Television 30 Aug 2006 09:00 am
Be Like the Brits
It’s a recurring problem in American television: a show makes a gigantic splash, becomes the “must-watch” show to most of the public, earns its actors a ridiculous amount of money per episode, then…overstays its welcome. By the time series like Friends left the air, even the most ardent fans had noticed a drop in quality. An entire internet phenomenon was formed out of deciding when a show “jumped the shark” - that now-overused term referring to the episode of Happy Days where Fonzi waterskied over the man-eating marine life, symbolizing a downturn in the show’s appeal. There is a simple solution to this problem of TV overpopulation: follow the British example and cut the show short before it’s too late.
Look at shows like The Office and Coupling, for example. Each lasted no longer than four season, and each is considered among the funniest shows of its time. Many BBC comedies don’t last much longer, and it’s not because they aren’t well received. They simply leave the air because it’s the right time (Coupling tried to come back after the fourth season but the actors had other things to do).
As unfortunate as it is that Arrested Development died after three seasons, its departure does nothing to devalue what made it to air. Same goes for Firefly, Sports Night, and the first incarnation of Family Guy (which returned to joyous applause but has not been as good as it was before Fox cancelled it the first time). More American television shows should take this into account, valuing a good show over marketing. Scrubs, for instance, is widely belived to be entering its last year, and is doing so close to the top of its game. Lost, which suffered a weak second season, is planned as a five-year experiment with a movie at the end. The Office, I imagine, can’t run for more than 6 years or so, and I’ll be okay with that if the show is still good when it leaves the air.
Of course, we always want to see more of our favorite characters; we want to see their stories wrapped up in a nice little bow, all their romances given the proper closure. But to drag a show on for no other reason than that its ratings are still high and it can still bring in advertising dollars is the wrong course of action. End the shows before it’s too late, while we still love them.
I’m looking at you, Smallville.
Iron Man
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Run Fatboy Run
Matt Nathanson - Some Mad Hope
They Might Be Giants - The Else
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
on 30 Aug 2006 at 4:07 pm 1.Matt said …
Everyone knows I’m all for emulating the English as much as possible, so of course I have to throw my two cents in. And I would have singled out The Simpsons, personally. Enough is enough already.
UK comics writers have the same tendency, to call it quits when they feel it’s time, not when the money dries up. Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, and Garth Ennis–to name a few–have ended their most famous series because they told their story and that was that. I admire that. I like to think I’d do the same, instead of going on just because I could.
Then again, the Rolling Stones are still making albums; whether that’s a good or bad thing I’ll let someone else be the judge of.
on 31 Aug 2006 at 3:01 pm 2.Elizabeth said …
Friends is the quintessential example of a show that overstayed its welcome and therefore lost its credibility. The final season, and especially the final episodes, all seemed to be cribbed from the just-wrapped final season of Sex and the City–the adoption, the move to Paris, the low-key wedding–but the originals were done with class and finesse. I was sad to see SATC end; I was indifferent to Friend’s final episode. And indifference, they say, is worse than death.
I think one of the few recent original BBC series that still is running and will run for more than four seasons is Footballers’ Wives, which is the trashiest, most glorious soap operas out there. It makes our shows that pretend to be dramas but really are primetime soaps look like weaklings–I doubt Aaron Spelling could have come up with the stories they have. Regardless, soaps tend to lead down such a conviluted path as it is that it makes sense for it to last longer.
Just a random BBCAmerica-related-tangent.
on 31 Aug 2006 at 6:38 pm 3.Jeff Martin said …
Spot on, Beth. “Friends,” though one of my favorite shows of all time, dragged on for far too long. There are some nice moments here and there up to the 8th season, but there was only one or two good laughs in season 9 and 10 was terrible.
I’ll have to look over those figures, though. I do own all the DVDs, after all.
sigh…
on 01 Sep 2006 at 11:33 am 4.chris said …
You just mentioned several shows(Scrubs, Lost, The Office) that already have a ton more episodes than British shows.
on 08 Sep 2006 at 10:12 pm 5.Mark said …
This has long been item #1 for when I become a network head. My plan would also encourage the actors of sucessful shows to stay together, but on a different show. I would think that would be the best of both worlds (and there wouldn’t be anybody saying, “to me Jason Alexander will always be George,” because under my (and yours and the Beeb’s) plan, he would have only been George for about three years, tops).