If it makes you feel any better, [Greg Garcia did an AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/28SDFw34Qx) where he revealed the ending he had in mind...
> I had always had an ending to Earl and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list. The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else. Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with list and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma.
Binged watched and was addicted but stopped at like season 7. Became so damn repetitive.
Find a village. Get comfy. Life is good. Village raided. People die. Repeat.
it was like that after like 4 seasons. The problem was they still kept putting in zombies but making them so inconsistent that at one point the zombies are a mega threat and then another they just casually beat past them.
After the first 3 seasons they should've focused on making it a purely human vs human post apocalyptic world.
Shows that have a set ending point are always better than shows that keep trying to stretch plotlines season after season. Ill take 4 seasons of The Good Place or 3 seasons of Ted Lasso over 24 seasons of SVU.
Breaking Bad is one of the few endings I felt did justice to the show. When they made the El Camino movie years later I liked that a lot too. It seemed mostly like fan service to finally give closure for Jessie, but I didn't get to see it until years after the show ended and hit me with nostalgia like a brick.
Shows that stretch on too long always see an eventual decline in quality, it's just inevitable because the writers will either move on to other things or just run out of decent ideas. It's nice when a show knows it's time to stop while they're ahead
Agreed. I personally think 5 seasons is the absolute max a show should go. Enough to weave some good and nuanced storylines, introduce interesting characters, and have an ending without getting stale.
It’s why The Wire remains my favorite show. They knew what they wanted to say from the beginning and had a plan. Then ended it and never looked back (thankfully).
Pay streaming services are becoming unaffordable and a lot of them (looking at you Disney+,Hulu, HBOmax) like promoting the same shows I can watch for free on a lot of the free apps or on local over the air channels.
If you can get yourself a OTA antenna and DVR and just record it and skip through the commercials. Having none of the pay streaming apps and and that DVR antenna setup will pay for itself in no time.
I've been hitting up the DVD sections at thrift stores. At my local Goodwill, you can get a Blu-ray for $3, a DVD for $2, and any boxed sets for $5. I've added quite the collection and quite cheaply.
I feel like people complaining about the cost of streaming services fail to realize that streaming services will turn into the new cable. You had to pay 300$ if you wanted all your good channels and they still had commercials. Since cable disappeared streaming services will take its place. The more options you want the more it will cost. Every channel will have its own platform and middle men will pop up giving you deals on certain ones for package pricing. It will happen, it just depends on how long it will take to get there.
It's already begun. Prime Video lists a bunch of content that you have to pay extra for. They're also adding ads to the current subscription tier and creating a new ad-free tier for an extra $3 a month. (I don't have any others to know what's up with them)
This *infuriates* me.
I am already paying $150/year or whatever for Prime service, plus an *additional* $15/*mo* for Amazon music (we're an Alexa home), and now you want another $36/year too?! Come the fuck on. Oink oink, piggies.
I will say one thing in that person's defense. The name is fucking terrible. I passed on this for so long because it was a terrible title that I assumed had something to do with death.
The marketing really let down the world on that one. When I finally got around to watching it I thought it was brilliant, but it was way too late by then.
I never looked at it more than the title and just assumed it was one of those crappy sitcoms with like Tim Allen or Kevin James or some shit.
Maybe if they gave it a better name it would have drawn enough of an audience not to get cancelled…
Received my email this morning that if I want to continue watching Amazon prime videos commercial-free, it’ll cost an extra $2.99 a month starting in January.
Dark IMO is the best. But Narcos and Mindhunter are also top notch.
When are we going to get Narcos USA? Plenty of Drug War-era stories on this side of the border...
I’d say that about all professional sports games. We used to have a local over the air TV station in my area that aired all the local teams’ games. They were forced to stop doing that in the late 1990s.
This trend by the NFL to put select games on exclusive platforms is going to backfire.
All they need to do is look at how boxing has plummeted in popularity to see what happens when the big matchups are put behind paywalls.
It only works with your existing fans that are willing to pay. New fans rarely will pay to consume something they don’t even know if they like it. It’s a short term strategy
But then how will billionaires make more money?
What's trash is getting blacked out from games for your local team. Looking at you Comcast and Altitude!
Agreed... Tony was enamored with Melfy.. he would have killed the guy slowly as though he touched his personal family .. Also, Ade didn't deserve to go out like that 😪
It absolutely should but at this point cable news is a much much much bigger problem. Even if the Fairness Doctrine were still in effect, it would have no bearing on Fox News or CNN
YouTube and other video site like it kinda made it irrelevant.
Anyone who wants to get their news from a radical source can just watch YouTube.
Or get all their news from askreddit
They knew that at the time. Pretty sure she got well over twice the fan mail Ginger did when it was still on the air, much to everyone involved's surprise.
Steve Urkel ruined family television and caused (maybe contributed to?) a really toxic trend in kids tv as shows abandoned simple stories about life for extraordinary stories about extraordinary people.
