was popular. Those other two seasons...not even in the same league.

Firefly in no way ended when it should have. All the loose ends and unanswered questions. There was no wrap up, no completion. It just ended. That show needed another season. The movie was a poor substitute.

Cable/Netflix I think has a better shot at accomplishing this goal.

Rome's first season is some of the best TV ever made. The second season is not as good but still good. It would have been nice to follow the story through Octavian defeating Marc Antony but alas the show was too expensive to produce or so I've heard.

It will be interesting to see if Netflix's version of House of Cards comes to a close (like the BBC mini series) or if they will push it beyond if it remains popular.

Fringe - This show only got better with each season. In a way the entire fifth season is the finale, but the actual final episode was great too.

Breaking Bad - Lasted just as long as needed to tell the story of Walter White Heisenberg.

LOST - By the time the final episode aired I had already seen the things I most wanted to see wrapped up (Alpert's and Jacob's back stories). The last episode was disappointing, but it didn't ruin the show for me at all.

Breaking Bad, The Wire, and maybe Rome are the only series that come to mind.

Deadwood and Carnivale came close, each could have used one more season.

Many more which went way too long.

San Il Defanso wrote: At the risk of losing my sanity trying to defend one of my favorite TV shows, why did none of it matter? They pretty clearly stated that everything that happened to the characters ACTUALLY happened.

If anyone claims "they were dead the whole time" they weren't paying attention.

There's no need to defend it. I loved Lost, but (SPOILER ALERT) I hated how all the stuff about them searching for each other after they left the island (the flash forwards) was somehow them looking for each other before the after life. I felt that it made all the really exciting flash forward things be somewhat redundant.

I think Deadwood would have had a fantastic third-and-done season if they knew going in that it was the last. They could have dumped the theater people plot and focused more on Hearst and clearing up some of the other plotlines. As it is, if there had been a fourth season I think it wouldn't have been as strong.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer should have ended at season 3. It's a perfect stopping point, wraps everything up nicely, and yet would leave it open so that if there were some good ideas the story could go further. As it was, though, it just went into a four season downward slide that should have been avoided.

I think Arrested Development was fine with just the three seasons.

I think if Sleepy Hollow goes more than two seasons it risks losing its strongest point, which is that it doesn't fuck around and just gets straight to the story.