this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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I'll never begrudge people on shows wanting to continue, since it means the creatives and crew continue to get consistent work, but by the same token The Office was already noticeably declining by the time Carell left, and it never got better. Creatively, it could have ended when Jim proposed, probably should have ended when Jim and Pam got married, and definitely should have ended when Michael left. The rest is just flailing, flanderization and coasting.
The original UK version clocked in at two seasons and ended with UK's Jim confessing his love to UK's Pam and UK's Michael being let go because he's not good at this job.
It left a lot of story strands unfinished/unresolved and that's okay.
God, I wish more television shows were planned with just a short series with things wrapped up after a few seasons. Hell, Netflix already cancels things after two seasons anyway, so lean into two seasons being what you get.
While I think some British shows quit well before the main veins of drama or comedy have been mined, going out early is better than late. For recent-ish American shows, I think 30 Rock (which famously had to hang on by the skin of its Emmys' teeth) and The Good Place both went out after the curve had inflected but well before they passed the point of no return.
Didn't Peep Show last for like 9 seasons? That's a UK one that wasn't very short.
It did, although they were only 6 episodes a season.
Yes, over 12 years.
In addition to what OP said in their reply to you. There was also a willingness to break status quo, which helped the longevity.
That's pretty much all streaming these days. Netflix wasn't even the first for that format, FOX had been doing that for decades before Netflix was even mailing DVDs.
7 years is a sweet spot with American TV. If they don't wrap it up after 7 season it just becomes shit. X-Files should have ended at 7. Stargate SG-1 at 7. In fact a lot of them were written for a good closing at 7 years but studios just have the need for enshitification for that ad money.
Think of the legendary good shows that knew when to end at 7 years. Or 5 years.
6 seasons and a movie
Firefly only got half a season and then a movie 2 years later!
Threshold got half season and no movie.
Showbiz executives do stupid things.
I want a new firefly show with the original cast and I want it to be about everything that happened between the finale and the start of the movie. No de-aging. Everyone's inexplicably older in this flashback than they were in the movie.
Except Wash
No spoilers! The events of the movie haven't happened yet
Simpsons needed 8, so we get the conclusion of who shot Mr. Burns. But that's still damn close.
"Behind the laughter" (s11 finale) is a fine stopping point.
That one too, yes.
Huh STNG - seven seasons.
Voyager too
DS9 too
I think That 70s Show was 8 seasons long if I’m remembering correctly and you’re right, season 8 was absolutely terrible. It had been declining already by then, but atleast if they ended with season 7, they would’ve ended in a better spot.
Honestly season 8 felt like a spinoff written by someone else.
I don't think it's fair to expect a show to remain at a single high level of quality over its entire run, but yeah, there's a point when it's just a drag on the better seasons' legacy and (especially in the days of linear TV only) depriving audiences of a new show that might be better and is unlikely to be worse than what's left to come.
I totally agree, I just wish more studios would agree to give shows the graceful ending they deserve.
I feel like from a writing perspective, it would also help to know how long your show is going to be so you can fit in everything you want appropriately.
i dint mind 8-10 it was a nice change from the goauld for like the past 7 years which turned them into a joke, clearly the age was getting on for sg1 though. sci-fi should at least last 7 years, and not like all this 8 episode bs that streams are pushing, not enough time to flesh out content.
sga , sgu dint last long enough, and there was so much more content left in those shows, by evidence of interviews after it ended. Wier in season 5, ghost in the machine alluded to "advanced races hidden from the wraith in the pegasus galaxy" as foreshadowing. and sgu had the ancient-level planet builder aliens.
Games of Thrones should have cut off at 7.
Game of Thrones I think is one of the few exceptions to this rule. It still had plenty of story left to tell and the primary reason the 8th season was a bomb was because the showrunners were busy trying to wrap it up too quickly so they could go work on Star Wars instead. I think they could have taken the exact same half baked story ending that they had, stretched it out into ten seasons, and people would have complained a lot less. Would have been nice to have a better ending written but if they gave the one that they had the appropriate room to breathe, it would have been fine. Not great, but fine.
But wrapping that all up so quickly and suddenly is what put the nails in the coffin, in my opinion.
Good stories, however they are told, have a beginning, a middle, and most importantly, an end.
But then we would have never gotten Robert California, and that would have been a real shame.
Respectfully disagree. :-)
I had to look up who that even was. That's how forgettable everything past season 7 is.