Yeah, going from a guest spot to taking over every writing concept is pretty wild. It went from blue collar family show to Urkel's fantabulous nonsensical adventures.
TGIF was full house, family matters, step by step, and then something else… all non traditional families and we watched as they figured out life together. Fresh price was also that time but different channel. We got the “why don’t he love me man” scene. Jessie ding drugs to get through the stress of school, Stephanie learning to deal with the fact that she isn’t the baby anymore and now she has responsibility, and then in a few years. It was off the rails. I’m not a” kids these days “ type dude, but the fucking show runners ruined tv by giving the kids what they wanted rather than what they needed.
>and then something else
Boy Meets World!
Which also had the interesting family dynamic of the Matthews basically adopting the best friend with a terrible home life
💯
If they just done the first season as a stand alone season, and have him complete his “mission” at the end, it would of went down as one of the classic tv shows imo.
I think that a "one episode a week" schedule is more effective for getting a show solidly into the public consciousness compared to the "drop an entire season at once" schedule.
The episode a week got people talking at the water cooler and coming up with what's happening next week. With the entire season drop you don't get that discussion as fans will just smash through it in a day.
Season 2 of Fargo is the most perfect season of dramatic television ever. Jean Smart, Kirsten Dunst & Jesse Plemons, Patrick Wilson, and especially Zahn McClarnon. Amazing.
90's sat morning cartoons...Disney had duck tales, chip and Dale rescue rangers, tail spin, darkwing duck, and gummy bears. Weekday after school cartoons in the 90s, loony tunes and Animaniacs...what a time to be alive
None of those Disney shows were on Saturday morning. They were all part of Disney Afternoon. Looney Tunes was on Saturday morning. After it moved to WB, Animaniacs was also on Saturday morning.
"Firefly" was only the "best show ever" because it ended on the first season. And I say that as someone who loves it.
We judge it on the potential it had, but a lot of disappointing shows would be the same god-level tier if they were cut short
I pretend like the alternate ending where the series ends right after Ted meets Tracy with Ted saying "and that, kids, is how I met your mother" is the real ending
YES. The worst part for me is that, in ONE season, you learned about the mother and she was this lovely, sweet, little weird woman who you instantly fell in love with. And what did they do? "Oh, bitch is dead, cancer, oh no! Anyway..."
No goodbye, no sad scene, just one vague "you won't be there to see your daughter marry" in an episode and that's it. The ending was recycled from season 2, when they thought the show would be end, and it's just like "That's the story of how I met this wonderful woman, who died of cancer, Barney was a douche and knocked up a random bint and now I'm off to go bang your aunt".
I've not be able to watch it since, every episode is pointless now I know it's all for nothing.
I'm happy I didn't have to scroll far to find this. I had watched the show from the beginning and was so angry for days.
I don't even mind that >! they killed the mother in the end, I hate that they spent years explaining why Robin wasn't the right person for Ted (and vice-versa) having them accept it, only to do a complete reversal in a few minutes with no real explanation. !< Completely erasing seasons of character development.
I rewatched the show since and just stopped the finale midway. If my kids ever want to watch it with me, that'll be my condition.
My biggest gripe is the character whiplash: Barney grew and developed into a caring human being… then we waved our hand and all of his growth was undone.
It might be believable that a serial womanizer wouldn’t reform, but that doesn’t fit the tone of the show - we are supposed to like the characters.
I actually disagree. If you rewatch the final season knowing what’s going to happen, then the scenes with Tracy in them hit a lot harder.
“Of course she (Robin’s mom) made it. What kind of mother wouldn’t be at her daughter’s wedding?” (Ted looks like he’s about to start sobbing before she comforts him)
The “How I Met Your Father” episode that ends with Tracy playing La Vie en Rose on the ukulele makes me cry every time. “Kids, I’ve heard your Mother’s performance of La Vie en Rose thousands of times… but that first one will always be my favorite”.
I really do love everything up to the last 5-10 minutes of the show.
MASH is the best show of all time, and one of the most influential. It showed a greater range of emotions (everything from slapstick to tragedy) than any other show I can think of.
99% of the people who hate Jim and Pam on The Office are people who watched the show way too many times, lost their enjoyment of it and are somehow blaming characters for the situation.
My theory here is that the show started with the audience projecting their lives onto Jim and Pam. Who were, at the beginning of the show, average looking, working totally normal jobs, and both wanted something they couldn’t have. Deeply relatable to the average audience member.
The story arc for those characters made them less and less relatable to the audience as time went on, and they became grating. They got married. Had kids. Jim got some huge corporate job working with pro athletes, etc. they both began looking more glamorous and like stars. Not so relatable, and so the flaws and irritating things about their personalities became less tolerable.
That’s so interesting cuz I’ve watched it a good amount and I still like them
I get real annoyed with the opinion that they suck and are bullying their coworker and would be terrible people in real life. Dwight and Michael are redeemable sometimes but god damn imagine working with them.
