What's up with TV last season?

So it's been bothering me all season and I figured I'd bring it here. What is going on with TV this season?

So first off, it seems like a lot of shows have been really hit and miss this season, more so than in the past. I was really getting into Modern family, especially the last half of last season and the first half of this season, but then the second half of this season, I felt like a lot of the writing was sub par.

I also felt the Office though ending it's season on a funny note with Michael Scott leaving and the search to replace him (mirroring to a degree, I'm sure, the search to replace Carrel as the actor) has been really unfunny some episodes, and this is a show I watch reruns for all the time since they still crack me up.

Chuck, Community, Family guy, 30 Rock, have all been the same. I'm sure some of this is opinion but some of these episodes seem to really be lacking in the quality of writing, jokes, etc that I've come to expect from them.

Additionally there has been a ton of weird scheduling. It seems like since the shows came back from winter break all of the shows I've mentioned have had a number of weeks off, and some like chuck and modern family seem to be airing only every other week, or ever 3 weeks at times. A few of these shows, The Office and Chuck had slightly longer seasons, but it hardly makes up for each week finding out that half the shows I like didn't have a new episode.

Add to that the number of failed new shows. The Cape, The Good Guys, Breaking In, Mr. Sunshine, and a host of others. Some of these shows seemed to not be very good, others, like Breaking In, the show seemed to have little to do with it's premise. (A securities group that breaks into places to test the security but every episode is about a bunch of nerds pulling pranks on each other and being love sick puppies.)

Schedule shifts and night changes and is it any wonder 31 shows got the ax this season?

http://xx4x2x0xx.blogspot.com/2011/0...-from-air.html

Then there is "The Event". I'm not going to say it was the best show ever, and it was having some issues with ratings before winter break, but the show went on 3 month hiatus for winter then to make room for the cape, then when it came back it's ratings plummeted from what they were. Is anyone surprised? If you take any show off the air for 3 months mid season, do you really expect it to come back with full ratings? I feel like NBC really just ruined any chance of something I think many considered a decent show, taking off.


All in all this season from the quality of writing to the weird scheduling, it just feels like something was way off...

Am I the only one?

I'm sorry if this comes off wrong, but... I don't watch tv much at all any more (zero modern network shows... the occasional show in syndication, mostly just movies).

However, everything you said sounds exactly like how I remember network tv shows always being (at least, for quite a while, if not always... and why I don't watch tv any more).

Some possibly decent shows that lose all momentum due to bad writing, different writers, trying to spread out the good stuff and not use it all up in a small amount of episodes, which results in watered down garbage...
Screwed up schedules, a few weeks on, a few weeks off, over and over, always just moving shows around to get a bit of a glimpse and then showcase some other show and then put things on hold, blah blah blah...

Hehe, your post just sounded to me like someone who'd never actually watched television before!

Maybe you're changing? We all go through periods where we start seeing the things we used to enjoy differently (or, sometimes more accurately).

Anyway... best of luck and I hope you find stuff you like!

(I am thinking about watching the upcoming scifi show on TNT in June... ummm... can't recall the name... I could look it up, but that wouldn't be as fun nor telling as to how little it really means to me!)

Yeah I'm with ya.

This past season put the final nail in the coffin for me when it comes to the networks. I'd already decided not to even bother watching the previews for The Cape after NBC denied us a proper finale for Heroes. Didn't feel like getting caught up in another show destined to be pulled out from under us.

ABC hooked me with NOF instead and I was really enjoying it...

I'm done with Network TV until they can get their ratings system inline with the modern age. Long gone are the days of Nielson Families all gathering round the tube every night. With Netflix and Hulu and DvR's the times have changed but the networks evaluation system hasn't kept up.

I won't bother getting involved in anything else for the simple fact I don't like to be left hanging. I'll just wait for the full season DvD's of shows I'd want to watch. At least then I know I'll be able to actually finish a season!

