Enough is enough: why TV shows should know when to call it a day

There’s more than a couple of things that most shows on television could learn from Lost, without a doubt the most significant being that the show’s producers called for an end-date during its third season. I honestly wish more shows would follow Lost’s example. These days, the values of storytelling seem to have been sacrificed in favour of profit. Nobody seems to remember that, yes, a story has a beginning, but it’s also meant to have a middle and an end! Frankly, I’ve had enough of it.

Of course I do understand that television is a money-making business. However, there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed. It’s that line where a comedy’s jokes stop being fresh (see Two and a Half Men) and when a drama stops being dramatic (see Smallville). That same line also marks the point where the ratings start to drop and nobody feels like buying the DVD anymore. So… if you think about it, how can producers let their shows even get close to that point?

The majority of TV isn’t made for mindless entertainment (I’m thinking of story-based TV here, so that rules out reality shows that actually are for mindless entertainment). There’s an incredible amount of creative process and thought that goes into what eventually ends up on your screen. So, the crux of my little rant is that if a producer ends up compromising their own creativity just to keep a show on the air - how is it actually worth it anymore? Surely it’s lost what made it worth watching in the first place!

I have to watch on helplessly as almost every show I watch gets given more and more seasons without any hint as to when their final one will be. Two of my personal favourites, Burn Notice and Dexter, just got handed 2 more seasons each! It’s more than a little annoying to get invested in a show (like Heroes) only to realise that it’s just delaying for as long as possible (probably until it’s cancelled) - and that there’s never actually going to be a well thought-out, satisfying conclusion.

And it seems that as the shows without direction get renewed, those that genuinely seem to be going somewhere get cancelled. I’m still mourning Pushing Daisies, which was a fantastic breath of fresh air; a really great piece of television that was killed off about a year ago - before its second season had even concluded.

So what I’m really trying to say is that it’s high time TV shows were able to tell stories that end gracefully. Of course, there are exceptions; some shows are able to continually entertain year-on-year (Friends happens to be the only example that springs to mind though).

Television shouldn’t be created simply on a season by season basis - I think that producers should know, or at least have an idea of, where it’s all going to finish off. At the end of the day, conventional storytelling is going to be more satisfying to us as viewers. Seeing the same thing over and over again has very little entertainment value.

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