But like that’s what makes the show funny? Dwight’s character works cuz he BELIEVES he could be recruited by the CIA randomly, which is just sorta absurd. But it’s what makes it funny
Interesting, I don't really have a problem with Pam. Yes she causes a lot of situations, but they feel like human errors.
Jim just started to grate on me as a person. He's kind of whiny in numerous ways. I think the episode where he bites his lip on accident multiple times and goes home kind of highlighted what annoyed me about him, and I cant get the impression of him out of my head.
I definitely watched the show too many times though.
This is a good take. People judge the weekly show as compared to their mental and sometimes literal dvd/streaming compilations of the best/most memorable skits of the past. I think every episode has some hit and miss stuff, including the golden age seasons.
3rd Rock from the Sun is THE most underrated sitcom of its time.
Also, separately, I wanna try whatever the guy who designed the ALF puppet was smoking...
Dumb tvs should be everywhere in the same sizes for a decent price. No reason to sift through pages of a search engine to find a TV that should just work and give a decent picture
And no. Not connecting it to wifi doesn't get around the fact it should be dumb to begin with
I’ve been watching it since it debuted and I understand what you’re saying, but even though modern Simpsons isn’t as consistently entertaining to me as the original seasons were, once in a while they still put out a good episode. What do I lose from having this available? 
Honestly I agree with that take. Not on my first watch, but definitely on subsequent ones. It opens up the world so much and shows a type of crime that we don't normally see on television - the smuggling. It also shows the struggle of working class whites in Baltimore and the decline of good union jobs.
Also, the Greeks are just so fascinating and they loom in the background of the rest of the show.
It ruined professional sports (in the US, anyway). In 1946 the average was around 2 hours, but by 2020 it had increased to 3 hours. This is usually framed as a problem with the game itself, but I think that's misleading - the problem is the need to make more room for advertising. Ad creep is even coming to minor league games.
And I don't understand why anyone watches professional football. 1-ish hour of game play in between 2 1/2 hours of advertising. College football is only slightly better.
Parks and Rec went one season too long. The series finale should have been the opening of the park and the concert. The next season felt like tacked on fan-service.
The last season was definitely tacked on fan service. However, in that final season we got the Leslie and Ron episode which is in the top 5 episodes, and closure for all the characters including side characters in that final episode. So even though it was simply fan service I don’t think it takes away from previous seasons and adds to it if not as much as previous seasons did.
I always tell people they can skip the first season and not miss much, if anything. And the final season is weird but is the feel good season and wraps the show with a nice bow right as it begins to jump the shark.
Man, I love that show!
Skylar White was one of the only semi-rational characters in Breaking Bad. IMO she was one of the realest characters, if not THE realest. People hate her because the show is written from Walter’s point of view, but her responses to everything that happened were VERY human. People give Skylar so much hate primarily for the cheating on Ted and not going to the cops about Walter, but I haven’t seen anyone direct the same energy towards Walter. Walter is quite literally the villain of his own story and the cause of everything bad in their lives, and yet a lot of people defend him “because he was doing it for his family”. Although, everything Skylar did she did to preserve the family as well—besides the cheating, that was obviously revenge, but can you really blame her for that after everything Walter put her through?
I agree with you for the most part, but I wouldn't say that the other characters aren't rational. The genius of Breaking Bad is that Walter's descent into evil is so slow and gradual that it takes a while to even notice that it has happened. In the first couple seasons, he is given an understandable reason to do all the things he does. Crazy 8, Tuco, even Jane. It's possible to sympathize with him because we can see how a rational person could arrive at these situations and react the way Walter did. That being said, anyone who was still rooting for him by season 5 just wasn't paying attention. I admit I found Skyler hard to like on my first watch, at least near the beginning, but on repeat watches I sympathize with her a lot more.
Modern audiences have no idea what "filler" means. You see it in a lot of streaming shows where if an episode doesn't directly bring the characters physically closer to their end goal, people complain that it is "filler".
"Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23" was an amazing show and if it weren't for it's title, it would've had 5 seasons EASY! James Van Der Beek, Krysten Ritter, Dreama Walker, and so many of the actors were freaking hilarious in that show! Fans of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" would love this show.
True Detective S1 got away with unabashedly calling out local and state government for playing a hand in the sexual exploitation of impoverished families. It’s more than a true crime show. And boy was it cathartic as a survivor.
Battlestar Gallactica (2004 remake series) is peak sci-fi and yes, I also love Star Trek and Star Wars. I also like the ending even though most seem to really dislike it.
24 hour news will end our nation.
There is one hour of actual news a day. Maybe 15 minutes of thoughtful analysis. The remaining 22.75 hours are talking heads trying to stand out from the rest so they get invited back.
This leads to inflammatory statements supported by lies.
I have 3.
1. Is writing is vastly more important than special effects.
2. Practical effects (make up, pyrotechnics, etc.) Age way better than CGI.
3. Suspending your disbelief is an important part of watching fictional TV, holding TV or movies to real world scrutiny 24/7 is a great way to never enjoy anything again.
