What prompts these questions and this blog post is a conversation I had in the comments to one of my Downton recaps a few weeks ago. One lovely TN reader said that she was done watching Downton. She announced that she hasn’t liked it since the first season and she’s over it.
Now, I love Downton Abbey, so I don’t personally get her viewpoint at all. But everyone has a right to their own tastes in entertainment, and I told her that I thought life is far too short to watch something you aren’t enjoying. (Especially not several seasons’ worth!)
But the whole thing got me thinking: when do you abandon TV shows?
If I’m going to erase a show from my DVR line-up, it’s most likely to be in the first season while everyone else is still raving about it. I am a fairly decisive person and I know what I like. Usually, once I’ve found what I’m looking for (character driven shows and writers who can think up decent plot arcs for those characters), I will watch the show from beginning to end.
There are exceptions, certainly, but I can only think of a handful. There are shows that jump the shark, and I quit watching (Revenge and The Following are the two most recent). But usually, if a show does start to lose whatever it was that made me love it, it’s toward the end. At that point, even if I’m not loving a show the way I did when I started it, I’ll finish it. Because I have to know how it all turns out, and I love the nostalgic sadness of finales, even if they’re a year or two overdue.
In any long-running TV show, there are always going to be a few floundering episodes (ok, sometimes a whole season) after a beloved character dies or a long-standing couple break up. I’m guessing this is probably when a show loses a lot of the audience.
Some shows, though, will get a lot better once you get through the rough patch. Take Friends: the fourth season with all the Ross-Rachel fighting and Ross marrying a British chick he barely knew was annoying. But the fifth season with Monica and Chandler sneaking around might have been one of the better seasons of the whole show.
SO…your turn. Do you ever abandon a TV Show? Or do you watch a show to the bitter end? Do you find a new show to love every season and stop watching shows you loved previously? If you watch shows for a few season before you abandon them, when does the show lose you? Why? Let’s discuss!
