Everyone who watches TV has that one show - the show that you know you should have stopped at a certain point that began as such an amazing creation with a cast of great characters and stories, and along the way lost what made it so fantastic in the first place. It went from something you could not wait to get home and watch that night to somewhat of a chore or burden that you feel that you are obligated to do because you have "made it this far" or even just being something you kick off your DVR series recording list entirely and never bother with again. The fact of the matter is that I am sure that everyone could name at least one or two shows that they felt went way past their time. What should writers do? When is the right time to pull the plug? Or should they always keep going and just try harder?

There are a few different shows among the years that I can think of that had either one bad last season or at some point just got bad from there until the finale. The first show I have in mind is "Glee." The show about the high school show choir started off with a tremendous start. "Glee" had millions of fans right away and even had the number one song on iTunes in the first day or so of airing. This was a show that for three seasons had funny and thought provoking stories, characters we loved, loved to hate, or hated to love, and songs we couldn't wait to buy from iTunes the second they went on sale.

However, it was season four where the show “jumped the shark.” After the characters left high school for college, Ryan Murphy and other writers did not seem to know how to write both most of the originals in New York and still some originals and newbies still in high school. The jokes also got less and less funny, there was less and less continuity and it was just not as entertaining as it once was. Sadly, instead of just having one bad season, the show seemed to have gotten worse and worse with age, and by season six it was seemingly at it's lowest.

The reason behind the show going on past it's time seems to be unknown. If I had to make a guess however, I feel it had to do with the fact that Ryan Murphy had so many other projects going on by the time Glee started season three.

During his time with Glee, Ryan Murphy had three different productions he was working on or had worked on including a NBC show called "The New Normal" (which was canceled after one season), The FX show "American Horror Story," and "The Normal Heart," an HBO film about fictional characters living during the AIDS epidemic. At least two of these three different productions were being made at the same time as "Glee," and in my honest opinion, it just seemed like Murphy did not have as much time as he used to to focus on "Glee." While I do believe that Ryan Murphy can make really good material when he tries, I feel like he needs to try to focus on one thing at a time rather than multiple things. Just because you have a new project does not mean your previous and still ongoing projects should have to suffer for it. That is what seemed to happen with "Glee" and in all honesty if they had changed the season three ending to reflect more of a series finale rather than a season finale, "Glee" could have been a great three season long show that ended on, for lack of a better term, a high note. However, when it comes to TV shows, at the end of the day it is a business and the longer that a show stays on the more money they can possibly make, so while I feel that is not exactly a great reason to try to keep your show running as long as you can, at least from a business perspective I can somewhat see why certain shows last as long as they did. However, sometimes a show can be hurt by not only an original show runner leaving or neglecting a show, but also a certain character that seems to drag the story and characters down with it. That was Gilmore Girls' issue.

Gilmore Girls was a show on the WB (known today as the CW) and followed the story of a young mother, Lorelei, and her teenage daughter, Rory, dealing with living in a small quaint town of Stars Hollow, as well as reconnecting with Lorelei’s upper-class and for the most part estranged parents. The show ran for seven seasons in which the "Gilmore Girls'" fast talking humor and family and friend related drama kept the show afloat as well as it’s long list of entertaining characters. However in season six, things started to go down hill. The first being the introduction of Luke’s, Lorelei’s long time romantic interest and now fiancé, daughter he never knew he had, April Nardini. Now looking back it was not exactly April’s fault directly, it was more what her presence caused that indirectly hurt and prompted so many issues later in the season and beyond. These included things like Luke keeping April a secret for some time, April’s mother not really liking or trusting Lorelei, Lorelei sleeping with Rory’s father, Christopher, etc. Again, these were not caused by April herself but just the storyline of April’s addition to the show, which hurt a lot of things that people enjoyed about the show. Besides April’s character, a few other things caused Gilmore Girls to start to go down hill. One issue began in late season five, when right after her boyfriend Logan’s father told her she may not be good enough for a career in journalism, Rory and Logan decide to get crazy and steal a yacht from a boat dock. This causes Rory to not only become so distant from her mother that she actually goes to live with Lorelei’s parents, Richard and Emily, but also causes her to drop out of Yale and even go as far as to join her grandmother’s chapter of the DAR. While Rory did eventually get back on track by going back to Yale and landing a job with the Obama campaign, Rory’s “rebellious” arc was not one that was very enjoyable and just a little too out of character. Finally, the last reason that Gilmore Girls went so south was that the creator of the show, Amy Sherman-Palladino left the show at the end of season 6, along with her director and writer husband, Daniel Palladino. Without the head of the original Gilmore Girls as well as one of it’s writers helping to lead the show to it’s former glory, the show suffered even more. All these issues combined hurt Gilmore Girls and caused it not to be picked up for season eight. Sometimes, one or two small acts or additions on a show can have a huge impact for its future. Hopefully with the Gilmore Girls revival being currently worked on, the second time around will not have any or at least as many faults as the later seasons of Gilmore Girls had.

With so many shows “jumping the shark” and going way past their prime, there are shows however that have not sold out to money (not that every show that starts to become bad and their keeping going is due to money or greed, though those can be key factors). One show in particular that knew when it needed to stop was Gravity Falls. Gravity Falls is a Disney cartoon created by Alex Hirsch, which ran from 2012 to 2016. The show followed the stories of twins, Mabel and Dipper, leaving their hometown for summer and going to stay with their great Uncle Stan who owns a tourist attraction/museum of weird and crazy creatures (mostly faked by Stan) and who is a known con man in the town of Gravity Falls, where our story takes place. When Dipper finds a journal with ideas and explanations about the weird happenings and strange things people have seen in Gravity Falls, it is up to Dipper and Mabel to help uncover the secrets of Gravity Falls and why these crazy and paranormal events keep occurring. While many Disney shows usually last only about four seasons long, Alex decided to stop the show at that point because he felt that it was time to let go and that he had told all the good stories he could for the show. This is something I applaud and wish many other show runners would realize about TV. When you write for a show, it is not only important to listen to your audience, but most of all listen to yourself and realize when you should pull the plug. Some shows are great from the beginning to end, some shows go from bad to better as the seasons go on, and other shows get to a certain point where they just start to go downhill.

Sadly, many shows I feel have fallen into the later category and while I understand not wanting to let a show go or wanting to make more money from it, sometimes it is actually better to end on a high note early than a low note later. When you end with your show having high ratings and a high amount of views, but also having a satisfying final season and/or final episode, you can be known as someone who has had a good show rather than the person who had a good show that goes past it’s time. It also would leave more room for reboots and possible spin offs (though many shows that end whether it be in an early season or not have lately been getting spin offs), as well as give the show runner the opportunity to create something new. The bottom line is that many show runners would benefit from having a show that did well all it’s season or most, rather than a show where only 50 percent of the show was actually really good and rest was bad or where a certain final season or two ruined a once great show. Though not every show runner can predict when a show is going to start going on too long or worsen, if writers and producers see that it may be time to stop a show, then it may be time, especially when looking at fan reactions or reviews and responses from both critics and fans. While this is not to say that there cannot be shows that have just one bad season that does not hurt the rest of the show or that a show can’t be great or good throughout every season, I feel that if a show starts to worsen or a show runner honestly does not have any more original ideas for the show, ending it is sometimes the best course of action, at least in my opinion.