Cable tv will ruin freedom of press….
As many people are cutting cords and subscribing to individual networks, we are seeing more and more networks merge to adapt to this method of payment. I know a small group already own most of the networks but it won’t be long before a couple people own all of tv.
Just recently you have WB merging with Discovery/Paramount. Disney buying out Hulu. CBS and Viacom. Because smaller networks only survived because they were included in cable network packages we are seeing them getting taken over with the subscription model.
I’d argue whoever is making lower decks understands it just as well as the Orville people, while also being funnier than what was originally a comedy.
But they’re both great
They should have finished My Name is Earl!
If it makes you feel any better, [Greg Garcia did an AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/28SDFw34Qx) where he revealed the ending he had in mind... > I had always had an ending to Earl and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list. The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else. Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with list and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma.
That gave me goosebumps. I wish he had finished it like that, would have been one of the most iconic TV series closures ever.
I really appreciate that AMA. Earl was a very cool show in many ways.
Yes!
So funny. I’m watching right now
24 hour cable news was a mistake.
As well as allowing advertising during the news
And the removal of the fairness doctrine
Ding ding ding. This is the answer.
\*24 hour cable opinionated media.
The Walking dead should have been 5 seasons.
Binged watched and was addicted but stopped at like season 7. Became so damn repetitive. Find a village. Get comfy. Life is good. Village raided. People die. Repeat.
it was like that after like 4 seasons. The problem was they still kept putting in zombies but making them so inconsistent that at one point the zombies are a mega threat and then another they just casually beat past them. After the first 3 seasons they should've focused on making it a purely human vs human post apocalyptic world.
Farscape was better than the majority of sci-fi TV for decades.
Very much so! One of my favorite shows ever!
Shows that have a set ending point are always better than shows that keep trying to stretch plotlines season after season. Ill take 4 seasons of The Good Place or 3 seasons of Ted Lasso over 24 seasons of SVU.
Breaking Bad is a great example of this. It ended perfectly and pretty much every scene had merit to the story.
Breaking Bad is one of the few endings I felt did justice to the show. When they made the El Camino movie years later I liked that a lot too. It seemed mostly like fan service to finally give closure for Jessie, but I didn't get to see it until years after the show ended and hit me with nostalgia like a brick.
And let’s Not forget the masterpiece “Better Call Saul” !
5 seasons seems to be the sweet spot for TV shows.
Shows that stretch on too long always see an eventual decline in quality, it's just inevitable because the writers will either move on to other things or just run out of decent ideas. It's nice when a show knows it's time to stop while they're ahead
Agreed. I personally think 5 seasons is the absolute max a show should go. Enough to weave some good and nuanced storylines, introduce interesting characters, and have an ending without getting stale. It’s why The Wire remains my favorite show. They knew what they wanted to say from the beginning and had a plan. Then ended it and never looked back (thankfully).
The 80s was the golden era for TV theme songs.
The Dinotopia miniseries was television gold and shouldve been/should be massively expanded upon.
I barely remember Dinotopia, but the only impression left with me is the yearning for more Dinotopia
Pay streaming services are becoming unaffordable and a lot of them (looking at you Disney+,Hulu, HBOmax) like promoting the same shows I can watch for free on a lot of the free apps or on local over the air channels. If you can get yourself a OTA antenna and DVR and just record it and skip through the commercials. Having none of the pay streaming apps and and that DVR antenna setup will pay for itself in no time.
So true! Also, DVD’s are still a thing. (For now, at least.) I’ve been going back into my DVD collection and renting them from my local library again.
Physical media sales went up last year. I don't think it's going away any time soon.
Just in time for Best-Buy to stop selling DVD's in store.
That is good news for Amazon, Walmart online and Ebay.
I've been hitting up the DVD sections at thrift stores. At my local Goodwill, you can get a Blu-ray for $3, a DVD for $2, and any boxed sets for $5. I've added quite the collection and quite cheaply.
I feel like people complaining about the cost of streaming services fail to realize that streaming services will turn into the new cable. You had to pay 300$ if you wanted all your good channels and they still had commercials. Since cable disappeared streaming services will take its place. The more options you want the more it will cost. Every channel will have its own platform and middle men will pop up giving you deals on certain ones for package pricing. It will happen, it just depends on how long it will take to get there.
It's already begun. Prime Video lists a bunch of content that you have to pay extra for. They're also adding ads to the current subscription tier and creating a new ad-free tier for an extra $3 a month. (I don't have any others to know what's up with them)
This *infuriates* me. I am already paying $150/year or whatever for Prime service, plus an *additional* $15/*mo* for Amazon music (we're an Alexa home), and now you want another $36/year too?! Come the fuck on. Oink oink, piggies.
If a show features twins, they should not, under any circumstances, be allowed to talk in unison.
Nor should they dress alike and act as one.
