The X-Files Friday Feature: When Television Series Go Bad

Boy is this ever a good time to talk about how most shows run at least a season too long.

I haven't completely given up on season eight, but it's making me wonder if maybe every long running show has a shelf life.

The ones that go in with a three year or five year plan often have better storylines towards the end, too. They haven't run out of ideas and they aren't trying to extend the show just for obscene ratings, which is what I suspect the problem was with The X-Files. It was a huge money maker for FOX, and even if David Duchovny wasn't really interested in coming back (I don't know all the reasons - I'm kind of afraid to look because of spoilers) or Chris Carter decided he'd told all the story he wanted to tell (again, it seems he had, given that 'Requiem' played as a series finale), FOX wasn't about to let that happen.

Which is also rather irritating because not six months after The X-Files ended, after possibly running a season or two too long, they cancelled Firefly after airing eleven episodes completely out of order. Not that I'm bitter.

On the flip side, I think one of the reasons Firefly is so beloved, besides being just good is that it never really had the chance to go completely off the rails. Imagine if it got seven seasons and then Nathan Fillion decided he'd had enough, but it was so huge for FOX that they couldn't let it go, so they did an eighth season with Zoe as captain and some new character as first mate. Yeah, no. That would have been jarring. Except for the first seven seasons, which probably would have been awesome.

So I have to wonder, are there shows that break this pattern? I'd say it should be limited to shows that ran five or more seasons, because another pattern I've seen is that often the first season is rather uneven as they're still trying to find their footing; the second is better and they've figured out who they want the characters to be and what some of the long running arcs will be, but there are still quite a few dud episodes; and then season three they really hit their stride before faltering slightly in season four as they make their way from a little show that a few people watch to a huge hit that's heading for syndication.

A lot of shows don't make it past that fourth season. Well, OK, most shows don't make it past the first. The X-Files breaks that slightly because it's been so consistently inconsistent. I think season five was one of the most consistent, but it did still have 'Schizogeny' and 'Travelers'.

And now we're in season eight out of nine. I don't know of that many hour long drama shows that have gone more than six or seven seasons. That seems to be about the limit, either because the writers want to end on a high note or because the actors have had enough of playing the same roles for so long, or because the audience didn't quite make it through that last season. The latter of which says to me that even if they lasted six or seven seasons, maybe the last one was unnecessary.

The writers seem to be kind of phoning it in. Lots of poorly thought out plots and gaps in storytelling and occasionally some ideas that just weren't even very good to begin with, like say, 'Surekill'.

I wonder if it's also possible - and maybe I'll revisit this post when I get about halfway through the ninth season - that season eight serves more as a transition into a new, Mulder-less X-Files series, and that he doesn't return for season nine, but rather they continue whatever they'll have ended up starting in eight and it'll get better. They have time to re-adjust (well, OK, they don't, because we're talking about a show that ended over a decade ago, but you know what I mean) and might be able to right the ship and figure out how they want to wrap up the series.

I'd imagine any such wrap up will heavily involve the series mythology, even though they seem to have taken a break from it, and even if David Duchovny doesn't return to full time status, he'll surely be back for the finale of this season and whatever episodes help tie up the mythology in the next (and the movie, obviously - that much I know).

Either way, with just 33 episodes remaining, I'll find out very soon.