Owning all of a series despite bad later/earlier seasons? (1 Viewer)

[HubbaBubbaKid]

I've seen The Twilight Zone so many over the years that I'm in a weird groove where I think I like seeing a lot of the bad episodes because I'm less familiar with them. Like if I'm awake when a bad episode like Black Leather Jackets or Queen Of The Nile is on ME-TV, I'm more likely to stay up and watch that than I would if great episodes like In Praise Of Pip or Nightmare At 20,000 Feet were on.

i did the exact same thing when i got the blu ray set . i went through all the ones i didnt think i really liked before to see if my views had changed.

 

[John*Wells]

I bought All 20 original series Law&Order seasons. However season 15-20 are just over the top creepy in my opinion and should have been 5 seasons of SVU or Criminal intent

season 13 and 14 of Dallas (Original) I could take or leave. The idea of the mighty JR Ewing faking his way into a mental hospital was a bit much. And season 14 killing April? NO!!!!!

the 2012 Dallas even though I bought the seasons was trashed by Cynthia Cidre because she got the not so bright idea to invalidate JR Returns and War of the Ewings. In addition, when Cliff and JR cross paths for the first time in the 2012 series, Cliff introduced himself to JR as if they hadn’t ever met. Arch enemies not remembering one another? Really?

the 5th season of Dukes of Hazard would have been a no Go for me had Schneider and Wopat not returned

 

[bmasters9]

TZ is one for me where I’ll take their lesser entries over the best episodes of many other shows. It’s just got me hook, line and sinker.

You bet-- quite a few shows are like that for me as well.

 

[KPmusmag]

I know many people do not care for the last 3 seasons of Bewitched, but I do - because those were the years I remember seeing in prime time. So I guess it is nostalgia. I love the early seasons very much, but it would seem incomplete to me without having all the seasons. I am happy to spend 26 minutes with those characters anytime.

And for me also there are shows like Twilight Zone and Star Trek OS that I am happy to watch anytime, even if the episode is not at the top of my faves list.

 

[Traveling Matt]

Back then I expected the studios to commit to the entire series, so why not myself too? But seriously, when I would start I'd feel I was buying the series. In fact I wanted the entire series right away, even in the early days. I always disapproved of box sets by season. But if I was invested, I was invested. If the later seasons were so bad it left a taste in my mouth, that would usually affect my opinion of the entire series and whether I'd invest at all. There might be an exception but I can't think of one off the top.

 

[LeoA]

Forgot to also include Mork & Mindy. Managed to forget that despite not being the first one to post about it. I've only bought season 1. While it doesn't jump the shark until season 3, I felt like season 1 was where the best episodes were.

I'd actually would like to collect the color seasons of The Andy Griffith Show if I find the right deal. I do find them enjoyable, just not nearly as much as the black & white seasons. I especially like that Helen has a more prominent role as the show went on since I always liked her.

That helps compensate for Andy seemingly getting a bit mean in the later seasons and lacking a lot of the patience his character had in the earlier seasons (I believe we've talked about "Mean Andy" at this forum before, so I suspect several of you know what I'm talking about).

Besides Warren that few liked, I also didn't like Aunt Bea's girlfriends from the later seasons. Especially in the episode where she wins a lot of things on a game show, they annoy me. I'm glad they weren't a fixture earlier on. The other townspeople that got added don't bother me.

 

[B-ROLL]

Forgot to also include Mork & Mindy. Managed to forget that despite not being the first one to post about it. I've only bought season 1. While it doesn't jump the shark until season 3, I felt like season 1 was where the best episodes were.

I'd actually would like to collect the color seasons of The Andy Griffith Show if I find the right deal. I do find them enjoyable, just not nearly as much as the black & white seasons. I especially like that Helen has a more prominent role as the show went on since I always liked her.

That helps compensate for Andy seemingly getting a bit mean in the later seasons and lacking a lot of the patience his character had in the earlier seasons (I believe we've talked about "Mean Andy" at this forum before, so I suspect several of you know what I'm talking about).

Besides Warren that few liked, I also didn't like Aunt Bea's girlfriends from the later seasons. Especially in the contest episode they annoy me. I'm glad they weren't a fixture earlier on.

Andy was especially mean in the TV movie Savages !

 

[jayembee]

Andy was especially mean in the TV movie Savages !
View attachment 95669

But he was a pretty nice guy in Salvage-1...

 

[John*Wells]

Forgot to also include Mork & Mindy. Managed to forget that despite not being the first one to post about it. I've only bought season 1. While it doesn't jump the shark until season 3, I felt like season 1 was where the best episodes were.

I'd actually would like to collect the color seasons of The Andy Griffith Show if I find the right deal. I do find them enjoyable, just not nearly as much as the black & white seasons. I especially like that Helen has a more prominent role as the show went on since I always liked her.

That helps compensate for Andy seemingly getting a bit mean in the later seasons and lacking a lot of the patience his character had in the earlier seasons (I believe we've talked about "Mean Andy" at this forum before, so I suspect several of you know what I'm talking about).

