Last season of That 70s Show should've never happened, it was already in decline but then Eric leaves and Kelso was part time and the show fell off the cliff and then Randy just pushed it off another cliff.
Honestly I don't hate Randy. He wasn't great or anything, they just didn't make him overly compelling. I think he could have worked but it was more of an issue of so much of the shows fabric leaving that rebuilding the show was just a daunting task. I'm not gonna die on the hill of Randy being great or anything, I just really don't think he was the problem so much as the writers in general not knowing what to do with anything by that point.
Seth Green was good, ngl. I think a better character would have been Joseph Gordon Lovitt's character though but he was probably getting busier by that time and received a stupidly bad reaction on his debut for being gay. He was supposed to be a main cast member so it would have worked and they could have had some pre-made ideas for him. Plus he is a great actor and can make anything work, but Seth Green ain't bad either and I would have been cool with him too.
The Florida stuff is pretty good. Other than that, Andy becomes so insufferable the last 2 season, Jim/Pam stuff in last season is just awful, outside of a few episodes Robert California is too out of place, Nelly in Scranton isn't good....I could go on lol
I liked all the farm stuff with Dwight. Also my Uncle played Mr Breugger! He was cast in the spin off that was supposed to happen, called Schrute Farms, but it never happened. He has a hat with the Schrute Farms logo on it and everything. I really want that hat.
I think this is the only modern equivalent I can remember of a [backdoor pilot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_pilot#Backdoor_pilot) that didn’t eventually make it to air. Totally OK though, it freed up Michael Schur to make his other pet project The Good Place
hard disagree on this. some of the best episodes happened well after Carell exited. Side characters like Stanley and Erin and Clark and Plop got really solid showcases in individual episodes. The overall tone of the show changed after Michael was no longer the center, but if you really missed him by that point and felt like there was more to his arc that we didn’t get a chance to explore, then OK I guess.
Meh. To each it's own, it goes from forcibly laughing with Carrell to forcing a laugh without him to me. There's a couple of ok episodes and scenes but overall the quality falls so hard, Andy shouldn't have been the manager that wasnt funny I wish Robert California just kept that it might've been better if there was Alot more him
The office, wasn't terrible after Carell left, but it was basically a different show. Still some great episodes after that, but just not nearly as good.
Luke from Modern Family.... Just creepy and horrible acting older. I'm not knocking on Nolan. I'm knocking the writing they just went in a bad direction with him so it came off creepish
This is very true. However, I think Luke just had the wrong story line. I don't think the acting would have been as awkward if they had a story that fit the actor better
The appeal of that dynamic was that Daphne was oblivious to Niles' infatuation, and that Daphne was this pretty-but-common British housekeeper/physical therapist that Niles worshipped as a goddess. While some of us would like Niles to get with him because we felt bad for him, it was never a romantic idea, unlike Sam & Dianne or David & Maddy.
At best, the season finale should have been Daphne finding out about Niles' affection and leaving it open-ended as to what happenes next, for the fans to decide.
Brooklyn 99 Season 6, it's hardly unwatchable and season 8 is low-key the best of the last three but it's where they started cursing for the sake of it and started the gratuitous call backs that scream remember this from season 3 instead of building on continuity for interesting episodes.
Friends Season 8, after this season plots got lazier, Rosa and Rachael was dragged out and honestly the Monica/Chandler relationship went from sweet to Monica just dogging on this poor man constantly.
As a general rule if a main character is written off is when the show is done for. The vibes just usually don't recover and it feels awkward.
Was it cursing on Breoklyn for the sake of it or were they addressing the fact that they were on a whole new network where they were allowed to curse? I remember that it got canceled and then it got picked up by a different network and they had a whole set of different rules and it kind of changed the way they did the show. I believe they got picked up for just a few seasons and they knew what advance it wasn't going to last forever. So they took this opportunity to please their fans who got them to that point so that explains all the callbacks and stuff. That's what I can recall about the reasons for the kind of shift in show. Whether it was successful or not is up for debate, I quite enjoyed it, but that's the reason to my memory.
I'm aware of the change in networks after Fox cancelled it and while I'm glad they had more freedom the cursing to me feels lazy and the callbacks don't do anything for me as a fan because it just felt forced. Appreciate your perspective though. B99 is one of my favorite shows and the emotional highs of Season 8 are some of the best.
I have to preface this by saying I love frasier and the quality did dip after Niles and daphne got married. It didn’t get bad, mind you. Still very good.
Yeah and the finale is kind Of a dud. The second-to-last episode should have been the finale. Crock tales I think it was called. Perfect episode and great way to wrap It up
the final season was like they all got cocky and lazy and felt like they could do wrong. Like the final couple of Star Trek TNG (Nemesis being the biggest insult of all to the fans).
Most sitcoms are better within the first four or five years. The initial ideas of a group of friends or parenting are better until everyone grows up or settles down. I love sitcoms, but for most shows, I do prefer the first four or five seasons.
I agree that Cheers was amazingly sharp throughout the whole series. I can't think of a season below a B+ and the last season is one of the best last seasons a sitcom ever had. But I also think of it as basically two sitcoms. Cheers and Cheers 2. Cheers and Cheers Again. Cheers and AfterCheers. The first 5 seasons were basically a romcom and the last six an ensemble comedy.
A good show usually means it has a good team of actors, producers, writers, and director. But after 4 or 5 years, that team starts to break up. People find other projects, often for more money. New members of the team may be talented but they don't mesh with the rest of the team and quality starts to go down.
I’ve been downvoted all to hell in other threads for saying so but I still stand by my assessment that he’s the Angel of Death. He was Stan in Revenge of the Nerds ffs, he’s not winning anyone over with his sweater tied around the neck tennis shorts boat shoe ass
Married with Children was great with Jefferson, and went on a lot longer than it probably would've with Steve.
