Please Cancel My Favorite Show
[Note: this article originally appeared on Sierra's personal blog and she was gracious enough to share her thoughts with all you readers of The Couch as well.]
If you know me at all you know I’m not shy about voicing my opinions. One of my strongest opinions, one I would die for, has to do with television. Here’s what I think: all television shows should end by season five at the latest. Most reality shows should, too, but I make an exception with The Amazing Race, which I never want to end. I will follow that show to the end of the Earth.
Before you whine about Grey’s Anatomy and how you’ve rewatched all 317 episodes (not including specials) ten times and it should never end, let’s have a real and mature conversation. That’s too much of one show for anyone.
No show can truly thrive after so many episodes. A comedy is supposed to be funny. There are only so many jokes, hijinks and gags that can happen before things are either repeated or, worse, become unbearable for the viewer to watch. We want every episode to be as good as the one we fell in love with. In reality, that is just not the case. Sometimes we watch an episode and move on — it wasn’t as good as last week, but we remind ourselves they’re probably building up to something worthwhile.
I’ll pause here and say that I do not know how to quit a show. I’ve quit watching exactly six shows in my lifetime, with Pretty Little Liars being one. This means I have a ridiculously high tolerance for watching bad television shows or sticking it out to the end because my pride can’t take the hit. At the height of my television-watching life, I was watching 26 different shows every week. Now, I’m watching more shows- 45, to be exact — but between years off, streaming services, and changing schedules, it’s far more manageable than having to catch four or five shows every night.
Look, I know my wish for shows to end by season five is completely unrealistic and outrageously optimistic. Selfishly, I want this to happen in part so I have an easy out for shows I don’t even like watching anymore. I need to get out of these loveless relationships. But also, I just want Hollywood to love themselves. How amazing would it be if we only greenlit original, exciting content? And when it was over, the creators, producers, actors, all said “Hey, it’s not about the money. This story has run its course. This character has changed all they can. It would be painful to us and to the audience to drag this on any longer. Let’s step back, make a mature decision and go out on top before we mindlessly make more content with no heart. Follow me team!!!” ?
I know, I know. This pie-in-the-sky dream will literally never happen but I’ll continue begging for my shows to get cancelled — not a sentence you hear most people say, I guess. When shows end on their own accord, they’re near perfect. Allow me to break down the trajectory a little bit:
Season 1: Everyone is finding their footing. You play it safe to get renewed.
Season 2: Characters and plot lines develop- small risks are taken to see how viewers react.
Season 3: This is usually the real game changer. A main character dies, someone leaves, the plot and the characters wants/needs all change. We have a new narrator. It’s now a drama instead of a comedy. Let’s write the episodes we were born to tell.
Season 4: It mellows out, the fan base is staying through it all. We did it. This show is good it found its stride.
Season 5: Lead writers go to new projects. Things settle down. Things end. Things start to become harder to write, subplots upon subplots but nothing we actually care about. It’s just become routine to keep up on the show at this point.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was recently renewed for a fourth and final season. In an interview with Vanity Fair, co-create Rachel Bloom said she “always envisioned their series as a finite story — and that they initially pitched it as four “cycles.”… I’m an avid TV watcher, and I feel like a lot of shows peak around Season 4, Season 5, and just last way too long.” When shows end of their own accord they’re often fabulous. The creators had a plan all along, they respect us as viewers. How can you be mad about that? The more shows drag on the, more depressed I get. Bloom and I are on the same page, thank God.
I’ve dabbled in screenwriting and have a few ideas in the works. Obviously that makes me an expert. It makes sense to me, as a writer, to outline the story and to workshop it before you go any farther to know how it begins and how it can potentially end. Sure, characters have a mind of their own, and I’m sure many writers are heavily influenced by viewers when their show is airing week to week. I never watched Breaking Bad but I do often think about Vince Gilligan knowing the approximate arc for his series from the beginning. In a article from The Guardian, Gilligan remembers what he originally pitched to the studio, “I told them: ‘This is a story about a man who transforms himself from Mr. Chips into Scarface.’” Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse also have mentioned that they mostly knew the ending of LOST from the beginning, even though that mess of a show went everywhere (in the best possible way).
Now look at shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Both shows were based off of previously written works. Game of Thrones (the show) surpassed the books at one point and is now telling a story all on its own, with less help from author George R. R. Martin. And The Walking Dead (based off of comic books of the same name) is currently airing season 8! The Walking Dead seems to be everyone’s parents' go-to unstoppable show. Can you blame them? Your mom has something to talk about at work, it’s good enough, how much longer can it go on? Spoiler alert: at least one more season. To be honest I’m not sure how TWD matches up to its comic book brothers anymore.
My parents and I watch Survivor live every Wednesday and, the moment Survivor is over, we switch to Modern Family. It’s a Wednesday tradition at this point and that doesn’t make it any less exhausting. We’re nine years into watching Modern Family and it’s been stale for years. As a comedy it’ll get one genuine chuckle a week, two if we’re lucky. That level of time-wasting and boredom is not something writers should subject their audiences to. Praise the Lord that Modern Family is said to have a final 10th season. All my hard work will soon pay off and I can stay on top of my high horse, checking off yet another show I’ve watched through completion.
New shows happen every year, across all platforms. It’s not just cable anymore. Now we have options on HBO, Showtime, Netflix, Amazon, CBS All Access, Hulu, and more. It can be exhausting for casual television watchers and it’s exhausting and overwhelming for me, someone who consumes as much as they can for an actual living.
Now what is it about a bad season, two bad seasons that keeps us coming back? I can only think about my own experience in this self-destructive loop, I’m waiting for it to surprise me again. I’m waiting for that hot guy in season one to come back. For the show to be good again and remind me why I fell in love. If I recommended it to people I have to prove that I still believe in it, even if I really don’t.
Life is too short to stay watching bad tv, yet here we all are invested too deeply in Empire, Shameless, Scandal, Hawaii Five-O, Nashville, you name it. I recently asked some friends in a Facebook group what they’re stuck watching, I got shows from across the board. It seems like we all secretly love the familiarity, are afraid of breaking up with the shows to enter a potentially unstable relationship with a new show. Let me know what show you find yourself groaning at as you pull up a stream of the new episode. Please tell me what show you “watch”, but really spend more time scrolling on your phone than watching the screen? Please tell me what show you secretly want to be cancelled so you have an out? And if you’re good at dropping shows, being a quitter, a baby, a fake fan (kidding) how do you do it? I clearly need help.
I’m proud to announce I will not succumb and watch Season 3 of Stranger Things. I tolerated Season One and I really hated Season Two. I hate-watched all of Season Two in one day just to rip off the band-aid. You guys can’t trick me into thinking it’s a good show anymore!
And also this season of Empire will be my last (I’ve said this before, and my friend Shannon knows this show is my biggest downfall). If I said it here it has to happen, right?