TV shows I stopped watching when changes came...

[Tenzhi]

I sometimes wake up to find myself in the middle of pondering strange things.  Today I found myself thinking about sci-fi shows - in particular those that I stopped watching.  This led me to noticing a handful of them that I quit because of changes that occurred in the series that completely put me off.

Babylon 5 - I was enjoying the first season in no small part due to the guy I perceived to be the central character.  I also liked the bald alien chick.  When they killed off the "main character" and replaced him with someone I didn't like it put me off the show and I stopped following it faithfully.  And I also didn't care for the bald alien chick becoming a coccoon and then emerging with hair.  Someone should have pressed B.

Andromeda - The cute alien with the tail lost the tail and became less cute (and apparently later became a small sun).  The philosophical bat faced guy left completely.  It was more episodic than Babylon 5, so I was able to jump in at random points and watch it without being totally lost, but I wasn't compelled to keep up with it any more.

X-Files - I loved it.  As it turns out, Mulder and Scully were central to that enjoyment.  They brought them back in spurts to entice me, but the love had been killed.

Buck Rogers - I've gone back and caught the whole series, but the changes to the second season bugged me.  Twiki's voice was just wrong, and the whole premise of the show seemed to have been altered in an attempt to be more like Battlestar Galactica.  There was some good stuff in season two, but those changes just rankled.

The Real Ghostbusters - Dave Coulier...  His Venkman bugged me more than a hundred Slimer episodes.  Over the years I'm actually sure I've managed to see most every episode, but there were many times when it came on TV that I changed the channel because Venkman didn't sound right.

[FatherXmas]

Several of those, B5, Andromeda, X-files, the loss of a character were due to actors leaving the show.  Andromeda style change was due to the original showrunner/writer being removed.  Buck Rodgers was simply chasing ratings and BSG was doing better so lets become more like them. 

X-Files is funny because I personally didn't care for the BIG conspiracy and preferred the one off mothman/Jersey Devil/leech boy episodes.  I could deal with a "small" conspiracy about hiding alien contact but the whole "we are going to let them colonize us in Dec 2012" was too over the top for me.

[Rust]

Babylon 5...but not for the same reason as Tenzhi. About five years ago, I made a point to buy all the seasons and watch them in order. The first four seasons are a Novel put to film - wildly enjoyable episodes and a great overarching plot that helps you forget about the episodes that didn't have so great a story.

Then Season 4 ended. And the production team didn't know if there would be a Season 5 - hence why they rushed to wrap up everything in Season 4. Then Season 5 was green lit. So we get a "Leftovers" Season, involving plots and character developments that were cut for the Season 4 deadline. Specifically, we get the big Ivonova Journey-of-Self-Discovery-and-acceptance-she-is-a-Telepath story...but we don't have Ivonova because her actress - via pressure from her manager - dropped before Season 5 was greenlit. I can't be mad at her for it - she's got to make a living too and she held off until the last possible minute too. But it left a huge gaping wound in the show with Garibaldi on Mars and Sheridan being the President of the United Federation of Planets.

I think I got three episodes into Season 5 and stopped and never picked it back up again. I tried giving the new Commander a chance and even sat through the two movies with her in it, but I don't know if it's her or if it's the fact the major story driving the show's narrative is over. It's the same deal with Crusade - What's the point? We saw in the Season 4 finale that Earth makes it through the Plague fine.

Maybe one day I'll get through the rest of B5...but I doubt it.


Another for me? Battlestar Galactica - though I kept watching through to the end. Some of the best TV on the airwaves...and then after the New Caprica Arc, the Wheels came off and we ended the series with the narrative equivalent of a high speed car crash. I HATE BSG's final season, and I hate that the writers outright admitted that their idea of plotting the show was throwing darts at a board and drawing names out of a hat (Seriously. That's how they picked the Final Five). Heck, Starbuck's actress admitted her character's frustration in the final season was genuine because nobody would tell her what was going on with her character. Coincidentally, her character? Just vanishes at the end.