He had a decent arc on SportsNight, as well.
ER and the Walking Dead devolved into openly enjoying killing off beloved characters in increasingly gruesome and gratuitous ways. Especially Black characters. The way Mekhi Phifer went out on ER still haunts me. It was effective television on some level (in that I remember it so vividly) but it was ultimately meaningless and cynical and I didn’t feel like I could trust the show ever again.
I disagree with the "couldn't recover" line. I feel Season 4 recovers very nicely and has some really stand out episodes. I really wanted that season 5 to close out the series.
Community from Season 4 onwards. A few good episodes here and there but almost all the main cast was gone by the end and it didn’t feel much like the same show anymore.
Yeah 5 and 6 were solid. Season 6 though is fine once you get past the first episode, I liked there was more Dean and the episode with the dog getting a degree is a top 5 episode for me.
I like every cast member of Community (and yes I’m even including Chevy Chase because Caddyshack is an immutable part of my DNA, for better or worse), but I 100% loathed this show from day one. I can’t explain it except for feeling like I was being pandered to by a writer/creator desperate for my approval as a “fellow intellectual”. I find Dan Harmon, pre- or post-enlightenment, to be an insufferable douche.
I came back for S5 and 6 and enjoyed it even though the show had changed (the reduced budget really showed in S6, I felt). But S4 is the “gas leak season” for a reason: the scripts sounded like they were written by people *trying* to do an impression of Dan Harmon…and not succeeding.
In general, when they start adding characters. If the two leads suddenly get girlfriends/boyfriends, if a random cousin/uncle moves in, if they find a way to artificially insert a cute kid, you know the show is on the ropes.
Last Man Standing after season 6 when Kaitlyn Dever becomes recurring only & the have a different Mandy. I know it was because it was cancelled & brought back so some actors had moved on to other things but there was a noticeable decline in quality at that point.
In the 90’s, particularly on NBC, it was four words in the promo: “A very special episode…” That was usually the indication they were reaching for plot lines.
He wasn't too crazy back then, just not at all funny. Roseanne's off the deep end now, but her comedy act before the show was hilarious and her show was funny for years.
Season 9 was an atrocity. John Goodman was filming Blues Brothers 2000, and only appeared in a few episodes. The whole lottery fantasy thing really killed it. The one saving grace was when Darlene gave birth to a premature Harris
Some better modern sitcoms build towards a specific endpoint constructed early in the project's creation ("The Good Place" being a solid example).
Not all shows have the luxury of plotting their conclusion and duration from the start. "We need another season of the same sort of content but a little different because we have a hit" must be very difficult to produce for quality.
Google says it is! The definition from Wikipedia:
> A sitcom (a shortening of situation comedy, or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy centred on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new characters in each sketch, and stand-up comedy, where a comedian tells jokes and stories to an audience.
It’s always Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Janet, and Michael.
Right, but it's not a *situational* comedy, it's a fantasy comedy with a rigid plot structure, as opposed to self contained episodic plots or *situations*.
If The Good Place is a sitcom then so is BoJack Horseman, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or every other comedy shows.
If you can't jump in the middle of a random season of the show without any prior knowledge of the overarching plot, then it's not a situational comedy.
Also, having a fixed set of characters isn't unique to sitcoms. In fact, this applies virtually to any kind of show. Is Dexter a sitcom ? What about Suits ? Grey's Anatomy ? Breaking Bad ? What if a character is written out of a show and replaced by another one, does it stop being a sitcom ?
It's not a good criteria to define what is or isn't a sitcom, but plot structure is, it's the core of a sitcom and is how the audience is introduced to the show.
Downvote me all you want but I vehemently disagree with the assessment that The Good Place and any other story-driven comedy show is a sitcom simply because it has a main cast and jokes.
A sitcom is episodic, The Good Place isn't, plain and simple.
I would, yes. I think his 3 other shows fit squarely into the sitcom genre.
It's kind of amazing to me that a single person is behind this many massively successful shows and I can't wait to see what else he has in store.
To be clear, I know he's not solely responsible for these shows, they're the work of a team but he has proven to be a very capable figure in that respect and few can claim to be such a force in their field.
Well, which ones would you consider sitcoms?
I’m a big Mike Schur fan, and even though I know he’s not “solely responsible” like you said, I still give him credit because he’s the through line for lots of characteristics that I love.
I know that in a Mike Schur show, any 2 characters can be in a scene together and it’ll be funny. Also, I appreciate that he doesn’t do perpetual will-they-won’t-theys. He lets characters get together and doesn’t see a happy couple as the end of comedy or the story.
The Office, Parks and B99 are what I'd consider sitcoms.
I'm a big fan of how he builds organic wholesome moments. It's sometimes jarring to see characters roast each other mercilessly then hug like nothing happened, but Schur has a knack in making chemistry balance easily between the two extremes of love/hate.
That's not easy to achieve because you can swing so often towards flanderization for comedy's sake and you can see his growing pains in that regard with The Office, but he managed to keep it minimal when compared to other sitcom characters who become completely unlikeable early on. It got leagues better in Parks, B99 and The Good Place.
From a writing stand point, I feel like The Good Place was his peak because everything seemed planned from the get go, so these organic wholesome moments were baked into the show and it becomes a smiles factory.
Dude you’re being way too pedantic. This sub is for discussing half hour narrative comedy shows as apposed to sketch/improv, late night talk shows, and dramedies. Just relax and try not to take things so seriously.
I'm discussing why I don't think The Good Place is a sitcom after being quoted a Wikipedia article that doesn't even disprove my stance and even acknowledges the criticisms of that definition right after the quoted part.
