TV series that went on too long

[WBA1955]

Coronation Street, a real slice of life northern drama when it started, very gritty, but it should have gone to the wall when the world changed in the seventies. The only people who live in those houses today are students and eastern Europeans.

Happy Days, Fonzy should have got married or been killed off in a motorcycle accident after the first few series. It became silly.

Last of the Summer Wine, great when it first started but became a shadow of itself when the regular cast members started dying. When people like Norman Wisdom and Stephen Lewis started appearing in it you knew it was time to call it a day.

Bonanza, another series that was okay to begin with but became silly with Hoss playing with Leprechauns in one episode.

Emmerdale Farm, I remember the original progamme being shown in an afternoon slot and it was about farming and the family's struggle with everyday farming issues.
Later it became a farce with plane crashes, kidnapping and murder.

[Albionic68]

Although not as drawn out as those listed above I thought Line of Duty dragged on for too long.

[Bombers right foot]

The BBC are experts at ruining decent shows which then run too long, as mentioned Last of the Summer Wine, another on is Born and Bred, more recently Father Brown.
I’m a celebrity, Love Island and any other shyte like these, one solitary programme is way too much

[phild]

Casualty and Holby City I mean, how many ways are there to fall out of a window or get run over?

LOST I think the makers hadnt a clue how to end it so they continued hoping that a someone would come up with a solution, are the crash survivors still on that 'deserted' island?

[mickd1961]

Although not as drawn out as those listed above I thought Line of Duty dragged on for too long.

Good shout 68……the last series was farcical.

How you could end up with a nonentity of a character who had never been in any of the episodes up until the last series being “H” was just ludicrous.

The best ending would’ve been for Hastings to have been “H” because despite him being the obvious candidate, he’s the one character most of us wouldn’t have wanted the baddie to be.

You either choose him or you choose some outlier character who’s been in the series the whole way through.

Another series that’s has its neck wrung is Billions on SKY ATLANTIC.

The first few series which started Paul Gamiatti and Damien Lewis were superb, the pair of them gelled beautifully as lead characters who despised each other but the bad guy that replaced Lewis is just a terrible choice.

I gave up hoping it would improve.

Casualty has been mentioned.

For 37 years Charlie Fairhead’s actor has stolen a living from us through the BBC licence.

The bloke can’t act, can nobody at the BBC see this?

It’s a pity they didn’t stick a proper broken glass bottle into his neck when he was in The Ling Good Friday with Bob Hoskins, killing him for real in 1980 would’ve saved us all!

[Omegstrat6]

Think this is one of the key things with any tv series, you get a really good one and it becomes successful but the creators don't know when to stop and it becomes akin to flogging a dead horse. Guess it's a combination of audience fatigue and the writers running out of ideas. Fawlty Towers is probably one of the few examples where Cleese just did the one series and left it at that which helped seal its popularity.

I get that some tv series need a bit of time to develop the characters and plot and warrant a couple of seasons but when they go on and on they end up being either so repetitive that it becomes boring/predictable or else introduce increasingly stupid plot lines a la the Dallas dream episodes. The Lost series -as mentioned- was aptly named given the writers seemed to have no idea as to how to resolve things.

I quite like Stephen Knight (except his SAS thing!) but much as I loved Peaky Blinders overall, it was a very uneven series. Found series one OK and series 2 I thought was very good with Sam Neil and the cliff hanger ending but after that it seemed very up and down with the highlights probably revolving around Tom Hardy's character. I also liked the first 2 series of Luther but just became repetitive after that and obviously missed the Alice character. All about realising that things have run their course and knowing when to stop.

[WBA1955]

Heartbeat was another one. The first five series were great but once the original cast members left it was never the same. The sixties must have lasted eigh**** years, how many Christmases did they have in it?

[albion68]

Britain’s got talent.never mind ending should never have started.another one X factor..****e.

[mickd1961]

Crossroads…..every episode after the first one was an insult to the viewer, utter rubbish.

[westcountryvillain]

Strictly Come Dancing - thought it was great for a few years but can't abide it anymore and haven't watched for many years.

Homeland - absolutely brilliant for a while then lost its way.