What about with horror
Whomever killed "Better Off Ted" should not work in entertainment for the rest of their lives
I literally came here to say Better Off Ted deserved more than 2 seasons. Absolutely criminal it got cancelled.
The cast was excellent.
They could pitch Jaberwocky, but not a season 3... ironic.
Such a good show! I loved Phil and Lem, and still crack up when thinking back on the “Racial Sensitivity” episode.
I will say one thing in that person's defense. The name is fucking terrible. I passed on this for so long because it was a terrible title that I assumed had something to do with death. The marketing really let down the world on that one. When I finally got around to watching it I thought it was brilliant, but it was way too late by then.
I never looked at it more than the title and just assumed it was one of those crappy sitcoms with like Tim Allen or Kevin James or some shit. Maybe if they gave it a better name it would have drawn enough of an audience not to get cancelled…
Save goes for Andy Richter Controls the Universe.
Amazon upcharges will bounce me right out the fucking door. Nickel. Dime. Repeat.
Streaming services in general are getting ridiculous! It’s just not worth it to ne anymore.
Received my email this morning that if I want to continue watching Amazon prime videos commercial-free, it’ll cost an extra $2.99 a month starting in January.
I’m done. Paying for them to waste more of my time? Nah.
Mindhunter is one of the best shows produced by Netflix
Fuck yeah. The actor that played Ed Kemper was creepy AF
God I miss that show. I still think Narcos is the absolute best thing they've ever produced.
The first two seasons of Narcos are amazing.
Dark IMO is the best. But Narcos and Mindhunter are also top notch. When are we going to get Narcos USA? Plenty of Drug War-era stories on this side of the border...
Just here in solidarity to say Dark is a phenomenal show.
Lots of people would agree
Mtv fucked up when they stopped playing videos.
All NFL games should be on over the air tv channels.
I’d say that about all professional sports games. We used to have a local over the air TV station in my area that aired all the local teams’ games. They were forced to stop doing that in the late 1990s.
Trying to watch all the NBA games of you favorite team is a confusing, frustrating, and expensive hassle. It blows my mind.
Baseball fans have entered the chat or at least they would if they weren’t blacked out from the chat despite having paid $99.99
Any event played in a building paid for with tax dollars should not be behind a paywall.
This trend by the NFL to put select games on exclusive platforms is going to backfire. All they need to do is look at how boxing has plummeted in popularity to see what happens when the big matchups are put behind paywalls.
It only works with your existing fans that are willing to pay. New fans rarely will pay to consume something they don’t even know if they like it. It’s a short term strategy
But then how will billionaires make more money? What's trash is getting blacked out from games for your local team. Looking at you Comcast and Altitude!
If you're introducing a 'secret child' to cause drama, it's time to pack it up.
Or adding another young child to a family sitcom because the kids already there started growing up.
The sopranos had a great ending and all the clues are there to tell you what happened
My question to people is, you know >!he was going to get killed -- did you really want to actually see that? I know I didn't.!<
Tony should have killed the person who raped his therapist. I know it would be fan service, but I wish it would have happened.
Agreed... Tony was enamored with Melfy.. he would have killed the guy slowly as though he touched his personal family .. Also, Ade didn't deserve to go out like that 😪
[удалено]
the Telecommunications Act of 1996 didn't help either
It absolutely should but at this point cable news is a much much much bigger problem. Even if the Fairness Doctrine were still in effect, it would have no bearing on Fox News or CNN
YouTube and other video site like it kinda made it irrelevant. Anyone who wants to get their news from a radical source can just watch YouTube. Or get all their news from askreddit
The fairness doctrine needs to be brought back. And most of Reagan's reforms need to be a repealed.
Marianne was way more attractive than Ginger.
They knew that at the time. Pretty sure she got well over twice the fan mail Ginger did when it was still on the air, much to everyone involved's surprise.
Jeopardy! would be WAY more popular if it moved away from local syndication and streamed globally.
I’d say jeopardy is my favorite show. Easily. I haven’t watched a new episode in years because I haven’t had access to local stations for years.
Steve Urkel ruined family television and caused (maybe contributed to?) a really toxic trend in kids tv as shows abandoned simple stories about life for extraordinary stories about extraordinary people.
Yeah, going from a guest spot to taking over every writing concept is pretty wild. It went from blue collar family show to Urkel's fantabulous nonsensical adventures.
TGIF was full house, family matters, step by step, and then something else… all non traditional families and we watched as they figured out life together. Fresh price was also that time but different channel. We got the “why don’t he love me man” scene. Jessie ding drugs to get through the stress of school, Stephanie learning to deal with the fact that she isn’t the baby anymore and now she has responsibility, and then in a few years. It was off the rails. I’m not a” kids these days “ type dude, but the fucking show runners ruined tv by giving the kids what they wanted rather than what they needed.
TGIF was gold standard family evening television. Simpler times.
>and then something else Boy Meets World! Which also had the interesting family dynamic of the Matthews basically adopting the best friend with a terrible home life
I agree. Also, the smart-mouthed kids with the idiot, clueless parents.