I'm not even joking either. I deleted 15 shows from my season pass and from this point forward the ONLY show I'll watch on the networks is
So you think you can dance (It's my crack)

If the cable channels like Syfy and the like don't knock off this 'show 4 episodes then break for a year' nonsense like they're doing with Eureka then they'll be next to go and I'll have much more free time on my hands for COHing...

Naturally as Electric pointed out, some of this has to do with my own maturing. Alas not all of it I'm afraid, for reasons stated above.

The future of TV is the internet anyways, it's just a matter of years at this point.

The two shows I make time for are Supernatural and The Big Bang Theory, and they've both been razor-sharp and scintillating. Except for the 3-episode "Momathon" last Fall, I haven't been able to catch Chuck, so I'm waiting for DVD, but what I saw was just as good as anything else Chuck has done.

I've always hated all iterations of The Office and genuinely do not understand what people see in that, and I found 30 Rock to be insistently unfunny. I only saw the initial episode of Community and find it impossible to believe that the writing and acting has slipped below that low level.

I thought the first episode of Mr. Sunshine was quite funny and that it had a lot of promise, but the network was clearly just burning it off, since it had been in the can for nearly a year and a half. After that, it had the same issue as Chuck for me -- I'm always busy Monday nights, so I can't watch TV and forget to tape anything.

No Ordinary Family I really wanted to like, but it stumbled quite a bit. The Cape started strong but committed hari-kari, and I only watched the astoundingly awful Smallville because it led into Supernatural. Survivor had one of its best seasons ever this year and The Amazing Race is always good.

Two and a Half Men really stumbled out of the gate this year, and there certainly was more going on behind the scenes as evidenced by that show's implosion. Rules of Engagement is something I accidentally watched a couple of times after BBT, but I actually started to like it. Sometimes it was wicked funny.

I don't know,
Looks at the Event and Heroes before it( I didn't watch V), both series started off strong in terms of story, but as time went on, both series seemed to have gotten lost in terms of writting, and additionally wonky scheduling.

Law and Order ended I think because for a while there, there was a real over saturation of Law and Order on NBC at a time they were doing major cast changes. Law and Order LA, I just couldn't connect with for various reasons( the irony is, if NBC had worked out a deal with the Brits and aired Law and Order UK, more people might've been drawn to that).

Even looks at the Doctor Who Movie from 96, it died largely because of poor scheduling, porr marketing.

Overall, I'm watching network tv less and less these days than I was even 10 years ago, and at the same time cable tv original programs seem to be at a different level.

My favorite story of the TV season was with Fox pulling a highly-promoted series after only two episodes.

They gave it a strong lead-in off of House, MD, and put huge resources into making it their new big hit. Hell, I even heard an interview promoting it on NPR.

It was a show about a con man going legit, and his dad trying to keep him in the business, and I doubt anyone here remembers the name of it without looking it up.

I'm not going to get sucked into any more long-form television series like Heroes any more. If I hear that a show is that good, I'll wait for the DVD. I've been suckered too many times by shows with intriguing premises and poor execution.

The core networks are certainly struggling to find anything that viewers want to watch. On top of that, they typically don't give shows enough time to find an audience. On top of that, every time I flip through network programming it's some sort of "reality" dreck. I don't care about Survivor, and I certainly don't want to watch garbage like "Dancing With the Stars" or "The Biggest Loser" (that would be the viewers). I know those shows are cheap to produce (which is why the networks like them) but they are not good TV.

On the other hand, the cable networks seem to know how to support their shows, let them find an audience, and seem to know what people want to watch.

USA has a pretty solid line up of action shows (Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, etc.) and FX has been doing great with shows like Justified, Damages, Archer, etc.

Also, to the OP: shows that have been on for years lose steam as they start struggling to come up with new ideas. Look at just about any episode from seasons 2 - 7 of The Simpsons -- comedy gold. Now look almost any episode they've done since then. Sure, they can still be funny, but it's not up at the quality of their glory days.

