Wednesday 23 September 2009

Better to burn out or fade away

So on a good note the return of the Big Bang Theory was fuckin awesome unlike the return of Peep Show which hit its peak two seasons ago and should have disappeared after the last episode of Season 4 when Mark and Sophie had their big wedding disaster which left Mark and Jeremy back living together. The way they have tried to stretch the show since has been poor and unimaginative and not in tone with the first four series. Of course their is still the occassional funny moment but their so few and far between I would rather be watching reruns of season 1-4.

When should the producers pull the plug on a show or are they just concerned with easy series stocking fillers for Xmas. I think strangely enough the one channel that bas managed their shows very cleverly is the BBC. Did you know their has been 81 episodes of Prison Break compared to 64 episodes of Only fools and Horses. The original and best The Office had two series consisting of 6 episodes and a two part Xmas Special one year, so 14 episodes in total. Its American not funny version is currently on episode 101.

Another example is the Royle Family, which I still watch anytime I see it on UK gold. It was a wonderful show about a working class family and easily my favourite ktchen sink drama. It had a total of 22 episodes, wheres for example Roseanne went on for eleven years where in season 2 it was the top rated show in america and by its last season was scraping into the top 50.

Ive no idea why the BBC are less guilty or draw the series to a conclusion alot sooner than its US counterparts and even Channel four to a lesser extent which has let Shameless and Peep Show go into a bit of a freefall. But I would like some answers on a postcard.

2 comments:

Abby said...

I just watched the first episode of Peep Show and it did have a few laughs but it seemed forced somehow. Makes me sad.

Friends was one of my favorite shows and it ran for 10 years but in the last two seasons it became worthless and unfunny.
Then there's Lost. Lost was a great show the first 2 seasons and then it got so out of hand with retarded plot twists I couldn't even watch it anymore. I cannot believe it's still on the air and in it's 5th season. I caught part of the ending the other day and now they can travel through time- Hello Dr. Who?
The only show I've really been watching regularly is 'How I Met Your Mother' and 'True Blood,' both of these shows should have ended on the second series.
It gets to the point where you actually start getting angry and hating them.
Better to quit while your ahead.

Toners said...

Would agree with ya alright. The beauty of series like Ted and Fawlty Towers is that there's not an ambundance of mediocre. They focused on quality writing instead of dragging things out. The networks now see shows in terms of what advertising they can draw to them. Hence why series like Lost and Prison Break go on for years without a point.