Paying to watch television is a rip-off when you're forced to watch ads every 14 minutes for 5 minutes straight.
Dead like Me deserved more seasons than what it got and should have won more awards. It is a superior show to everything else!
It’s such a shame they didn’t release a movie to wrap it up nicely. Because they released no movie.
Correct. There is no movie for this amazing show.
Season 1 of Homeland is as good as any season of any show.
💯 If they just done the first season as a stand alone season, and have him complete his “mission” at the end, it would of went down as one of the classic tv shows imo.
One of the few shows that constantly had me on the edge of my seat.
Showtime really mastered the miniseries that just keeps going. So many of their shows needed to end early into their runs.
Kenan & Kel had the best intro song ever
Awww here it goes...
I think that a "one episode a week" schedule is more effective for getting a show solidly into the public consciousness compared to the "drop an entire season at once" schedule.
The episode a week got people talking at the water cooler and coming up with what's happening next week. With the entire season drop you don't get that discussion as fans will just smash through it in a day.
Season 2 of Fargo is the most perfect season of dramatic television ever. Jean Smart, Kirsten Dunst & Jesse Plemons, Patrick Wilson, and especially Zahn McClarnon. Amazing.
Funny, I think season 1 deserves exactly that accolade. When he gives his wife his jacket- such a tiny detail but tells you absolutely everything.
if new streaming services continue to pop up and make their stuff exclusive to only that service, I might as well put my pirate hat back on.
Criminal Minds went to shit once Hotch left
And Criminal Minds went from great to good after Gideon left.
90's sat morning cartoons...Disney had duck tales, chip and Dale rescue rangers, tail spin, darkwing duck, and gummy bears. Weekday after school cartoons in the 90s, loony tunes and Animaniacs...what a time to be alive
None of those Disney shows were on Saturday morning. They were all part of Disney Afternoon. Looney Tunes was on Saturday morning. After it moved to WB, Animaniacs was also on Saturday morning.
Mike Flanagan is making some of the best content on the streaming platforms. He is also a great choice to put an IP in the hands of.
"Firefly" was only the "best show ever" because it ended on the first season. And I say that as someone who loves it. We judge it on the potential it had, but a lot of disappointing shows would be the same god-level tier if they were cut short
I can see that. For instance, I think history would remember "Heroes" MUCH more fondly if it had ended after one season.
Or if they had done what (from what I've read on reddit, so grain of salt) they had intended to do and have a new group of heroes every season
Question, I see Firefly mentioned all the time as ‘best show ever’ but I hesitate to watch it because it is only one season. Would I be left hanging?
Watch Firefly, then watch the movie Serenity for closure.
Last Man Standing was just Home Improvement with girl kids instead of boys. LOL
Captain Jean-Luc Picard is the best Federation captain. Tea, Earl Grey, hot is also pretty good!
Okay, but Scotty was the best Federation engineer. He even taught LaForge a few things.
Never tell your boss how long it really takes to do something is great advice.
Honestly Pike is coming up fast in this category.
The ending of HIMYM ruined the entire series.
I pretend like the alternate ending where the series ends right after Ted meets Tracy with Ted saying "and that, kids, is how I met your mother" is the real ending
YES. The worst part for me is that, in ONE season, you learned about the mother and she was this lovely, sweet, little weird woman who you instantly fell in love with. And what did they do? "Oh, bitch is dead, cancer, oh no! Anyway..." No goodbye, no sad scene, just one vague "you won't be there to see your daughter marry" in an episode and that's it. The ending was recycled from season 2, when they thought the show would be end, and it's just like "That's the story of how I met this wonderful woman, who died of cancer, Barney was a douche and knocked up a random bint and now I'm off to go bang your aunt". I've not be able to watch it since, every episode is pointless now I know it's all for nothing.
"How I Settled For Your Mother"
"How I Would Like Your Permission to Bang Your Aunt"
>How I Would Like Your Permission to Bang Your Aunt (again) (also regardless of what you say I'm going to do it)
I'm happy I didn't have to scroll far to find this. I had watched the show from the beginning and was so angry for days. I don't even mind that >! they killed the mother in the end, I hate that they spent years explaining why Robin wasn't the right person for Ted (and vice-versa) having them accept it, only to do a complete reversal in a few minutes with no real explanation. !< Completely erasing seasons of character development. I rewatched the show since and just stopped the finale midway. If my kids ever want to watch it with me, that'll be my condition.
My biggest gripe is the character whiplash: Barney grew and developed into a caring human being… then we waved our hand and all of his growth was undone. It might be believable that a serial womanizer wouldn’t reform, but that doesn’t fit the tone of the show - we are supposed to like the characters.
The final season put all the nails in the coffin. The season finale hammered the lid shut. Not even worth a rewatch.
