Shows that completed their brilliant runs without jumping the shark

WKRP and Barney Miller.

I loved Hill Street but for me a huge part of that show went for a shit after Michael Conrad's death. Once the cast became bloated I lost interest.

 

As much as I would have loved to see Freaks and Geeks continue, having a one-year arc worked to its advantage.

Speaking of shark jumping, I ordered The Tournament (CBC mockumentary on youth hockey team), and as brilliant as the first season was, the second season was that bad. I was stunned at its utter lousiness. I know there was a stink when it was canceled, but that show deserved to be taken behind the barn and shot. So when I watch it, I try to forget the second season exists.

 

F&G is the James Dean of TV shows.

I don't disagree with being fearful of a potential, even probable, dropoff from such a high level.

Still though.... fuck NBC

 

The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Bob Newhart Show

 

Sirs, Madames,

Rockford. The Prisoner. Twilight Zone (the original). Futurama. The Bob Newhart Show. (Own all of them on DVD.)

Python. The Wire.

Those that had the plug pulled -- Freaks and Geeks, Buffalo Bill, The Slap Maxwell Story (the Dutchman!).

YHS, etc

 

St. Elsewhere? With the freaking snow globe? Are you kidding me?

 

Both of them got tired near the end. MTM especially dragged when she moved out of the funky old upstairs apartment into the cookie-cutter apartment building. When offbeat minor characters Rhoda and Phyllis spun off into their own shows, that also took some air out of the MTM sails, too.

The Bob Newhart Show got too schticky near the end.

Agree completely on Green Acres -- if anything, it picked up steam over its run. It started out as just cornpone Beverly Hillbillies spinoff, but as the show went on, they started to slip in some actually pretty witty political-parody stuff. They really could have weathered the CBS purge of its rural comedies (Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and GA) and gotten with the "All In The Family" relevance trend by really turning Oliver into a true anti-government libertarian.

As a Rockford Files freak like FOTF, I have to say that IMO, the show was never quite the same after the loss of Beth Davenport. Not that it was bad, but it did slack off a bit. (James Garner's somewhat erratic shooting schedule the last couple of seasons, partially the result of contract hassles with NBC and partially due to injuries incurred from doing his own stunts, also probably caused the show to sag a bit.)

 

West Wing never jumped the shark, but it wasn't as good after Sorkin left.

What about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You would think it would after Dawn appeared, but it defintiely served a purpose. And yes, I loved this show.

Barney Miller was solid from the first to the last.

I thought Homicide jumped after Andre Braugher left. Wasn't nearly good.

Freaks and Geeks wasn;t around long enough to have jumped. Just like Sportsnight.

 

Fawlty Towers

 

Buffy jumped the moment Angel left and was replaced by commando boy, followed by a further drowning with the Buffy-Spike romance. Great show up until then.

Shows that never jumped:

Cheers. Can't think of a crappy stretch from that great sitcom, which nailed its final episode.

Taxi has no bad reruns, but I suspect the final season doesn't get shown on TV a lot.

I want to say "Twin Peaks" with a straight face, but even I gave up on it way back when, before re-discovering its greatness later. Certain things that were cheesy then are better now.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (though the entire first two seasons were one massive shark jump; it would be a show that managed to reverse an initial jump).

 

I know it gets universally ripped -- and perhaps deservedly so -- for its regression as it went on, but The X-Files still hooks me.

It's the genre, the writing, Mark Snow's tremendous music and faced with Duchonvy leaving, I thought the characters of Dogget and (the hot) Reyes worked about as well as they could, all things considered.

I still have the late-night eps on TNT all night at the office when I'm there all by my lonesome.

OK, proceed to rip me for this. LOL

 

The West Wing jumped the shark in the first or second post-Sorkin episode when Bartlett uttered the craptacular, "My little girl is a case number?" line.