Your cut-off point for TV series which you don't want to own in their entirety (1 Viewer)

[Jack P]

Daniel Boone's post-Mingo episodes weren't as good but there's something with S1 that almost bores me to tears. It's not that it's in b&w as that generally doesn't bother me. The color episodes seem to gel better for me. I DVR'd all of these unedited from WHT and then they quit showing them. Sadly, I had deleted them and it makes me sick when I see what the DVD's are going for.

Sheesh, I just looked up on Amazon what you meant there and boy am I glad I got all of them when they came out!!!

 

[GMBurns]

Fun question. I have more shows that are "complete" but there are some that for me had an obvious cutoff point.

Lost in Space: the first season in b/w. It got way too campy after it switched to color. In my opinion the only 60's show that could do campy well was Batman.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: just the first two seasons. Too many creatures of the week after that for my taste.

Andy Griffith: the first 5 seasons. It was never the same without good old "Barn".

Quincy ME: I'm thrilled that Shout! has continued this series but I'm stopping after the pending season 6 release. Quinc became too preachy in the last few seasons.

Cheers: the first 5 seasons only. This series lived on life support for 6 years once the tension between Sam and Diane was gone.

 

[TravisR]

"On Thursday We All Leave For Home" is one of the official Great Serling Episodes (and "The Bard" most assuredly was not), and "Death Ship" proves that there are no bad Jack Klugman episodes. Um, two out of eighteen, that's IT. I have it on good authority that "Jess-Belle" is up there, but it only predicts how much Earl Hamner was going to take over Season 5.

I'm certainly not the biggest fan of the fourth season of Twilight Zone but I think that, in addition to the 3 episodes that you mentioned, Miniature, Printer's Devil and The New Exhibit are good as well.

 

[FanCollector]

GM, thanks for reminding me! I stopped after five seasons of Cheers also. There were still some funny shows after that year and even a few good stories (mostly Frasier-related), but there just didn't seem much point in it anymore for me.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Fun question. I have more shows that are "complete" but there are some that for me had an obvious cutoff point.

Lost in Space: the first season in b/w. It got way too campy after it switched to color. In my opinion the only 60's show that could do campy well was Batman.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: just the first two seasons. Too many creatures of the week after that for my taste.

Andy Griffith: the first 5 seasons. It was never the same without good old "Barn".

 

[AndyMcKinney]

LEXX - The first 'season' was actually four movie-length episodes. They seemed to have somewhat larger budgets, the plot (cheesy as it was) seemed more interesting, and most importantly, it had Eva Habermann as 'Zev'. She stuck around for the first couple of episodes of Season 2, but morphed into 'Xev' (Xenia Seeberg). Xenia was a rather stunning-looking gal, but the magic of 'Zev' was gone, and the show became sort of a cut-rate, latter-day LOST IN SPACE. Fortunately, when I was collecting the show on DVD, Season 2 was split into individual volumes for sale, so my cut-off point was Season 2, Vol. 1.

Did you watch much of Lexx after that? Sure, I liked Eva, too, but there were plenty of good episodes of Lexx after "Terminal"! Some episodes are better than others (particularly in Series Four), but if a person likes Lexx at all, I feel all four series are worthy purchases!

 

[Richard V]

Happy Days - Cut off, after season 2, the death knell was the switch to filming in front of live audiences, became the Fonzie Show, and no longer even remotely reminicent of the 50's.

Gunsmoke - After Season 10, became repetitive, and loss of Chester and Quint killed it for me.

All in the Family - End of Season 8, after the Stivics move away, so did the conflicts

Hawaii 5-0 - Cut off after season 10, losing Chin Ho, then Danno the following year was the end for me

M*A*S*H - Cut off after season 3, after losing both Trapper and Henry Blake at the same time, it was never really the same, and Hawkeye became unbearable without Trapper to put him in his place every so often

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Did you watch much of Lexx after that? Sure, I liked Eva, too, but there were plenty of good episodes of Lexx after "Terminal"! Some episodes are better than others (particularly in Series Four), but if a person likes Lexx at all, I feel all four series are worthy purchases!

Yes, but I didn't see every single episode of the post-Zev era. It's been a long time, but I remember losing interest, and not liking it enough to own it. However, your post inspired me to check the series' status on Netflix, and they stream the whole run, so I think I'll revisit the rest soon.

 

[Professor Echo]

Because my moods and tastes are ever evolving, I tend to be a completest as I never known when I might be in the mood to sample something from a series besides what I already know and cherish. Sometimes there can be great discoveries, buried gems, hidden in the less heralded seasons and episodes and with a perspective that isn't carved in stone, you may completely change your attitude about something that once you seemed so immovable on.

