Good shows gone bad...

[JangoFett4Hire 0]

Sorry if this has been done before, or to death, but I'm watching a re-run of Roseanne from the last season. God, it is awful. Cheesy storyline with Debbie Reynolds as Dan's homicidal mom. Complete with obligatory Princess Leia bikini joke in front of her real-life mom. Anyways, the question is what show in your opinion flamed out so dramatically? Went the reverse-Midas route. Jumping the shark, if you wanna use the 1990's lingo.

 

Besides Roseanne, I'll also throw X Files out there.

[Guest Smues]

Lots of people will say The Simpsons, but I don't think it got terrible, just not great like it used to be.

 

The Practice is my nominee. It was going downhill already, then they just absolutely RAPED it with that last season with James Spader. Christ did that season just completely kill my interest in the entire series. Fuck you David E. Kelley, fuck you James Spader.

[starvenger 0]

Alf was charming in it's first season, and then it just went south from there.

[Special K 0]

Alias was bubble-gum fun for two seasons, and quickly started to tank.

 

Drew Carey was a pretty good sitcom that suddenly became a gimmick-athon.

 

Buffy went from great (s1-3) to good (4-5) to bad (6-7)

 

Seinfeld really lost steam once Larry David left.

 

I'm afraid it took very little time with season 2 of Lost and all the filler for me to stop watching it, after loving season 1.

 

Family Guy was pretty darn funny until it was cancelled. Now I can't stand it.

[Jonathon 0]

Third Watch.

[Guest NYankees]

Melrose Place and 90210 really lost steam in their final years. Malcolm in the Middle used to be funny but then every character got major fucking annoying. Roseanne is probably the biggest show to jump the shark. Wonder Years went from being great to horrible in it's last year.

[Hawk 34 0]

The O.C.

ER

Malcom in the Middle

Will & Grace

Friends

The Pratice

90210

Boston Public

[Just John 0]

Power Rangers. Loved it in 3rd-4th grade, watched it a few years afterwards and laughed at how sad it became. I don't even want to know what happened post-Zeo rangers.

 

I don't think Family Guy has completely jumped the shark, but it has definitely lost a step since its re-birth.

[Guest Fook]

Simpsons and Family Guy are right at the top of this list. The newer episodes of both these series are just excruciating to sit through.

 

The X-Files should have stopped after the seventh season when Duchovney left. There were some good episodes afterwards, but it wasn't the same.

 

That 70's Show went way too long. They should have quit a lot earlier. Hint: When the characters you've built the show around decide to leave, it's time to call it a day.

[starvenger 0]

Power Rangers. Loved it in 3rd-4th grade, watched it a few years afterwards and laughed at how sad it became. I don't even want to know what happened post-Zeo rangers.

Power Rangers has essentially gone the way of it's Japanese counterparts, with new casts and new looks every year. The funny thing is, it got better once Disney took over Fox Family/Fox Kids and moved the production to New Zealand. Before that, it was real, real bad.

 

Of course, this is all relative. You pretty much know what you're getting from an episode at this point - a simple, straightforward plot centered around the main characters, a big monster, stunt fighting and a big godzilla-style fight. Definitely not rocket science here.

[Guest JumpinJackFlash]

South Park's latest season wasn't too good. A lot of their episodes were playing one joke to death, like a damn MAD TV sketch.

[bob_barron 0]

Boston Public was never good to begin with. I love that show, but it was so bad.

 

The Practice got bad when every case became the same. The person's guilty, they play on reasonable doubt to get them off, they win and then deal with their conscience. And you know you've run out of storylines when two people on the show end up getting charged for murder.

[Ripper 0]

You forgot the SHOCKING times when the person was believed to be innocent but was actually guilty. That happend every other case.

[Hawk 34 0]

SNL, pulled it off twice. It was great and then it got really bad, then got great again and then went back to being bad and is slowly rising back.

 

I guess in a 25+ year period, it's bound to occur.

[bob_barron 0]

You forgot the SHOCKING times when the person was believed to be innocent but was actually guilty. That happend every other case.

 

And they always fucking won! Even when they were CLEARLY guilty. Bobby Donell was guilty as hell and he got off. WTF?

