When Good Shows Go Bad

[Kirkman1987]

^ I remember...especially after that demon guy (Bob?) started showing up.

You must not have liked Twin Peaks much. He first appeared in the second episode!!!

In my opinion, the show was only getting better until the murder was solved. The show plummeted to the state of being near unwatchable almost immediately, before instantly regaining it's footing for the last episode. weird

Yeah, that last episode actually was pretty damn good. Lynch himself has said that solving the murder was a mistake.

Well, even though it was a mistake, the actual end of the investigation is handled very well, and is some of the best stuff in the series.

The real mistake imo was that they had nothing planned to replace the main plot. This alone led to several problems. Without a central dramatic focus, the show lost it's edge, became almost all comedic sideplot, and forced writers to make character changes and add in new characters to try to generate interest. These changes only made things worse, and was compunded by the absence of the creators, who seemed to just say "fuck it" once they couldn't have it thier way and left.

What Twin Peaks needed to be saved was the cooperation of the creators and a Ballsy plot development the very next episode after the murder case is closed. The best thing about the last episode is that it shows that Twin Peaks easily could have survived post laura palmer. The evil Cooper storyline would have made for an exellent season 3. If they had moved swiftly in that direction right after the murder, the show would've stood a chance.

Damn, why am I on a star trek forum and not a Twin Peaks one

 

[Morfius]

X-Files, once it became clear they weren't going to resolve any plotline in any decent or satisfactory way and just keep piling on the bullshit deeper and deeper with increasing self-satisfaction, added to the obligatorily horrid cliche of Mulder's parentage and Scully's unwavering sceptisim in the face of years of exposure to blatantly alien and unnatural phenomenon.

this was clear to me by the end of the first season . . . that's why I stopped watching

 

[Kegg]

On the subject of Andromeda, if anyone's interested in knowing what Hewitt Wolfe had planned for the series as a whole (and it was a doozy of an arc, honsetly - much like JMS and unlike some other showrunners, he had a very clear idea of where Andromeda was headed) you can read it all in his short online script "Coda", which can be found here. Perhaps a tad overtly theological for some's tastes, but eh. The whole conflict between Love and Strife struck me as rather Empedoclean.

Damn shame, really. Damn shame.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I'm going to nominate an obscure one: War of the Worlds.

They did a virtual 180 on the show in S2, and just BARELY managed to connect it to S1.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Damn, why am I on a star trek forum and not a Twin Peaks one

Because we outnumber them!

 

[sojourner]

BSG because you can pin it down to when Ron Moore came up with his "it's the characters stupid" message for his writers. The comment just happened to take place around the time they finished season 2.

 

[Harvey]

^^
Nonsense. Moore's mantra that they were making a character drama was the guiding philosophy of the series since the beginning. And, as far as I remember, Moore wrote "it's the characters, stupid" when they were breaking Daybreak, not at the end of season two, though I'm willing to stand corrected on that one.

 

[The Wormhole]

No, I think you're right, it was Daybreak. It was after all the writers spent an entire day pouring over schematics of Galactica trying to figure out how the fight of Marines vs Centurions would work. Moore got fed up that everyone was getting caught up in details like that, and wanted everyone to worry more about the characters themselves, so he wrote the "It's the characters, stupid" on a white board in the writers room.

 

[ZeNd]

Sliders, EFC, Heroes

 

[sojourner]

No, I think you're right, it was Daybreak. It was after all the writers spent an entire day pouring over schematics of Galactica trying to figure out how the fight of Marines vs Centurions would work. Moore got fed up that everyone was getting caught up in details like that, and wanted everyone to worry more about the characters themselves, so he wrote the "It's the characters, stupid" on a white board in the writers room.

I stand corrected. It went down hill much faster than I though. Just think how great the series could have been if the Cylons had actually had a plan, instead of Moore making things up as they went along. Moore let the character pathos override the story.