Besides Warren that few liked, I also didn't like Aunt Bea's girlfriends from the later seasons. Especially in the episode where she wins a lot of things on a game show, they annoy me. I'm glad they weren't a fixture earlier on. The other townspeople that got added don't bother me.

I think Warren only lasted 11 episodes. It got old for him to keep reminding everyone he went to the Sherrifs academy IMO

 

[GMBurns]

One of my main considerations is that I already have more episodes of more shows than I will be able to watch in my life, even if I live to a nice ripe age after I retire. So I only want what I really enjoy watching. Therefore, I don’t mind having some series be incomplete. And even if I somehow run out of stuff to watch, there are so many shows I absolutely love that I don’t mind watching those again. Last month I just started my way through Wild Wild West again. Even though I’ve seen them before, I just enjoy watching Jim and Artie all over again.

I’ve never purchased the last two seasons of Quincy M.E. As much as I love Quince when he’s solving a murder mystery, the “issue” shows of the last few seasons really wear on me. I watch TV to disconnect from real life, not be reminded of it.

Absolutely love Bewitched. But I don’t plan to buy the last three seasons. Once the original Durweed left it was just never the same for me.

Love McMillan and Wife, but don’t have any interest in season 6 when there was no Wife.

But then there are shows where I determine that later seasons are inferior, but I still own and watch them. I grew up as a wee lad watching repeats of Star Trek the Original Series and know the series backwards and forwards. Most of the third season episodes are nauseating compared to the great dramas in the earlier seasons. But they still feel so comfortable to me that I watch them anyway. Kirk, Spock and McCoy can do no wrong.

 

[MishaLauenstein]

For a vintage series there was *no* way I was going to buy the last two seasons of "Moonlighting". To me, that series is over with its S3 Christmas episode.

For me it was the opposite. I figured the writing can't have changed much, and those seasons would be just as good as the early ones without the original three month gap between episode viewings.

 

[Wiseguy]

Other shows I gave up on before they ended because the bad newer episodes were getting so bad they were hurting the reputation of the good earlier ones. Both The Simpsons and Family Guy fall into this category, and I'm not sure Disney's changes will make things better, so I'd rather remember them as they were.

Everybody loves to bash on The Simpsons and Family Guy. I almost expect bashing of those two shows to be Olympic events.
Even though current episodes may not be as good as past ones I don't waste time comparing old vs. new episodes. The fact is current episodes of both shows have more humor and cleverness than in 99% of so-called comedies on the air now. The ones where the characters say stupid things for a half-hour. In the old days, there were "bad" comedies but at least they tried to be funny. Sometimes succeeded, often not. But if anybody thinks these new comedies are funny, they're using a different definition of the word than what's in the dictionary.

So I will continue to watch new episodes of both The Simpsons and Family Guy until they end and continue to skip all these so-called comedies that boggle my mind for their very existence.

 

[Wiseguy]

Absolutely love Bewitched. But I don’t plan to buy the last three seasons. Once the original Durweed left it was just never the same for me.

Something else people love to bash is Dick Sargent, even though he was a candidate to play Darrin before Dick York. More important than the actor, though, is the writing, and the fact is the writing began to go downhill during the fourth season. There were still some good episodes then but by the fifth season they became more repetitive. The loss of Dick York in the fifth season didn't help and by the sixth season they began to re-write Dick York scripts as Dick Sargent episodes. Of course, the Dick Sargent episodes aren't as good, but everyone likes to blame Dick Sargent. The series actually ended because they didn't know what else to do (and Elizabeth Montgomery was getting tired of the role). And then there's the usual history-changing argument, that if Sargent had played Darrin as was intended, then everyone would have thought he was perfect because he was first and he appeared in the best-written episodes.

 

[smithbrad]

Bonanza is one I am happy to stop after season 11, which coincides with what CBS has already released. I recall going through all the later seasons when they aired on the Family channel as the Lost Episodes back in the 90's. I knew at that time I would skip ever watching season 14 again with the loss of Hoss.

Recently, my daughters and I were going through the series. Part way into season 12 we stopped. Between the loss of Candy, the new intro and music, and just general aging of the actors/characters; we just couldn't get into it. I'd much prefer revisiting the earlier episodes again sometime in the future then ever watching the last few years again.

In general, for series that have a limited number of seasons, five or less, I don't have as much of a problem if the quality goes down a bit in later seasons (unless it totally jumps the shark), but with longer series I feel I have plenty of content without needing to sacrifice quality.

 

[TravisR]

Everybody loves to bash on The Simpsons and Family Guy. I almost expect bashing of those two shows to be Olympic events.
Even though current episodes may not be as good as past ones I don't waste time comparing old vs. new episodes.

Yeah. Due to my age, the first decade of The Simpsons shaped my sense of humor and I think those episodes are some of the best TV ever made so it's impossible for the new episodes to live up to that level. I still watch each episode and there's still a solid laugh or two in almost every one but I try not to waste time comparing the old ones to the new ones because they can't compare.