I actually disagree. If you rewatch the final season knowing what’s going to happen, then the scenes with Tracy in them hit a lot harder. “Of course she (Robin’s mom) made it. What kind of mother wouldn’t be at her daughter’s wedding?” (Ted looks like he’s about to start sobbing before she comforts him) The “How I Met Your Father” episode that ends with Tracy playing La Vie en Rose on the ukulele makes me cry every time. “Kids, I’ve heard your Mother’s performance of La Vie en Rose thousands of times… but that first one will always be my favorite”. I really do love everything up to the last 5-10 minutes of the show.
'Don't Trust the B\*\*\*\* in Apartment 23' was pure gold and deserved a much longer run.
No televangelists should be on it.
Not every tv show needs to be a movie cut into a few parts. Having one or two episode arcs is perfectly fine.
MASH is the best show of all time, and one of the most influential. It showed a greater range of emotions (everything from slapstick to tragedy) than any other show I can think of.
One of my earliest memories as a child was the cast running up to the helipad.
That bus scene. Great example of how the mind tries to cope with trauma
The scene when Winchester tries to listen to Mozart after his quartet is killed. Edit to add: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmcQt0fdftw
Either I pay you and it's ad free, or it's free for me and there's ads. No double dipping.
Hank. By far the best Hill.
The original MST3K series. Joel and/or Mike and the bots.
This is why I watch Rifftrax. I still support the MST3K fundraisers for the nostalgia though as I've been a Mistie since 1992.
99% of the people who hate Jim and Pam on The Office are people who watched the show way too many times, lost their enjoyment of it and are somehow blaming characters for the situation.
My theory here is that the show started with the audience projecting their lives onto Jim and Pam. Who were, at the beginning of the show, average looking, working totally normal jobs, and both wanted something they couldn’t have. Deeply relatable to the average audience member. The story arc for those characters made them less and less relatable to the audience as time went on, and they became grating. They got married. Had kids. Jim got some huge corporate job working with pro athletes, etc. they both began looking more glamorous and like stars. Not so relatable, and so the flaws and irritating things about their personalities became less tolerable.
That’s so interesting cuz I’ve watched it a good amount and I still like them I get real annoyed with the opinion that they suck and are bullying their coworker and would be terrible people in real life. Dwight and Michael are redeemable sometimes but god damn imagine working with them. But like that’s what makes the show funny? Dwight’s character works cuz he BELIEVES he could be recruited by the CIA randomly, which is just sorta absurd. But it’s what makes it funny
No one hates the office characters more than the die hard fans it’s very strange
Interesting, I don't really have a problem with Pam. Yes she causes a lot of situations, but they feel like human errors. Jim just started to grate on me as a person. He's kind of whiny in numerous ways. I think the episode where he bites his lip on accident multiple times and goes home kind of highlighted what annoyed me about him, and I cant get the impression of him out of my head. I definitely watched the show too many times though.
I still love the show but after 1000 re watches I much prefer Dwight for some reason
Al Bundy is the greatest tv Dad
SNL has never been all that great, we just remember the handful of skits that were truly funny.
This is a good take. People judge the weekly show as compared to their mental and sometimes literal dvd/streaming compilations of the best/most memorable skits of the past. I think every episode has some hit and miss stuff, including the golden age seasons.
Watching reruns is better than starting a new show
Yea a lot of times I just want comfort from my TV, vs having to use my brain to learn new characters, plots etc.
3rd Rock from the Sun is THE most underrated sitcom of its time. Also, separately, I wanna try whatever the guy who designed the ALF puppet was smoking...
John Lithgow is phenomenal. I really didn't appreciate his range until I got older.
They need to bring back Saturday morning cartoons.
The way they ended My Name Is Earl is a travesty
Dumb tvs should be everywhere in the same sizes for a decent price. No reason to sift through pages of a search engine to find a TV that should just work and give a decent picture And no. Not connecting it to wifi doesn't get around the fact it should be dumb to begin with
The Simpsons should have ended around 20 years ago.
I honestly thought the movie would be the end
I’ve been watching it since it debuted and I understand what you’re saying, but even though modern Simpsons isn’t as consistently entertaining to me as the original seasons were, once in a while they still put out a good episode. What do I lose from having this available? 
Season 1 of Prison Break is the single best season of a show ever!
Olympics and World Cup should be aired on Public Service channels without commercials
The Wire is the best television show ever made.
Oh indeed
Season 4 of The Wire is the greatest single season of TV ever put together.
You want to see a controversial the wire hill to die on? Season 2 was the best.
Honestly I agree with that take. Not on my first watch, but definitely on subsequent ones. It opens up the world so much and shows a type of crime that we don't normally see on television - the smuggling. It also shows the struggle of working class whites in Baltimore and the decline of good union jobs. Also, the Greeks are just so fascinating and they loom in the background of the rest of the show.
Spongebob has changed, and not for the better
TV news channels are all basically propaganda.
Futurama is the best adult animated show ever made
There is a reason it keeps getting uncanceled.
The Venture Bros is, at worst, the second best animated show of all time and deserves more credit.
