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Is 7 seasons the sweat spot?

Vanyel

Vanyel

The Imperious Leader
Premium Member
When it comes to shows without an extended multi-season story arc, is 7 seasons about the right point to end the series?

To me it looks like shows in their 8th + season are showing their age. M*A*S*H lasted longer than the war that was it's backdrop. Friends only found new life with Monica and Chandler's married life, Rachel's baby and Paul Rudd, otherwise it really fell down hill. The Simpson's used to be must see, now I'll catch what I missed in reruns. The X-Files really needed to end the conspiracy. Crime drama's start repeating crimes and people get together and break up over and over. And don't we already know who got married in How I Met Your Mother?

So, should hit shows, or just good shows, go out after 7 seasons?

Thoughts ideas?
 
How long a show goes depends on its premise. Some premises are wide open and can go for as long as the writers can think of new stuff to do - Star Trek, Heroes.

At the other extreme, there are shows like Dexter, which merit maybe four seasons of good material and if they get greedy and start to stretch it further, the quality deteriorates.

In between is something like Sons of Anarchy - Kurt Suter said he wants to do seven seasons, which I have a hard time envisioning, but if he wants to give it a shot, fine. Or, Breaking Bad, which at five seasons is hitting it right on the nose.

The difference is like this:

Short shows, 1-4 seasons: the premise is extremely narrow, with the main character walking a tightrope, like Dexter Morgan trying to follow The Code while still feeding his serial killer hunger. There's a limit to how long that balancing act can last. The longer it goes, the more the writers have to re-use plot elements and strain plausibility.

Medium shows, 5-7 seasons: there's a balancing act happening but it's not as tricky for the character. Walter White on Breaking Bad is in the same situation as Dexter, but he can at least tell his wife what he's up to, not to mention his partner, and he's far more mentally healthy and able to hold it together. The whole thing is bound to come crashing down on him eventually, it'll just take longer before it starts getting ridiculous and making us wish the show would end already.

Long shows, 8 seasons-plus. These shows are not about a character who has a specific problem, but about a situation that doesn't have a resolution, or need one. Star Trek is the best example - it's just an open-ended premise about Starfleet, going boldly. Taken altogether, there has been 28 seasons of Star Trek, not counting the animated series. Police procedurals, sitcoms and Gunsmoke are also in this category.

Just because a premise offers the potential to be a long show doesn't mean the writers can pull it off - Heroes being a case in point.

Short, medium or long, all these show types can be great. The problem with shows is when they go longer than they should for their premise type.
 
Only thing about Star Trek is that it was 6 shows, not one. And two of those shows had a series long arc and one had a multi-season arc nested in the series long arc. To me they are just different shows that are in the same universe, like all the Law & Order shows or CSI shows. Different casts and different characters. Not one show.
 
If a show is beginning to show signs of age then yes it should be put out to pasture. In the case of The X-Files I felt it was running out of steam in season 6. But in the case of show like the X-Files is was built sort of around the character of Mulder when he left, the show was more or less over.

A show like L&O which ran to 20 seasons and could easily have continued, DW is at what Season 33 and still going strong.

So some shows are better suited to being able to support over 7 seasons, whilst others aren't.
 
I see Star Trek as being the same show, just produced more flexibly than most are, but could be. M*A*S*H for instance could have been about other medical units in Korea, and extended its running time by rotating among them, or telling their stories sequentially, so that the audience wouldn't just get sick of Hawkeye, et al after X number of years.

The limiting factor even on "long shows" is that the audience just gets sick of the same characters (or the actors get sick of playing them), but changing the characters is also a huge risk. Didn't work out so well for The X-Files.

I'd like to see a more flexible definition of what a "single show" really is, to get around that problem. American Horror Story is doing something interesting - keeping many of the same actors and the same general idea (outlandish horror) but changing the setting, characters and premise.

There's no reason that premise would run out of steam very soon - the limiting factor is simply how many different horror settings can they come up with? (I'm sticking with the show at least till they do a haunted theme park - my favorite! :D)
 
^^^ LOL!

I think each show has it's own natural life span so seven seasons is just an arbritary number. Certain shows could go much longer than seven, and other, while good shows, lose steam and should wrap up after just a season or two. I like the idea of shows with shorter seasons though. So many shows with 20+ episode seasons always have some filler episodes which really don't contribute anything to the show overall and typically feel like a waste of time when I watch them.
 
Certainly, there's wiggle room, but honestly I think 5 seasons is often more appropriate than 7.
 
Seven seasons is usually the point at which it becomes more profitable to syndicate the existing episodes vs. creating new ones.
 
not always. some shows have 6 episodes per year. some have 12 in 2 blocks (which Who is currently doing), some have 13 episodes in one block. and then you get stuff ITV shows where it's about 8 or 10 episodes made in one production block and then shown here and there across the year at odd intervals whenever ITV can be bothered to show it. which is what happened/happens with Heartbeat, The Royal, Lewis, Midsomer Murders and Wild at Heart to my mum's eternal annoyance.
 
^ The 2 blocks of Who is considered the same series though, right?

Though Top Gear series 18 had 8 including the India special, instead of the normal 6.
 
I think cast changes can help freshen up shows and make it last longer. If the original cast remains the whole way through then usually towards the end you can tell the people who work on the show are kinda jaded. And sometimes there just isn't anywhere else to go with the characters.
 
Well DW is somewhat of an unusual case, in that the lead charatcer changes actor every few years, but the lead character remains the same (aside from a different personality) though still suffering from Chronic Hero Syndrome, every wrong must be righted, every villian defeated etc...
 
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