 

[MatthewA]

Everybody loves to bash on The Simpsons and Family Guy. I almost expect bashing of those two shows to be Olympic events.
Even though current episodes may not be as good as past ones I don't waste time comparing old vs. new episodes. The fact is current episodes of both shows have more humor and cleverness than in 99% of so-called comedies on the air now. The ones where the characters say stupid things for a half-hour. In the old days, there were "bad" comedies but at least they tried to be funny. Sometimes succeeded, often not. But if anybody thinks these new comedies are funny, they're using a different definition of the word than what's in the dictionary.

So I will continue to watch new episodes of both The Simpsons and Family Guy until they end and continue to skip all these so-called comedies that boggle my mind for their very existence.

Unfortunately, I cannot agree with this. The "better than 99% of so-called comedies today" argument might have been true in 2003 but that was nearly two decades ago. If I had felt that way, I would never have discovered 30 Rock, The IT Crowd, Trailer Park Boys, or either version of The Office. Honestly, of all of Fox's Sunday Night cartoons, I thought Futurama and King of the Hill were superior to those two.

The FG hate is just white noise; some people thought The Simpsons was already in decline by 1999 (a pretty dismal era for the big three networks, IMO) and took it out on that show even though it was funnier than The Simpsons had been in a while. They had the chance to learn from the earlier show's mistakes and not make them. I wish I could say they did. It pains me to hear what has become of Julie Kavner's voice over the years; when she took this job, she probably didn't know she would be doing it this long. The writing has become so trite and forced that I honestly would rather watch the kind of touchy-feely-corny-preachy shows they were originally satirizing. At least those had stopping points and at least those shows didn't smugly mock you for giving a hoot about real-world problems. Both shows lost the ability to discern the difference between satire and sanctimony and between parody and rote recreation.

The Simpsons Movie should have been made ten years earlier than it was; it could have easily held its own against the TV-to-screen transfers of Beavis and Butt-Head (which wisely pulled the plug after four years before the same thing happened to them that happened to these shows), Rugrats, The X-Files, and South Park. Meanwhile, I tried to get into South Park but I couldn't, and that's still around, too. From a network's perspective there's no point in canceling any of these shows because if they had been canceled, they'd get rebooted just like their contemporaries.

And thanks to Disney, the window for a Family Guy movie that isn't watered down has shut. Those DTV "movies" don't count; they are just multi-part TV episodes stitched together.

I'm not someone who's usually biased in favor of early seasons over later ones. I recently rewatched a Golden Girls episode from the last season under its original name, and it was just as good as what had come before it.

 

[Blimpoy06]

In defense of Jack Burns.

 

[bmasters9]

I'm not someone who's usually biased in favor of early seasons over later ones. I recently rewatched a Golden Girls episode from the last season under its original name, and it was just as good as what had come before it.

And, as I've said before many a time, The Streets of San Francisco was just as good in that Hatch season as in the four Michael Douglas seasons. I think the key is to not change the show all that much-- if one of your leads is different, but that's the only change that's made (if the overall look and feel of the show stays the same, basically), that's one thing.

However, if the whole show is changed significantly (like w/Airwolf on USA, where the copter was just stock footage and no real action, and where all of the leads were totally different, among other things), that can ruin it in a heartbeat, and that's why Airwolf had only that one USA go, as opposed to the three on CBS.

 

[ScottRE]

And, as I've said before many a time, The Streets of San Francisco was just as good in that Hatch season as in the four Michael Douglas seasons. I think the key is to not change the show all that much-- if one of your leads is different, but that's the only change that's made (if the overall look and feel of the show stays the same, basically), that's one thing.

However, if the whole show is changed significantly (like w/Airwolf on USA, where the copter was just stock footage and no real action, and where all of the leads were totally different, among other things), that can ruin it in a heartbeat, and that's why Airwolf had only that one USA go, as opposed to the three on CBS.

That 4th season was simply made to make the series have more episodes in the syndication package. I doubt anyone aimed to make more than one additional season (unless it was a runaway success). It was made with no money and mostly unknows with stock footage. For shows that changed significantly during their original runs, look no further than Buck Rogers, SeaQuest, or War of the Worlds.

A decent example of a long running show that went a little too long was Hawaii Five-O. Once Kam Fong and later James MacArthur left, the show should have ended. You can drop Kono, Ben and Duke, but losing Chin-Ho and then Danno???? If the stories were any good, then fine, but that 12 season was dire. Jack Lord also looked skeletal by then.

 

[JohnHopper]

A decent example of a long running show that went a little too long was Hawaii Five-O. Once Kam Fong and later James MacArthur left, the show should have ended. You can drop Kono, Ben and Duke, but losing Chin-Ho and then Danno???? If the stories were any good, then fine, but that 12 season was dire. Jack Lord also looked skeletal by then.

Agreed all the way. I left the series after season 6 when the creator died.
Besides, Jack Lord looked more and more as a man made of plastic: see “The Wax Men” as a comical reference.