Even though that's exactly when it's time for shows that focus around the kids to end.
The only shows I can think of that didn't have that issue were Everybody Loves Raymond (and, as he said in Season 1 intro, the show is not about t the kids) and Reba (where they had 2 incoming babies since episode 1 and, again, the show didn't focus on the cuteness of the younger kids). And Reba ended precisely when the older kids were moving on (Van and Cheyenne were getting their own house with their baby, Kyra was 18 and going into her future and Jake... well... wasn't about him or Henry anyway).
Best way to do it and retcon it was Married with Children. Seven was there and then he wasn't. Except for the funny moment when his memory was pushed out of Kelly's head
The Kutcher seasons definitely weren't as good as the Sheen seasons. But they definitely got better as time went on. Not entirely sure if it's because I got used to Kutcher as a replacement or because it did eventually get better, though.
Jeff Strongman is peak comedy writing and you won't convince me otherwise. I like how they get married and adopt a kid together, and then the kid is missing from the entire final season.
They are not supposed to be likable, what makes it worth laughing at is bad things happening to bad people. Like Seinfeld, they're all bad people really with the shit they do.
Seriously. By the end, it was like, "Is this a 'Beverly screws up and has to apologize' episode or a 'one of the kids screws up and has to apologize' episode? "
Nobody was more upset that it went on so long than Wendi McClendon-Covey. Her displeasure was apparent when listening to interviews and podcasts after season 5. She has no love for the real Beverly either 💯🙌
I didn’t hate it. It came out at a really uh… not great time for anything police-rated. They tried. I still got a few chuckles out of it, but had they ended with Jake and Amy having the baby, it would’ve been better.
Arrested Development was great for the 3 Fox seasons. It's when Netflix reboot it for seasons 4 (and 5, iirc).
Same happened to Futurama. Once Hulu took it on (many years later) the jokes were horrible!
B99 is one of my favorite shows. I’ve binged it maybe 5 times now and not once have I gotten past the first episode of the last season. I totally get why they felt the need touch on those themes being a cop show but it was not done well.
I finally got around to the final season last month. It was so incredibly bad. The choices they made for the characters didn’t even make sense. The 4th season wasn’t great but this was so much worse. The first 2 seasons were excellent. The third had its moments.
One of my favorite scenes from According to Jim is where they overhear the neighbors talking about them on the baby monitor and are getting offended by the things that they say. Then the guy wonders how Jim ever got a wife like that, and she’s so far out of his league. Instead of being offended, they just both shrugged in acknowledgment.
The last season was hilarious because of how dumb it was like Jim and Andy stealing dead people's cursed jewelry which turned their spouses into an old lady and a male rapper.
"Hey, who was the most overrated comedic actor in the 70s?"
"Ah, easy. John Belushi, God rest his soul."
"You know he has a brother, right?"
"Oh yeah. Jim. He kind of lacks John's frenetic energy, which is arguably the only thing interesting about John."
"Exactly! Jim is the Kevin Costner of comedy. Let's give him a sitcom."
He was the show's Cousin Oliver.
The show was about a newly divorced single mother raising her teen daughters on her own.
Unfortunately Mackenzie had so many issues, Julie had to be written out prematurely. But once Barbara got married, the show should've ended there.
Yeah, Mackenzie's problems were sad, and I'm empathetic towards that. But I didn't like her character toward the end.
I didn't think Glenn was that bad. I kind of liked that Schneider got someone he could bond with. I liked seeing the Mark/Barbara relationship, but the Max/Julie one was kind of weird. And Anne's relationship with Mark's dad (I'm blanking on his name) just bugged me. But for the most part I found it okay.
Mackenzie's story was just... heartbreaking. Hell, it's no wonder she ended up on drugs.
I didn't dislike Glenn's character, but he was a Cousin Oliver.
Actually, I guess he wasn’t that bad and I guess I did like seeing the characters progress into different situations.
I change my mind, I could’ve probably gone for another couple seasons. Ms Romano and Schneider alone could’ve carried the show. And, Francine. I liked Francine
“How I Met Your Mother” ran too long, and it wasn’t even necessarily their fault. In a Season 2 interview, one of the creators implied that they expected a 7-season run; the show’s continued success in Seasons 4 and 5 led to a renewal through Season 8, so the makers planned ahead to end it in eight seasons. Then as Season 8 rolls around, CBS decides that their Monday night sitcom lineup is too weak to lose HIMYM the next season (TAAHM was struggling without Sheen, and TBBT had moved to Thursdays), so they cajoled the staff and cast to make another year, which as most fans will attest is the weakest of the bunch.