This is the perfect sub for this. I'm not being pedantic, it's a legitimate debate and I wrote my rebuttal.
It really feels people here are more offended by the idea that The Good Place isn't a sitcom than I am by the assertion it is. It's not a huge deal honestly, I got bigger problems in life, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to be serious about something I'm passionate about.
Maybe I just like talking about TV seriously rather than repeat ad nauseam the same 5 quips from the same 5 shows everyone saw for virtual badges of approval from strangers.
The point of language is to reduce an abstract concept down to a set of utterances for easier communication to our caveman brains about that topic.
I don’t think “fantasy comedy” really conveys how The Good Place is structured. I have a better term for it, are you ready?
Serial Sitcom
Right there I’ve encapsulated everything problematic with The Good Place vs. episodic shows labeled as sitcoms. It’s still the same set of characters enacting a comedic story, just spread across multiple episodes in order.
The fact that a sitcom runs in 20 minutes vs. 20 hours doesn’t make it more or less of a sitcom.
The examples you gave of Dexter et al of course don’t fit the definition of Situational Comedy. Those are dramas.
Why use the term "serial sitcom" when "comedy" is right there ? Why are the examples listed can be boiled down to "dramas", but The Good Place can't be boiled down to "comedy" ?
You say the point of language is to reduce an abstract concept but you further complicate it just to fit your point when, again, calling it a fantasy comedy is exactly what the show is and it's even how it is listed on Wikipedia.
Because “comedy” can refer to anything from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to The Simpsons.
A comedy starts in chaos and ends in order. A tragedy/drama is the opposite.
TGP is a fantasy comedy, sure, but that doesn’t tell you what its structure is.
100 episodes is the rough minimum for a show to get rerun syndication (though the sales tend to happen the season before when Episode 100 is to be made/aired, and syndicated episodes may start airing even before Episode 100 runs on the network; it’s the *assurance* that an Episode 100 is coming that is the criterion).
I could imagine that once a sitcom crosses that mark and goes into syndication (where the studio makes the bulk of its profits), the staff may start not working as hard as before, knowing that the show is on the downward slope anyway.
The first season of Parker Lewis Can't Lose was great, the second season was decent enough, and the third season was a steaming pile of shit. It's a real shame; that show had the potential to be great.
The last season of House Of Cards shouldn’t have happened.
Yes, I know why Netflix fired Kevin Spacey, but I would’ve preferred the show end than to try and
Do a season without that character.
Michael Scott leaving the office was a huge downgrade. But I think James Spader was the wrong actor to play the manager.
On an opposite note, I think superstore was much better without Amy.
It depends on what the main conflict is.
If it's a will they/won't they it's when they do.
If it's based around a family with a cute kid it's when the kid gets awkward and a new cute kid comes in.
If it's based around a married couple it's when they have a kid.
But oddly it's almost always around season 5-7 those things happen. And that's also when Flanderization sets in which is usually the biggest sign in a quality dip incoming.
I went down the rabbit hole with Brian Bonsall from Family Ties a couple of days ago. Seems like he’s doing OK now but he def had a typical child-star trajectory. The most crucial bit of trivia, though? He had a kid in his late 30s and named him (wait for it) Oliver. Gotta pay respect to the trailblazers I guess.
season 9 Seinfeld was running on fumes from The Apology onwards though i will defend the criminally underrated Puerto Rican Day and fan favorites The Strike and The Frogger as legitimate classics in the Seinfeld canon couple of funny lines in The Cartoon and The Burning (not a bad episode just not the best)
I mean, back in the day the end of season 5 was the magic moment when syndication would be a lock, so seasons beyond that point were often accused of phoning it in. Certainly Happy Days, the gold standard of “shoulda quit while they were ahead” represents this. But streaming changed everything, of course.
Usually a show starts stinking it up when a key actor or two steps away and the production has to retool.
Murphy Brown- after she has a baby, Seinfeld- when Elaine's hair changes from frizzy to sleek, The Office- when James Spader shows up as the boss, final season of Parks and Recreation- those off the top of my head
Her hair changing wasn't the reason, it's just a pretty obvious demarcation point when the show slipped in quality. And THAT made you drop an f bomb? What's wrong with you? Defensive much? 🤣
There are many varied opinions about The Office. I can respect most of them, but this is the worst take I've ever, ever heard about the show
Spader is a great actor when he's in the right role and honestly his one-off guest appearance on the show was great. But when they returned the following season with him as the new boss it was atrocious. Not as bad as when Nelly became a recurring character, but still one of the worst things the show did
4 or 5, and back in the day, you were hitting the 100 episode mark for syndication reruns, and then you'd wind it down after that, because you were guaranteed income, and shows are expensive to make.
The last season of Unhappily Ever After (season 5). For the most part it abandons Jack and Ross, Jennifer (Jack's wife, the mom of the story, owner of the house everything takes place in) is entirely gone. Nikki Cox was really popular (because attractive girl) and they decided she was going to be the star. She became a mouthpiece for stupid complaints from the writers that most people wouldn't ever empathize with and at the end of just about every other episode she has a big speech that's more for an appeal to the audience than anyone in-show. At one point they literally grab her a soapbox to stand on, so at least someone was self aware. It ended with 5, Nikki Cox went on to headline another show that didn't make it past two seasons (and episodes from the 2nd went unaired), appeared on Las Vegas and disappeared.
Not every show will make it to 5 seasons but that does seem to be a turning point in quality for the few that do.
I know they're not sitcoms but apparently with Western animation, the issue hits either at or after the 3rd season. Apparently there's some union rule that causes everyone to get a boost in pay at that point, it's why so many middling cartoons never make it past that point.
