Too many “what got cancelled too soon” questions, what’s a show that went on too long?
Hard mode: no The Walking Dead
Game of thrones. They should have ended it when they caught up to the books. Just leave it unfinished. That’s not satisfying but better than what we got.
I was gonna binge this show after it ended but I can’t bring myself to watch a show that I know has a shit ending, so it will forever be one of those shows I missed
If you’re okay with the head canon, just stop watching when the wall falls. White walkers won, humanity has ended. GG.
It was so good early on though. IMO you would do better to just watch the first 5 or 6 seasons and make up an ending in your head vs not watching at all. Or read a brief synopsis of the last couple seasons just to know where the characters ended up.
But then you might feel the call of the void, and want to watch the last couple seasons as a sort of "bad movie night” on steroids. On one hand, you will fully understand the magnitude of the fuckup, but on the other, you will taint your fond memories of the early seasons. The choice is yours.
I personally think of it as “seasons 1-5 happened, then there was a huge, mysterious time jump, and the last 2 episodes of season 8 happened”.
I can see the ending happening, it’s just… Dum&Dumber couldn’t figure out how to get there, and GRRM was too rich and lazy to do what he was supposed to do to get them there.
I started reading the series around 2002, when there were 3 books. Martin released book 4 in 2005. In the afterward of the book he said that book 6 was basically already done… book 6 didn’t come out for 6 more years (2011).
It’s been 12 years. We’re waiting on book 7. Given his age, it doesn’t seem like the series will be finished by Martin. Hopefully he actually does know what happens through the rest of the story and has it down for whoever takes up the mantle.
The actors would have aged way more than their characters at that point. Especially the kids and the very old characters.
Spoilers ahoy. If you’ve not seen game of thrones, read on to get the disappointment out of the way now
I disagree wholeheartedly. As much as “who’s got a better story than bran” sucked, I think that was likely the ending that was intended in the books as well (and the extreme backlash against it is why we’ll never see the last books). GRRM stated on multiple occasions that he was working closely with HBO and that they knew the general shape of the story he was trying to tell.
I feel like the majority of the problem with GoT was Benioff and Weiss. GRRM wanted at least two more seasons in which to tell the story (and, knowing what we know now, to delay the revelation that he didn’t really have a way to untangle the story he tangled), HBO made it clear that they would keep riding the money train no matter how far the station, but D&D wanted to wrap the series up ASAP so they could work on producing some Star Wars films. That’s why Jon goes from Dragonstone to the wall in a single cut. That’s why the entire war with the nights king that was central to the whole series was over in an episode. That’s why Dani went psycho in her moment of victory. That’s why cersei’s death was so predictable that it’s a cliche in ttrpgs, that’s why cleganebowl was ultimately disappointing, that’s why the resolution to dragons being in westeros was “idk he just left lol”, that’s why the resolution to aryas story was “idk she just left lol” (even after several seasons developing her character as someone who believes that if Starks don’t stick together they’ll be destroyed), that’s why the resolution to the war in the north was “idk the north…won? but also surrendered? lol”, that’s why LRJ didn’t matter at all, that’s why the spider went from being the most politically adroit character on the show to doing a whole musical number entitled “Do You Wanna Do A Treason?”, that’s why littlefinger’s whole trial was “we know he’s a dick just kill him”, and the fact that House of the Dragon is being made by people who want to make it is why its almost as good as the first 5 seasons of GoT
It all comes down to the fact that they wanted the show to just be over, and now it is I suppose.
The issue isn’t the ending itself, it’s how they got there. They rushed the ending, and as a result it made no sense.
There’s one point on the ending that no amount of taking their time and telling the story correctly will resolve, and that’s that accepting the crown goes fundamentally against who Bran has been since the beginning of the show. I would have been okay with a reluctant king in Jon, because it would fulfill the prophecy, fire would have won out over ice, LRJ would have mattered, Varys would have a complete arc, Jon being a Targaryen raised by a Stark would have given us an emotionally satisfying end to the civil war by uniting the north and south in one person, and Jon had already proven himself to be caring and competent in a leadership role he didn’t really want when he was at castle black.