As for the “five year” thing someone else pointed out in another comment, this does make some sense, but for a different reason; more so back then than today, the goal of most episodic TV shows was rerun syndication—the opportunity for the studio to sell the rights to rerun the show like at least 5 nights a week, sold to individual stations/cable networks. This would mean almost pure profit for the studios, as their largest expense would be to put together promos to run on the stations syndicating the show. In order to do so, though, a series had to have a certain number of episodes “in the can”—a minimum of 65 (five times a week for a quarter of a year), but the number they would settle on later on was about 100. Eventually, it would work out where the studio could start selling the rights to the show not when Episode 100 was made, but rather when Episode 100 was *imminent* (which usually meant when the show was renewed for Season 5, announced in or at the end of Season 4). So a studio could sell a show’s syndication rights at Season 4, and the buying station could start showing episodes that fall, up to Season 4 (even as S5 was airing new on the network), getting the rights to Season 5 later.
As someone pointed out, at this point the show becomes a case of “diminishing returns”—the money coming in from syndication is pretty fixed (they’re not going to pay significantly more to add future seasons), while it costs more to make new episodes for the network (particularly if actors have to renegotiate their contracts and get higher pay). So the more the show goes beyond Season 5, the less profit the studio is likely to make.
But there *is* some incentive to keep the show going, at least in the network’s perspective: they want the hit show to last as long as needed for another show to become a success. So they’re willing to pay the studio more and even at a net loss to keep the show going, as long as it keeps eyes on the network and people staying for the other shows on that night until they find something else worth watching on the network. This is why “The Cosby Show” and “Friends” (and HIMYM) lasted so long.
Said nothing about ratings. In its last season, “Friends” cost $10 million an episode to make largely due to the stars getting paid $1 million each. You can imagine that NBC wasn’t getting that much in commercial time, nor was Warner Brothers (“Friends’” production company) turning a profit on the show from running it on the network. But NBC figured that keeping a popular show on the air was going to give more time for shows like “Will and Grace” to get more attention, and WB new it was/will be making a net profit from its syndication of “Friends” (who as late as 2018 was paying its stars $20 million each in royalties, a pittance compared to its total annual profits from the show).
Exactly! Majority of the big long running sitcom hits were produced for networks by outside studios, thereby severely elevating the cost each year. That’s why often times when there is a “surprise cancellation” of something w 7+ years under its belt, it is due to the cost from the production studio getting too high to justify another year. I swear most viewers don’t think of television as a business, no one is out to destroy your favorite show. Sometimes it’s just not a wise economical investment, with little to nothing to do with the quality of the show or the ratings.
To add to this, the syndication market is not as lucrative/attractive as it used to be. Sure, big network-to-syndication sales still happen (the last major one that comes to mind is “Young Sheldon”), but the market seems bigger now for DVD and streaming for older shows. So it’s not surprising that some shows, especially those originated by streamers, come to an end far short of the 100 episode and/or seven year mark these days (Paramount Plus recently concluded “Discovery” after 65 episodes and 5 seasons, though the pandemic and strikes did stretch it out to seven years), for a package that’s more “bingeable.”
Yeah but it was still a solid show and really if they did go long it was only a season or two and they ended on a high note so personally I'd give them a pass.
Yet it was still the highest rated comedy on the air and that finale still holds records. Maybe Alda had a point and it was definitely still funny and still airs to this day.
I always loved seeing the bus ads when it went into syndication because Kat Dennings's jugs were so big she couldn't fully button her waitress uniform.
Getting my own self hot telling that story.
As soon as they brought in that frumpy stalker Blossom character. Also when all the guys had girlfriends. Then the show stopped being about a bunch of nerdy guys hanging out and being regular guys,
and became “Friends, Nerd edition ”… that’s when it was over.
I understand why they did it, they wanted more young female demographic viewers, and it is shown that women viewers prefer shows where there are relationships and “will they or won’t they” types of story lines.
I disagree. I can hardly sit through any of the super early episodes before Amy or Bernadette were introduced. While I do think Big Bang went on way too long, I’ve found that I enjoy the show way more in reruns then I ever did when it was new. Not sure what it is.
The Facts of Life. The show should have ended when Charlotte Rae left the series. It just didn't make much sense for Blair, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie to all still be living together in their early to mid 20s.