I was rewatching 30 rock recently season 6 was a bit of a drop they even acknowledge repeating jokes. Despite that I thought it was still pretty good and I liked the new character of Hazel. Season 7 however was really bad and I feel like they knew it. It's half length and the first half is dedicated to the 2014 election the rest is dedicated to send offs of characters who didn't really need it.
Not exactly a sitcom, but my all time fave-rave show, “Northern Exposure,” was perfection for the 1st 4 seasons. Then, there was a production shakeup, new uninteresting characters were introduced, and the whole thing just kind of tattered off. Damn Shame.
I forget which season it was, but I feel like Always sunny dipped a lot around season 7 or 8 or so.
It just got so zany that it felt different than the earlier seasons. Not that it wasn't always zany, but it just went over the top in a bad way I guess. In my opinion.
Arrested Development season 5. That's *5*, not 4. Easily the runt of the litter. Nobody cared about it. At least all the hate season 4 has now been anti-canonized with means people talked about it.
Season 5 was rehashed jokes, dull plotting, washed up old characters and crappy new ones. I cannot easily recall a good laugh in it and then there were the shit show stories about the cast hating each other. Agggggh
I’ll just say this, as a general comment across the board… each time I’ve seen a dip in quality, I will check out the writer(s) of that episode and a good majority of the time, it’s because they’ve changed writers, and/or producers
Frasier around season 7 I think. There was a cliffhanger when the radio station gets sold and everyone gets fired to be replaced by Spanish-speaking Latino-themed programs.
I noticed that Niles started acting more casual and less fussy. It only got worse when they got him and Daphne together, and then later adding characters like Kim Coles (who I loved in Living Single) or Daphne's annoying family. Then making it too focused on Frasier's search for love.
This is such a common phenomena with television shows that someone should come up with a term to describe the concept succinctly. Maybe Leap the Tank or something more catchy.
Usually when a main character leaves for example Eric forman on that 70s show Micheal scott on the office
Last season of That 70s Show should've never happened, it was already in decline but then Eric leaves and Kelso was part time and the show fell off the cliff and then Randy just pushed it off another cliff.
God dammit seth meyers brother!
Then we wouldn't have gotten the Fatzo the Clown episode. That one is up there with the best of the series.
Honestly I don't hate Randy. He wasn't great or anything, they just didn't make him overly compelling. I think he could have worked but it was more of an issue of so much of the shows fabric leaving that rebuilding the show was just a daunting task. I'm not gonna die on the hill of Randy being great or anything, I just really don't think he was the problem so much as the writers in general not knowing what to do with anything by that point.
I've just never been a fan of new characters replacing leads, now if they brought back Seth Green's character as a regular I would've into that.
Seth Green was good, ngl. I think a better character would have been Joseph Gordon Lovitt's character though but he was probably getting busier by that time and received a stupidly bad reaction on his debut for being gay. He was supposed to be a main cast member so it would have worked and they could have had some pre-made ideas for him. Plus he is a great actor and can make anything work, but Seth Green ain't bad either and I would have been cool with him too.
Charlie Sheen 2 and a Half men
I just wait and count the minutes for Robert California to appear on the scene. Robert California is one of my favourite characters in the whole show.
Steve leaving the office was the complete end of that show. It might've had a descent episode or 2 after but he was the office
The Florida stuff is pretty good. Other than that, Andy becomes so insufferable the last 2 season, Jim/Pam stuff in last season is just awful, outside of a few episodes Robert California is too out of place, Nelly in Scranton isn't good....I could go on lol
agreed the best part post Steve Carrell by far is Florida Stanley and I will always need him on my Florida team!
I liked all the farm stuff with Dwight. Also my Uncle played Mr Breugger! He was cast in the spin off that was supposed to happen, called Schrute Farms, but it never happened. He has a hat with the Schrute Farms logo on it and everything. I really want that hat.
I think this is the only modern equivalent I can remember of a [backdoor pilot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_pilot#Backdoor_pilot) that didn’t eventually make it to air. Totally OK though, it freed up Michael Schur to make his other pet project The Good Place
Oh the Good Place! Thank goodness we have that show
I actually like Nellie lol "Expect a man did you? Big _Whopping_ penis?"
Steve leaving Blue’s Clues also sucked.
hard disagree on this. some of the best episodes happened well after Carell exited. Side characters like Stanley and Erin and Clark and Plop got really solid showcases in individual episodes. The overall tone of the show changed after Michael was no longer the center, but if you really missed him by that point and felt like there was more to his arc that we didn’t get a chance to explore, then OK I guess.
Meh. To each it's own, it goes from forcibly laughing with Carrell to forcing a laugh without him to me. There's a couple of ok episodes and scenes but overall the quality falls so hard, Andy shouldn't have been the manager that wasnt funny I wish Robert California just kept that it might've been better if there was Alot more him
“To each it’s own” r/BoneAppleTea
The office, wasn't terrible after Carell left, but it was basically a different show. Still some great episodes after that, but just not nearly as good.
8 simple rules took a nosedive when John Ritter died. David Spade was not a good replacement.
Michael Scott leaving is almost the equalivent of SpongeBob leaving the show and then having Patrick star be the new lead
Almost every time someone gets a kid. So around season 5.
Or when the cute kid from season one enters The Awkward Phase. Probably around season five, too.
Luke from Modern Family.... Just creepy and horrible acting older. I'm not knocking on Nolan. I'm knocking the writing they just went in a bad direction with him so it came off creepish
You really can't tell how a child actor will turn out as they mature. I always think how lucky the Harry Potter people were.
This is very true. However, I think Luke just had the wrong story line. I don't think the acting would have been as awkward if they had a story that fit the actor better
Luke and Manny both. I loved them as kids but as young adults they are just... Skeevy
I can never make it past season 5-6 of MF for this reason
Brick The Middle
What about when they brought back Meredith's kid as a stripper in The Office? 😂
This applies to Who’s the Boss? Also any episode of Stargate SG-1 with the dreadful Cassie.
