Lost

[poliphilo]

The problem with American TV is that successful shows are allowed (no, required) to run and run until every last drop of vital existence has been squeezed out of them. Until there's nothing left but rind and pips. It's a terrible shame.

Most of the shows I have loved in recent years have died the death long before they were finally put out of their misery.

Deep Space Nine
The X Files
Xena
Buffy.

I fear for the Simpsons. There have been some really ropey, unfunny episodes recently. And then there's Deadwood- which is showing alarming signs of being all washed up after a single season.

And here comes Lost, which seems expressly designed to be so open ended it can run forever. I watched the first double episode and fidgeted. The whole point of it is delay- deferred gratification. Do I have the stamina to stick with it for seven, eight years until all becomes clear? I doubt it. I know from sad experience that by the time we get there the whole concept will have become so jaded, the plotlines so tangled and far-fetched, that I will long since have ceased to care.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's not just American TV.

I first noticed it with situation comedy: you'd have a bright idea about a situation which would generate one or two, three if you were very lucky, seasons of funny shows. After this, you'd run out of ideas about that situation, but you'd have an audience which was familiar with the characters and the style (the brand, in fact), so you'd carry on: think Drop the Dead Donkey, which stopped being about news media, and Third Rock from the Sun, which stopped being about aliens. And it would take the audience a couple of series to notice that this wasn't fresh or funny any more, and get it dropped.

But it happens with books, too, a formula that's so successful that the author can't resist the pressure to do more of the same: Conan Doyle killing off Sherlock Holmes - and then bringing him back (it isn't even a recent phenomenon).

The solution is in our hands, I suppose: if we stopped demanding more of the same - stopped watching, stopped buying the books - they'd stop giving us it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Last of the Summer Wine.... aaaargh!

I'm so glad that Ricky Gervais baled out of the Office after two seasons and a couple of specials. That was entirely the right decision.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

which stopped being about news media, and Third Rock from the Sun, which stopped being about aliens./i>

Exactly. Well said.

I liked the early seasons of Andy Griffith, about the small-town sheriff and his son, back in the sixties. By the end, the series had become a caricature of itself, but it was delightful and occasionally moving in its first seasons.