The two-season solution

[Joe Washington]

After how well my one-season solution thread went (http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=247459), I decided to create a sequel thread. This time, it's about shows benefitting from two seasons long instead of one. Do you know of any shows (current or past) that would be better off that way?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Sopranos would have had the hardest punch if it ended after season 2 and wasn't allowed to dwindle into cyclical plotlines.

2 seasons is less of a 'sweet spot' than 1, because usually if you have an epic enough story that you can't tell it in one season, you have no reason to stop at two.

And furthermore if you have good enough ratings to do a second season they probably won't go down far enough in that one season not to do a third.

 

[Australis]

John Doe, went for one season, could have been really big if it had a second and final season.

 

[bigdaddy]

Homeland would have been good with one or two seasons.

End season one the obvious way to end the show, or 2nd one that pretty much goes the way it did without the plot falling apart at the end.

 

[Gaith]

When I read about how the producers of Rome intended to incorporate the birth of Jesus into future seasons (because an illiterate Jewish preacher in Judea affected the elites of early first-century Rome... how?), I find myself kinda relieved it ended after the two seasons it did.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Umm, yeah. Even if you're planning to write Jesus strictly as a historical figure and not in a Ben Hur sort of way, he wasn't historically relevant until he was 29. So unless they were planning to jump forward 30 years Jesus wasn't exactly relevant to their story.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Herod The Great appeared in season 2 (in Timon's storyline) and plays a role in the nativity story.


As far as a continuation of Rome, there's the BBC series I, Claudius which deals with (dramatized of course) events about ten years later (and onward). However it's much older, and on a shoestring BBC budget. Lot of great actors though-including Patrick Stewart.

I remember there was talk of a remake/readaptation, but that did not materialize.

 

[Gaith]

Herod The Great appeared in season 2 (in Timon's storyline) and plays a role in the nativity story.

Yes, and Ulysses S. Grant, who appears in the Steven Spielberg film Lincoln, plays a role in the Wild Wild West film story.

But I don't want to see either of those plots in Rome.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Is that based on the novel I, Claudius? I was forced to read that in high school, it'd be interesting to see a TV series.

The Office (US) is another show that could have benefitted from an earlier cancellation. Not that the later seasons didn't have good episodes and a lot of good new characters, they just kept stretching to figure out where the hell to go with their character arcs. Get Jim and Pam together, good, done. No need to make up a new good guy/bad guy love triangle every season and come up with more new ways to have Michael act needy.

Also, if Community were cancelled after two seasons we'd have more to complain about, like with Firefly. Complaining about Community's cancellation would have been fun, now we have nothing to complain about.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm not sure if two seasons would have been appropriate for The Office. Three or Four, certainly, but the first season was so weak that I think it needed more than two.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm not sure if two seasons would have been appropriate for The Office. Three or Four, certainly, but the first season was so weak that I think it needed more than two.

I meant two full seasons, season one was more a quarter-season. One of those 'We don't think people will watch this so we're ordering a very small amount of episodes just in case they do' seasons. It's not even sold separately in the DVD set. So, you're right, The Office should have ended after 2 1/4 seasons.

Speaking of shows with 1/4 first seasons, I think Family Guy was cancelled at the exact right time. Now if only they hadn't brought it back.

 

[Joe Washington]

Here's a list of some two-season examples I've come up with.

1. The West Wing
2. The Tudors
3. Entourage
4. The Sopranos
5. Dexter
6. Alias
7. Millennium

 

[Masiral]

Here's a list of some two-season examples I've come up with.

1. The West Wing

I have to disagree with this. The West Wing didn't really lose steam until Season 5, and Seasons 3 and 4 had some very excellent episodes.

 

[Joe Washington]

Here's a list of some two-season examples I've come up with.

1. The West Wing

I have to disagree with this. The West Wing didn't really lose steam until Season 5, and Seasons 3 and 4 had some very excellent episodes.

That's true but the end of Season 2 would have the show go out on a high note with what happens next left up to our imagination. It's the best way to end a series.

 

[Gaith]

Here's a list of some two-season examples I've come up with.

1. The West Wing

My dear sir,

It is with great sorrow and reluctance that I must deliver the news that you have lost this particular thread. Had you argued for shorter seasons, this outcome might have been averted... But to say that (assuming the one season = one in-story year rule more or less holds) the show shouldn't even have done a re-election arc? This simply does not compute. You have lost the thread, sir, all of it, and you have no one to blame for it but yourself.

 

[bigdaddy]

I'm sorry but West Wing was better than almost all TV even in season 4-5-6-7. Even during the stupid Zoey kidnap crap, still better than most TV.

The show did end with us wondering what happened next, yet gave complete closure. Should the show never done season three where the president runs again and then kills some terrorist illegally? That was a lot of fun.

I mean I don't get what people here want. Maybe West Wing should have ended with "And the winner of the 2002 election is..." *Cuts to black*?

 

[Harvey]

The West Wing

Does not compute. Season five stumbled for much of its run due to the loss of the show's main voice (Sorkin), but seasons six and seven were quite good. Not to mention seasons three and four, which were terrific, and won the Best Drama Emmy for a reason.

The Tudors

I don't see it, really. If anything, it ended too early, compressing Henry's reign to let Jonathan Rhys Meyers out of his contract, and not going into the history of those who followed him.

Dexter

I can see this. Seasons 1-2 are really the only ones that I think are any good. Seasons 3 and 4 didn't really have anything new to say thematically, and season five and beyond were awful (I bailed after season six). Still, I think the series could have covered more ground if the writers had been serious about ending it earlier, and good enough to pay off that ending.

Millennium

The show re-invented itself every year, and not always for the better. Two seasons wouldn't have helped the series solve its identity crisis.

 

[bigdaddy]

People need to back off of Dexter a tad (just a tad) because the creator of the show left after season 4, probably because Showtime sucks. Showtime wouldn't ever have let him kill Dexter off, which is just silly.

 

[Harvey]

People need to back off of Dexter a tad (just a tad) because the creator of the show left after season 4, probably because Showtime sucks. Showtime wouldn't ever have let him kill Dexter off, which is just silly.

He wasn't even the original showrunner...

#1: James Manos, Jr. developed the pilot based on the novel.
#2: Daniel Cerone was the showrunner for the rest of season one and season two.
#3: Clyde Phillips, who you're talking about, was the showrunner for seasons three and four (where the show, honestly, was already starting to get repetitious).
#4: Chip Johannessen handled showrunning duties for the dreadful fifth season
#5: Scott Buck took over for seasons six through eight -- he lasted the longest, but this was also the series' nadir (based only on season six, and what I've read about seasons seven and eight).

Showtime is an odd network, because they're obviously interested in risky premises...but they follow this initial interest by demanding that their shows play it safe in order to maintain the status quo and drag things out for as long as possible.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Dexter finally lost me in season four when it was obvious they decided who to kill off before they thought about what made sense in the story. So they ended up writing huge contrivances and making Dexter uncharacteristically incompetent the whole season just to make it happen. And I always hated the 'Ghost Harry' segments, they didn't work nearly as well as the flashbacks.

Season two was good, but really the only great season was the first. It was visually imaginative in a way the rest of the series wasn't.