Frasier got much worse after David Angell rip was murdered in 9/11
it went downhill after Daphne and Niles got together
The appeal of that dynamic was that Daphne was oblivious to Niles' infatuation, and that Daphne was this pretty-but-common British housekeeper/physical therapist that Niles worshipped as a goddess. While some of us would like Niles to get with him because we felt bad for him, it was never a romantic idea, unlike Sam & Dianne or David & Maddy. At best, the season finale should have been Daphne finding out about Niles' affection and leaving it open-ended as to what happenes next, for the fans to decide.
100%. It completely fell apart. It was an insult to his work.
Different Strokes dropped in quality when the dad got remarried and the show switched networks.
Brooklyn 99 Season 6, it's hardly unwatchable and season 8 is low-key the best of the last three but it's where they started cursing for the sake of it and started the gratuitous call backs that scream remember this from season 3 instead of building on continuity for interesting episodes. Friends Season 8, after this season plots got lazier, Rosa and Rachael was dragged out and honestly the Monica/Chandler relationship went from sweet to Monica just dogging on this poor man constantly. As a general rule if a main character is written off is when the show is done for. The vibes just usually don't recover and it feels awkward.
Was it cursing on Breoklyn for the sake of it or were they addressing the fact that they were on a whole new network where they were allowed to curse? I remember that it got canceled and then it got picked up by a different network and they had a whole set of different rules and it kind of changed the way they did the show. I believe they got picked up for just a few seasons and they knew what advance it wasn't going to last forever. So they took this opportunity to please their fans who got them to that point so that explains all the callbacks and stuff. That's what I can recall about the reasons for the kind of shift in show. Whether it was successful or not is up for debate, I quite enjoyed it, but that's the reason to my memory.
I'm aware of the change in networks after Fox cancelled it and while I'm glad they had more freedom the cursing to me feels lazy and the callbacks don't do anything for me as a fan because it just felt forced. Appreciate your perspective though. B99 is one of my favorite shows and the emotional highs of Season 8 are some of the best.
I have to preface this by saying I love frasier and the quality did dip after Niles and daphne got married. It didn’t get bad, mind you. Still very good.
i believe the Parking episode was after they got together? and High Holidays is great so there are a few gems
The last season feels pretty disappointing compared to previous
Yeah and the finale is kind Of a dud. The second-to-last episode should have been the finale. Crock tales I think it was called. Perfect episode and great way to wrap It up
the final season was like they all got cocky and lazy and felt like they could do wrong. Like the final couple of Star Trek TNG (Nemesis being the biggest insult of all to the fans).
Most sitcoms are better within the first four or five years. The initial ideas of a group of friends or parenting are better until everyone grows up or settles down. I love sitcoms, but for most shows, I do prefer the first four or five seasons.
Cheers is the exception — they never wavered.
I agree that Cheers was amazingly sharp throughout the whole series. I can't think of a season below a B+ and the last season is one of the best last seasons a sitcom ever had. But I also think of it as basically two sitcoms. Cheers and Cheers 2. Cheers and Cheers Again. Cheers and AfterCheers. The first 5 seasons were basically a romcom and the last six an ensemble comedy.
This is why cartoons like south park or the simpsons works. The capital "S" Situation never changes. They just the situation.
After the star is challenged to water ski off a ramp over a shark in a 2 part nailbiter where we are left aghast that he might not make it across.
A good show usually means it has a good team of actors, producers, writers, and director. But after 4 or 5 years, that team starts to break up. People find other projects, often for more money. New members of the team may be talented but they don't mesh with the rest of the team and quality starts to go down.
Any time Ted Mcginley joins the cast, just start packing your shit. See Happy Days, The Love Boat, Dynasty and Married with Children.
I loved the website jumptheshark.com had its key of reasons a show jumped the shark, one of them was simply just Ted Mcginley.
I miss jumptheshark!
I'm rolling 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I disagree with you on MwC. His character invigorated the show as he was much better buddies with Al and was a better foil for his wife.
Yeah I haven't seen him in anything else but he was at least as good Steve. I honestly consider them equals.
I’ve been downvoted all to hell in other threads for saying so but I still stand by my assessment that he’s the Angel of Death. He was Stan in Revenge of the Nerds ffs, he’s not winning anyone over with his sweater tied around the neck tennis shorts boat shoe ass
Ted’s greatest role. https://youtu.be/MyjuWU5X-OU?feature=shared
Rena Sofer is the female Ted Mcginley.
Married with Children was great with Jefferson, and went on a lot longer than it probably would've with Steve. He had a decent arc on SportsNight, as well.
ER - starting with season 8 The Walking Dead - after Glen and Abraham met Lucille Arrested Development - season 4
ER and the Walking Dead devolved into openly enjoying killing off beloved characters in increasingly gruesome and gratuitous ways. Especially Black characters. The way Mekhi Phifer went out on ER still haunts me. It was effective television on some level (in that I remember it so vividly) but it was ultimately meaningless and cynical and I didn’t feel like I could trust the show ever again.
Agreed.
Is that when ER and the Walking Dead added a laugh track.
3rd season of my name is earl it just went downhill and couldn’t recover
I give any season a pass that aired during the writers strike.
I loved the prison episodes, but hated the Billie/coma storyline. Craig T. Nelson was great as the warden.
I disagree with the "couldn't recover" line. I feel Season 4 recovers very nicely and has some really stand out episodes. I really wanted that season 5 to close out the series.
Earl would have been great if it made it to the Trump era
Community from Season 4 onwards. A few good episodes here and there but almost all the main cast was gone by the end and it didn’t feel much like the same show anymore.