The last show I tried to watch on network TV was Flash Forward. It did the same thing as The Event the OP mentioned...took a 3-month hiatus in the middle of the season. When it came back, I didn't hear about it until three episodes had aired. At that point, I just gave up and didn't bother trying to catch any of the missed episodes.

Since then, I've seen some shows that I might like (The Cape, No Ordinary Family, The Event), but I didn't even bother watching them. I just knew that they were going to pull the same old crap, so why invest my time if the network is just going to yank my chain with inconsistent episode quality, spotty air times, moving schedules and huge breaks in the middle of seasons? The answer is, I won't invest my time. It's a big world, and I have other interests than being disappointed - yet again - by a TV show.

My "must see" network shows are at an alltime low and consist primarily of The Big Bang Theory, Fringe and The Amazing Race.

If I get a chance I'll watch The Office, 30 Rock, and Modern Family, but if I miss them, it's no big deal.

Networks have even less of an attention span than viewers these days. Coincidentally, I was listening to NPR on my drive home last night and they were talking about the networks presenting their "Upfronts" to advertisers this week. According to the woman they were interviewing, of the five new shows CBS was pushing at this time last year, three of them are still on the air. She went on to say that ABC, NBC, and FOX were pushing a combined 15 shows last year, of which ONE is still on the air.

To me it's not just the uneveness of shows, or the tailing off of the quality, it's all the dang breaks in the schedule. It seems like when I was a kid, a TV show would debut its season in September, run for 13 straight weeks, take a break and show some reruns for a month, come back in January, run 13 more weeks straight, and then go into reruns for the summer. Now a lot of shows don't even do close to 26 episodes and they have month long breaks every few episodes. If you're going to take all these breaks, you have to expect to lose viewers because people are going to get fed up and/or find something else to watch.

The networks suck. How many CSI/Law&Order/procedural/medical/legal/cop shows can they clone? Either that or an endless stream of "lets make some loser semi-famous for 15 minutes" half-***** "reality" shows. Its all crap. They have no patience to let anything develop anymore. Its takes time sometimes for a show to find its stride, for the writers to find the characters' voices, for the actors to really find the groove of their characters. The networks pull things so fast now, or retool things so quickly now that it just doesn't happen.

I find myself much more drawn to the cable networks model of things right now. USA, TNT, FX, A&E have put out a much better product, in a much better fashion. The smaller "seasons" that they use, usually 10-13 episode blocks are great. They come on, and they run consecutively, no odd weeks (or months) off. It allows the writers to create and focus on a specific story arc for a shorter period of time, and then bring that arc to a definitive conclusion before taking time off. I think the networks would benefit greatly from shifting to this model. Shorter seasons, tighter stories, a chance to put more varied programming on (13 episodes is a much easier commitment to make than 22).

Funny to see this thread today, because last night, thanks to Netflix, I just finished up the ABC remake of Life on Mars. The show was absolutely amazing, and I remember catching the first few episodes when it aired, but they pulled the same 3 month hiatus crap that ruins a lot of good shows. Ratings plumeted and the show was cancelled. Fortunately the writers had time to write a finale but if you've seen it, you know we would have been better off without it. It angers me that shows like this with real potential, never get a chance to suceed, but Grey's Anatomy and its spinoff get shoved down our throats. I'll take my TV from cable, thank you very much.

I have to agree this season every show has been down. There have been a few standout episodes though this season a few being on Community and Parks and Rec. Even staple shows like NCIS, CSI, Criminal Minds, Chuck, Office, Big Bang have been lackluster.

I think the problem is that the networks expect a hit with new shows as soon as possible, there is much more programs for people to watch, and the networks want to stick to the same old format and don't want to change.

One thing they could try is having short seasons for shows, this would mirror out cable shows that can have 13 good quality shows, instead of dragging out story arcs.

