[tVtRoPEs] Let's talk about shows which follow this particular trajectory

[mauve]

La Femme Nikita was awesome until they killed off Birkoff (or however that kid's name was spelled) and when fans got mad, replaced him with his hitherto-unknown playboy twin brother.



....Okay, sorry. I'll be amazed if anyone here knows what show l'm talking about. It hasn't been on tv since I was in middle or high school.

[synkr0nized]

I remember that show. My brother and I sometimes watched it.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Pip Boy

fuck you Fox network you un-cancel Firefly right now dammit.

No. That would be stupid.

Serenity wrapped everything up neatly. All the hanging plot threads were over. Reavers were explained, River was explained and started getting better, Kaylee and Simon hooked up, etc. and everyone lived happily ever after. Except Wash. And Zoe, I guess.

Bringing it back would, in no way, turn out well. They'd either have to set it before Serenity, which would feel like some kind of awful other worlds/Smallville thing if they try to do anything interesting plot/character wise due to the fact we know what's going to happen or just be shitty disconnected single shots lacking any of the continuity or character growth.

Or they could place it after Serenity.

And in that case, seriously, fuck Firefly without Wash.




BUT THAT'S NOT REALLY THE TOPIC.

And what is the topic is totally is a thing that happens. If memory serves, that's why Jerry killed Seinfeld after a few seasons. It was already getting pretty close to jumping the shark and getting shitty(/ier).

Either the writers start running out of ideas, or the executives get at them, or whatever other thing and every show starts going down hill. Maybe not in the specific manner specified for every show ever, but I can't think of a show that ran for a long time and didn't have these kinds of issues eventually.

Except maybe the original Star Trek, which went straight from 'good for its time Science Fiction' and hopped straight into 'so bad it's good. I mean seriously, Kirk just wrestled Genghis Khan to the ground with the help of Lincoln.'

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Except maybe the original Star Trek, which went straight from 'good for its time Science Fiction' and hopped straight into 'so bad it's good. I mean seriously, Kirk just wrestled Genghis Khan to the ground with the help of Lincoln.'

It is interesting to note how heavily the number of omnipotent alien superbeings declined between the 23rd and 24th centuries. Now that I think about it, there was an even further drop in such beings in the 24th century right around the moment Roddenberry died.

After that you just had an occasional visit by Q.

Actually, is there a reverse version of this trope that applies to TNG-era Star Trek shows?

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

After that you just had an occasional visit by Q.

Well, and the Traveler.

Which, by the way, marks why I had to specify 'Original Star Trek' and couldn't give a nod to TNG.

[Pip Boy]

I know they can't actually still continue it, but that doesn't mean that I can't rage about the fact that it was canceled to begin with. I mean, they could continue it, but they'd have to ret-con Serenity out of existence and that'd be a terrible mistake.

[Krylo]

Rage about them canceling Pushing Daisies instead.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Specterbane

I think an interesting thing to compare would be the shows that seem to avoid this. USA had an amazing summer line up this past season with shows that have been going on for a while. Look at Psych, they're on their 5th season and I'd say season 2 was the low point for it (though I'm not caught up in season 5). And Burn Notice has arguably stayed pretty even keel rather than any going into sort of crazy death spiral that shows like Heroes get into.

I think the fundamental thing is that the shows that do what I was talking about in the first post all tend to start out with some level flawed-ness which initially isn't that bad or is balanced against the show's more positive elements. Like I think that if you like, um, Psych, or Burn Notice, you pretty much just like Psych and Burn Notice, you're not like really into it for this element even in spite of this other element that is consistently inexplicable and stupid. Whereas like even with Galactica, when the show was at its best there was still some stuff that was just plain-ass nonsense/bullshit. And instead of clipping off those things or improving them the show will just let them like, get bigger and dumber while diminishing the things you liked about it in the first place. Like in Galactica the intra-fleet politics and anything involving Baltar were always furiously fucking stupid but it was worth it for Starbuck being badass and crazy and the broader hints at the mythology arc but eventually the latter two things just become as dumb as everything else about the show.

PS Smallville doesn't count because it was terrible as of episode one.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Rage about them canceling Pushing Daisies instead.

It's still too amazing that Pushing Daisies got put on the air at all.

[Magus]

I presume a good sequel to Serenity would involve a second galactic civil war. It's not impossible.

But yeah there wouldn't be any Wash or Book...

For some reason no one has mentioned LOST. I will now mention LOST as following this trajectory quite neatly.

[Sithdarth]

Anyone else notice a genre trend going on here? I'm thinking it hints at a possible cause to this. Namely the vast majority of these shows are SciFi based and suffer from writers that just can't write SciFi and end up painting themselves into a corner for the sake of continuity. Essentially what I'm saying is that these writers have a great idea for say a movie or a miniseries but once you get into that area where you are essentially into the day to day lives of your characters most writers don't have the creativity to write decent stories about things they have not and/or cannot experience. As the adage goes you write what you know which can make writing SciFi significantly challenging over the long term. For that matter any really out there genre like Fantasy and the like will also suffer from this generally because the main source of initial drama comes from the author imagining what it would be like to discover this new world and expressing that through the characters. This is something that just about everyone can get a good handle on writer or not. Once you get past that phase into routine then everything goes to hell if you don't have a very very good writer because no one knows what it is like for the content of these stories to be routine.

Having not watched Glee I can't comment but I think you'll find that the writers are equally out of their depth in terms of never having really been in the shoes of the characters they are portraying. A great writer can get away with that but unfortunately most TV writers aren't really great. In short I think you can attribute this largely to writers progressing to a point outside of their comfortable writing range because they aren't paying attention to the progression of the story. It doesn't help when they write in teams. It also doesn't help when you have writers that have absolutely no background in what they are writing and no desire to do research into it (I'm looking at you Eureka and that god awful ultra-indigo time traveling light crap).