Top 10 Shows that Started Out Great But Ultimately Sucked ...

[NewHampshireDem]

Sorry for the copy-cat, but as I was making my Top Ten Favorite Shows List I was thinking of the X-Files, which was my favorite at one point ... then it "jumped the shark" and really started to suck. As did the following ...

1. X-Files
2. ER
3. Friends
4. Angel (sorry :( )
5. Star Trek Voyager
6. Family Ties (one too many cute kids)
7. The Cosby Show
8. Beavis and Butthead
9. South Park
10. The Real World

[ForrestGump]

1. "Happy Days" is the classic. Complete with shark. And "Mork and

Mindy," unfortunately, also ultimately suffered the fate of its parent show. :-(

[elperromagico]

2. Happy Days went downhill around the second season IMO,

and only got worse when the cast members seemed to forget that the show was set in the 50s and 60s and started dressing like they'd just gotten back from a Saturday Night Fever audition. Even Mr. Cunningham had the tinted glasses!

[ironflange]

19. Happy Days went down the can when Chuck vanished

[Servo300]

3. I never thought Mork & Mindy was all that good.. (n/t)

[hlthe2b]

4. The Practice....

great acting, lots of emmys, yet died with nearly a whimper this season after having purged most of the actors.

[Khephra]

5. X-Files, for sure.

it should have ended at least two seasons before it did.

[soleft]

8. and they blew their chance at a movie franchise

[Bombtrack]

6. Well it depends on how you defin the rating system

is it for the best show that would fit that criteria, or just how much the show dropped. There are shows I made in my list that I just lost interest in, not that necessarilly got awful.

But some examples(that I stopped watching after being a fan) might be

Buffy, Angel, West Wing, X-Files, Seaquest, That 70's show, hmmmm

[NewHampshireDem]

11. The drop is the criteria

A sucky show that just gets suckier is only fulfilling its destiny.

The X-Files was, in my opinion, one of the greatest TV shows of all time, but Chris Carpenter just didn't know when to stop stringing us along and milked the whole "mythology" far, far too long. It was sad, really, since I loved that show and would count some of its episodes among the best television ever. (Can you say "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"--which damn near made my cry--and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space"--which damn near made my bust my gut?)

ER is another excellent example. Great characters, great premise, great stories ... that just sunk to the point of tedium and "oh, great, another fight/love-triangle/death of a main character." It went from being great drama to second-rate melodrama.

[Deja Q]

7. It's innovation, you build on the basis of a decent post and made one just

as good.

Most TV shows qualify for this list. They're all squeezed of their last drop of money then left for dead. I'm amazed "The Golden Girls" ended on a good note...

My 10:


Roseanne (one season too long)
Star Trek TNG: DS9/Voyager/Enterprise (not just one show but the spinoffs based on it)
Saturday Night Live
The Cosby SHow
The Simpsons
Married With Children (though the final season, not originally planned to be final BTW, was a tremendous IMPROVEMENT over the previous 3 or 4 years... FOX killed it and never thanked the stars and crew for getting the network on the map.)
Match Game

[TroubleMan]

9. Mad TV

The first two or three seasons were absolutely hilarious. The last few seasons have been the same five skits over and over again. They don't have a lot of the original cast, and I think that's what's done it.

[xray s]

10. Twin Peaks

they "peaked" too early

(sorry!) :)

[PittPoliSci]

12. serious problems with your list...

xfiles never was good, neither was ER, Friends, Star Treak Voyager, Family Ties, the Cosby Show and the Real World.

Beavis and Butthead? Yeah, I agree.

Angel ROCKS

and I think South Park is better now than it was when it started. I didn't like it nearly as much then as I do now.

[Tom Kitten]

13. The original Saturday Night Live

the last year of the original cast they didn't have Belushi or Aykroyd so they gave roles to Al Franken, who was ok, and Father Guido Sarducci who I didn't find funny much at all...The magic was gone, but the beginning of the next year was the nadir of the series (Remember Charles Rocket and the "Rocket Report"?) It was so bad midway through the season they sacked the entire cast, except for Joe Piscopo, and brought in Eddie Murphy (a coup for them!) but also Tony Rosato and Robin Duke, the two most undistinguished members from SCTV. For a few years Murphy was the only reason to watch that show, then, eventually it got better again...Kind of like a roller coaster, up and down, up and down...

[EstimatedProphet]

14. Max Headroom

It started out as a very edgy anti-commercial show, but network TV just couldn't live with that...

[bhunt70]

15. most good shows go on too long.

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

16. Only one to add here

and I'm expecting flames from all of the sci-fi freaks out there...

Stargate SG-1. Season 8 barely sees Colonel Jack O'Niell at all. Richard Dean Anderson has pretty much announced his retirement from acting and decided to spend more time at home with his little girl. Meanwhile, the producers decided to leave RDA out of most of the scripts and pump two more seasons out while they try to get Stargate Atlantis out the door this summer.

I'd rather see the show end than to have the chemistry of the cast unbalanced because someone wanted to stay home.

[ForrestGump]

17. US television news broadcasts, in general

[Ksec]

18. dont laugh but I loved Baywatch when it first started.

That first year was a never missed show.

Maybe it was the bikinis but I like to think it was an escape from the brutal winters of Northern Ohio.