Day #14 of the 30 Days of Television Challenge

[shadowkat]

This is Day #14 of The 30 Days of Television Challenge.

The prompt is A series that disappointed you - started out well, went down-hill or had a great pilot, but not so great afterwards, etc.

There's sooo many. It's tragic really. Most series just go on too long. The writers and actors tend to get burned out around the fourth-fifth season, and after that...things go downhill. But there are a few that showed great promise to start and after five or six episodes, you think, oh dear, there's not much here is there? They put it all in the first five or six episodes.

The challenge here - is to pick a series the petered out or didn't hold up to it's promise after about five to ten episodes. Not one that had a bad ending or went off the rails in the fifth or sixth season.

Mine?

Joan or Arcadia - I loved the first two or three episodes then quickly lost interest and gave up on it.

Comments

[mtbc]

We see it somewhat with series where the original writer/creator penned initial episodes but decreasingly many of later. Or of course when after the first season they change showrunner.

[shadowkat]

That happens as well. There's actually a higher turn-over in show-runners/writers than actors on series. And in television the writer matters more than anyone else.

West Wing had that problem - Aaron Sorkin went off the rails somewhere in the third or fourth season, so someone else took over.

Or the show-runner will get bored around the fifth season, take off and hand it over to someone else - which is what happened with Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Buffy, and various others.

I think Lost and Battlestar Galatica are among the few that kept the same show-runner throughout.