Shows that should have been better

[Shaka Zulu]

It would be interesting to have a poll asking:
Was nuBSG?:
1. Good/Very Good/Excellent: Doesn't need improvements.
2. Good/Very Good/Excellent: Could still use improvements.
3. Very Poor/Poor/Average: Could use improvements.
4. Very Poor/Poor/Average: Doesn't warrant improvements.

I, myself, would vote for 3. The pilot movie is amazing, as is most of the first couple of seasons. In at least the last 1.5 seasons, it kind of went off the rails for me. It was clear they didn't have a plan (the writers nor the Cylons), and I thought the ending was poor. It was a struggle even to get through the last season, just so I could see the plot wrapped up.

I will admit the the show had a shitty third and fourth season, and that the ending was bad, but the series is a million percent better than the original series, and has the wider love of the general public and most of sci-fi fandom.

I tend to agree. The first 15 episodes of Lost In Space had real potential had they kept the tone somewhat serious and tried not to make it as "fun" as they had done. The first four episodes actually were kind of dark what with Smith trying to get the robot to kill Don in a rather brutal manner. Kinda dark for a family show. I loved that. The rot set in 2nd and 3rd season and by the end the writers had milked the cow dry and had run out of ideas.

The Lost In Space comic books from Innovation Comics (written by Bill Mumy) and the 1998 movie were better than the TV show; to me, those are the real Lost In Space. It's too bad the movie didn't do well enough for a sequel, and Innovation went under as a company, thus preventing more from being published.

EDIT (11/18/2016): I sometimes wonder what Lost In Space would be like if Gene Roddenberry had become the producer; I'm betting that the level of characterization and story would have become better.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The first two seasons and first four episodes of the third season were some of the best scifi TV ever but after that they did nothing but meander in strange conceptual areas and keep building things up with weak payoff.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

BSG music was awesome. They did get the music right. I own the 4 CD set (actually 8 disks) and that is brilliant to listen to

 

[Taylirious]

Smallville
Less teen love triangle angst and more boy becoming a Superman!

 

[EmoBorg]

Helix. It went downhill in season 2.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

One thing about nuBSG: thank God "Revelations" didn't turn out to be the ending of the whole series, as it almost was...

 

[bigdaddy]

One thing about nuBSG: thank God "Revelations" didn't turn out to be the ending of the whole series, as it almost was...

I'm not sure, I think I might have liked that ending more than the episodes we got afterwards.

But I'm one of the crazy people that liked the last scene of Farscape.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

One show that should have been better, Family Guy.

I remember the initial run of the show, where it failed because they never promoted it and kept randomly moving it around to different nights. But those first episodes were mostly really good, even if they were a rapid fire application of the Simpson's template that kneeled on political incorrectness for shock laughs a bit more.

When the show was uncanceled it started leaning more and more on shock laughs and dickishness, and the characters turned into versions of themselves that just weren't all that funny. The Bond villain baby became all about weird gay jokes. Meg was originally this ironically mediocre person that everyone was grudgingly nice to anyway and suddenly everyone just treated her like the worst creature in all of existence. When Joe was introduced the joke was "He's paralyzed, but still really badass and macho." Later it became "He's paralyzed -- ha ha ha ha ha he can't do stuff." I guess Lois turning from Marge Simpson into a domestic sex maniac was a good change, but it would have worked better if she hadn't adopted the same dickish tone of the rest of the show.

Also all the regular characters who were funny when they were new became stale and boring because they did not introduce any new regulars in the entire decade since they came back.

It would have been better if they had never brought it back. Then we'd have Firefly nostalgia for it and remember it as the show that could have been great if the network had given it a chance.

 

[cultcross]

But I suppose I could say that of most shows with mythologies

Nearly all shows with complex mythologies get less interesting as time goes on, which is a shame because I love that stuff! The problem as I see it is that so often writers don't know how long their show will run, often being told it's ending then having a reprieve, or the other way around. It must be really hard to know how to plan or reveal mythology stuff never knowing how long your story is. Plus, the simple fact that if you build up a mystery, the reveal is almost always going to be a disappointment. On Stargate, for example, the Ancients were thrilling and exciting to me exactly until the point we actually met them.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The thing about Stargate is a lot of stories were about finding the next big advantage, but then they kept needing to top themselves and once a box was opened it couldn't be closed. So later in the show they had such technology that there wasn't a need for the epic ground battles that drove the first few seasons.

The same thing happened in 24. Once they brought out the nukes in season two, now you can't go back to a simple character driven revenge story. You have to top it.

 

[RandyS]

One thing about nuBSG: thank God "Revelations" didn't turn out to be the ending of the whole series, as it almost was...

Was that when they landed on the nuked Earth? Given Ron Moore's need for unhappy anything, I was surprised the show didn't end with that.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ The only thing that stopped "Revelations" from being the series finale was the end of the writers strike.

If the strike had gone on any longer than it did, the show would have ended right then and there.

 

[RandyS]

^ The only thing that stopped "Revelations" from being the series finale was the end of the writers strike.

If the strike had gone on any longer than it did, the show would have ended right then and there.

Doesn't surprise me in the least.