Bran didn’t just not want to be king, he expressed absolute disdain for the office of king. He repeatedly says that it doesn’t matter who is king. Unless we’re assuming that something happened to make this ending make sense, it just doesn’t. If we are assuming that something happened to make this ending make sense, then it’s incumbent on the show to show us what happened and they failed to do that.
I personally think of it as “seasons 1-5 happened, then there was a huge, mysterious time jump, and the last 2 episodes of season 8 happened”.
I can see the ending happening, it’s just… Dum&Dumber couldn’t figure out how to get there, and GRRM was too rich and lazy to do what he was supposed to do to get them there.
Actually I think many people agree with you. I can see the ending happening, it’s just… Dum&Dumber couldn’t figure out how to get there, and GRRM was too rich and lazy to do what he was supposed to do to get them there.
I personally think of it as “seasons 1-5 happened, then there was a huge, mysterious time jump, and the last 2 episodes of season 8 happened”.
I would’ve been really pissed off if they just stopped and didn’t even take a stab at it. Now I’m disappointed with the seasons that came after that point but at least the series has come to some kind of conclusion.
Big bang theory. It was absolute garbage.
I think I’d like to point out that they shouldn’t have had even one season. It’s so fucking offensive.
By today’s standards, yeah. At the time, too, but the ultimate message was groundbreaking and progressive. Archie was written as a bigot for the purpose of creating conflict and addressing difficult social issues. The actor who played him, Carroll O’Connor, was liberal in his personal politics, as was the producer, Norman Lear.
I appreciate the show for what it was attempting, not because I worship Archie Bunker.
I think you’re thinking of All In The Family? OPs comment was regarding Big Bang Theory…
It’s weird with Big Bang Theory, when it first started me and my friend circle loved it, thought it was brilliant but yes it did lose something after a few seasons.
But online everyone just seemed to hate it - could it be because we’re British and it just landed better with us…?
It was good the first few seasons, people shit on it because they shit on everything popular, but it WAS a good sitcom, it just never grew up.
Also, I found the depiction of the Indian guy funny at first but it quickly got racist and never got better, they just kept piling on the racism
Their depiction of “nerds” was also offensive and shitty in many of the same ways. But because that’s what the writers told you is nerd behavior and culture, it seemed more acceptable somehow.
Also, I found the depiction of the Indian guy funny at first but it quickly got racist and never got better, they just kept piling on the racism
Interesting. I didn’t like it for a very similar reason. Their depiction of nerds or geniuses or whatever you want to call them was pretty offensive. I could never get into it.
Edit: to be clear, I’m not saying that I’m a genius or even particularly intelligent. I’m not. But the barrage of stupid nerd stereotypes was just obnoxious and offensive.
Nah I shit on it because it was shit, for something that was supposed to be a comedy it wasn’t funny at all, it is subjective of course, I’m sure people did find it funny
Anything with a laugh track immediately turns me off, watch some of the clips with the laugh track deleted and that’s the humour you are left with.
The newer characters they introduced were just not likeable. Bernadette and the other female lead just dragged the show down. Stuart was shit too. They should have centralised the show on the main characters from the start and actually built on their stories a bit more. Instead they all became flanderised
British TV is, as a friend said to me once, dire. So it would make sense that it landed better there. I mean, clearly lots of Americans watched it, and I know a few that loved it. I just think less of them. 😁
If British TV is so dire, why does American TV keep trying to copy it? And badly, at that. I will never forgive what you did to the Inbetweeners.
I’m on the flip side with that one. I absolutely loved Big Bang Theory, but honestly I can’t stand Young Sheldon. I mean sure the show has its funny moments, but still, why oh why won’t they just let the show die?
