Overstaying it's welcome is far worse, Lost for an example went from awesome to tired to bad and got so bad that it started to make the previously good episodes bad. It is a perfect example they find something and that thin is intensely fascinating and important for some time but in the end they are all red herrings that just stop showing up.
Then you have shows that get the ax and birth massive fandoms and in a seance live on through the show even though it was short, fan fiction and cosplay.
It is unfair that we do not get to see what might've been for all the shows that never made it to their end. I mean, if it reached the end and nobody likes it, that's one thing, but to never know is worse.
If a show loses its way, you can always just stop watching it and move on to something else. But with shows that died too young you're left with all the unanswered questions and stories that could have been.
Why not both at once?
How, you wanna know? Whenever they make a rushed miniseries to finish it or pump the plot points for the next 3 seasons into one just to give the series an end. Or when they cancel a show because the next to last season was weak but the last season shows lots of potential.
Though the mini series and crammed season are probably the worst of those. Not only feel they incredibly unsatisfying, they also leave no room for the series to be ever picked up again later because their story arc is already over.
Basically, the series itself is gone too soon but the rushed ending has very quickly overstayed its welcome.
If a series ends well without having a rushed ending because the overall story arc was filled in a satisfying manner then it is great even though some people may feel like it ended too soon.
I would rather see a show overstay its welcome, just because I usually don't start watching a show until it's over or has a pretty big backlog of episodes. If I hear "everything after season 3 is shit" I can just stop watching there and pretend that's where it ends.
Also in a lot of cases where a show overstays its welcome, there's a clear point where the show was supposed to end before it got renewed that will give you closure if you stop watching it there.
Not only that, but they took an amazing antagonist, Gul Dukat, and completely ruined his character because someone thought having a main bad guy IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING INTERGALACTIC WAR was a good idea.
Dukat was an amazing character. By turns heartless beast, and by others, a loving family man. I guess what they were trying to do with the war thing was to put a face on it. You can't mention WW2 for example without mentioning Hitler. He was the face of the Axis Of Evil, he was the focal point. Looking at most wars, there is always a hate-figure that we know about. However, the whole good/evil timeless prophets thing was a little odd... Technically, since time doesn't exist for them, they are both at peace and in constant war with the pa'wraiths forever.
OT: I posit a third choice. What if a series is cancelled early, then brought back a few years later? This was my greatest fear for Firefly, bringing it back would never be the same as it was when it was first made. I would accept another series in the same 'verse, but not with the same crew. It would never, ever be the same.
Of the two main choices, I think it's sadder to see a series go on for too long. Everything has it's time and place.
Do you think Firefly would have such a massive impact as it did if it were 20 seasons long and people where sick of it? But 1 season and gone = uber fan army deploy.
If something overstays it's welcome people just start to ignore it and it fades into the background.
If something is taken away too soon on the other hand people scream to get it back.
Overstay. For some people over stay might be more then 1 season others 10. You can just stop watching when it's enough. Cut short is making that choice for you.
Not only that, but they took an amazing antagonist, Gul Dukat, and completely ruined his character because someone thought having a main bad guy IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING INTERGALACTIC WAR was a good idea.
Dukat was an amazing character. By turns heartless beast, and by others, a loving family man. I guess what they were trying to do with the war thing was to put a face on it. You can't mention WW2 for example without mentioning Hitler. He was the face of the Axis Of Evil, he was the focal point. Looking at most wars, there is always a hate-figure that we know about. However, the whole good/evil timeless prophets thing was a little odd... Technically, since time doesn't exist for them, they are both at peace and in constant war with the pa'wraiths forever.
I wouldn't have minded that so much, but by that point, Dukat was no longer part of the Cardassian-Dominion alliance, so having him as the 'face of the enemy' doesn't make sense as much as, say, the female changeling. He's more like if Hitler was overthrown and went to the Orient to learn Firebending; it was just silly. It's especially aggravating considering it comes after his best episode, 'Waltz' which is such a great character piece for him.
I agree with the prophets thing, I feel their inclusion was ridiculous, and really only served to push the weaknesses of the series (the Bajoran culture/religion) to the forefront for most of the final season.
"He's more like if Hitler was overthrown and went to the Orient to learn Firebending; it was just silly. It's especially aggravating considering it comes after his best episode, 'Waltz' which is such a great character piece for him."
Hitler the Firebender.......now there is a made for syfy film that has to be made. And kudos that 'Waltz' was indeed his best episode, just like 'In the Pale Moonlight' was for Sisko.
I'd say lasting too long is easily the worst fate. Had Family Guy stayed dead we'd still be lamenting the death of great series instead of getting tired of its overlong repetitive dullness. Personally I'm glad my fave animated series 'Daria' never got a comeback like Beavis and Butthead did because the story is over, stretching things out beyond what's needed just taints the good memories.