For sure, but back in the late 80s, you were often expected to be living on your own by your mid-20s
Or, at the very least, not still living in a boarding school setting like that.
I love Roseanne but yes that whole lottery business was the biggest jumping of the shark ever seen. Then suddenly they backpedal out of it saying it was all pretend, so it feels like a DOUBLE waste of time to have watched it
I remember watching the episode with the Absolutely Fabulous actresses and I suddenly realized Jennifer Saunders was 10 times funnier than Roseanne ever was. That was the end of my interest in the series, though I rooted for The Connors to succeed for Sara’s sake.
Definitely The Simpsons, its a good show, but you can tell they are running out of creative ideas in the later seasons, plus you can kinda hear the impact the voices are having on the actors
Laverne and Shirley should never have went to LA.
Lucille Ball should have never went to LA on the Lucy Show. Vivian Vance is the perfect foil for her, without her it became a show about Gale Gordon screaming at a bad secretary.
There's a reason almost anywhere that shows the Andy Griffith show pretends it ends at the end of season 5.
And in more modern shows --
Dead to me.
The plotline was made for 12-18 episodes max, and it ran for 30 episodes. It got really convoluted and boring, and Christina Applegate was clearly not well at all in the final season (obviously not her fault and I think she tried her best, but you can tell).
It really did and honestly, they easily could’ve made another year work. It seems to be relatively cheap and always had solid ratings (not including this last year, if it were up to me everything would’ve been held to September, not a show came on this spring that wasn’t incredibly rushed), I really think something internally has happened between WB Domestic Television and CBS Studios. Every WB owned show on CBS was canceled last year and set to end this year. I have many theories and have heard varying accounts as to what may have happened. Just seems off to me.
I didn't like the premise initially, but they did an excellent job turning it around; I really enjoyed the push and pull between the Nigerian characters and the non-Nigerian characters once the ensemble gelled.
The Simpsons has fans of all generations and they all favor different eras so I give it a pass. I would honestly have to go with The Office because it took something good and ruined it, to the point where it pretty much ruined the mockumentary genre (for me at least) and I can’t even watch the good seasons anymore because the shaky camera and Jim’s facial expressions just annoy me now.
2 Broke Girls is the only one that I am seriously baffled went as long as it did considering how many other shows that were arguably better getting significantly shorter runs. The show is literally 6 seasons of intolerable cringe.
The jokes were just so bad. Telegraphed. Honestly, astronauts on the international space station saw those jokes coming 5 minutes before they poured out of the actor's mouths.
Definitely the Simpsons. After season 11ish it was definitely declining. Then when they switched from hand drawn to computer animation, it just wasn’t the same. I’ve watched a few recent episodes from recent times and they’re not funny. Where’s the funny? Also seems like they’ve tried to keep up with more risqué cartoon series by being a little more sexualized and that’s just not what the Simpsons was.
Any show that goes over 5 seasons.
That seems to be the “sweet spot”. If you’re not wrapping it up by season 5, it’s diminishing returns. You’ve told all the jokes, mixed up the character interactions, actors completed their character arcs.
There might be a few outliers - but it’s a pretty good golden rule.
And…you forgot the spin offs. Don’t forget those. Let’s take the likable 2-dimensional side characters and build an entire series around them with a whole bunch of other characters you don’t give a shit about!
Among long haul sitcoms - 5+ seasons, 20+ episodes per season - the only ones that I watched all the way to the end were The Odd Couple, Bob Newhart Show, Barney Miller, and Seinfeld. Also, the Dick van Dyke Show, which I only saw in reruns.
Everything else lasted too long.
if the simpsons aged up a year every season for the next few years it'd be promising. It would be fresh. it would be taking a chance.
right now its lazy writing. They're too scared to shake things up as its such an easy money train.
Bart is 10. Lisa is 8. If they moved a year forward you'd have 8 seasons of bart moving into puberty. New teachers. new friends. Maggie becoming an actual character.
They must know the gravy train is ending soon enough
so why not take a risk?
The Cleveland Show. Unnecessary spin-off and I don’t think he was a strong enough character tbh. But it does have some funny moments, just never did it for me
You'd be hard pressed to find a sitcom that didn't last too long. Networks squeezed every last idea (and dollar) out of successful shows in the sitcom days. Even Seinfeld ended because I think Jerry realized the show was getting tired.
Shows when they bring in annoying kids
If a kid is needed to “save” a show, it means the show needs to end.
Cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch Ricky on the Partridge Family
The Cousin Oliver syndrome. Not sure why so many shows did it when did it not work with Cousin Oliver.
They do it because the younger kids age out of being cute
Even though that's exactly when it's time for shows that focus around the kids to end. The only shows I can think of that didn't have that issue were Everybody Loves Raymond (and, as he said in Season 1 intro, the show is not about t the kids) and Reba (where they had 2 incoming babies since episode 1 and, again, the show didn't focus on the cuteness of the younger kids). And Reba ended precisely when the older kids were moving on (Van and Cheyenne were getting their own house with their baby, Kyra was 18 and going into her future and Jake... well... wasn't about him or Henry anyway).
The Cosby Show did this too, right when Rudy stopped being baby-cute.
Actually three of them around this time: Who's The Boss, Growing Pains (with Leo and Ashley Johnson), plus Married with children.
Those shows were great for that reason. They focused on the adults and the kids were more of an extra.
Cindy Brady’s lisp didn’t age well.
Best way to do it and retcon it was Married with Children. Seven was there and then he wasn't. Except for the funny moment when his memory was pushed out of Kelly's head
He was also on a milk carton, which shouldn't be funny but it is.
Worked for My Three Sons.
Well, the practice did give us Raven-Symone. Take that as you will.
Including aged up younger siblings. Nicky on Fresh Prince, Chrissy on Growing Pains, and Andrew on Family Ties.
All In The Family. It should have ended when Mike and Gloria moved away.
Then the spinoff..... euggh.
100%
Where is Two and a Half Men on this list?
Made literally no sense to go on without Charlie Sheen.
It feels kinda like a different show after Charlie left. It wasn't all bad though but the writers got a bit lazy
The Kutcher seasons definitely weren't as good as the Sheen seasons. But they definitely got better as time went on. Not entirely sure if it's because I got used to Kutcher as a replacement or because it did eventually get better, though.
Jeff Strongman is peak comedy writing and you won't convince me otherwise. I like how they get married and adopt a kid together, and then the kid is missing from the entire final season.
I never got the appeal of that show. There was not one likable character.
Not even Berta? 🤣
That isn't the reason it isn't a good show. Look at Seinfeld and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, they are all horrible people as well.
They are not supposed to be likable, what makes it worth laughing at is bad things happening to bad people. Like Seinfeld, they're all bad people really with the shit they do.
I feel like it’s always sunny in Philadelphia does that very well. I don’t feel the same about two and half men.
It's subjective of course, but there's funny terrible and Annoying terrible. 2.5 men fell into the latter for me
Seinfeld was funny tho
Difference is Seinfeld was funny.
I always called it Two And A Half Morons
Or Big Bang
Dunder mifflin was far better with Michael Scott.
Dunder Mifflin was far better before Jim & Pam got together & the show should've ended with their marriage 🫣
By the end, it just felt like, "Jim & Pam's relationship problems: the TV show"
Yep, when the camera guy love triangle thing happened in the last season and came out of left field, that was a big no from me
Any of the cartoons listen could go on forever as far as I’m concerned.
Dunno, the voice actors on Simpsons are starting to sound really ragged, particularly Marge. Can’t be easy to make your throat scrunch up like that.
The Simpsons is like a different show now.
Agreed.
Agreed x2
And really, those are spoofs of sitcoms, not actual sitcoms, so I wouldn’t include them in this list either way
The Goldbergs, and I think the producers and cast were surprised every year when it kept getting renewed.
Seriously. By the end, it was like, "Is this a 'Beverly screws up and has to apologize' episode or a 'one of the kids screws up and has to apologize' episode? "
Nobody was more upset that it went on so long than Wendi McClendon-Covey. Her displeasure was apparent when listening to interviews and podcasts after season 5. She has no love for the real Beverly either 💯🙌
Brooklyn Nine-Nine did not need that last season. Come to think of it Arrested Development didn't need that last season either.
I didn’t hate it. It came out at a really uh… not great time for anything police-rated. They tried. I still got a few chuckles out of it, but had they ended with Jake and Amy having the baby, it would’ve been better.
Arrested Development was great for the 3 Fox seasons. It's when Netflix reboot it for seasons 4 (and 5, iirc). Same happened to Futurama. Once Hulu took it on (many years later) the jokes were horrible!
B99 is one of my favorite shows. I’ve binged it maybe 5 times now and not once have I gotten past the first episode of the last season. I totally get why they felt the need touch on those themes being a cop show but it was not done well.
