When Bad Things Happen to Great Sitcoms

In a previous article I talked about how some sitcoms stay on the air to long, and get stale. Once in awhile there is a Friends or a Frasier which never get stale, but many do. For example, Seinfeld got kind of old and tired, the stories weren't interesting and the characters got silly. Could never understand why Elaine became so shrill and George started screaming in every show. However in the end it was still watchable. Some show's aren't so lucky. They go beyond stale and get just plain stupid. I wanted to continue that discussion, but focus on five specific shows which went from being a great show to a real stupid show because of some mistake the writers made. Here is my top 5 Great Show's That Went to Hell.

#5. Night Court. This was a slapstick comedy full of laughs. The show set in a courtroom and revolved around the craziness of that setting as bizarre things seemed to happen on a regular basis. Somewhere along the 7th season, the writers changed the focus from the setting to the characters. Gone suddenly were the zany jokes and visual gags, replaced with episodes rich with character development. Yawn! The episodes from the last season or two are so boring, it's painful to watch. The final scene of the final episode had Bull being taken away by a couple aliens and to not one laugh at all. A horrible way for a great show to end.

#4. Will & Grace. This show had a simple premise, a man and woman who would make the perfect couple except he happened to be gay. So instead Will and Grace were close friends, both single and living in New York. In the cast were Will's best friend Jack and Grace's friend/employee Karen. The first few years the show was smart and fresh, well written and very funny. Then around the 5th season the creators decided to marry Grace to a man named Leo. This would have been a great way to wrap the series, but it happened mid-way through. The show spiraled downward after this. All of a sudden the premise was different, becoming a show about a gay man who is friends with a married woman. Not quite the same. The writers tried to undo what they had done, but it was too late. What was worst, the writing started to get kind of stale and the characters, especially Karen and Jack, became cardboard cutouts of themselves. The scripts got darker and the endless stunt casting was annoying. This series struggled to its final episode, which was a convoluted script and totally forgettable.

#3. My Name is Earl. There is a rule in sitcoms, don't drastically change your premise or you'll lose your audience. The premise of this show was simple; Earl was a horrible person who did many bad things. After he wins the lottery he is hit by a car, and learns about karma. He then decides to make up for all his mistakes by making a list of them all and working on each item one at a time. Great premise, and then in the third season the writers decided to send Earl to prison. The fourth season began with him in jail, and by the time he got out a few episodes later the audience had left the show. The show tried to get back to the premise with the list, but the audience was gone and it got cancelled, and we never found out what happened with that list.

#2. Mad About You. This show was about a married couple very much in love, simple as that. Sort of like Seinfeld, this show tried to be about the little things that married people go through that other shows don't get into. The first three seasons were pretty good, not great but good. The writing was decent; the shows were funny, and the situations relatable. Then they decided to do something different for the 4th season. They set up an arc where Paul and Jamie started to drift apart and eventually almost cheat on each other. The season finale was a one hour episode where they worked through this with a very dramatic discussion. They decide they love each other, but this comes after some very dark moments with the two of them very much at odds. This was supposed to be about a couple in love, right? Well the show was never the same after this, even when they brought a little baby in. The last two seasons also suffered with bad scripts which were just plain dumb. They did a whole episode about a magic quarter. Seriously. There was another episode about a machine which could predict the future. Ok, sure. NBC kept the show on a year longer than it should have because it needed something after Seinfeld left, but the truth was they should have let it end. The final episode was, believe it or not, very good but for the most part this show just go awful.  I have the first three seasons on DVD and as far as I am concerned, the show ended after that.

#1. Roseanne. How could this not be number 1? Roseanne was a great show about a struggling middle class, blue collar family. Set in the midwest the stories showed real problems. The parents both had to work, and the home was usually a sloppy mess. Sure you could pick at things here and there but the show was about as real as you can get. They had running storylines, regular recurring characters, and a very good team of writers. The show was about struggling with life and the endless complications. Everything was going fine until the end of the 7th season or so they decided to make Dan have a heart attack. This was the beginning of a terrible end. The next season after Dan and Roseanne have a huge fight, they wind up winning the lottery. The show suddenly becomes a show about a rich family. That wouldn't be so bad, except the scripts just got so silly. One even had Steven Segal in an action spoof. Then they decided to have Dan have an affair, really? Fans left this show in droves. The series finale revealed the whole thing was just a story Roseanne had written, Dan had actually died and I still haven’t figured out if it was just the last season that was the story or the whole series. It didn’t matter, it was too late to make an incredibly bad year better and this show deserved much better.