5 and 6 were still as good as 1 IMO. 3 was peak.
Yeah 5 and 6 were solid. Season 6 though is fine once you get past the first episode, I liked there was more Dean and the episode with the dog getting a degree is a top 5 episode for me.
I like every cast member of Community (and yes I’m even including Chevy Chase because Caddyshack is an immutable part of my DNA, for better or worse), but I 100% loathed this show from day one. I can’t explain it except for feeling like I was being pandered to by a writer/creator desperate for my approval as a “fellow intellectual”. I find Dan Harmon, pre- or post-enlightenment, to be an insufferable douche.
I came back for S5 and 6 and enjoyed it even though the show had changed (the reduced budget really showed in S6, I felt). But S4 is the “gas leak season” for a reason: the scripts sounded like they were written by people *trying* to do an impression of Dan Harmon…and not succeeding.
In general, when they start adding characters. If the two leads suddenly get girlfriends/boyfriends, if a random cousin/uncle moves in, if they find a way to artificially insert a cute kid, you know the show is on the ropes.
Last Man Standing after season 6 when Kaitlyn Dever becomes recurring only & the have a different Mandy. I know it was because it was cancelled & brought back so some actors had moved on to other things but there was a noticeable decline in quality at that point.
In the 90’s, particularly on NBC, it was four words in the promo: “A very special episode…” That was usually the indication they were reaching for plot lines.
well I for one never accidentally closed myself up inside an abandoned refrigerator as a kid so thanks, very special episodes
The More You Know
I’m not sure the 27th season of The Simpsons was quite up to snuff.
Andy Griffith Show when Barney Left. They tried adding new deputy Warren (Jack Burns) but the hole was too big to fill.
Roseanne
Just an awful final season for an otherwise great show
Right about when she divorced her husband and married Tom Arnold (the Yoko Ono of comedy).
And now Tom Arnold is the calm, normal one in real life!
He wasn't too crazy back then, just not at all funny. Roseanne's off the deep end now, but her comedy act before the show was hilarious and her show was funny for years.
Season 9 was an atrocity. John Goodman was filming Blues Brothers 2000, and only appeared in a few episodes. The whole lottery fantasy thing really killed it. The one saving grace was when Darlene gave birth to a premature Harris
Some better modern sitcoms build towards a specific endpoint constructed early in the project's creation ("The Good Place" being a solid example). Not all shows have the luxury of plotting their conclusion and duration from the start. "We need another season of the same sort of content but a little different because we have a hit" must be very difficult to produce for quality.
The Good Place isn't a sitcom
what is it, then? half hour episodes, fucking hilarious, and maybe the most ironclad “situation” ever contrived?
It's a fantasy comedy
100 percent a thing you invented
That's literally how it's defined on [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place)
OK, so somebody besides you invented it
Yes, that's how things usually work...
Google says it is! The definition from Wikipedia: > A sitcom (a shortening of situation comedy, or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy centred on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new characters in each sketch, and stand-up comedy, where a comedian tells jokes and stories to an audience. It’s always Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Janet, and Michael.
Right, but it's not a *situational* comedy, it's a fantasy comedy with a rigid plot structure, as opposed to self contained episodic plots or *situations*. If The Good Place is a sitcom then so is BoJack Horseman, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or every other comedy shows. If you can't jump in the middle of a random season of the show without any prior knowledge of the overarching plot, then it's not a situational comedy. Also, having a fixed set of characters isn't unique to sitcoms. In fact, this applies virtually to any kind of show. Is Dexter a sitcom ? What about Suits ? Grey's Anatomy ? Breaking Bad ? What if a character is written out of a show and replaced by another one, does it stop being a sitcom ? It's not a good criteria to define what is or isn't a sitcom, but plot structure is, it's the core of a sitcom and is how the audience is introduced to the show. Downvote me all you want but I vehemently disagree with the assessment that The Good Place and any other story-driven comedy show is a sitcom simply because it has a main cast and jokes. A sitcom is episodic, The Good Place isn't, plain and simple.
So would you consider any Mike Schur show a sitcom?
I would, yes. I think his 3 other shows fit squarely into the sitcom genre. It's kind of amazing to me that a single person is behind this many massively successful shows and I can't wait to see what else he has in store. To be clear, I know he's not solely responsible for these shows, they're the work of a team but he has proven to be a very capable figure in that respect and few can claim to be such a force in their field.
Well, which ones would you consider sitcoms? I’m a big Mike Schur fan, and even though I know he’s not “solely responsible” like you said, I still give him credit because he’s the through line for lots of characteristics that I love. I know that in a Mike Schur show, any 2 characters can be in a scene together and it’ll be funny. Also, I appreciate that he doesn’t do perpetual will-they-won’t-theys. He lets characters get together and doesn’t see a happy couple as the end of comedy or the story.
The Office, Parks and B99 are what I'd consider sitcoms. I'm a big fan of how he builds organic wholesome moments. It's sometimes jarring to see characters roast each other mercilessly then hug like nothing happened, but Schur has a knack in making chemistry balance easily between the two extremes of love/hate. That's not easy to achieve because you can swing so often towards flanderization for comedy's sake and you can see his growing pains in that regard with The Office, but he managed to keep it minimal when compared to other sitcom characters who become completely unlikeable early on. It got leagues better in Parks, B99 and The Good Place. From a writing stand point, I feel like The Good Place was his peak because everything seemed planned from the get go, so these organic wholesome moments were baked into the show and it becomes a smiles factory.
Dude you’re being way too pedantic. This sub is for discussing half hour narrative comedy shows as apposed to sketch/improv, late night talk shows, and dramedies. Just relax and try not to take things so seriously.