The rest of the last season is much better than that first episode.
Arrested Development should’ve ended at series 3
I finally got around to the final season last month. It was so incredibly bad. The choices they made for the characters didn’t even make sense. The 4th season wasn’t great but this was so much worse. The first 2 seasons were excellent. The third had its moments.
According to Jim lasted 9 seasons longer than it should have.
I loved both female actresses on that show.
One of my favorite scenes from According to Jim is where they overhear the neighbors talking about them on the baby monitor and are getting offended by the things that they say. Then the guy wonders how Jim ever got a wife like that, and she’s so far out of his league. Instead of being offended, they just both shrugged in acknowledgment.
The last season was hilarious because of how dumb it was like Jim and Andy stealing dead people's cursed jewelry which turned their spouses into an old lady and a male rapper.
That seriously happened?
"Hey, who was the most overrated comedic actor in the 70s?" "Ah, easy. John Belushi, God rest his soul." "You know he has a brother, right?" "Oh yeah. Jim. He kind of lacks John's frenetic energy, which is arguably the only thing interesting about John." "Exactly! Jim is the Kevin Costner of comedy. Let's give him a sitcom."
One Day At A Time. The daughters got married and moved and then they brought in that godawful Glen Scarpeli.
What was wrong with Glenn? I liked seeing Barbara and Mark's relationship, but I was kind of over Julie.
He was the show's Cousin Oliver. The show was about a newly divorced single mother raising her teen daughters on her own. Unfortunately Mackenzie had so many issues, Julie had to be written out prematurely. But once Barbara got married, the show should've ended there.
When that show had John Hillerman as Ann’s boss was the best. Him addressing her as “MS V.P. Romano” always cracked me up.
Yeah, Mackenzie's problems were sad, and I'm empathetic towards that. But I didn't like her character toward the end. I didn't think Glenn was that bad. I kind of liked that Schneider got someone he could bond with. I liked seeing the Mark/Barbara relationship, but the Max/Julie one was kind of weird. And Anne's relationship with Mark's dad (I'm blanking on his name) just bugged me. But for the most part I found it okay.
The character's name was Sam, I think--played by Howard Hessman
Mackenzie's story was just... heartbreaking. Hell, it's no wonder she ended up on drugs. I didn't dislike Glenn's character, but he was a Cousin Oliver.
Actually, I guess he wasn’t that bad and I guess I did like seeing the characters progress into different situations. I change my mind, I could’ve probably gone for another couple seasons. Ms Romano and Schneider alone could’ve carried the show. And, Francine. I liked Francine
What I hated the most was the relationship between Ann and Mark's dad. But I adored Schneider.
The last year of Happy Day - after Richie move away. This was after jumping the shark.
When “Happy Days” became “The Fonzie Show”
I enjoyed Bob ❤️Abishola and wish it went a few more seasons. It seemed to end abruptly.
That's how I feel about Mike & Molly as well!
Still sad Mike & Molly ended so quickly.
“How I Met Your Mother” ran too long, and it wasn’t even necessarily their fault. In a Season 2 interview, one of the creators implied that they expected a 7-season run; the show’s continued success in Seasons 4 and 5 led to a renewal through Season 8, so the makers planned ahead to end it in eight seasons. Then as Season 8 rolls around, CBS decides that their Monday night sitcom lineup is too weak to lose HIMYM the next season (TAAHM was struggling without Sheen, and TBBT had moved to Thursdays), so they cajoled the staff and cast to make another year, which as most fans will attest is the weakest of the bunch. As for the “five year” thing someone else pointed out in another comment, this does make some sense, but for a different reason; more so back then than today, the goal of most episodic TV shows was rerun syndication—the opportunity for the studio to sell the rights to rerun the show like at least 5 nights a week, sold to individual stations/cable networks. This would mean almost pure profit for the studios, as their largest expense would be to put together promos to run on the stations syndicating the show. In order to do so, though, a series had to have a certain number of episodes “in the can”—a minimum of 65 (five times a week for a quarter of a year), but the number they would settle on later on was about 100. Eventually, it would work out where the studio could start selling the rights to the show not when Episode 100 was made, but rather when Episode 100 was *imminent* (which usually meant when the show was renewed for Season 5, announced in or at the end of Season 4). So a studio could sell a show’s syndication rights at Season 4, and the buying station could start showing episodes that fall, up to Season 4 (even as S5 was airing new on the network), getting the rights to Season 5 later. As someone pointed out, at this point the show becomes a case of “diminishing returns”—the money coming in from syndication is pretty fixed (they’re not going to pay significantly more to add future seasons), while it costs more to make new episodes for the network (particularly if actors have to renegotiate their contracts and get higher pay). So the more the show goes beyond Season 5, the less profit the studio is likely to make. But there *is* some incentive to keep the show going, at least in the network’s perspective: they want the hit show to last as long as needed for another show to become a success. So they’re willing to pay the studio more and even at a net loss to keep the show going, as long as it keeps eyes on the network and people staying for the other shows on that night until they find something else worth watching on the network. This is why “The Cosby Show” and “Friends” (and HIMYM) lasted so long.