I don't know what infuriates me more. The writers for taking a beautiful concept and then spend the final 48 hours of the show involving pointless flashbacks from before the fall of the colonies (And I dare any supporter of the show to justify the flashback scenes of a Drunk Apollo chasing a pigeon), or myself for getting suckered into a show whose writers were just half-baking it.

[Tenzhi]

Several of those, B5, Andromeda, X-files, the loss of a character were due to actors leaving the show.

Indeed.  And that's something that can often be bad for a show.  I didn't stop watching Red Dwarf when the original computer guy left, but I didn't care for the replacement(s).

And while it's part of the series premise with Doctor Who, Eccleston's departure was all too soon for me.  Had Matt Smith rather than Tennant been the follow up I might have fallen off of that show for a bit (not permanently, though, too much of a long term Who fan).

[Teutonic Rogue]

A big problem with shows -especially sci-fi ones- arises when the producer/studios/whoever has the money, spout their 'hmm...this is too cerebral' crap.

So, they dumb it down to their level, which 'may' lead to a loss of writers and/or actors but, invariably, -will- lead to a loss of ratings and, ultimately, cancellation.

I loved Andromeda but it just wasn't the same after the writer left in season three. I just wish his parting gift would've been a script that saw Beca die a horrible death :/

Also, Farscape, while I did continue watching to the end, the show was better with Xan (Zan?) around.

[Rust]

Or in the case of B5, TNT basically demanded a new lead actor for the show, because they felt Michael O'Hare was "too old". So we got "New Guy, Same As The Old Guy right down to the initials" Bruce Boxlighter instead.

To Boxlighter's credit he never felt like he was stealing O'Hare's thunder (Just his character arc - which didn't really happen, since we did get the "Sinclair-becomes-Velen" finale they had originally plotted, just without the impact of actually having already defeated the Shadows in the future).

[Mandu]

You are completely and utterly wrong about that Rust.  TNT didn't demand a new lead.  Michael O'Hare was suffering from Schizophrenia.  He decided to get help but felt that the central character vanishing for most of the year with no guarantee of coming back would be bad.  So he let Joe in on the secret and asked to be written out.

[fdbryant3]

Actually TNT had nothing to do with O'Hare leaving.  That was actually a mutual decision between O'Hare and Straczynski that the character wasn't working out for where the story was going.  Basically they needed to swap out Picard and swap in Kirk and O'Hare didn't really fit that role.

TNT doesn't get involved with B5 until they picked up the 5th season (up till then B5 was aired on the pseudo-network PSN which I think went out of business as S4 ended).  Unfortunately TNT didn't give JMS as much autonomy as he had with  S1-4.  The main thing they did to screw up S5 (which to be fair I like, just not as much as 2 through 4) is insisting on the addition of Byron primarily to try and attract female viewers which JMS hated.  There were other little things I can't really remember right now but I think it boils down too that TNT was all in when they bought up B5 but then changed their focus to being the drama channel (I don't know if this was also a management change) and basically only supported B5 as far as they were contractually obligated too.

[Phaetan]

Madu is correct.

[Rust]

I stand corrected.

[FatherXmas]

I stand corrected.

Yea really see TNT's heavy hand in B5's sequel, Crusade.  They wanted more conflict, more episodic and less overarching story. 

Which is sad because the X-files/Star Trek prime directive parody/homage episode was a blast.  Much like the X-files episode "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'".

[Rust]

Honestly, the only thing about Crusade I really remember was Galen the Technomage...and that's because I thought Technomages were cool.

[Shenku]

I can agree on Babylon 5, it just didn't feel the same anymore in the final season and I had to force myself to sit through it all...

Personally, one of my biggest gripes with a show that caused me to stop watching was with NBC's Heroes. The first season was fantastic, I absolutely loved it, and was thrilled that they were green-lit for another season. Then the writer's strike hit... The second season nearly killed it with that one woman with the "eyes" thing that got really old and annoying really fast... But what really did the series in for me was what happened with Peter,

Spoiler for Hidden:

and how they completely and utterly nerfed him into oblivion after spending so long building him up as the "Superman" of their story essentially... Likewise with Hiro, when they gave him a too soap opera-ee brain tumor all of a sudden...

