Is 7 seasons the sweat spot?

[Ar-Pharazon]

Still, with Who, it's gotta be hard to come up with new & original plots. 50 years (minus the years off) is a lot.

Problem is, if the new idea is too weak, there's an uproar. If it derivative of any old idea, there's an uproar.

Same thing with enemies/monsters. Some new ones haven't been too well received and overuse of the old ones causes......an uproar.

The show is certainly on it's own level fandom-wise.

 

[captcalhoun]

pretty much.

 

[MacLeod]

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.

But sometimes cast members can stay for over a decade in shows. The L&O verse shows have had several.

 

[FPAlpha]

I've really become a fan of the miniseries scope.. 10-12 episodes per season.

It forces the writers to condense the writing, not waste time on filler episodes where barely something interesting happens and to bridge the time (and financial means) for the blowout mid and end season finales.

Best example i can think of is Battlestar Galactica.. stellar and brilliant first season of 13 episodes but the quality dropped when they went to full, standard seasons with many filler episodes in between the good ones.

It is rare that a show can sustain the energy over 7 seasons or more, especially if it's arc based because sooner or later the showrunners tend to lose focus and extend the life of the show past its prime (especially if it's a successful show).

I think 5 seasons are more than enough to tell the main story.. see Babylon 5 for example. You can throw in the occasional universe/character expanding episode and still have time to tell your story.

 

[MacLeod]

Still, with Who, it's gotta be hard to come up with new & original plots. 50 years (minus the years off) is a lot.

Problem is, if the new idea is too weak, there's an uproar. If it derivative of any old idea, there's an uproar.

Same thing with enemies/monsters. Some new ones haven't been too well received and overuse of the old ones causes......an uproar.

The show is certainly on it's own level fandom-wise.

But in the case of DW, they've brought back most of the main stream villians from the original era (or at least the ones in the public conscious at large).

Out of the new crop of monsters/alines which have been best received, the Odd, maybe the cat people.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ You're right about the villains, but there have been a lot of complaints about over-use of the Daleks, Cybermen, etc.

I'd add the Weeping Angels as an enemy I've liked in addition to the Ood. I hope we get a proper Ood return this series (as opposed to the single one in The Doctor's Wife), maybe seeing Ood sigma again.

------------

As far as other shows, I agree that MASH was a great show throughout, but certainly lost some steam in later years.

I've always been a huge fan of the first 5 seasons and the later ones were still good, well thought out TV, even with the more dramatic, less madcap aspect.

Still, it showed a lot more character development in those later years, where a lot of other shows just start repeating themselves.

 

[MacLeod]

Well in the case of the Dalek's rumour has it that it's a rights issue with the Nation estate. They have to appear at least once a season or the BBC lose the rights.

But moving back to the topic at hand. In long running shows perhaps part of how long a charatcer can stick around is down to how well they are liked by the viewer
replacing a generally disliked character is usually well recieved by the viewers. Replacing a popular character is generally not well received.

Sure if they've been on the show for a while and the actor genuinelly wants to move the viewers are more sympathetic to when a character is repaced simply because it's a somebody must die episode.

 

[captcalhoun]

i'm sure i've read that that rumour about the Daleks is twaddle.

 

[Starkers]

It may be twaddle, but since the show returned there's never been a series that hasn't show us a Dalek, or part of a Dalek, at least once, and that's the only thing that'd debunk the rumour really.

 

[MacLeod]

I guess we'll never know, but shows use popular villians all the time. ST is also quilty of re-using popular villians over and over again i.e. the Borg.

 

[Mr Silver]

How many episodes make up a season in British shows?

Like MacLeod said, it varies an awful lot:

There are a lot of 6 part dramas which each consist of a "feature length" episode that usually runs two hours, which would equal 12 normal episodes.

You get some shows like Casualty (a British medical drama) which runs for nearly 50 weekly episodes, takes a few weeks off and returns with 50 more and has been doing this for nearly 26 years.

Then you have other shows like Eastenders (a soap opera) which has run non-stop for around 3 nights a week for the last 27 years with only one remaining original cast member.

Doctor Who would probably be the closest eqiuivalent to an American "season" show, although it has been running on and off since the 1960's. It has since 2005, returned each year with a new season, preceded by a Christmas special a few months in advance that is usually done to bridge the gap between the exceptionally long production time for a British TV series (it's around 9 months to a year between each season/series) However, given that there have been numerous actors playing the part of the Doctor with the regeneration concept, it's fair to say that each new Doctor season is a spin off of the original pilot series.

 

[Greg Cox]

LOL

Sorry about my spelling. Should be sweet spot.

You're hardly the first to fall into that trap. I still remember the restaurant menu that listed "sweat and sour pork."

Uggh!

 

[Starkers]

How many episodes make up a season in British shows?

