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Challenge: Shows that Deserved More than Four Seasons
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8958790" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I'll be honest.</p><p></p><p>It seems, superficially, like you picked four just to be difficult/controversial, because if you'd said five, which is barely different, suddenly there'd be vastly less argument and less to discuss. The idea that five seasons is the best number for a show has been around for 20+ years.</p><p></p><p>Also the number of seasons is kind of meaningless. How do we compare a British show which does 6 episodes/season with a US network show that does 16-22 episodes/season?</p><p></p><p>But let's ignore the problem re: episodes vs seasons, and I think it's easy to show you're wrong re: four seasons specifically because almost no shows match that. Very few good shows have four good seasons, then suddenly go downhill. The only two I can immediately think of are:</p><p></p><p>1) Dexter, which you already mentioned - and the "bad" seasons of Dexter? They were still better than 90% of TV at the time. I'm sorry but they were. They weren't as good as the John Lithgow peak.</p><p></p><p>2) Babylon 5, which was designed as a 5-season arc, and would have been a better show if it was 5 seasons, but got forced into 4, before them randomly allowing a 5th, after they'd ruined things.</p><p></p><p>And your top 10? It actually argues against your point. For example:</p><p></p><p>1) Halt and Catch Fire - one of the best shows ever made. But the 4th season was clearly massively and unnecessarily compressed and I believe we know from the showrunners that they wanted to do 5 but were told 4 was it whilst writing S4. And let's be real - if they'd had 5, maybe Halt and Catch Fire would get at least a <em>fraction</em> of the respect it deserves, instead of being constantly overlooked, and undermined by a weaker final season which was weaker largely by dint of having to rush through the '90s.</p><p></p><p>(Also god what 11 out of 10 show that was.)</p><p></p><p>2) Mad Men - Obviously wouldn't have been better if they cut off at S4 or tried to compress it into fewer seasons.</p><p></p><p>3) Breaking Bad - Same.</p><p></p><p>4) The Sopranos - Same.</p><p></p><p>I could go on but I gotta go - will be back later - point is though, your own list thoroughly disproves the "4 seasons" idea. 5 seasons is massively more supportable. I can think of far more good shows killed to early than good shows left to go on too long until they collapsed, too (confirmation bias I'm sure but that applies equally to everyone). I mean, hell, TNG didn't even really get good-good until S3/4 at the earliest. Maybe there are only 4 seasons of good episodes in TNG, I could see that, but that's just not how things work.</p><p></p><p>Shows which are going to go bad tend to go bad either immediately, or in S2, as well, not in S4/5.</p><p></p><p>EDIT - I'd also add there are different structures to shows - the whole idea of limiting the seasons really only applies strongly to narrative shows, as opposed to reality TV, gameshows, talent shows, talk shows, documentaries, and so on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8958790, member: 18"] I'll be honest. It seems, superficially, like you picked four just to be difficult/controversial, because if you'd said five, which is barely different, suddenly there'd be vastly less argument and less to discuss. The idea that five seasons is the best number for a show has been around for 20+ years. Also the number of seasons is kind of meaningless. How do we compare a British show which does 6 episodes/season with a US network show that does 16-22 episodes/season? But let's ignore the problem re: episodes vs seasons, and I think it's easy to show you're wrong re: four seasons specifically because almost no shows match that. Very few good shows have four good seasons, then suddenly go downhill. The only two I can immediately think of are: 1) Dexter, which you already mentioned - and the "bad" seasons of Dexter? They were still better than 90% of TV at the time. I'm sorry but they were. They weren't as good as the John Lithgow peak. 2) Babylon 5, which was designed as a 5-season arc, and would have been a better show if it was 5 seasons, but got forced into 4, before them randomly allowing a 5th, after they'd ruined things. And your top 10? It actually argues against your point. For example: 1) Halt and Catch Fire - one of the best shows ever made. But the 4th season was clearly massively and unnecessarily compressed and I believe we know from the showrunners that they wanted to do 5 but were told 4 was it whilst writing S4. And let's be real - if they'd had 5, maybe Halt and Catch Fire would get at least a [I]fraction[/I] of the respect it deserves, instead of being constantly overlooked, and undermined by a weaker final season which was weaker largely by dint of having to rush through the '90s. (Also god what 11 out of 10 show that was.) 2) Mad Men - Obviously wouldn't have been better if they cut off at S4 or tried to compress it into fewer seasons. 3) Breaking Bad - Same. 4) The Sopranos - Same. I could go on but I gotta go - will be back later - point is though, your own list thoroughly disproves the "4 seasons" idea. 5 seasons is massively more supportable. I can think of far more good shows killed to early than good shows left to go on too long until they collapsed, too (confirmation bias I'm sure but that applies equally to everyone). I mean, hell, TNG didn't even really get good-good until S3/4 at the earliest. Maybe there are only 4 seasons of good episodes in TNG, I could see that, but that's just not how things work. Shows which are going to go bad tend to go bad either immediately, or in S2, as well, not in S4/5. EDIT - I'd also add there are different structures to shows - the whole idea of limiting the seasons really only applies strongly to narrative shows, as opposed to reality TV, gameshows, talent shows, talk shows, documentaries, and so on. [/QUOTE]
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