I stopped watching about the time they were trying to introduce the "circus", and never cared enough to go back and watch the last few seasons of it... I just couldn't get the bad taste of what they had done out of my mouth I guess...

[Lothic]

Personally, one of my biggest gripes with a show that caused me to stop watching was with NBC's Heroes. The first season was fantastic, I absolutely loved it, and was thrilled that they were green-lit for another season. [...] I stopped watching about the time they were trying to introduce the "circus", and never cared enough to go back and watch the last few seasons of it... I just couldn't get the bad taste of what they had done out of my mouth I guess...

I think the real problem with a show like Heroes was that it should have only ever been like a 12 part miniseries to begin with.  The first season of that show had an interesting story and concise beginning, middle and end.  The mistake came when they attempted to extend the plot past the obvious conclusion of the first season.  I really don't think the Writer's Strike had much to do with the fate of Heroes after that. It just became a desperate attempt to rehash/reinvent a storyline long after the concept had run its course.  Ironically the only reason Heroes got a seasons 2-4 was that its first season was great enough as a standalone show to fool NBC into thinking it should have been continued.

Unfortnately most network TV (especially in America) is geared towards extending shows for as long as possible regardless if the main story really deserves that format or not.  I think the Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica suffered from the same problem.  That show might have been pretty cool if it had been structured as a 6-8 part miniseries instead of an ill-fated open-ended series that quickly fell apart into nonsense. Sometimes less really is more...

[FatherXmas]

The original idea behind Heroes was every season you would have an entirely new cast of heroes and villains discovering their powers.  But people latch on to the cast so what can you do.  You can try to do what was done with American Horror Story, have mostly the same cast but playing entirely different roles in entirely different stories for a season.  That's just too weird for a major network.

[Shenku]

I think the real problem with a show like Heroes was that it should have only ever been like a 12 part miniseries to begin with.  The first season of that show had an interesting story and concise beginning, middle and end.  The mistake came when they attempted to extend the plot past the obvious conclusion of the first season.  I really don't think the Writer's Strike had much to do with the fate of Heroes after that. It just became a desperate attempt to rehash/reinvent a storyline long after the concept had run its course.  Ironically the only reason Heroes got a seasons 2-4 was that its first season was great enough as a standalone show to fool NBC into thinking it should have been continued.

Unfortnately most network TV (especially in America) is geared towards extending shows for as long as possible regardless if the main story really deserves that format or not.  I think the Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica suffered from the same problem.  That show might have been pretty cool if it had been structured as a 6-8 part miniseries instead of an ill-fated open-ended series that quickly fell apart into nonsense. Sometimes less really is more...

I quite agree, sometimes shorter is better. Sometimes, the story doesn't have to be dragged out so much to make it an enjoyable show, and too many shows in America (and movies now too, to an extent), are turned into continuing franchises when in reality it just kills the experience.

I think that's why I like some specific Anime series' more than most American shows, as quite a few have very specific stories they are telling, and they don't drag it out needlessly. Of course not all Anime follows that formula, as there are the frequent Bleach or One Piece type series' that become 90% filler and won't reach a conclusion until the studio making it gets bored of it and forces an ending.

[Rust]

It's why I'm passing on the new show Hostages. The premise looks really interesting...but there's no way they can make it last more then a season.

[corvus1970]

Heroes is a superb example of a show that was changed for various reasons, some of which were beyond the control of the show-runners, and never recovered. I always tell people who are interested in it but have never watched it to just watch season 1 and stop there.

[Richpur]

Babylon 5...[snip]
I think I got three episodes into Season 5 and stopped and never picked it back up again. I tried giving the new Commander a chance and even sat through the two movies with her in it, but I don't know if it's her or if it's the fact the major story driving the show's narrative is over.

I skipped the series entirely and went from season 4 to season 5 finale. Even if you can't stomach the 5th series itself the last episode is worth watching.

If you find yourself wanting a dose of Ivanova then play Skyrim; she's bloody everywhere.