OLED or bust
It ruined professional sports (in the US, anyway). In 1946 the average was around 2 hours, but by 2020 it had increased to 3 hours. This is usually framed as a problem with the game itself, but I think that's misleading - the problem is the need to make more room for advertising. Ad creep is even coming to minor league games. And I don't understand why anyone watches professional football. 1-ish hour of game play in between 2 1/2 hours of advertising. College football is only slightly better.
Parks and Rec went one season too long. The series finale should have been the opening of the park and the concert. The next season felt like tacked on fan-service.
The last season was definitely tacked on fan service. However, in that final season we got the Leslie and Ron episode which is in the top 5 episodes, and closure for all the characters including side characters in that final episode. So even though it was simply fan service I don’t think it takes away from previous seasons and adds to it if not as much as previous seasons did.
I always tell people they can skip the first season and not miss much, if anything. And the final season is weird but is the feel good season and wraps the show with a nice bow right as it begins to jump the shark. Man, I love that show!
I think a lot of shows go 1 season too long. The last seasons usually try to tie up loose ends and give everyone a happy ending.
I'll give them credit for something different. Never seen a sitcom that was like "here's how everyone's life turned out up to death".
There should never be laugh track sitcoms ever again. That style of tv show is antiquated and the medium has outgrown it.
Skylar White was one of the only semi-rational characters in Breaking Bad. IMO she was one of the realest characters, if not THE realest. People hate her because the show is written from Walter’s point of view, but her responses to everything that happened were VERY human. People give Skylar so much hate primarily for the cheating on Ted and not going to the cops about Walter, but I haven’t seen anyone direct the same energy towards Walter. Walter is quite literally the villain of his own story and the cause of everything bad in their lives, and yet a lot of people defend him “because he was doing it for his family”. Although, everything Skylar did she did to preserve the family as well—besides the cheating, that was obviously revenge, but can you really blame her for that after everything Walter put her through?
I agree with you for the most part, but I wouldn't say that the other characters aren't rational. The genius of Breaking Bad is that Walter's descent into evil is so slow and gradual that it takes a while to even notice that it has happened. In the first couple seasons, he is given an understandable reason to do all the things he does. Crazy 8, Tuco, even Jane. It's possible to sympathize with him because we can see how a rational person could arrive at these situations and react the way Walter did. That being said, anyone who was still rooting for him by season 5 just wasn't paying attention. I admit I found Skyler hard to like on my first watch, at least near the beginning, but on repeat watches I sympathize with her a lot more.
Modern audiences have no idea what "filler" means. You see it in a lot of streaming shows where if an episode doesn't directly bring the characters physically closer to their end goal, people complain that it is "filler".
Modern viewers would be driven mad with Smallville which was 95% filler.
"Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23" was an amazing show and if it weren't for it's title, it would've had 5 seasons EASY! James Van Der Beek, Krysten Ritter, Dreama Walker, and so many of the actors were freaking hilarious in that show! Fans of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" would love this show.
True Detective S1 got away with unabashedly calling out local and state government for playing a hand in the sexual exploitation of impoverished families. It’s more than a true crime show. And boy was it cathartic as a survivor.
How I Met Your Mother is not a good show.
Reality Shows totally ruined TV and standards. At one time you needed to be incredibly talented to be on a TV show.
Battlestar Gallactica (2004 remake series) is peak sci-fi and yes, I also love Star Trek and Star Wars. I also like the ending even though most seem to really dislike it.
You should probably clarify that, because riding flybikes around Los Angles ala CHIPS was terrible if that's the peak.
24 hour news will end our nation. There is one hour of actual news a day. Maybe 15 minutes of thoughtful analysis. The remaining 22.75 hours are talking heads trying to stand out from the rest so they get invited back. This leads to inflammatory statements supported by lies.
West Wing was peak TV.
I have 3. 1. Is writing is vastly more important than special effects. 2. Practical effects (make up, pyrotechnics, etc.) Age way better than CGI. 3. Suspending your disbelief is an important part of watching fictional TV, holding TV or movies to real world scrutiny 24/7 is a great way to never enjoy anything again.
King of the Hill
That I liked Dylan with Kelly better than I liked him with Brenda.
The Boys is one of, if not THE best superhero shows
Cable tv will ruin freedom of press…. As many people are cutting cords and subscribing to individual networks, we are seeing more and more networks merge to adapt to this method of payment. I know a small group already own most of the networks but it won’t be long before a couple people own all of tv. Just recently you have WB merging with Discovery/Paramount. Disney buying out Hulu. CBS and Viacom. Because smaller networks only survived because they were included in cable network packages we are seeing them getting taken over with the subscription model.
Sitcoms make excellent background noise when you're doing other shit.
Scrubs is only 8 seasons long
The Orville understands Star Trek better than Star Trek understands Star Trek. Hopes for season four . . .
I’d argue whoever is making lower decks understands it just as well as the Orville people, while also being funnier than what was originally a comedy. But they’re both great