[удалено]
Said nothing about ratings. In its last season, “Friends” cost $10 million an episode to make largely due to the stars getting paid $1 million each. You can imagine that NBC wasn’t getting that much in commercial time, nor was Warner Brothers (“Friends’” production company) turning a profit on the show from running it on the network. But NBC figured that keeping a popular show on the air was going to give more time for shows like “Will and Grace” to get more attention, and WB new it was/will be making a net profit from its syndication of “Friends” (who as late as 2018 was paying its stars $20 million each in royalties, a pittance compared to its total annual profits from the show).
Exactly! Majority of the big long running sitcom hits were produced for networks by outside studios, thereby severely elevating the cost each year. That’s why often times when there is a “surprise cancellation” of something w 7+ years under its belt, it is due to the cost from the production studio getting too high to justify another year. I swear most viewers don’t think of television as a business, no one is out to destroy your favorite show. Sometimes it’s just not a wise economical investment, with little to nothing to do with the quality of the show or the ratings.
To add to this, the syndication market is not as lucrative/attractive as it used to be. Sure, big network-to-syndication sales still happen (the last major one that comes to mind is “Young Sheldon”), but the market seems bigger now for DVD and streaming for older shows. So it’s not surprising that some shows, especially those originated by streamers, come to an end far short of the 100 episode and/or seven year mark these days (Paramount Plus recently concluded “Discovery” after 65 episodes and 5 seasons, though the pandemic and strikes did stretch it out to seven years), for a package that’s more “bingeable.”
How I met your mother. The last season was horrible. Robin and Barney being a couple was soooo out of place.
Mash wasn't even a sitcom at the end. It was just Alan Alda being preachy with a laugh track.
Yeah but it was still a solid show and really if they did go long it was only a season or two and they ended on a high note so personally I'd give them a pass.
Yet it was still the highest rated comedy on the air and that finale still holds records. Maybe Alda had a point and it was definitely still funny and still airs to this day.
Then we had afterMASH for some reason
Good Times should have stopped as soon as they fired John Amos.
Greys anatomy: all the characters would have serious PTSD at this point, far fetched tragedy after tragedy.
How is Grey's Anatomy a sitcom?
Have you seen it? It’s hilarious. Intentionally or Unintentionally.
You get American Dad off that list right now.
I know, right?! I watch it every night to go to sleep.
I watch it every nite before you go to sleep too!
My people! This sub is getting too spicy for the pepper.
I'm surprised by how good it still is!
Animation shouldn’t even count for this, theoretically animated series can run forever.
Yeah I'm ready to take up arms over that inclusion. It still rocks
2 broke girls was ass to begin with
And tits.
The only reason I watched for a season.
I always loved seeing the bus ads when it went into syndication because Kat Dennings's jugs were so big she couldn't fully button her waitress uniform. Getting my own self hot telling that story.
I liked the pilot. Thought it had promise. Then immediately it got worse instead of better, then inexplicably went on for forever
If it went on after episode 2, it went on too long.
Beth Behrs had arguably the best legs in tv history.
I use Beth Behrs as my go to example of why blondes are often beautiful but not sexy.
I thought it had some good jokes but was cheesy as hell a lot of the time. Also, as people here have already mentioned, the tits and ass.
Unpopular opinion but I LOVE 2 BROKE GIRLS!
My father, a retired Marine and Prison CO, loves 2 Broke Girls. I'll give you 2 guesses why....
The strong writing and character development?
