Ever notice how many "watercooler" TV shows crash and burn in a short while?

Are you talking about me?

What's a "watercooler"?

I read that as watercolor and I was thinking what in the hell is a watercolor show.

The truth is most primetime shows, especially the high concept ones, would work better under the cable, UK thing of being limited run series with a finite number of episodes and 6 to 8 episodes a season. Those shows cut out the filler.

Primetime soaps, in the present day, like Empire burn through story too quickly. Val went a whole season before she got her twins back. We didn't learn Who Shot JR until episode 3 in the new season. Also, when you rely on stunt casting and a bunch of famous guest stars it takes away from the other actors and the main storyline. The problem with Empire is that the show needs someone who understands soap opera in the writer's room.

Glee owns this thread.

Hopefully Mr. Robot can escape this pattern.

[quote]Primetime soaps, in the present day, like Empire burn through story too quickly.

Boy, ain't that true. Josh Schwartz has always been the worst at this. Ryan could have dragged out "Julie Cooper slept with her daughter's boyfriend, Luke" for months. He gave it up in either one or two episodes. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Sssshhhhh.... everyone hush up!

Don't tell OP that he doesn't have to watch shows he doesn't like.

The jokes on him!

The Famous Teddy Z. All Is Forgiven. The Powers That Be. South Central. All better than average forward looking shows that sadly fizzled back in the day.

Sometimes it's good to quit while you're ahead.

Heroes and Glee. Two shit shows that became a sensation only to crash and burn in season two. Why? Because neither was worth a fuck from the very beginning but the hype drowned out any sense of reason or taste.

I agree about Glee, but Heroes was great the first season. Don't know how they fucked it up so badly.

Glee was good for the first half of the first season. That is Ryan Murphy's thing. His shows tend to descend into self parody pretty quickly.

The show runner for Empire also created and wrote The L Word. That show also had a lot of buzz, but couldn't maintain the quality of the first season.

R5 The OC started out soooo good and he started blowing it so quickly. The Oliver storyline in season 1 was so bad. I remember Josh Schwartz was bragging about never having seen the 80s primetime soaps. And it was like, "Well, maybe you should see them."

Ally McBeal.

R13 And yet it was tied with Dharma & Greg as the longest running network TV show to debut during the disastrous 1997-1998 TV season. Both shows lasted 5 seasons. Every other show that premiered during that season ended before them.

Over the last decade or two, the problem is that there is too much content. You have to blow your entire load in the first season in order to get any sort of traction. And then if you get renewed, you have to scramble to try to one-up yourself.

In the first season of Heroes, it was all "save the cheerleader, save the world.” well, after you save the world, where the fuck do you go after that?

Killing Eve has the same problem. Season 1 was brilliant, but season 3 made it clear that they burned all their storyline in season 1.

good point, R15. That's why I hope there will be a revival of miniseries. Shows like "Chernobyl" and "Unbelievable" where no second season was possible were so refreshing.