Top 12 TV Shows That Overstayed Their Welcome
Before you rip on ABC for renewing “Desperate Housewives” for another season and picking up “Scrubs” from NBC, take a lesson in television shark-jumping history — BWE.tv celebrates the 2008 tv renewal season with the following list of
12 TV Shows That Very Obviously Overstayed Their Welcome:
12. That 70s Show Aired: 1998-2006
Number Of Episodes: 200
Wore Out Its Welcome: The show initially takes place in the year 1976 but stays on the air for eight years, meaning that at some point, the space-time continuum is slowed to keep the decade theme intact.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again:
Topher Grace and
Ashton Kutcher both leave the cast in 2005, but the producers feel obligated to satisfactorily conclude the complex Red / Hyde subplot.
On The Other Hand: I don’t care if it takes eight years, dag blastit, we’re gonna convince people that
Laura Prepon is hot!
11. Home Improvement Aired: 1991-1999
Number Of Episodes: 204
Wore Out Its Welcome:
Jonathan Taylor Thomas leaves the cast for Hollywood to focus on turning
Man of the House into a blockbuster franchise.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again: In the show’s final season, the Mark character goes goth, and Brad (who is now 6′8″, 290) gets caught with pot, though the heavyhanded DUI episode is scrapped after
Tim Allen gets a DUI in real life (
no joke).
On The Other Hand: Did you know this show was still on the air when “The Matrix” came out?
10. NYPD Blue Aired: 1993-2005
Number Of Episodes: 261
Wore Out Its Welcome:
Jimmy Smits’ character contracts a mysterious heart disease, receives a heart transplant, then dies when his body rejects his new heart. The series continues unfazed for seven more years.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again:
David Milch leaves his Executive Producer post in 2000 and goes on to create
Deadwood; in the meantime, Jimmy Smits’ ghost returns as a ’spiritual guide’ to Sipowicz (and a harbinger of their inevitably nonexistant post-
Blue careers).
On The Other Hand: “Son of a bitch” was pretty edgy on tv in 1993.
9. The Drew Carey Show Aired: 1995-2004
Number Of Episodes: 233
Wore Out Its Welcome: In Season Seven, Drew illegaly and zanily marries Kate and his old girlfriend Nicki at the same time; when Kate finds out, she marries a sailor and moves to Guam, leaving the cast in the eighth season.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again:
“Weird” Al rips on the show’s continuing gimmick episodes (”Drew Live,” “What’s Wrong With This Episode?”) by referring to a special “pig Latin episode of Drew Carey” in his song “
Couch Potato,” a zany parody of “Lose Yourself.”
On The Other Hand: Even when the absurdity grew tiresome, at least it wasn’t “Yes, Dear.” And it kept Drew Carey off “The Price Is Right” for as long as it could.
8. Family Matters Aired: 1989-1997
Number Of Episodes: 215
Wore Out Its Welcome: In subsequent seasons, Urkel invents a cloning machine and makes his suave alter ego Stefan Urquelle into a permanent, separate character; also, his Urkelbot falls in love with Laura then becomes a police officer.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again: For its 9th season, the show moves to CBS, which simply can’t handle its newfound in-your-face sci-fi edginess.
On The Other Hand: The permanent damage Jaleel White suffered from contorting his vocal chords to make the Urkel voice at age 21 was surely worth the windfall of
timeless catchphrases.
7. Dallas Aired: 1978-1991
Number of Episodes: 357
Wore Out Its Welcome: The famed “Who Shot J.R.” cliffhanger episode aired in 1980, but the show still went on until 1991.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again: The entire 1985-86 season in which Patrick Duffy’s character was killed turned out to be a dream, and the show
still stayed on the air until nineteen-ninety-f*cking-one.
On The Other Hand: It was the 80s, what else was TV gonna air? A “Max Headroom” spinoff?
6. According To Jim Aired: 2001-Present
Number Of Episodes: 164
Wore Out Its Welcome: Finalization of cast, show title.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again: “Arrested Development” is canceled in 2006 after 53 episodes. Interpet as you will.
