To start of, I belive that a show going on past its prime dose damge to the show rather than having no affect.  There are three shows out there now that I love, but it is too late the damage has been done. 
      The frist show is Degrassi The Next Generation, gritty Candadian show about adolecents that dose not know when its time is up.  Almost all of the origional cast is gone,  the characters have become flat one dimensional sterotypes. This show should have ended with a great season six (the sixth season sucked,  the last great season was five.) 
    The next show that should be cnacel is Smallville.  This was an awsome show that had some cool origonal ideas in the begining, like Clark and Lex being friends.  This show now lacks almost everyone from the origional cast and untimatly failed because it refused to make permanant daring changes and for every step forward it would take, it would also take two steps backwards.  For instance having Clark and Louis on the road of getting together and than having Lana come back for a few episdoes and breaking them up for no reason.  Come on now Clark looks like he is forty years old now.  For god sakes will you have him fly already.  He can not stay Superboy forever.  This show has been renewed for a tenth season that is bound to be a train wreck. 
      The third show that should have bitten the dust by now is One Tree Hill.  It had a good frist four seasons, and had a great idea for a fifth season, which was skipping ahead four years until the cast had graduated from college.  Sounds good right, well it was not, because everybody pretty much got a cookie cutter life right away or with in a few season.  I mean it was really over the top; not only did a character named Haily become a teacher, she was also a music star.  Another one was not only a basketball coach but also a famouse author, the list go's on and on.  For a show that strted of with character stuggling  with advirsty, it certainly spirled into weak soap type plots, i.e a murdering Nanny.  Oh yeah how long is this Dan grudge going to go on.  This show also feature the most obnoxius child since Jerry Maguire.  One Tree Hill has saddly been renewed for a painful eigth season.

I think American Idol has to stop

Donnie

Smallville's seasons seven and eight were awful. Lack of ideas and consitency and then the forced return of Lana.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the ninth season and since ten is the last and I hope they don't pull an amnesia stunt on Lois this could become a really good final year. It would be the first time that Lois knew him before he became you know who.

Quoting Taro:

Quote:
This is just my opinion of course and it may sound like a tirade, but I think virtually all reality TV shows have outlasted their welcome. They take people off the streets, put them in a semi-scripted environment and bank on the audience attaching themselves to the emotional distress of those people, aided by smart editing and camera work. It's cheap to make and attracts lots of viewers, but in my opinion it destroys quality TV.

I've seen a lot of fiction TV shows that still had a lot of potential or were still going strong that were canceled. Some shows clearly showed that the people working on it poured their hearts into it. I'm thinking of shows like Firefly, Dollhouse, Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles and lot's more. They have tenfold the quality of a show like American Idol, yet all got canceled prematurely.

So basically, I say bring back the strongly-written, well-acted fiction TV and write off some of those reality TV shows like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and so on.

Amen to that, Taro. Well said.

Rory

Quoting V'ger:

Quote:
Smallville's seasons seven and eight were awful. Lack of ideas and consitency and then the forced return of Lana.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the ninth season and since ten is the last and I hope they don't pull an amnesia stunt on Lois this could become a really good final year. It would be the first time that Lois knew him before he became you know who.

I am waiting for the Blu Ray to see the ninth season.