The Three Season Theory

I haven't deemed it necessary to get cable hookup or anything like that in my apartment, so I don't really watch a whole lot of TV. Generally, everything I watch I pick up on DVD, usually borrowed from the library or pilfered from friends. Even so, I've built up a small but significant collection of DVDs.

So I've got this working theory on the quality of television shows: a series is good for only about three years. The first season shows a bit of promise - a hint of the series's true brilliance. The second season, the show hits its stride, cranking out quality episode after quality episode. By the third season, you can usually tell the writing staff has run out of ideas, as the plots get a bit more ludicrous, a bit more far-fetched. The writing and acting is usually GOOD still, but, by season four, things get so whacked out that the series might as well be over.

I've got three (of my personal favorite shows) which I cite when looking at this hypothesis:


The Office

Now, the first time I ever saw an episode of The Office (Season 2's "Sexual Harrassment"), I didn't care for what I saw. That said, after I went back and gave it another try, I found I absolutely LOVED it.

My favorite part of watching The Office was seeing the Jim/Pam/Roy triangle (or the Jim/Karen/Pam/Roy rectangle). By the time Season 3 concluded, that story arc had more or less resolved itself. Once Season 4 rolled around, it became clear that the Jim/Pam story had little room to grow. Meanwhile, Michael Scott's eccentricities had gone almost Tex Avery in their levels of cartoonishness. I decided to move one.

In short, this series is TOO long.

(For the record, I haven't seen a single episode of The Office since Season Five's Superbowl episode, and I don't really miss the show)


Pushing Daisies

Basically, I'm of the opinion that Pushing Daisies is the best thing to have ever appeared on television until someone gets the Rapture on camera. The characters were well-written and charismatic, the stories cute and engaging, and... *sigh*... the series unpopular enough to get cancelled after two seasons.

Really, though, a third season would have been perfect. All those little dangling plot threads that never got resolved could easily be wrapped up in another 12 episodes or so. The world would have been SO much better for it.

I guess we'll just have to wait for the comic book to come out to get any amount of resolution. But, in any case, this series is TOO short.


Arrested Development

Okay, now, in my opinion, Arrested Development ended at exactly the right time.

I understand that puts me in the minority with the Fox executives and... um, nope, that's probably it. Still, I don't know that I would have enjoyed a fourth season of Arrested Development nearly as much as I did the first three.

While the series continued to put out quality episodes right up to the very end, I got the vibe that the writers were really starting to tread water. The characters had all immersed themselves so completely in their neuroses that they were starting to come off as... almost completely unnatural (like an emotional "uncanny valley"). The plots were still great but verging on the unbelievably silly. Finally, those delightful in-jokes which make the series so good were getting to be... a little thick.

What we got, in the end, was about three years of top-notch comedy with no dangling plot threads to drive fanboys nuts. I imagine a fourth year would have been GOOD, but I don't see it being nearly as great as what we've already got. So, yeah, this series is... well, you know by now.

I'm sure there are exceptions to the "Three Season Theory" (Seinfeld and MASH are the most regularly cited), but, for now, I'm standing by this little rule of thumb.