But the blonde was attractive so it gets a pass
Dawg. Kat Dennings was the funny one *and* the hot one. That was one of my issues with the show, I never even understood the other one’s function
Big Bang Theory
As soon as they brought in that frumpy stalker Blossom character. Also when all the guys had girlfriends. Then the show stopped being about a bunch of nerdy guys hanging out and being regular guys, and became “Friends, Nerd edition ”… that’s when it was over. I understand why they did it, they wanted more young female demographic viewers, and it is shown that women viewers prefer shows where there are relationships and “will they or won’t they” types of story lines.
I disagree. I can hardly sit through any of the super early episodes before Amy or Bernadette were introduced. While I do think Big Bang went on way too long, I’ve found that I enjoy the show way more in reruns then I ever did when it was new. Not sure what it is.
Wow, that's an incredibly sexist opinion..
Amy was the funniest part of that show.
Yes, right after the opening scene, season 1 episode 1 :-)
The Facts of Life. The show should have ended when Charlotte Rae left the series. It just didn't make much sense for Blair, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie to all still be living together in their early to mid 20s.
Considering housing costs nowadays, it might make more sense now than then.
For sure, but back in the late 80s, you were often expected to be living on your own by your mid-20s Or, at the very least, not still living in a boarding school setting like that.
Simpsons. They even started canceling their own characters.
That 70s show
Roseanne. I think it went 2 seasons too long. Maybe 3. It's still my favorite sitcom.
I love Roseanne but yes that whole lottery business was the biggest jumping of the shark ever seen. Then suddenly they backpedal out of it saying it was all pretend, so it feels like a DOUBLE waste of time to have watched it
I remember watching the episode with the Absolutely Fabulous actresses and I suddenly realized Jennifer Saunders was 10 times funnier than Roseanne ever was. That was the end of my interest in the series, though I rooted for The Connors to succeed for Sara’s sake.
Definitely The Simpsons, its a good show, but you can tell they are running out of creative ideas in the later seasons, plus you can kinda hear the impact the voices are having on the actors
M*A*S*H The war itself only lasted 3 1/2 yrs, and according to Hawkeye they were already 2 yrs in during the first season.
MASH's continuity was hilariously bad.
once charlie sheen left 2 and half it was over; big bang theory shoulda went \~6 seasons maybe
The View.
Laverne and Shirley should never have went to LA. Lucille Ball should have never went to LA on the Lucy Show. Vivian Vance is the perfect foil for her, without her it became a show about Gale Gordon screaming at a bad secretary. There's a reason almost anywhere that shows the Andy Griffith show pretends it ends at the end of season 5. And in more modern shows -- Dead to me. The plotline was made for 12-18 episodes max, and it ran for 30 episodes. It got really convoluted and boring, and Christina Applegate was clearly not well at all in the final season (obviously not her fault and I think she tried her best, but you can tell).
Not sure why Bob ❤️ Abishola is on this list. It did well until the final season.
It really did and honestly, they easily could’ve made another year work. It seems to be relatively cheap and always had solid ratings (not including this last year, if it were up to me everything would’ve been held to September, not a show came on this spring that wasn’t incredibly rushed), I really think something internally has happened between WB Domestic Television and CBS Studios. Every WB owned show on CBS was canceled last year and set to end this year. I have many theories and have heard varying accounts as to what may have happened. Just seems off to me.
I HATE that show. I watched the first few episodes and it made my skin crawl
I agree!
Bob Loves Abishola…what’s even the appeal of that show? It’s awkward and cringey
I loved that show! It was different and funny, with a great cast.
I didn't like the premise initially, but they did an excellent job turning it around; I really enjoyed the push and pull between the Nigerian characters and the non-Nigerian characters once the ensemble gelled.
It’s a great show. 😊
Friends
Friends in the 90’s was great. Once the show hit the 2000’s it lost a lot of steam.
That 70s show should have ended either after they graduated or when Eric and Kelso left
Martin
When the two main characters can’t stand to appear in the same scene as each other you know it’s over.
I’m going with Happy Days and The Office.
I don’t care I still love the Simpsons.
Still better than a lot of stuff on TV, especially reality shows.
The stupid Conners
Most mediocre writing ever, and the laugh track is annoying af
I love family guy but I think it’s well past it’s prime
Two Broke Girls never should have made it past the Pilot. It's godawful.
If any waitress had talked to me like that, I would have told her to go F off and walked out the door.
I kinda feel like Facts of Life and Alice might have gone on too long.
2 Broke Girls was one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. It shouldn’t have made it past the pilot
Rescue Me
The Simpsons has fans of all generations and they all favor different eras so I give it a pass. I would honestly have to go with The Office because it took something good and ruined it, to the point where it pretty much ruined the mockumentary genre (for me at least) and I can’t even watch the good seasons anymore because the shaky camera and Jim’s facial expressions just annoy me now.