Like MacLeod said, it varies an awful lot:

There are a lot of 6 part dramas which each consist of a "feature length" episode that usually runs two hours, which would equal 12 normal episodes.

You get some shows like Casualty (a British medical drama) which runs for nearly 50 weekly episodes, takes a few weeks off and returns with 50 more and has been doing this for nearly 26 years.

Then you have other shows like Eastenders (a soap opera) which has run non-stop for around 3 nights a week for the last 27 years with only one remaining original cast member.

Doctor Who would probably be the closest eqiuivalent to an American "season" show, although it has been running on and off since the 1960's. It has since 2005, returned each year with a new season, preceded by a Christmas special a few months in advance that is usually done to bridge the gap between the exceptionally long production time for a British TV series (it's around 9 months to a year between each season/series) However, given that there have been numerous actors playing the part of the Doctor with the regeneration concept, it's fair to say that each new Doctor season is a spin off of the original pilot series.

To be honest I think you could almost class Casualty as a soap these days.

 

[BillJ]

Anything more than four or five seasons and I find myself getting bored. The only two that ran longer that kept my interest were The Simpsons and Seinfeld.

 

[MacLeod]

^ Is that down to the number of seasons or episodes though.

If one show has a 22 episode season and another a 13 episode, it would take almost twice as longer for later to get to the same number episodes. So 4 seasons at 22 episodes is just shy of 90 episodes, whilst it would 7 seasons of the later to get to 90 or so episodes.

 

[BillJ]

^ Is that down to the number of seasons or episodes though.

I should've said years. Regardless of the number of episodes, after four or five years I burn out on seeing the same people over and over.

 

[RandyS]

LOL

Sorry about my spelling. Should be sweet spot.

You're hardly the first to fall into that trap. I still remember the restaurant menu that listed "sweat and sour pork."

Uggh!

Heh.

I take it you DIDN'T order that?

 

[C_Miller]

OP: Just some points on yours. X-Files, yeah it went on too long, but I think it went on for four season too long, not just two. The show, while good up to that point had enough filler that they could have condensed some parts of the story into Five Seasons and then continue the rest on the big screen with X-Files mania was still going on. We would have actually seen it all pan out, which would have been nice. Unfortunately, nine seasons, 2 movies and twenty years later, it doesn't look like we'll ever see it pan out.

As far as How I Met Your Mother goes, it's pretty clear that you don't watch the show. Yeah, we learned at the end of this season who gets married next season, but neither member of that is the "I" or the "Mother" mentioned in the title. The show is about Ted finding his wife, and he has not found her yet. But even still, the show is more about the experiences of the five friends in New York and each character has their own character arc, so in some cases the title of the show takes a background role. It could theoretically go on forever (although, it won't and it shouldn't).

Truth be told, I actually can't think of a series that's lasted more than Seven Season that I've enjoyed after as much after Seven Seasons. So yeah, I think I can agree that it's a maximum. Although How I Met Your Mother, which is ending next year could throw that out the window if it maintains the quality I'm used to.

But I wouldn't say that's the sweet spot though. Sweet spot implies perfection. I can't think of a show that has been perfect in seven seasons. TNG shouldn't have gone any further, but that's because it had run out of steam. Voyager ran out of steam at episode 2. While I don't like Buffy dying being the end of the Buffy mythos, the last two seasons of that show didn't do it any favors.

The only example I can think of is Deep Space Nine that was Seven Seasons and was perfect. Didn't overstay its welcome nor did it make me want more in a bad way. Mad Men could be there too, but we still have two seasons to go. Lost is another "perfectly" ended show, but that was only six seasons. Seven would definitely not have been the sweet spot. Angel too and that ended at 5. Twin Peaks was also well done, but that was only two and the last few episodes were ho-hum. So based on that, I don't think seven seasons is the sweet spot.

Honestly, I don't think there is one. Shows either tend to either be canceled too soon (Firefly, Arrested Development) or they overstay their welcome (The Office, Babylon 5 (which should have ended at 5), The X-Files). There is no middle ground that a sweet spot implies

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Shows either tend to either be canceled too soon (Firefly, Arrested Development) or they overstay their welcome (The Office, Babylon 5 (which should have ended at 5), The X-Files). There is no middle ground that a sweet spot implies

That's because economics, not "hitting a sweet spot," has governed the lifespan of shows, at least to date. There are more shows now like Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy and Mad Men, where the showrunners are able to end shows when they think the time is right, and not worry that they'll be cancelled before their time.

But there's no one size fits all answer. How long a show should run is inherent in the premise of the show. So, the only real expert who should determine this is the showrunner. Who else is going to know better? And only on cable do showrunners have that luxury, since ratings don't need to be as high. Lost was an outlier in that regard.

If a showrunner wants to do a one season show or a twenty season show, I don't see why that wouldn't be an option (though a deliberate one season show might be a tough sell).