[Special K 0]

Miami Vice jumped the shark when crockett got amnesia and believed he was Sonny Burnett.

 

Wait, fuck it. That show always ruled.

[Mole 0]

ER

X-Files

Drew Carey Show

24

[bobobrazil1984 0]

The West Wing

 

It went from one of the best TV shows ever to a crappy almost unrecognizeable show when Aaron Sorkin left. To be fair, it had started slipping in quailty with Sorkin there, but the difference in Season 5 to 1-4 is particularly jarring. It didnt even LOOK the same, even the style of shooting and camerawork was far more "generic".

 

Seasons 1-2 are probably some of the best TV seasons ever, capped off by my favorite scene, Bartlett versus God!

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

24

 

Blasphemy I say!

[SuperJerk 0]

The original Star Trek went to crap the third year.

 

The 4th season of Mr. Show just wasn't funny.

 

Other people already mentioned...

 

The X-Files should have stopped after the seventh season when Duchovney left. There were some good episodes afterwards, but it wasn't the same.

 

That 70's Show went way too long. They should have quit a lot earlier. Hint: When the characters you've built the show around decide to leave, it's time to call it a day.

 

Too true.

 

Alias was bubble-gum fun for two seasons, and quickly started to tank.

 

Buffy went from great (s1-3) to good (4-5) to bad (6-7)

 

Indeed.

 

Boston Public was never good to begin with. I love that show, but it was so bad.

 

Seconded.

[razazteca 0]

Drew Carey was a pretty good sitcom that suddenly became a gimmick-athon.

Hey the pop up episodes were good the show went to shit when Drew Carey changed jobs from mid-manager of the department store to computer geek.

 

70's Show went down hill when Topher left the show, Hot Donna went blond, and when Frank Stallone clones became regulars.

 

King of the Hill jumped the shark when they decided that Peggy Hill was someone to build the show around.

[iggymcfly 0]

The OC did this trip pretty quick. The first season was tremendous, to the point that it seemed to be growing the whole genre. The second season was still entertaining at times, but nowhere near the same quality. Then, the third season was just awful. To the point that I'd try to watch an episode, and only get through about 5 minutes before it was so embarrasingly bad that I had to turn it off.

[the max 0]

 

24

 

Blasphemy I say!

 

Wait 'til Mole tells you why the show's bad now.

[Placebo Effect 0]

Those besmirching the great name of Boston Public will die horribly painful deaths.

 

Boston Public has to be my favorite TV show of all time. It was over the top, but fuck, it was over the top to perfection.

 

Two favorites off the top of my head was Lipschitz' "I have a black, negro, African American son that I fathered with a colored woman" and Marla and Danny punch each other.

[bob_barron 0]

I love Boston Public too for that same reason. It's so bad, but you have to love it.

 

The episode where they get Whitney Houston to play at the prom...quality.

 

The best moment was anything Kimberly Woods did. I loved that character.

[Aero 0]

I don't hate the new episodes as much as most others, but the Simpsons definitely counts.

 

Drew Carey

Post-dept. store episodes suck.

 

Boy Meets World

I'm not a huge fan of the post-high school shows. The middle school Mr. Turner episodes are the best.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Actually, I don't think Boy Meets World got bad until towards the last season. There was definitely a change, but it was similar to actually growing up. Every character was different - aside from the parents and Feeney - to how they were in prior seasons. Though I still wanna know how Topanga went from cute-but-fucking-weird hippie bitch to sexy-as-hell prep girl over the course of a summer...

[Aero 0]

I always hated how they turned Eric into a complete idiot/loser in the last few seasons.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Corey too. He was the smarter of the two - between him and Sean - and then became the buffoon that Sean once was. I didn't understand that at all.

[KingPK 0]

The Drew Carey Show started to tank for me when Drew and Kate got together. Then it completely went in the crapper when they didn't get married and Kate became a very unlikeable character (I'm assuming Christa Miller herself wasn't exactly liked there anymore since she left soon after).

 

It may just be me but How I Met Your Mother steadily declined as the season went on, starting off as something good but ending with a thud with Ted and Robin becoming Ross and Rachel.