 

[Peter the Younger]

No, I think you're right, it was Daybreak. It was after all the writers spent an entire day pouring over schematics of Galactica trying to figure out how the fight of Marines vs Centurions would work. Moore got fed up that everyone was getting caught up in details like that, and wanted everyone to worry more about the characters themselves, so he wrote the "It's the characters, stupid" on a white board in the writers room.

I stand corrected. It went down hill much faster than I though. Just think how great the series could have been if the Cylons had actually had a plan, instead of Moore making things up as they went along. Moore let the character pathos override the story.

I actually enjoyed all that character pathos, but after some time to reflect on the show, I have to agree. Personally, I think anything that pulls the audience out of the fictional world interferes with our ability to empathize with the characters. It's like there is a sign hanging over Adama's head saying, "we're just making this stuff up, you know."

 

[stonester1]

Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda both had one good season. Buffy was great from start to finish.

Wurd.

 

[auntiehill]

Like others have said before, Sliders is the perfect example. It had such a wonderful premise and wonderful characters--particularly in Arturo. But the network, and horrible writing, just destroyed it--and at warp speed, at that.

Heroes would be a more recent example for me. The first season, to me, was great. I really enjoyed and became invested in the characters and what happened to them.

Then, came season 2.

Spoiler: season 2 and 3

Hiro was isolated from the rest of the plot and characters for most of the season. Peter suddenly became an IDIOT who, unlike the true believer of the first season, had suddenly stopped believing in his instincts.

Then, in season 3, Mohinder, the narrator and moral conscience of the show, turned into "The Fly," and Nathan, who had beautifully redeemed himself at the end of season 1, turned into a complete ASS for no apparent reason.

The show has started to pull its butt out of the fire, and there are still characters that I care about--but BOY, has this show gone South. If my hubby weren't so determined to see it through, I might have bailed out last season.

So far, however, this season seems OK. *fingers crossed*

 

[Australis]

Never got into Buffy. Never. Ever. It just seemed lik a buinch of teen whining, smartarse one liners no high schooler would have ebeen capable of, and jumpy-bouncy-stakey vamp slaying mashed together. Meh. Therefore I totally fail to see the love.

Hey, that might just be me. If you got something out of it, and a lot of people seemed to, that's fine by me.

 

[Tulaberry whine]

I gotta say, with all the Babylon 5 talk, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that show's horrible fifth season. Then again, I actually think the show went over a creative cliff at the start of its fourth season.

 

[Vendikarr]

I'm going to nominate an obscure one: War of the Worlds.

They did a virtual 180 on the show in S2, and just BARELY managed to connect it to S1.

Yea, because it's always a good idea to kill off all the minority characters and the fan's favorite characters.

I think I saw one episode of War of the Worlds season 2, and that was enough.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ WOTW Season 2 was actually kind of cool, IMHO. I did like its depiction of the aliens and their technology. What I didn't understand was why the rest of the world was suddenly so run down. They never explained that bit.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Can't forget The Dead Zone. That show introduced some good story arcs that got dropped rather suddenly. They also dropped one of their best characters, Dana Bright.

 

[I am not Spock]

Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda both had one good season. Buffy was great from start to finish.

Wurd.

Thirded. I enjoyed the debut seasons of EFC and Andromeda. Then both went to pot after that.

Buffy just got better and better. I personally don't think it ever jumped the shark, although others might argue that point.

Sliders fell to bits as soon as John Rhys Davies left.

Heroes has never really recovered from its second season blues.

Lost dipped in quality at the beginning of season three, but it did recover from that, and is now good again.

I would have watched another season of Firefly. I don't think Joss and his guys would have screwed that up.

 

[chrisspringob]

Hmmm.....I thought Buffy was OK in Season 7, but not nearly as good as it had been in its early years. Same goes for pretty much every other SF/F show I've enjoyed, from B5 to BSG to TNG, DS9, Farscape.....others, like X-Files, were notably worse than just "OK" by the end.

In fact, I'm struggling to think of a single show (from any genre, really) that I thought was firing on cylinders when it went off the air. (Aside from those that only lasted one season.)