Why does literally every series decline in quality over time? Are there any that have maintained their quality all the way through?
I mean I can understand writers running out of ideas, but it's more than that. The plots, characters and writing seem to devolve into mush.
Pic pretty related. Started off great and is now complete shit
This fits your trend, but it's always sunny just aired it's 11th season and had one of the funniest episodes of all time in it
>>68918297
star trek: deep space nine
perfect from s1 to s7
Sopranos and The Wire remained quality for the most part, a few dumb subplots here and there but never went to complete shit.
>>68918395
Don't delete this
LOST was solid all the way through
Oz
Not necessarily true.
But I think it's also includes a shift in writers, ideas, who the audience is, etc. It's a lot of things. It could also be being burnt out. If play just zombie games, you might bored of the genre. So you might get bored with seeing the same characters after 100 episodes. But there is no one answer.
I find some TV shows that last, have an off season or a few episodes:
>South Park had a few bad seasons but last season was overall great
>King of the Hill ended before it fell too much, though last few seasons are definitely weaker
If we include other genres: video games (Ace Attorney, Pokemon, Elder Scrolls [yes, really. The originals might be better but the later aren't bad]), manga (Negima, One Piece [not personally], and anime (HxH, Rurouni kenshin,etc), you don't often see the same idea that later seasons suck (they exist but not as often).
>>68918516
lol, definitely not.
>not watching the best show on tv
The Americans literally gets better every episode.
>>68918431
Even the writers admitted they had no idea what they were doing
>>68918297
>LOST remained brilliant throughout.
>Breaking Bad got better as it progressed.
>Sherlock (BBC) is still going on and still great.
>The Sopranos remained at a high quality.
>Spartacus was 9/10 the entire time.
I personally think great series get worse as it progresses because they don't have to prove themselves anymore, their show is popular, gets high views all the times so writers push for shock value more than actual good storylines. It takes a really great writer to maintain a high quality story once the show is famous.
>>68918297
When did it go to shit for you? For me it was season 5. It was declining after season 2 but still good up until then imo
>>68918389
I thought sunny took a serious dip in season 8 but it recovered after that. Season 3-4 was the peak of Sunny.
>>68918297
Mad Men was nearly perfect but it could have been shorter.
>>68918799
Season 4
>>68918900
What was wrong with season 4? Season 4 was fucking awesome.
I was happy until the 4th season.
>>68918413
>muh phantom cereal killer
nigga pls
Both The Wire and Sopranos turned to complete shit, don't even try to front, brah
>>68918719
never watched oz, what season did it go to shit?
>>68918847
The seasons it spanned was almost too long, almost, but they ended it on time. If they made another season, it would have been too much. Don's character was already decently fleshed out, we understood his erratic personality outside the office, yet the methodical almost Hamlet-esque thinker in the office. It was fun analyzing him. He was a paper tiger who rediscovered himself. That in extremely abbreviated form, was the dose I got from throughout the seasons. I could write a whole essay on the character, but after that last episode, it seemed like a copacetic wrap-up to the character. If we had seen him go back to the office and watched another season once over, we would have gotten bored of the pattern that we were slowly realizing in Don, at least I would have.
>>68918297
Game of Thrones ran out of source material, obviously. The latter books have also declined to a degree as well, GRRM let the story get away from him, but they still feel like "ASOIAF." The HBO writers don't seem to understand how to write in the GoT universe without training wheels.
That being said, most shows that decline over time do so because there is no overall narrative to follow. Eventually it is inevitable for a show like Seinfeld or CSI to decline for the reason you said. They un out of ideas or the formula gets stale. Some sooner than others. Simpsons was good for a long time before it went to shit, someone else pointed out It's Always Sunny is still pretty damn good. I think it's really a matter of knowing when to sign off. Breaking Bad worked well because they knew when to quit. Granted the BB people knew the story had to come to an end at some point. Most TV shows aren't made with that sort of mindset though.