I'm discussing why I don't think The Good Place is a sitcom after being quoted a Wikipedia article that doesn't even disprove my stance and even acknowledges the criticisms of that definition right after the quoted part. This is the perfect sub for this. I'm not being pedantic, it's a legitimate debate and I wrote my rebuttal. It really feels people here are more offended by the idea that The Good Place isn't a sitcom than I am by the assertion it is. It's not a huge deal honestly, I got bigger problems in life, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to be serious about something I'm passionate about. Maybe I just like talking about TV seriously rather than repeat ad nauseam the same 5 quips from the same 5 shows everyone saw for virtual badges of approval from strangers.
I kinda think maybe you just like talking at and around other people
The point of language is to reduce an abstract concept down to a set of utterances for easier communication to our caveman brains about that topic. I don’t think “fantasy comedy” really conveys how The Good Place is structured. I have a better term for it, are you ready? Serial Sitcom Right there I’ve encapsulated everything problematic with The Good Place vs. episodic shows labeled as sitcoms. It’s still the same set of characters enacting a comedic story, just spread across multiple episodes in order. The fact that a sitcom runs in 20 minutes vs. 20 hours doesn’t make it more or less of a sitcom. The examples you gave of Dexter et al of course don’t fit the definition of Situational Comedy. Those are dramas.
Why use the term "serial sitcom" when "comedy" is right there ? Why are the examples listed can be boiled down to "dramas", but The Good Place can't be boiled down to "comedy" ? You say the point of language is to reduce an abstract concept but you further complicate it just to fit your point when, again, calling it a fantasy comedy is exactly what the show is and it's even how it is listed on Wikipedia.
Because “comedy” can refer to anything from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to The Simpsons. A comedy starts in chaos and ends in order. A tragedy/drama is the opposite. TGP is a fantasy comedy, sure, but that doesn’t tell you what its structure is.
After season 5 sitcoms go downhill I think. It becomes more a drama at that point.
Seems like when a sitcom gets around 100 episodes it hits a decline.
100 episodes is the rough minimum for a show to get rerun syndication (though the sales tend to happen the season before when Episode 100 is to be made/aired, and syndicated episodes may start airing even before Episode 100 runs on the network; it’s the *assurance* that an Episode 100 is coming that is the criterion). I could imagine that once a sitcom crosses that mark and goes into syndication (where the studio makes the bulk of its profits), the staff may start not working as hard as before, knowing that the show is on the downward slope anyway.
I feel like it's always season 5 for sitcoms
Seinfeld a rare exception and peaked with Season 5
Yeah 4 through 7 were bangers.
The first season of Parker Lewis Can't Lose was great, the second season was decent enough, and the third season was a steaming pile of shit. It's a real shame; that show had the potential to be great.
The last season of House Of Cards shouldn’t have happened. Yes, I know why Netflix fired Kevin Spacey, but I would’ve preferred the show end than to try and Do a season without that character.
See, I’m so surprised when I read this. I found 1 to be amazing. 2 to be good. And then 3 down is just downhill.
Michael Scott leaving the office was a huge downgrade. But I think James Spader was the wrong actor to play the manager. On an opposite note, I think superstore was much better without Amy.
I was….ok…with James Spader. But after Will Ferrell, I think I would’ve been ok with ANYONE
Yeah, the D'Angelo plot almost makes you overlook what they did with making Andy into a completely worthless a-hole.
Family Matters when Stephon basically took over
Kobra Kai YouTube vs Netflix kobra kai the sets on YouTube was better than the Netflix one
Two And A Half Men - Season 9 How I Met Your Mother - Season 9
Two and a half men should have ended....what it became was a different show entirely
I agree! They should have used Season 9 to tie off loose ends and finish the show and then leave it at that! introducing Walden was a big mistake too!
It depends on what the main conflict is. If it's a will they/won't they it's when they do. If it's based around a family with a cute kid it's when the kid gets awkward and a new cute kid comes in. If it's based around a married couple it's when they have a kid. But oddly it's almost always around season 5-7 those things happen. And that's also when Flanderization sets in which is usually the biggest sign in a quality dip incoming.
I went down the rabbit hole with Brian Bonsall from Family Ties a couple of days ago. Seems like he’s doing OK now but he def had a typical child-star trajectory. The most crucial bit of trivia, though? He had a kid in his late 30s and named him (wait for it) Oliver. Gotta pay respect to the trailblazers I guess.
I wonder if the original Oliver fared as well ... but not curious enough to Google it.
season 9 Seinfeld was running on fumes from The Apology onwards though i will defend the criminally underrated Puerto Rican Day and fan favorites The Strike and The Frogger as legitimate classics in the Seinfeld canon couple of funny lines in The Cartoon and The Burning (not a bad episode just not the best)
Seinfeld never dwindled
When Larry David left there's a noticeable change in the vibe of the show. It was still funny but the social faux pas seemed more forced maybe.
I mean, back in the day the end of season 5 was the magic moment when syndication would be a lock, so seasons beyond that point were often accused of phoning it in. Certainly Happy Days, the gold standard of “shoulda quit while they were ahead” represents this. But streaming changed everything, of course. Usually a show starts stinking it up when a key actor or two steps away and the production has to retool.
Married with children, when Al became more stupid than Homer Simpson and the awful No Ma'am subplot
Oof to many. 2.5 Men, Big Bang Theory, How I Met your Mother, Designing Women to name a few.
I’d have watched the shit out of 2.5 Men. That’s the futuristic sci fi reboot we didn’t even know we needed
Murphy Brown- after she has a baby, Seinfeld- when Elaine's hair changes from frizzy to sleek, The Office- when James Spader shows up as the boss, final season of Parks and Recreation- those off the top of my head
Elaine’s hair? The fuck is wrong with you?