It is just terrible when show’s have this problem. I don’t know what happens, but the quality just disappears and it is clear the writers have run out of ideas. I only did five but I could go on and on. Special mention has to be Murphy Brown, whose last year was so terrible. It was as if the actors forgot how to play the characters or something. I will be doing a follow up article about when shows try to save a dying show by adding unnecessary cast members. This works very few times, but that’s a subject for another time.

 So, what shows do you think I missed? Which would you put on a list like this?

Top 6 Worst Cosby Show Episodes

Ah, The Cosby Show. I literally grew up with this show, when it first came on I was in 4th grade and when it went off I was graduating high school. It was my favorite show for several years (until Seinfeld came along). I’m not sure if younger people really appreciate this show. If you look back on it now it comes off corny and silly, no argument. However, back in 1984 this show revolutionized sitcoms. At this time sitcoms were so stale. Check out episodes of Facts of Life, or the early days of Family Ties, for example. There was a stilted laugh track and the show’s all followed the same silly formulas. Sitcoms were considered a dying art (who knew it would take another thirty years, but I digress).

The reason The Cosby Show worked wasn’t just because it was funny. It was honest. Oh, sure it wasn’t honest the same way Roseanne would be but in this show the problems weren’t magically solved at the end of the episodes, the parents were in charge, and for once we got to see an example of a successful African American family. Until this point we got shows like Good Times were the family was struggling and poor. The Huxtables were wealthy and successful, and that was a big change.

While this show was a funny, very well written family comedy, not every episode was gold of course. Some were just plain terrible, or boring. So, here is my list of the worst episodes of The Cosby Show. As always this is just opinion, not fact and should be taken that way. When I did my previous worst episode lists I assumed that everyone would be familiar with the episode titles, but back in the good old days we didn’t care about such things so I know this show’s title’s may be a little more obscure so I will try to describe the episode more.

This was a hard list because episodes I found boring as a child I’ve learned to appreciate as an adult. For example, the romantic endings to some episodes which once I hated, now I appreciate. Here is what I came up with :

#6. “Mr.Quiet” from season one. I mentioned this episode in a previous article; basically it was designed to be a backdoor pilot which means the regular cast is barely in it. Not saying it’s necessarily bad, but I turn on The Cosby Show to see what the Huxtables are doing not what's happening at a local community center. The events in the community center involve a child who is mysteriously quiet, and the owner played by Tony Orlando makes it a point to figure out what is wrong with the child. Not terrible, but there is one scene where we see Cliff and Clair leave while the setting stays the community center. I always felt like screaming “take me with you!” (silly, I know, but I was only ten when this show came on)

#5. “It Ain't Easy Being Green” from season 4. This episode just, bugged me. The plot is simple, while Cliff is trying to get rid of an old water heater Rudy is trying to wear a summer dress to a party. Problem is that it’s fall, and Clair decides that it’s to cool out for Rudy to wear the dress. After trying to get away with using her father in her cause to wear the dress anyway, Claire punishes Rudy who goes to her room. Then we get four minutes of Rudy moping around while Ray Charles “It’s not easy being green” plays. Maybe it’s because no episode ever did this before, or maybe it’s because this scene is just so depressing. Either way I always fast forward that part and get to the conclusion where Cliff helps Rudy to see, amazingly enough, she has other clothes besides that one lousy dress! (maybe that’s what bothers me, the situation is just too stupid. I was never a little girl but I find it hard to believe that any child would have a fit about a silly dress. Wouldn’t they be more interested in getting to the party and being with their friends? A teenager maybe, but not a six year old! But I was never a little girl and I have no kids, so what do I know?)

#4. “Jitterbug Break” from Season One. I always thought that every episode from the first season was gold. However, this is may be the exception. The first half is classic Cosby, we see Cliff and Clair getting ready for a night out while Denise plans on sleeping on the street for concert tickets. Cliff has to convince Theo to babysit Rudy, who refuses to eat her vegetables. The second half is where the episode fails, when it becomes Cliff and his friends dancing with Denise and her friends. That’s it, for the last ten minutes of the episode. Boring.