>>68918297
The IT Crowd never dipped
>>68919575
But the "Winter is coming" theme has been slowly festering subtly throughout all the seasons, its been several years, but that foreboding feeling you get has stood strong and integrated. It's going to be interesting to see what happens to the universe when shit goes down at The Wall. There's still plenty of political material and intrigue to go along with that event, not including the political utilization of the dragons. Everyone is getting super powers or some shit as well, most of the starks that is. The universe has never been more chaotic than at this moment.
>>68918964
I think a lot of people dislike season 4 because it was the first season to really start making dramatic departures from the books, but that was more by omission and simplification. I think season 4 was pretty solid. Season 5 is where things really started going off the rails.
>>68918787
>implying lost wasn't shit post season 4
welcome underage
>>68918297
Mad Men was great until the end, though it did peak about halfway.
>its another tits and dragons thread
holy shit how many more weeks
>>68918297
Scrubs was perfect until the end
>>68918964
Season 4 was pretty forgettable for me and there was too much pointless OC.
>>68919653
Season 5 is where it really started losing me. There were some definite highlights, but overall it seemed to decline. Dorne in particular stands out as just awful. They seemed to not understand what made Oberyn so likeable, thinking it was just that he was a badass fighter and trying to replicate it with the Sand Snakes who were just pale imitations with no real depth or redeeming qualities at all. They ruined the character's of Stannis and Alliser Thorne by making them outright evil, they completely reset all the growth they had given Sansa, they dropped Bran's storyline as soon as it got interesting, they gave Ramsay a ridiculous advantage for reason other than plot convenience. It just started to get really sloppy.
lost and sopranos aka the bastions of tvkino were fantastic from start to finish
>>68919894
It's been said a million times, but season five is where Game of Thrones stopped being a show that wouldn't cheat to help the good guys, and became a show that would actively cheat to help the bad guys.
>>68918297
>Are there any that have maintained their quality all the way through?
Breaking Bad did a pretty good job.
The Seinfeld seasons were pretty consistent throughout the entire run.
I think part of the issue with most series is that most of them don't have an end game in mind, and the writing is done at the last minute, rather than planned out in advance.
>>68919894
>>68919945
They've created a dangerous universe where anyone you know can die at any moment. The viewer doesn't hold any more hope in seeing the characters they love delved into longer than the conditions the world of Game of Thrones allows. Seems like a pretty interesting state of affairs for me, and I'll keep watching because I have no idea wtf is going to happen. The question is, anon, why will you keep on watching? maybe for the same reasons hey?
>>68918297
>Why does literally every series decline in quality over time? Are there any that have maintained their quality all the way through?
Breaking Bad did.
>I mean I can understand writers running out of ideas, but it's more than that. The plots, characters and writing seem to devolve into mush.
It goes like this: you have some good ideas for your series, you film the first couple of seasons and get good feedback, it goes to your head so you become much less self critical and start producing shit.
>Pic pretty related. Started off great and is now complete shit
Perfect example. The GoT was extremely well received mostly because of the source material. The showrunners then thought they must be geniuses so they stopped following the books and invented their own storylines and suddenly everybody is wondering why the show has gone to shit.
>>68919998
Breaking Bad didn't have an endgame. Granted, they did realize that at some point the story would have to come to some kind of conclusion.
>>68920012
You are one hundred percent right, that is GoT's strongest quality. The problem with the latter seasons is just that the writers will have people behave out of character a lot of times. And the writing is downright sloppy at point (ie, teleporting sneks)
>>68920098
Don't forget to show up for snek court you pleb
>>68918297
shit gets popular and they're able to become more lazy
it's really that simple
>>68919778
>I can't read
>>68918297
your either some sjw who never watched the show just cries about how "bad" you think it is because some feminist said to
or
your some optimist who thought good guys should always win and why isnt every movie a disney movie
in the case of the latter growth the fuck up.breaking bad did well so did the sapranos and the wire as well as the walking dead. you know what they got in common bad shit happens to good people
Holy shit a thread with actual discussion. Well done guys; not even having a go at you.