The other method is rerunning shows like crazy, I know we all hate reruns but look at some of the cable shows they rerun a show like crazy but still get plenty of viewers for the new show. When you rerun a show or a marathon of that show you tend to get new viewers hooked. Look at NCIS it was never a big rating hit until it was reran on USA like crazy.

The big networks should try to maybe run there shows on there sister cable networks sooner then they do now to help increase new viewers.

I really look at NBC as being really stupid with this they have sister networks like USA, Bravo, SyFy, and G4 among others. How many shows did they have that would benefit greatly by rerunning on these networks and they never did. Look at chuck, community, Parks and Rec what really makes the show stand out is the chemistry that the characters have and that takes time, a new viewer just watching it for the first time wont see that, but lets say that same viewer is channel surfing and comes across a bunch of back to back shows then they may become a loyal viewer.

They are to set in trying to find a hit, get it to a 100 episodes so they then can sell it off in syndication.

I haven't really watched much TV for a couple of years now. I have a handful of shows that I watch, but that's it. Almost everything that I watch is from few years back, because I wait until about the 5th season of a show before I start watching it on DVD or online. That way, I know I have a number of seasons to enjoy, instead of getting hooked on something that may not last more than a dozen episodes. The only exceptions are Dr Who, Big Bang Theory and Game of Thrones (which I was stunned to hear would be back for another season-- usually liking a show is my best way of having it cancelled).

NCIS has been great this year!

Criminal Minds only slipped imo because we lost two of the characters in the show this season.

Chuck
Castle
NCIS
NCIS LA
Criminal Minds
The Mentalist
Pretty much anything on USA (though they look to have a new reality series themselves, but I wont be watching it)

All have been good shows.

I personally liked The Defenders, and hated to see it go.

If you think this season was bad... have you seen the majority of the new shows coming next year?

*shivers* Pathetic.

There are like 3 shows I currently watch...otherwise, I'm watching old shows online...right now happens to be Star Trek Voyager.

I just haven't been impressed with much out there right now.

So it's not just me....



*Spoilers Ahead* (Don't read if you don't wanna hear stuff about Community or Chuck.)


I've seen a couple people mention Chuck, so I'll say this. I LOVE Chuck. It is my favorite show on TV (followed closely by Archer.) I've got the first 3 seasons on DVD and I managed to get my GF, and my mother hooked on the show and if I had more friends that actually watched TV, they'd get hooked too.

That said, I feel like season 4 was more hit and miss than usual, like the show was just struggling to find itself again in certain parts. I can't remember the episodes specifically, but like the Thanksgiving episode wasn't very good as I recall and a few others

That said, they finished on a strong note.

Community.... I felt most of the season was lost with Chang, now apparently a psychotic but ineffectual man-child, Shirley being knocked up with Chang's possible love child... (Which we all knew it wouldn't be.) Then Pierce's pill addiction. It seemed like they were trying to do too many things at once, did none of them well and left a lot of stuff on the table in terms of story lines or ideas that they didn't develop. Like chang being scitzo in the first couple episodes, then just being sad and pathetic.

The KFC episode was awful, not just because of the product placement but the whole concept was pretty bad. And they just sort of dumped the idea of Jeff learning to be a better person this season, since last season was about his personal growth and this season, he's pretty much just an above it all a-hole most of the time.

Even the first Paintball episode was pretty good, they played the western theme very, very well, but once more decided to take a hard left turn and turned the second half of the episode into a half ***** star wars theme, but still with the western movie title.

Community needs to figure itself out, get back into 1 or 2 good stories at a time and finish them, rather than bouncing off every half baked idea they have.

With Smallville gone, the only shows I go out of my way to watch are Castle, Bones, Supernatural, and Game of Thrones (which I catch online anyway). Scheduling is just one of the many issues that kills tv for me.

While I enjoy Bones (though I hate her hair style this season) I've also been watching Nikita and while I doubted a new Nikita TV series on the baby network, I thought they did an impressive job with the story and characters.