Now having said that, I am not above curtailing seasons both in my viewing and collecting habits. What fuels me most is anger and disappointment in a direction or non-direction that a series takes. I gave up on THE X FILES after being strung along for years only to be told that the first theatrical movie would reveal everything. It revealed nothing and I never watched the series again. The same applies for SMALLVILLE where they cast a horrible, but obviously buxom, actress as Lois Lane and expected loyal viewers and Superman fans to suspend disbelief that this woman could be anything but a reality show contestant or Beverly Hills trophy wife. Dick Sargent was so smarmy in the role of Darrin on BEWITCHED he completely lost any sympathy from me. There are others, but these come to mind at the moment and it's the anger and disappointment by these developments, the blatant disregard for continuity and the blunt realization that all these companies care about is stringing along whatever they can and milking something as much as they can that fires my rejection.

After all, these people, for better or worse, are invited into our homes and when we feel that our trust in them has been betrayed, it's only natural that we turn our backs on them. It seems silly to put it like that because after all it's only TV, but is it only TV?

 

[BobO'Link]

Get Smart- Season 5. Network change.... and change to very grainy color with bad writing

I should have mentioned that one. I never really wanted any Get Smart beyond S3 but after being out a full year as only a full set from Time-Life I grew impatient waiting for the supposed single season releases (at the time there was no reliable indication individual seasons would really be coming - just a "soon" promise that had been out there from the start) so I got a coupon, added it to a sale price, and picked up the full series. 6 months later the individual seasons started appearing for far less than I'd payed. I could have saved ~$90 by not getting the set and only purchasing S1-S3 for *$10* each just 9 months later! Of course by then I'd watched the series and found S4 and S5 were not quite as "bad" as I'd remembered. Part of me is glad I have the set but that box is a royal pain to deal with! I've never watched the "bonus" disks that supposedly come only in that set.

 

[BobO'Link]

Sheesh, I just looked up on Amazon what you meant there and boy am I glad I got all of them when they came out!!!

Almost the same here. I purchased S1-S5 on a fantastic deal a few years ago (I believe Gary O as well as several other HTF members did too) and just couldn't bring myself to pick up S6 as it was going for half what I'd paid for the other 5 combined! I kept waiting for a sale and the series went OOP with super inflated prices before I knew it! As I'd planned to pick up S6 I took advantage of the very generous replacement program from Liberation for the bad/defective disc 1 of S6 so I at least have some of that season.

 

[BobO'Link]

You'll be happy to know that Warner Archives' release of Seasons 6 & 7 are pressed discs, rather than MOD (I just pulled my copies off the shelf to make sure). Seasons 4 & 5, however, are burned DVD-Rs.

Thanks for the info but my understanding is they currently do this for the initial "print" run of some series/sets and once that supply is exhausted it goes to burned DVD-Rs. There's no indication I've seen/found indicating just how many pressed copies they do for any such release. As the prices during that initial release are also higher than I'm currently willing to pay I'll be sitting this one out.

 

[Regulus]

Quincy ME: I'm thrilled that Shout! has continued this series but I'm stopping after the pending season 6 release. Quinc became too preachy in the last few seasons.

"Sermons" about Social Issues have been a "Shark jumper" for many a show.

 

[Ejanss]

Happy Days - Cut off, after season 2, the death knell was the switch to filming in front of live audiences, became the Fonzie Show, and no longer even remotely reminicent of the 50's.

Happy Days was, after all, the show that INVENTED the term "Jumping the shark":

Spoiler

The filmed Season 1 was pretty dire, though, the live audience helped it--Lost control, though, when Garry Marshall became too in love with their own audience-cheering catchphrases, and tried to turn Potsie into a singing idol. The Odd Couple was starting to head down that Marshall "Character vaudeville" road too but ended in time, but it was too late to save Laverne & Shirley.

I'm certainly not the biggest fan of the fourth season of Twilight Zone but I think that, in addition to the 3 episodes that you mentioned, Miniature, Printer's Devil and The New Exhibit are good as well.

He's Alive has two good performances, and a good Rod Serling morality-speech, even if, as the TZ Compendium points, out, the titular reveal comes off a bit sillier than intended. (Who doesn't hear the Producers rehearsal saying "Could we have the singing Hitlers on the left and the dancing Hitlers on the right?")

M*A*S*H - Season Four. The one where Henry dies. Oops, sorry about that spoiler. But this show never stops running on TV, so why would you even need it?

Nah, that's not a spoiler--A spoiler's when you point out that they basically

Spoiler

ripped off Henry Fonda and the entire ending of Mister Roberts almost word for word.

 

[JMFabianoRPL]

Time for some more British influence...I have yet to get the fourth season of Coupling...though it wasn't bad, having no Jeff made it not the same and not must-own. Same with any Ab Fab after the original third season, it just felt different from Last Shout on. Plus I wished someone would kill Saffy at this point, as her characterization from around the fourth season on was miserable.

I do like all Avengers, Linda Thorson's (and Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt's) only sin was she wasn't Diana Rigg. If I didn't find the complete series at a bargain price, I would have stopped Are You Being Served when Mike Berry debuted.

