Gone too soon or overstayed its welcome?

[King Billi]

Which would you consider to be the worse fate for a television show?

On the one hand it is certainly disheartening to see a good show with so much potential unfairly ended before it's time, especially when important threads are left unresolved. Firefly is the obvious example of this although I'd also offer Stargate Universe as a show I liked that falls under this category.

On the other hand though it can also be painful to see something you once loved grow tired and pointless as it drawn out over several years long after its initial appeal has been spent.

I would be inclined to go with the latter being preferable as at least in that case a show was given a chance to shine before trailing off into mediocrity. I find I'm also pretty good at ignoring the bad parts in things that I happen to enjoy.

What's your opinion? Do you have examples of shows you like that fall under either of these categories or perhaps even shows you consider which avoided both and managed to go the distance and conclude itself at just the right time?

 

[DeimosMasque]

The thing is that someone will always think a show is gone too soon. Burn Notice, for example, ended this year in it's 7th season and honestly I feel like the show should have continued past that. To me, even after seven years... it's gone too soon. And there are shows that seem to even just get past the first season and it overstays it welcome. For me the show Heroes is an example of that.

For me any show I was still enjoying was gone to soon. Deep Space Nine, SG-1, Spectacular Spider-Man, Better of Ted, Arrested Development (even with its recent additions)even Buffy and Angel and the 2000's Fantastic Four series I felt could still keep going.

ST: Voyager, Enterprise, SGU, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Vampire Diaries, Seinfeld and Ultimate Spider-Man all overstayed their welcome. Heck Hulk Agents of SMASH is only six or seven episodes in and I feel like it's already overstayed it's welcome. Though it's nice to have She-Hulk in a cartoon again.

 

[Reiper]

ST: Voyager, Enterprise, SGU, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Vampire Diaries, Seinfeld and Ultimate Spider-Man all overstayed their welcome. Heck Hulk Agents of SMASH is only six or seven episodes in and I feel like it's already overstayed it's welcome. Though it's nice to have She-Hulk in a cartoon again.

Enterprise, are you kidding me? Enterprise only got four seasons, and towards the end it was actually starting to get really good.

 

[DeimosMasque]

ST: Voyager, Enterprise, SGU, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Vampire Diaries, Seinfeld and Ultimate Spider-Man all overstayed their welcome. Heck Hulk Agents of SMASH is only six or seven episodes in and I feel like it's already overstayed it's welcome. Though it's nice to have She-Hulk in a cartoon again.

Enterprise, are you kidding me? Enterprise only got four seasons, and towards the end it was actually starting to get really good.

Oh I don't disagree that season 4 really started to pick up. Which I guess in reality makes it the Schrodinger's Cat of this question. It had over stayed it's welcome about half-way through season 1. And was gone too soon when it reached the next to last episode.

The Series is both alive and dead
Undead Series!!

 

[FalloutJack]

Gone too soon.

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.

 

[King Billi]

The thing is that someone will always think a show is gone too soon. Burn Notice, for example, ended this year in it's 7th season and honestly I feel like the show should have continued past that. To me, even after seven years... it's gone too soon. And there are shows that seem to even just get past the first season and it overstays it welcome. For me the show Heroes is an example of that.

Honestly when I was thinking about this I was pretty much only considering it in terms of shows which people like.
I mean of course if you don't like a show you're going to want it to just end but I was referring more to shows which people originally liked that for one reason or another just went on for to long.

I do get your point though and I agree wholeheartedly with you about Heroes.

 

[ShipofFools]

The original Star Trek series has too few episodes. I need more, but there are no more.

The existential dread I feel every time I look at my DVD's is a constant reminder of the grim, cold universe we all inhabit, and that help will not come from outside.

Then I take my medicine, and everything is rainbows and sunsets again.

 

[DeimosMasque]

The original Star Trek series has too few episodes. I need more, but there are no more.

The existential dread I feel every time I look at my DVD's is a constant reminder of the grim, cold universe we all inhabit, and that help will not come from outside.

Then I take my medicine, and everything is rainbows and sunsets again.

ST:TOS really did need more episodes, but honestly season 3 was such a cluster I'm not really sure it would have helped. After "Spock's Brain," "Plato's Stepchildren," "Requiem for Methuselah," "Way to Eden," "Turnabout Intruder" and others. The show had really worn itself out. It's probably a good thing it ended and moved on to just films (based on the first Season of STTNG it's probably a good thing that Phase 2 never happened since a lot of those early scripts were left overs with rewrites from the writing staff. And 80% of TNG season 1 sucked) It allowed us to have just the good, with the bad of the Phase 2 pilot aka Star Trek the (Slow)Motion Picture and Final Frontier, and not have to have anymore of what was becoming the bad.

It's also true with how TNG ended, they were out of ideas. Heck, the TNG movies prove that. But Voyager was originally conceived as basically TNG season 8. Yet they were out of ideas, and Voyager suffered for it. Think if TNG made it to season 8 and season eight had episodes like "Elogium," "Paralax," "Phage," or "Ex Post Facto."

In my opinion, TOS ended when it needed to, before it could get worse.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

In the case of gone too soon, the viewers still want more and it might actually force the creators to make something to end the series properly (Farscape, for example, got cancelled on the 4th season, and they had to make a mini series later to end the series, something the fans had been asking for for years).

When it's overstayed its welcome, a series will just annoy and possibly turn away the old fanbase, while not necessarily getting a new one. Not sure which is preferable, to be honest.

 

[piinyouri]

Overstayed for me.

It's awful to watch a great piece of storytelling/entertainment media become a shell of what it used to be.

I'm worried this is the ultimate fate for Adventure Time. (I don;t think the newest episodes are bad, it's just a feeling I have)

 

[Realitycrash]

Everything stagnates and dies, but I'd rather have that than a show that never had time to flourish at all.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I think practically, overstayed it's welcome gives you more enjoyable content overall and you can still ignore the dull end and take solace in the longer beginning and middle, but romantically, gone too soon leaves the magical image intact, as seen with Firefly. So the decider is that overstaying its welcome had a chance to become a brilliant, long series, so for that, it gets my vote as far as the watcher, but for the show's reputation, gone too soon is definitely the more attractive option.

 

[ViridianV6]

Personally, I reckon a show that overstays it's welcome is far worse than one that ends too soon. Seeing a show far past its prime really leaves a sour taste on the episodes that were good and kills a show far worse than not seeing as much as we'd like.

 

[dementis]

I'd say being cancelled or finishing early is much worse. Usually a show that get's dragged out did have a point that could be considered an end before it starts going stale and you can stop watching at that point without your favourite show being ruined.

 

[WenisPagon]

Definitely overstaying its welcome. Usually writers have a natural end in mind when they write a series, but fat-cat executives want to squeeze the show's following for all it's worth.

I'm conflicted, though, because the abrupt ending to Twin Peaks was such a depressing and frustrating experience. What made it even worse was that the finale was one of the best episodes of the entire season.

 

[Story]

Why no poll?
For me it's Gone too Soon. Even if the show does overstay it's welcome, I can always choose to stop watching if I wanted to. If a show got canceled then I would have no choice but to stop watching. Its funny, I just finished Tron: Uprising and rewatched Samurai Jack and Symbiotic Titain not too long ago. I would have loved to have seen those shows get proper endings.

Captcha:
"Ear candy"
More like eye candy, all three of them.

 

[Signa]

"Plato's Stepchildren,"

What was wrong with Plato's Stepchildren?!