I think gone too soon is a worse fate, because any ideas the writers had are just gone, or are forced to awkwardly go into a new project. At least if it's drawn out they can get all the ideas out.
It would probably be gone too soon, but for me personally, the way the Simpson's keeps being renewed over and over again makes me want it to die so badly. Granted, the bad new episodes don't destroy the great old ones, it makes them look better actually. However, it hurts the image of the show overall, people love the old episodes, but the new episodes help to give the show a bad image.
It's not even like beating a dead horse anymore, it's just a pile of dust being blown around to keep it relevant.
*grins* Well me personally I think its an interesting concept of an episode that is killed by silliness like what's in your Avatar. It wasn't -horrible- by any means but it also was a sign that TOS was losing steam.
I think it's a shame that there is only 6 episodes of Garth Marenghis DarkPlace, it doesn't need a lot more but 6 episodes more would have been very welcome. But i guess it has a certain charm that's kinda reinforced because it's fairly obscure and short. It's just this little thing that shouldn't exist but does so anyway.
And i can't help but feel that Simpsons probably should have ended around season 10-11, i do kinda enjoy must of it up to the movie but it started losing it's steam around season 10. That's where the filler episodes and weird jokes started appearing. Now that we are around 25 seasons in i can't help but feel that the new stuff is tainting the legacy a bit. Not so much after i stopped watching it though, after hating the show for awhile i've finally gone back to the good seasons which made me remember why i liked it in the first place. I would rather have a 'what if they never cancelled the show after 10?" than what we have now. Same goes for Futurama, just seemed like it lost its spark when it came back.
I kind of think SGU did both after the first season was done i wasn't sure if i was would carry on watching. Then season 2 picked up dramatically and i ended up gutted it got canned.
A while back I would have said gone too soon... but we're living in a time where two certain Fox shows are clinging to life long past their cultural relevance, actively sabotaging attempts to move forward. They're like the CoD of television, bringing their bland non-entertainment to bear on a confused public while pre-teens and lizard people give them money for it.
Overstaying its welcome is worse, and I think Firefly is the perfect example why. Yes, it was cut short before its time, and ended up needing the film to finish off the story, but it's one of the most beloved TV shows of the past decade. I'm not sure it would have the rabid fan base it has if they didn't have the common cause of its cancellation to rally around. Hell, if it weren't for the cancellation, we probably wouldn't have had Serenity, and that was a really good movie.
As for a show that overstayed its welcome... Heroes, anyone? A show that started off so well, with so much promise, and turned to such drivel after the first season. I'm sure it would be much more fondly remembered if everything after Volume One hadn't been complete rubbish.
The worse fate is overstaying the welcome. It has the potential destructive power of staining the whole TV Show. Below I give the example of Millennium, I loved the first season, and I can't watch it anymore because I know how bad it gets during Season 2...
Deadwood was gone too soon, I believe it should have lasted at least one more season, or, as they had planned back then, with a couple of feature films
Sons of Anarchy, as much as I love it, has overstayed it's welcome for a couple of seasons already, it's a Clay/Jax/Opie thing, anyone who's seen it knows what event I'm talking about. Things should have gone differently and ended the TV Show with dignity. Now it seems weak, and trouble keeps pouring over the Samcro for evidently no other reason than to keep the show going; my main point being, there's been opportunities to close the loop around the main plot, but they simply realized the show was bringing a lot of cash so why not forget the main plot and go with a bunch of smaller stories to pester the fans with?
The biggest overstay? Twin Peaks. SADLY. The show has the simple premise of finding out "who killed Laura Palmer", at the middle of season two it gives us the answer (sort of an unsatisfying one at that), until this point we're talking about a murder show that shines due to its cast of very eccentric characters and a strange and depressing feeling of dread lurking around the corners of the lovely tow of Twin Peaks. Well, after the killer is revealed the show degrades to an incomprehensible mess of subplots, many not even linked to the main story line, only to recover it's quality during the insane series finale. Even David Lynch recognizes that he and the crew messed up, hat they should either held on to the mystery a while longer, or ended the show after the reveal. Too bad, because it could easily be one of my favorite shows ever
Millennium was another mess up, thanks to whomever was in charge of Season 2
it ends with a virus being dispersed that, according to the season finale, kills a huge portion of humanity; when Chris Carter came back for Season 3, pretty pissed with how his show got pissed upon, he tried to revert the situation by stating that "the news were exaggerated"...
Best TV Show endings: Breaking Bad and Six Feet Under; both shows have a special place in my heart for knowing exactly when to bring the plot to an end, and do so in a dignified way.
I think I'd rather have a series I like get cancelled rather have it drift into mediocrity. For example, I'm of the opinion that Battlestar Galactica was a much worse show than Firefly, because even though BSG intrigued me more, I thought that the ending of it was nonsensical, and a cheap way to end the series, whereas Firefly I felt ended on a high note, and because of that, I have a much more positive memory of the series.
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