On The Other Hand: The show’s Neilsen ratings provide a numerical measure of how doomed the country is at any given point.
5. Beverly Hills 90210 Aired: 1990-2000
Number Of Episodes: 296
Wore Out Its Welcome: After eight seasons and 244 episodes, a 30-year-old
Jason Priestley finally drops out of the cast, though thankfully for the craft, he retains his Executive Producer credit.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again:
Melrose Place, the
90210 spinoff, was itself canceled after 226 episodes.
On The Other Hand: The year 2000 might as well have just counted as the 90s, what with the computer paranoia and all. (And it’s
comin’ back!)
4. ER Aired: 1994-Present
Number Of Episodes: 309
Wore Out Its Welcome:
George Clooney leaves the show (2000) to pursue Oscar-filled career, followed by
Anthony Edwards and
Eriq La Salle (2002), presumably for the same reason.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again:
John Stamos unironically joins the cast (2005).
On The Other Hand: Allows parents to voyeuristically watch doctors f*cking one another and imagine the career their children could have chosen.
3. Law & Order Aired: 1990-Present
Number Of Episodes: 410
Wore Out Its Welcome:
Jerry Orbach sadly passes away in 2004, leaving his enormous, unfillable making-wisecrack-about-dead-body-before-cutting-to-opening-theme shoes vacant.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again: Jerry Orbach is still dead. The show continues to air.
On The Other Hand: The franchise has employed more aspiring New York actors than “Sex and the City,” “The Sopranos,” and the Stardust Diner combined.
2. America’s Funniest Home Videos Aired: 1990-Present
Number of Episodes: 407
Wore Out Its Welcome:
Bob Saget left the program in 1997, robbing the show of its interestingly awkward “filthy comedian pandering to middle-American families” undercurrent.
Wore Out Its Welcome Again: Theme song was re-recorded in 1998 with an instrumental ska theme reminiscent of the
Mighty Mighty Bosstones and has not been updated since.
Lou Bega not available?
On The Other Hand: People + Object + Nuts = Small Screen
Platinum
1. The Simpsons Aired: 1989-Present
Number Of Episodes: 420
Wore Out Its Welcome: In “Homer’s Enemy,” a funny but bizarre episode from Season 8, the character of Frank Grimes is introduced then eventually goes insane and accidentally kills himself after being unable to come to grips with Homer’s bumbling success. Producer
George Meyer once (semi-jokingly, but correctly) speculated that this was when the series “lost its moral grounding.”
Wore Out Its Welcome Again: In “The Principal and the Pauper,” Principal Skinner is revealed to be an imposter for the “real” Seymour Skinner voiced by celeb guest
Martin Sheen, but the episode concludes with a judge granting the namesake to the false Skinner and decreeing that everything be “just like it was” before anyone found out. On the Season 9 DVD,
Matt Groening admits this is one of his least favorite episodes.
Wore Out Its Welcome Yet Again: The Simpsons travel to Japan, Brazil, Africa, England, Italy, and more, making Homer’s line “The Simpsons are going to Delaware!!!” seem less like a joke and more like an accurate encapsulation of the show’s understandably exhausted storylines.
On The Other Hand: If
The Beatles had stayed together for eight legendary years, then two or three ok years, then four flat-out worthless, anger-inducing years, before settling into a groove of half mediocre songs, half good songs that don’t sound anything like The Beatles, that would’ve been better than two of them dying, right?
Right…???
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Wings (172 episodes),
Touched By An Angel (212 episodes),
Girlfriends (172 episodes),
The King of Queens (207 episodes),
Saved By The Bell (200+ if you count “College Years” and “New Class,” which we DON’T)
Also, we specifically omitted
Saturday Night Live because it really hasn’t “overstayed” its welcome, it’s just been cyclically on and off for periods ever since its inception and remains popular and relevant, if admittedly terrible at times.
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Top 12 TV shows that overstayed their welcome
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