>>68920236
shut up nigger
>>68920205
Are you retarded? I don't know where you got any of that shit so I assume you're projecting pretty hard. I was asking why many shows inevitably decline in quality and used GoT as a pretty universally agreed upon example.
GoT has highs and lows each season. People get attached to certain characters and dislike others. For me the tyrion and Jon(rip) scenes were the best, but I hated the Sansa and dany ones. So obviously if you are biased against characters when they get more screen time you're not gonna like it.
Also, the show is really different from the books now. They've disregarded several important storylines, and are pretty much running it on very little source material. It's hard to replicate the last two books when you've stopped using the iron islands and targaryan stories.
>>68920211
I think I'm in love with Shannon Woodward
>>68918297
Breaking Bad is the only show I've seen that was high quality all the way through (I suppose the Sopranos and Mad Men might also be, but I haven't seen them because in all honesty they never caught m interest)
>>68920286
Doesn't Martin sort of advise the writers where the story's supposed to go?
I sort of figure they were intentionally drifting the show in a different direction.
The Sopranos consistently improved with every season. Six Feet Under, Mad Men and Deadwood were great throughout. The Shield got better too.
>>68918297
>Why does literally every series decline in quality over time?
Passion in a project wanes over time.
People criticize it, actors are assholes, execs are retards, all the assistant writers want their super great neat idea to make it in, the catering guys whine they're not getting paid enough, the lighting people bring their kid in because the stupid shit slapped another kid and got unexpectedly suspended, someone parks in your fucking space which you need because you have important shit to do, marketing department keeps wanting you to put in more twists so they can hype it up, talent keeps acting like it's their crappy phoned in performance that bring in the viewers and not the nights you went without sleep trying to get the right lines for a character to say, people you don't know call you a faggot because you cut out a character they liked, some faggot in effects wants to do a full blue screen scene because he just learned this "really neat trick that'll make it look really fucking awesome, promise", he's mad because you said no and spreads a rumor you fucked a horse this one time at a camp.
Passion....it just wanes.
>>68920788
damn senpai
creative freedom is always at its best when theres no suits and shitty fans breathing down your neck.
>>68920012
when you say the same reasons HEY
irl would you actually say that? or eh/ayyy?
>>68919735
>implying I'm underage
>>68920012
except for that time people came back to life
>>68918431
Season 5 gave me cancer and hepatitis
>>68918297
Hardhome is GOT's best episode to date and it was literally just aired several months ago. Calm your tits nigger
>>68922252
>literally just aired
>several months ago
what did he mean by this?
>>68922252
We did it reddit!
>>68919152
>Sopranos turned to complete shit
yeah no
a seventh season probably would have dropped in quality but some of S6 are the best parts of the series
>>68918297
You have to factor in the Americanisation of tv shows more than anything, and how that becomes stronger and stronger as more Americans watch it. The sort of stuff that Americans (and Brits now too, as we all want to be Americans) flood to that make tv shows shit:
>nothing happening all episode until a cliffhanger at the end that is resolved in the first 2 minutes of the next episode
>shock value shit, e.g. more and more characters dying for no good reason
>everything being connected: "you know this new character, he's actually this other character's long lost brother ommmmggg"
>plot twists on plot twists on plot twists
>similar to shock factor, memeable events: you don't need a complex plot, just throw in events that people talk about at the water cooler the next day
>>68918760
this. the americans actually rises in terms of quality
>>68918787
breaking bad became too plot driven edgy walter quips instead of nerdy walter.
Sherlock s3 sucks balls
I'm rewatching the series and just finished s4. In the early seasons all sub plots where good (except sansa fuck her) even the dragon cunt. When see got her unsullied I go goosebumps. Now everything feels tired. I can easily remember good scenes in all the seasons except s5. What was good then? Cersei getting shamed maybe. The whole show is just running on fumes now desu
>>68920205
everything about this post is hilarious
