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.
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.
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 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.
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.
What really pisses me off was not just that is was lazily written, but that D and DB knowingly ran it into the ground. They had a Q&A where they admitted it.
I’m sure most people here would agree that cancelling Game of Thrones once they ran out of source material and waiting for the books to be done (lol) would have been preferable to what we got.
GoT would have exited the cultural zeitgeist a lot sooner than it did, probably to the detriment of future viewer engagement and thus a source of revenue for HBO, which is why they pushed it forward, but still…
I don’t think that math worked out for them. After season 8 GoT just vanished from the public mind, at least in my experience. The show was so terrible in the end, they would have made a lot more money in a 5 year hiatus selling merch than they got from running the show to completion.
Compare it to the lord of the rings for example. They got a rescan, color correction, more bonus content and a 4k release 20 years after the first movie came out. I doubt we will get anything comparable for game of thrones. No one pulls out the DVDs to watch game of thrones once a year. Plenty of LOTR fans do.
Just finishing the last fim, extended cut.
Or at least wait for enough coherent fan theories and just use them.
The annoying thing is, watching House of the Dragon now, it didn’t have to be that bad, clearly they can do good stuff with minimal source material, but the GoT writers didn’t have it in them.
GoT should have just never happened in the first place, and we should have gotten 5 more seasons of Rome instead.
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What does climate change have to do with Got?
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God dammit.
Well done.
The definitive answer is Supernatural. Shambled on for another 10 seasons as the reanimated husk of a really good that was written to end after season 5.
Past season 6 I just treated it as Supernatural: The Whatthefuckever Story
Westworld. First season was perfect and it concluded perfectly fine.
I just watched season 4 and I believe the plot is good. It adds to the overall arc.
Problem is that after season 1 the show runners decided to make it even more mindfucky. It became an exercise in intellectual masturbation and got convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. Shame.
I only watched season 2 and I found it terrible. To me the conclusion will always be season 1’s finale.
I feel like they could have developed more stories in Westworld alone before taking the storyline where they did. I knew bad things were coming when they brought in the new manager. She was nice enough but she didn’t have that duplicitous edge. She was in over her head and I couldn’t see past that.
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.
Dexter
I felt seriously betrayed by that show, I’d loved it for so long. I could’ve probably forgiven everything but the last two minutes.
I gave up getting invested in shows after that.
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Heeeee’s a lumberjack and he’s okay…
Agree, and I didn’t even hate season 5 as much as the rest of the world. The last season was frankly painful.
Every single reality show that went longer than the first commercial break.
Whoever birthed the genre lived too long.
Survivor is good, but thats really a long drawn out game show more than a reality show
well, it use to be, the recent seasons are the husk of what use to be good, thankfully AU Survivor kind of keeps the spirit going.
I didnt mind 41-43. Its changed, though. No one cares if you can build a shelter or feed the tribe, its just social game, social game, social game… and a lot of the time its just who doesnt like who and not a lot else
Literally no show has ever needed 40 seasons. Not even double digits can work. Sorry, absolutely nothing is worth watching that much of.
well, thats like, your opinion, man
People have gotten wise to playing to the camera, which was practically invented by Jerri. Season Two Australia.
lol I mean… if Jerri was culpable in your opinion w/ her fuckin fried green tomatoes or whatever then its been like that the whole time basically
I remember her making own heated water and flour but do not remember the tomatoes. She was a grifter/hanger over then and has not changed.
Yeah whenever people say this they kinda forget that there’s a lot of pretty good reality TV. Deadliest catch, antiques roadshow, survivorman, price is right). None of them are the wire or anything, but I’d certainly die on the hill of them being valuable and decent television.
I feel like everyone bitching about reality TV is always just picturing wife swap, the Kardashians and real housewives when they say that.
The Price is Right counts as reality TV?
I absolutely love the first few seasons of Alone. I can’t vouch for the rest because I haven’t watched them yet, but that’s some amazing survival type reality TV.
Yeah there’s a decent amount of pretty cool reality TV subgenres.
Scrubs: one of the best medical shows ever made. The last season was just a waste of everyone’s time.
Frasier: After Niles and Daphney got together the writers were stalling the inevitable end.
The Son: Two seasons was two too many. Who TF thought it was a good idea to have Pierce Brosnan play a Texan?
The last season should really just be viewed as the spin-off that it is.
And for that it isn’t anywhere close to scrubs, but even if it didn’t work imo there are worse things on tv.
Rugrats after they added Dil. He was dead weight and the show went from the babies going on adventures to the babies taking care of a baby.
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House of Cards went on far, far too long. Should’ve ended at or shortly after he became President.
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 will say for all of the hate BBT got, they didn’t try to do something bullshit for their ending like most sitcoms had been trying to do (e.g How I Met Your Mother). They created a simple good/wholesome ending.
I loved himym, all of it, except the ending. Like I get what they went for, but it dismissed all seasons.
The whole last season was trash and then they had the audacity to say “and then he got together with Robin anyway”. Why have him meet their mother when all he wanted was Robin? Just have them end up together and be done with it.
Lost.
And every mystery show that keeps piling on more and more mystery and never resolving anything.
The Simpsons
Dexter
Edit: Weeds
Weeds -I started to think about leaving after a lot of build up between deflated after two main characters couldn’t fathom celebrating Thanksgiving differently. Fully checked out and turned in my keycard when they got Snoop Dog to rap about a new tree strain. Lastly, Nancy was usually the direct cause of all their problems.
I stuck with weeds because 1-3 were just that good. But, when people ask if they should watch, I tell them that’s the show. That’s it. 4 and 5 were entirely their own thing. 6 was pointless. 7 and 8 felt like the right path after 1-3. In my opinion should have been 1-3, 7-8 and then 4-5 with 6 being a fever dream on how Nancy fucked up and could’ve done better.
Stargate: SG-1 should have ended at season 8. They beat Anubis, all the conflicts were tied up, there’s a nice scene where the crew is just relaxing at O’Neill’s pond. And then they ordered another season. So they did the same thing that Xena did and said “Well we ran out of ancient dead religion gods, I guess Christianity is next except they still exist so we have to be kinda cagey about it” and just kept making the show.
It was supposed to end there. Series 9/10 were meant to be a new show called SG - Command but Sci-Fi wanted to keep the recognised branding and show name so SG1 carried on. I think there was some good stuff in the Ori arc too.