Any show that needs a laugh track to tell you when it’s trying to be funny isn’t going to be funny. I actually heard a perfect description of why BBT wasn’t good (to me) a couple weeks ago from the Venture Bros creators. BBT was a show created by people outside nerd culture trying to tell nerds what nerd culture is. And IMO it entirely missed the mark.
Laugh tracks are an immediate turn off - literally. I remember being curious about a show, and then switching it off after about 30 seconds when the canned laughter kicked in. It told me immediately that the humor would be broad instead of clever.
This doesn’t apply to older shows, though. All in the Family is still one of the best sitcoms ever, laugh track or not.
Edit: I forgot - they never used a laugh track. That was a live studio audience. Sorry!
Laugh track is about stupid, I’ll give you that. But still, I grew up watching Married With Children and despite the laugh track (I dunno, maybe it really was a live studio audience), I found the show rather hilarious.
Why? Did the last season suck? Or did the show run out of ideas along the way?
Note: I am not very well known with the show.
Westworld should have just been an amazing miniseries.
Enterprise needed one more season.
Yeah!! If anyone interested just watch the first season, it doesnt need continuing it was great!
It really does. The ending wraps everything up perfectly. The seasons after are basically just “and then they went to theme park B and did it again”. There’s nothing lost by only watching the original season.
I mostly disagree on the “they went to park b and did it again” bit, but only mostly. Shogunworld was just a detour and it’s unclear if any of their Hosts achieved sentience. Season 2 mostly focused on the rebellion happening in the first park. The third and fourth seasons are absolutely going to another park and doing it again, but with the twist that the new park is the real world and reversing the roles of hosts and humans, comparing the hosts’ loops to human behavior (which they undermined with Rehoboam, in my opinion).
I loved the show and wanted to see where the story went, but I also completely agree that we didn’t need anything after the first season, really.
It’s all so perfectly self-contained. I’d love to be able to watch it again if MAX wasn’t a steaming pile of crappy content.
See also: True Detective.
There’s a reason that it’s one of the few shows to be referred to as True Detective (Season One) when people talk about it
It feels to me like the writers of westworld slowly forgot what the show was about or something as it goes on. Like when you come up with an alt universe for a story that ignores the point of the original, like a version of Star Wars where Luke joins Vader that abandons the themes of family and redemption.
SPOILERS AHEAD IDK HOW TO DO SPOILER TAGS By season 3 it just felt like they plopped characters into the plot and wrote them to logical/“cool” conclusions, like “ooo wouldn’t it be fucked up if Halores took over the world and made the humans the hosts in her game” they just really lost the plot later on imo
Seriously folks - there can be only one and done:
HEROES
Save the cheerleader, save the world and then please - go home. But nooooo…/
Gonna disagree, we needed more Heroes, but from a writing team with a vision and purpose. Or at least one that understood the character driven nature of the first season was it’s selling point, not just the half baked superhero action. The '07 writers strike really screwed that show.
Season 1 rocked but I’m still bitter that Hiro saying “Nissan Versa!” is stuck in my mind so many years later
Wait what!? Shit I ended up buying a nissam versa as my first car years later. I always wondered why I chose that car
Could you also please tell the writers not to create 2 characters that are so overpowered that they threaten to destroy the world every time they turn around? Not everyone needs to be a supercharged Rogue…
This really worked for season 1 because you didn’t know which one of them was going to be the catalyst of the bomb. They should’ve disposed both of those characters at the end of the season, but NBC just wanted a money grab and bring them both back for something incoherent in the following seasons.
Honestly, I rewatched season 1 again a couple of years ago and it didn’t really hold up for me. The Niki and Micah storyline just seemed to slow everything down. I don’t know if it the newness factor wore off or if my tastes have changed, but it just didn’t have the same feeling.
How I met your mother. They saw a cash cow and milked it.
Big Bang theory. It was kinda ok at first, but then it was just bad.
I loved himym, all of it, except the ending. Like I get what they went for, but it dismissed all seasons.
