Season 3 = Television Death?

[WampusCrandle]

so, with Heroes in it's 3rd season, and it not being as great as I thought it would be, I wonder if the 3rd seasons of tv shows are destined to be bad. as of right now, here is the list of great shows that have/ had/ or considered to have awful 3rd seasons for whatever reason:

Heroes
Lost
Seinfeld
Family Guy (got cancelled third season)
Weeds (personally, it didn't hold like the first two seasons)

those are some more current. am I alone in thinking this?

hippo and Hx3 are right - i hold judgement on 30 Rock until it ends

[TheGameHHH]

30 Rock is literally 2 episodes deep into the 3 season....

Weeds 3rd season was literally the best season of all.

sadly sir, you are wrong.

[King Hippos Bandaid]

I kinda agree

but I still get lots of larfs from 30 Rock

please cross 30 Rock off until the 3rd season comes to a conclusion

[Freitag]

It's widely stated that Star Trek: TNG's third season is one of the best.

Battlestar Galactica's third season was pretty frakkin good too.

[NYHCmikeX]

Season 3 of Sunny was good. 4 is shaping up to be strong too.

[Pestz4Evah]

The american Office started sucking in season 3 and is unwatchable now.

[WampusCrandle]

maybe i'm wrong then ... i just thought that because many of the shows i like had a so-so third season

[TheMojoPin]

There are far more shows that had great or good third seasons and went on to have other good seasons than shows that tanked it then.

[NYHCmikeX]

Season 3 of Sunny was good.

[KnoxHarrington]

The third season of Seinfeld was good. It's the season where the show kind of figured out what it was.

[brettmojo]

Yeah there really is no third season jinx. Simpsons was great in season 3, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis were great. It's not like the movie thing when third installments are usually shit. The only exception to that rule I can remember is The Last Crusade.

[SatCam]

I guess one could say shows that started out very strong (Heros, Lost, The Office) started going downhill around the third season. Shows that didn't start off as strong (Seinfeld, The Simpsons, & more) had some of their best work around the third season

[TheGameHHH]

so, with Heroes in it's 3rd season, and it not being as great as I thought it would be, I wonder if the 3rd seasons of tv shows are destined to be bad. as of right now, here is the list of great shows that have/ had/ or considered to have awful 3rd seasons for whatever reason:

Heroes
Lost
Seinfeld
Family Guy (got cancelled third season)
Weeds (personally, it didn't hold like the first two seasons)

those are some more current. am I alone in thinking this?

hippo and Hx3 are right - i hold judgement on 30 Rock until it ends

I am fucking loving the nickname "Hx3", call me that from now on. Thanks Wampus.

[GreatAmericanZero]

The third season of Seinfeld was good. It's the season where the show kind of figured out what it was.

yeah i agree, the 3rd season was when it started getting good. I hate the first 2 seasons. The same can be said with the Simpsons...the 3rd season was when it finally figured out what it was suppose to be

[hammersavage]

Heroes was bad halfway thru the 1st season.

the following is sarcasm:

But man 30 Rock season three blows. I mean, 44 minutes into the season and its gotta be the worst thing ever aired on tv. Tina Fey is overrated too.

[WampusCrandle]

I am fucking loving the nickname "Hx3", call me that from now on. Thanks Wampus.

will do!

[AnnoyedGrunt]

Oz and 24 both had fine 3rd seasons but ended up slipping in the 4th.

On the other hand, the 3rd season of Chappelle's Show was shaping up so poorly that it didn't even get finished.

[K.C.]

so, with Heroes in it's 3rd season, and it not being as great as I thought it would be, I wonder if the 3rd seasons of tv shows are destined to be bad. as of right now, here is the list of great shows that have/ had/ or considered to have awful 3rd seasons for whatever reason:

Heroes
Lost
Seinfeld
Family Guy (got cancelled third season)
Weeds (personally, it didn't hold like the first two seasons)

those are some more current. am I alone in thinking this?

hippo and Hx3 are right - i hold judgement on 30 Rock until it ends


Season 3 of Lost actually saved that show.

Season 2 was the one that pretty much sucked, save a couple episodes in the middle of the season, and the finale.

And I don't know where the Seinfeld comment comes from.



I would say that the most notable decline for shows is from Season 1 to Season 2.

There's a lot of shows that just aren't meant to go longer than a season *cough*Californication*cough*

Usually if a show survives a Season 2, and makes it to Season 3, it starts to get better again.

I would be fine, however, if the first piece of Obama legislation is to pass a unanimous mandate that no show makes it past four seasons.

Very, very, very few shows hold up past Season 4.

[K.C.]

Season 3 of Sunny was good. 4 is shaping up to be strong too.

If I'm being honest, I have to say I'm not really digging Season 4 of Sunny.

There's been a few good episodes, but a lot of it has fallen flat for me.

[K.C.]

Heroes was bad from the pilot.

Fixed it.

[GreatAmericanZero]

I LOVED the first season of "Its always sunny in Philly" but when the 2nd season started and they added Danny DeVito i thought it got soooooooooooo bad. Like every episode became "whats wacky Danny DeVito up too? OH Danny Devito is betting with chinese people!" yuck

everyone tells me that in season 3 it gets back on track and becomes great again, but i never came back after season 2

[WampusCrandle]

If I'm being honest, I have to say I'm not really digging Season 4 of Sunny.

There's been a few good episodes, but a lot of it has fallen flat for me.

i felt that the style and writing was a bit different from the rest of the Sunny seasons.

at any rate, i came up with this question when listening to extra footage and interviews of Ricky Gervais, sayin' that after the second season a show gets stale.