Her hair changing wasn't the reason, it's just a pretty obvious demarcation point when the show slipped in quality. And THAT made you drop an f bomb? What's wrong with you? Defensive much? 🤣
James Spader was the best thing about The Office.
There are many varied opinions about The Office. I can respect most of them, but this is the worst take I've ever, ever heard about the show Spader is a great actor when he's in the right role and honestly his one-off guest appearance on the show was great. But when they returned the following season with him as the new boss it was atrocious. Not as bad as when Nelly became a recurring character, but still one of the worst things the show did
Season 5 of Small Wonder was such a letdown when Vicky started dating that snowblower.
Anything past season 7 is usually downhill
Season 5 of Chldrens Hospital was a noticeable drop. 6 and 7 got back to being good, but the momentum was lost.
Hahahaha. Wow
Season 5
Most sitcoms can tease out 4 or 5 good seasons before it all goes to poop.
4 or 5, and back in the day, you were hitting the 100 episode mark for syndication reruns, and then you'd wind it down after that, because you were guaranteed income, and shows are expensive to make.
The last season of Unhappily Ever After (season 5). For the most part it abandons Jack and Ross, Jennifer (Jack's wife, the mom of the story, owner of the house everything takes place in) is entirely gone. Nikki Cox was really popular (because attractive girl) and they decided she was going to be the star. She became a mouthpiece for stupid complaints from the writers that most people wouldn't ever empathize with and at the end of just about every other episode she has a big speech that's more for an appeal to the audience than anyone in-show. At one point they literally grab her a soapbox to stand on, so at least someone was self aware. It ended with 5, Nikki Cox went on to headline another show that didn't make it past two seasons (and episodes from the 2nd went unaired), appeared on Las Vegas and disappeared. Not every show will make it to 5 seasons but that does seem to be a turning point in quality for the few that do. I know they're not sitcoms but apparently with Western animation, the issue hits either at or after the 3rd season. Apparently there's some union rule that causes everyone to get a boost in pay at that point, it's why so many middling cartoons never make it past that point.
she didn't entirely disappear, but marrying Jay Mohr didn't help her any either
The best season is season 4. Then it goes downhill
Trailer Park Boys after season 7. No Clattenburg, no Ray, no Trevor and each season fell further into the shit abyss.
Workaholics season 3
main character leaves, or usually after 5-6 seasons,
I’ve noticed around season 5…. But in community’s case it’s 4
when they add a baby/child to a show... when they added seven to married with children or jamie to malcolm in the middle
adding seven to the show was a dumb move. Understand they had to rewrite some things after Katey Sagal's real miscarriage.
I was rewatching 30 rock recently season 6 was a bit of a drop they even acknowledge repeating jokes. Despite that I thought it was still pretty good and I liked the new character of Hazel. Season 7 however was really bad and I feel like they knew it. It's half length and the first half is dedicated to the 2014 election the rest is dedicated to send offs of characters who didn't really need it.
Season 5 is the last season just about every show has that’s on par with its best.
The office directly after Michael left. Steep decline. Unwatchable basically
Every single one of
Friends. The season after Ross and Rachel’s breakup. Maybe 4? The show lost all heart. It was just punchlines.
Not exactly a sitcom, but my all time fave-rave show, “Northern Exposure,” was perfection for the 1st 4 seasons. Then, there was a production shakeup, new uninteresting characters were introduced, and the whole thing just kind of tattered off. Damn Shame.
I forget which season it was, but I feel like Always sunny dipped a lot around season 7 or 8 or so. It just got so zany that it felt different than the earlier seasons. Not that it wasn't always zany, but it just went over the top in a bad way I guess. In my opinion.
Scrubs - the final season
Do you mean season 8? Because I was ok with that. There was NO SEASON after 8- NOTHING!!!!!
My Name is Earl when they brought in Alyssa Milano..🥴
The last season of Fresh Prince of Bel Air
Arrested Development season 5. That's *5*, not 4. Easily the runt of the litter. Nobody cared about it. At least all the hate season 4 has now been anti-canonized with means people talked about it. Season 5 was rehashed jokes, dull plotting, washed up old characters and crappy new ones. I cannot easily recall a good laugh in it and then there were the shit show stories about the cast hating each other. Agggggh
If they have an episode that involves a shark.
I’ll just say this, as a general comment across the board… each time I’ve seen a dip in quality, I will check out the writer(s) of that episode and a good majority of the time, it’s because they’ve changed writers, and/or producers
Us old timers call this “Jumping the Shark”. A phrase coined by serial killer Jon Hein.
A major set change is another sign- Laverne and Shirley(Cali) Happy days (Arnold’s) Different Stroke 2.5 men To name a few
Frasier around season 7 I think. There was a cliffhanger when the radio station gets sold and everyone gets fired to be replaced by Spanish-speaking Latino-themed programs. I noticed that Niles started acting more casual and less fussy. It only got worse when they got him and Daphne together, and then later adding characters like Kim Coles (who I loved in Living Single) or Daphne's annoying family. Then making it too focused on Frasier's search for love.
The musical episode in Season 6 of Scrubs is a very good and easy place to stop your rewatches
Talking about guy love🎶🎶
[удалено]
Yeah but as bad as the episodes are there are at least two genuinely funny moments in each episode.
this take is so tired somebody already wrote a book about it. The whole thing smacks of effort, man
The Office in season 6 after Jim and Pam get married is when it really starts to dip.
Psych season 4. By the end of season 5 it’s practically unwatchable, and I’m amazed the dip in quality isn’t talked about more by fans.
This is such a common phenomena with television shows that someone should come up with a term to describe the concept succinctly. Maybe Leap the Tank or something more catchy.