To the person who mentioned MST3K...that was the one show that made do with what it had with consistent quality. Even with the cast and plot changes, and the brief time Sci Fi dictated the genres of movies, the show has ALWAYS been entertaining. I'd imagine the same will go for Mary Tyler Moore as I watch the later seasons at last.

 

[Gary OS]

Peter,

I looked at my TV/DVD list and there are a lot that are in this category for me, more than I'd thought before looking after reading your thread. I guess it shows that I'm probably not in the "completist" camp as I'd guess that most collectors on the forum are in that group.

I'm a completist too, but like you there are shows that have a huge drop off factor for me. Some of the series you listed fall into that category, even though I finished collecting some just for the sake of it. TAGS, Dennis, FBI, Gunsmoke, Hazel, Rawhide and Wagon Train are the ones you listed where I see it exactly the same.

The same applies for SMALLVILLE where they cast a horrible, but obviously buxom, actress as Lois Lane and expected loyal viewers and Superman fans to suspend disbelief that this woman could be anything but a reality show contestant or Beverly Hills trophy wife.

I couldn't agree more on that one! It's one of the few modern shows I've ever invested any time in, and once they made it clear that Chloe was not their universe's future Lois Lane I lost interest. They had this great set up for that kind of reveal and completely bailed on it. Ugh.


Gary "interesting thread" O.

 

[Ron1973]

I guess I'm the weirdo. I find the earlier episodes of Gunsmoke slow going. Maybe it's the fact I grew up seeing the later episodes in syndication?

 

[Jeff Willis]

Because my moods and tastes are ever evolving, I tend to be a completest as I never known when I might be in the mood to sample something from a series besides what I already know and cherish. Sometimes there can be great discoveries, buried gems, hidden in the less heralded seasons and episodes and with a perspective that isn't carved in stone, you may completely change your attitude about something that once you seemed so immovable on.

Now having said that, I am not above curtailing seasons both in my viewing and collecting habits. What fuels me most is anger and disappointment in a direction or non-direction that a series takes. I gave up on THE X FILES after being strung along for years only to be told that the first theatrical movie would reveal everything. It revealed nothing and I never watched the series again. The same applies for SMALLVILLE where they cast a horrible, but obviously buxom, actress as Lois Lane and expected loyal viewers and Superman fans to suspend disbelief that this woman could be anything but a reality show contestant or Beverly Hills trophy wife. Dick Sargent was so smarmy in the role of Darrin on BEWITCHED he completely lost any sympathy from me. There are others, but these come to mind at the moment and it's the anger and disappointment by these developments, the blatant disregard for continuity and the blunt realization that all these companies care about is stringing along whatever they can and milking something as much as they can that fires my rejection.

After all, these people, for better or worse, are invited into our homes and when we feel that our trust in them has been betrayed, it's only natural that we turn our backs on them. It seems silly to put it like that because after all it's only TV, but is it only TV?

I agree for the same reason as you. That casting decision sparked a heated (understated) forum war at various 'net sites.

I'm a completist too, but like you there are shows that have a huge drop off factor for me. Some of the series you listed fall into that category, even though I finished collecting some just for the sake of it. TAGS, Dennis, FBI, Gunsmoke, Hazel, Rawhide and Wagon Train are the ones you listed where I see it exactly the same.



I couldn't agree more on that one! It's one of the few modern shows I've ever invested any time in, and once they made it clear that Chloe was not their universe's future Lois Lane I lost interest. They had this great set up for that kind of reveal and completely bailed on it. Ugh.


Gary "interesting thread" O.

(Smallville) I agree with the part about Chloe being the perfect Lois Lane from the journalistic point but I know you are reading my mind on this one

I guess I'm the weirdo. I find the earlier episodes of Gunsmoke slow going. Maybe it's the fact I grew up seeing the later episodes in syndication?

No, not a weird-o I wish there were more posters like you on this bd.

I was the same way with this show, having never seen most of the B/W years and remembering the color years watching with Dad. After Gary plugged me into te B/W seasons, I've changed my mind and, if the complete series were released, I'd pass on getting the color seasons of this show.

 

[Roy Wall]

If I had it to do over:

The Wild Wild West - Season 1
Mannix - Season 2 only
Mission Impossible - Seasons 1-3
Star Trek - Seasons 1 & 2
The Avengers - Emma Peel seasons
Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea - Season 1
Naked City - Half Hour, Season 1...Hourly, Seasons 1-3

 

[WillG]

Cheers: the first 5 seasons only. This series lived on life support for 6 years once the tension between Sam and Diane was gone.

I'm the opposite with Cheers. I started buying season sets once Diane was gone (I felt the show was more "fun" after the whole "Sam & Diane" thing ended. Plus, I find that Diane is often irritating). I did eventually scoop up seasons 1-5 when Amazon had some ridiculous sale on the season sets.