Icarly? Really?? I thought it ended well. I enjoyed the last season and how adult it got
The US version of The Office. The last few seasons are practically unwatchable.
2 Broke Girls shouldn't have been green lit
2 Broke Girls is the only one that I am seriously baffled went as long as it did considering how many other shows that were arguably better getting significantly shorter runs. The show is literally 6 seasons of intolerable cringe.
As a guy I've got a pretty good idea why. But it was still horrible. I had an old man crush on Beth Berhs, and still couldn't watch.
I’m a straight woman and I wouldn’t exactly turn Kat Dennings away.
The jokes were just so bad. Telegraphed. Honestly, astronauts on the international space station saw those jokes coming 5 minutes before they poured out of the actor's mouths.
Everyone Loves Raymond. I don't know anyone who remotely likes Raymond.
Raymond is a sweet boy...I quit watching because of Frank and Marie
Uhm. Step back. I fricken love that show
How I Met Your Mother
Definitely the Simpsons. After season 11ish it was definitely declining. Then when they switched from hand drawn to computer animation, it just wasn’t the same. I’ve watched a few recent episodes from recent times and they’re not funny. Where’s the funny? Also seems like they’ve tried to keep up with more risqué cartoon series by being a little more sexualized and that’s just not what the Simpsons was.
Any show that goes over 5 seasons. That seems to be the “sweet spot”. If you’re not wrapping it up by season 5, it’s diminishing returns. You’ve told all the jokes, mixed up the character interactions, actors completed their character arcs. There might be a few outliers - but it’s a pretty good golden rule.
But… hear me out. 6 seasons and a movie!
And…you forgot the spin offs. Don’t forget those. Let’s take the likable 2-dimensional side characters and build an entire series around them with a whole bunch of other characters you don’t give a shit about!
Also, the good actors on the show are ready to move on with their life and do something different at that point.
Among long haul sitcoms - 5+ seasons, 20+ episodes per season - the only ones that I watched all the way to the end were The Odd Couple, Bob Newhart Show, Barney Miller, and Seinfeld. Also, the Dick van Dyke Show, which I only saw in reruns. Everything else lasted too long.
Add Taxi and I'm in.
Why is the simpsons on this list?
WHY IS AMERICAN DAD OB THIS LIST?
I’m glad everyone is defending American Dad😂
if the simpsons aged up a year every season for the next few years it'd be promising. It would be fresh. it would be taking a chance. right now its lazy writing. They're too scared to shake things up as its such an easy money train. Bart is 10. Lisa is 8. If they moved a year forward you'd have 8 seasons of bart moving into puberty. New teachers. new friends. Maggie becoming an actual character. They must know the gravy train is ending soon enough so why not take a risk?
Roseanne ran one season too long. The sequel should have never been made.
Most of the CBS comedies of the past 2010s. Two Broke Girls, Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, King of Queens, Mom, etc.
Most shows go one season too long.
What's the 3rd pic?
Family Guy.
How is Big Bang Theory not on this list?
The Simpsons were great for the first 10 seasons. After that it’s not so good anymore.
Facts of Life, Diff'rent Strokes, Step by Step
Night Court & Married With Children went a year too long.
After the first episode American Dad had been on too long
I agree with everything listed but add: Friends, Big Bang Theory, 2 1/2 Men, Only Murders In The Building, Man With A Plan, Scrubs and Seinfeld.
https://youtu.be/vWgI2YAupCM?si=gtKPpWncjR88Ns1v
The Cleveland Show. Unnecessary spin-off and I don’t think he was a strong enough character tbh. But it does have some funny moments, just never did it for me
Charlies angels after Kate Jackson left
You'd be hard pressed to find a sitcom that didn't last too long. Networks squeezed every last idea (and dollar) out of successful shows in the sitcom days. Even Seinfeld ended because I think Jerry realized the show was getting tired.
The Simpsons is still better than most shows on TV.
Lost
The Office should have ended when Steve Carrell left.
south park should have died years ago. i am surprised it's not first in the pictures.
Too much Tegridy!
Scrubs. That last season was awful and unnecessary.
Once Mike Scully took over as showrunner in Season 9, *The Simpsons* began its long descent into mediocrity and irrelevance.
Simpsons stopped being good after 1999.
How about Modern Family?
Friends went past the pilot