#3.“Not Everybody Loves the Blues” from Season 6. A case of the guest star taking over the show. Gotta be honest here, this happened a lot on this show but this one was different. Usually the guest star would have a brief appearance, or be in the whole episode but there would still be laughs and typical Cosby moments. This one became a tribute to BB King. Don’t get me wrong, he is a legend and always will be. However, in watching the episode it feels like a blues special more than a Cosby episode. As soon as BB King first appears he is in almost every scene, and the regular cast basically sits around gawking at him. If you took all his scenes out the episode would be about five minutes. They main story involves Theo, but that isn’t what this episode is about. I guess what bothers me is how the blues takes over even the traditional Cosby scenes in this episode, and as someone who is not a blues fan I never found it funny or interesting. Cosby was known for having music in his episodes, he loved jazz, but this one just gets really annoying and by the end I was ready to sing the blues.

#2. “Hillman” from Season Three. I may get some heat for this one, but as I said this is just my opinion. The idea is simple, The Huxtables visit Denise in college where the president is retiring and Cliff becomes ambassador of ceremonies for the graduation. The start of this episode is fine, but the majority of the episode is the commencement ceremonies for that year’s class which includes the speech to the president. This was another backdoor pilot, for A Different World, and is so boring since we have barely spent any time at the school at this point. It feels more like I am watching a video of someone’s college graduation, what fun is that? Credit where credit is due, the speeches are very good and Claire’s singing is beautiful as always. Maybe someday I will even sit through this whole snooze of an episode.

#1. “Dance Mania” from Season 4. Ever wonder what an episode of The Cosby Show would be like if it got really dark? Well, here’s a clue. This is a bad episode because of the questions it raises. The story is that Theo and Cockroach have tickets to appear on television on the dance show "Dance Mania", but are told that only one of them can enter the studio during the filming because of fire laws. Theo miscalculates by offering to let Cockroach go in (thinking he'll refuse) and gets angry when Cockroach takes him up on the offer. Two problems with this, Theo gets so angry he takes it out on his family even throwing Rudy’s toy out into the street in a fit of anger. The scene is just a little dark for a Cosby episode. However, Claire talks to him and he apologizes in what is, admittedly, a good scene. The second problem with this is that Theo never apologizes to Cockroach. I always thought this made him look a jerk, made worst by the fact that the actor who played the character left the show (coincidentally or not, I don’t know), which means he never forgave his friend for something which wasn’t his fault? Is Theo such bad person he would give up on a friendship like that over something silly like a TV show? What is the lesson here exactly? Also, the B story in this episode involves Vanessa teaching Cliff “new math”. What is that? I still have no idea. This episode just fails.

Final comment, in season 7 Erika Alexander joined the cast as cousin Pam. Basically, any episode that revolved around her I didn't like. I just couldn’t get into the character and didn't care about her. However, that doesn't mean these shows were bad and since I never gave them a fair chance I didn't include any on this list.

This was the hardest list I’ve done so far, and I just hope you enjoyed it. Which were your favorite, or least favorite?

Top 5 Most Annoying Star Trek Characters Ever

I had this idea and just had to do this. Star Trek has produced hour and hours of great television with some fantastic characters. However, not all the characters were fantastic. Some were just annoying. Here is my list of the top 5 most annoying characters ever. Now, for this list I am trying to focus on the main casts of these shows. If a character is annoying for one episode and then gone, I can deal with that. It’s those characters that are there week after week that really bug people. Also, I am not counting circumstances where characters are out of character, for example when Captain Kirk was taken over by Janice Lester, or when Data got his emotion chip in “Generations.”

#5. Julian Bashir from “Deep Space Nine”.

 

I always remember when I first watched this show; the cast was pretty well put together. Then they introduced us to the doctor, who just so annoying. He comes off as a cocky, immature child who also thinks he knows everything about medicine. He was just overbearing. The first couple of seasons it was clear he was supposed to be some sort of comic relief, but that didn’t last thankfully. Toward the end his character became much more dark and serious, and was still annoying because he would never really do anything. The worst thing about Julian was his puppy love lust for Jadzia Dax. It was as if they were trying to a Niles & Daphne (from Frasier) sort of thing, but it just didn’t work and got really tiring week after week. Then when Ezri Dax came along, they actually start a relationship even though as Jadzia it was made clear she had no feeling for him, beside friendship.