[TheGameHHH]

I LOVED the first season of "Its always sunny in Philly" but when the 2nd season started and they added Danny DeVito i thought it got soooooooooooo bad. Like every episode became "whats wacky Danny DeVito up too? OH Danny Devito is betting with chinese people!" yuck

everyone tells me that in season 3 it gets back on track and becomes great again, but i never came back after season 2

its been great for all 4 seasons. you cant hit a homerun every episode but on the whole every season has been great.

[K.C.]

i felt that the style and writing was a bit different from the rest of the Sunny seasons.

at any rate, i came up with this question when listening to extra footage and interviews of Ricky Gervais, sayin' that after the second season a show gets stale.

Yeah, I've heard Ricky say that before.

I think he's right in terms of sitcoms, or dramadies.

If you look at the US Office now, there's some individually funny things from episode to episode, but the overall storyline has just blown apart completely. There's only enough story to that show for two seasons.

For sci-fi, mystery type shows I think you can usually get a good four seasons or so, because it's a slower unraveling of the story, and the audience usually has a higher attention span.

[K.C.]

I LOVED the first season of "Its always sunny in Philly" but when the 2nd season started and they added Danny DeVito i thought it got soooooooooooo bad. Like every episode became "whats wacky Danny DeVito up too? OH Danny Devito is betting with chinese people!" yuck

everyone tells me that in season 3 it gets back on track and becomes great again, but i never came back after season 2

It's still a decent show, but I kind of agree with you that the Season 1, DeVito-free episodes are still the best.

I think he's the worst part of the show.

[TheMojoPin]

It's still a decent show, but I kind of agree with you that the Season 1, DeVito-free episodes are still the best.

I think he's the worst part of the show.

I think the first few episodes of season 1 are a total snore, mainly because Charlie hasn't been unleashed. You get flashes of what Charlie would become in episodes 2 and 7, but he's so much more restrained and less crazy/stupid that they're almost kind of boring to watch in hindsight.

I don't have a problem with DeVito on the show. People talk like he dominates it, but for a "name," he's used pretty sparingly and almost like a prop.

[TheMojoPin]

Yeah, I've heard Ricky say that before.

I think he's right in terms of sitcoms, or dramadies.

If you look at the US Office now, there's some individually funny things from episode to episode, but the overall storyline has just blown apart completely. There's only enough story to that show for two seasons.

Eh...the two shows are so different. The US show very quickly expanded the cast compared the the UK show. The rest of the office staff in the UK version are funny, but they never really come out of the background. The US version is much more of an ensemble show and structured much differently because of it.

[K.C.]

I think the first few episodes of season 1 are a total snore, mainly because Charlie hasn't been unleashed. You get flashes of what Charlie would become in episodes 2 and 7, but he's so much more restrained and less crazy/stupid that they're almost kind of boring to watch in hindsight.

I don't have a problem with DeVito on the show. People talk like he dominates it, but for a "name," he's used pretty sparingly and almost like a prop.

He doesn't dominate...it's just that he doesn't feel like a fit with the rest of the cast. He comes across as awkward to the show.

Eh...the two shows are so different. The US show very quickly expanded the cast compared the the UK show. The rest of the office staff in the UK version are funny, but they never really come out of the background. The US version is much more of an ensemble show and structured much differently because of it.

The essential plots are the same, but the difference is that since the US has done so many more episodes, they've had to do those subplots with all the other characters, whereas, the UK version had a set beginning and end.

As a result, since they haven't said when they're going to end the US version, they keep stretching the main plots with Michael, and Jim & Pam very, very thinly across all the episode, while they fill with the secondary characters.

Some of it works, some of it doesn't...that's the pitfall of not setting an ending date for the show.

[TheMojoPin]

I agree that not haing a set ending hurts and wish no show was stretched past 5 seasons, tops, but the US show really let the entire cast get into things as soon as the 2nd season started, which was only, what, 6 episodes into the whole run? So it's not like they waited to involve the rest of the cast much more than the UK show until they rain out of steam with the main 4.

I just think there's little point in comparing the two shows now because outside of the basic concept and the first few episodes of the American version. I think it's cool that the same really great concept has left us with 2 great and ultimately rather different sitcoms.

[TheMojoPin]

He doesn't dominate...it's just that he doesn't feel like a fit with the rest of the cast. He comes across as awkward to the show.

I don't know, it seems like when people say this they think he showed up as "crazy Frank" right away, but his chaacter has progressed very similar to the others. When he first showed up, as weird as the show was, the episodes and the characters were much more grounded in reality. As the 2nd season went on, everything got crazier, including the original cast and including Frank. When he first showed up, he was much less "zany"...just like the others. Hell, even the McPoyle's were more played down when they first showed up compared to the 2nd season onwards.

[WampusCrandle]

I don't know, it seems like when people say this they think he showed up as "crazy Frank" right away, but his chaacter has progressed very similar to the others. When he first showed up, as weird as the show was, the episodes and the characters were much more grounded in reality. As the 2nd season went on, everything got crazier, including the original cast and including Frank. When he first showed up, he was much less zany"...just like the others. Hell, even the McPoyle's were more played down when they first showed up compared to the 2nd season onwards.

i thought frank was a great add, and i gotta agree with ya.

[lleeder]

I still love the show but the third season of Dexter hasn't lived up to the first 2 seasons in my opinion. The suspense is nowhere near where it was in the other 2, so far.