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Post by Cyno on Sept 27, 2021 20:11:18 GMT -5
I ended up liking the College seasons of BMW a lot. Probably because not a whole lot changed in the setting. Even Mr. Feeny made the transition to college professor. I like them, too, it just got a bit more and more cartoonish as it went, Eric Matthews being the most obvious example. I still love it, it's just weird. Yeah, Eric kinda got flanderized, thinking about it.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Sept 27, 2021 20:19:29 GMT -5
I like them, too, it just got a bit more and more cartoonish as it went, Eric Matthews being the most obvious example. I still love it, it's just weird. Yeah, Eric kinda got flanderized, thinking about it. I love that Will Friedle looks like he's having the time of his life becoming unhinged, still, but yeah, it's really odd.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Sept 28, 2021 17:57:17 GMT -5
I don't really watch reality shows any more, but when I had a partner who was big into them we used to watch loads. Channel 4 here in the UK has one called First Dates. The first two seasons were just a hidden camera show in a restaurant for blind first dates that the show's producers had matched up, with interviews with the people on the dates before and after. It's the ideal basic reality show premise - sometimes cringey, sometimes heartwarming, sometimes rage-inducing, eveything you'd want/expect. Unfortunately, either too many or not enough people watched it, because in the third season I suddenly found myself listening in/watching inane conversation amongst the wait staff, who were now on the show every week giving their thoughts on love. I'm not being funny but why do I care about the philosophy of the wait staff in this restaurant on love? Like, hearing the people who just got their hearts broken talk with bitter irony about their hopes and dreams for the date over a montage of them crashing and burning is one thing. And they also got that famous French maitre'd who I can't be bothered looking up to host at the restaurant. It basically got completely corporatized, way more obviously staged, and just all around depressing. Have I Got News For You For over ten years it was hosted by the same guy, Angus Deayton. He was eventually let go due to certain aspects of his private life being reported in the tabloids (he survived the first round of stories but when more revelations came out, he had to go) and they were at the start of a new series so decided to use guest hosts for the rest of that series and look for a permanent new host once they’d reached the end of it. They eventually made the decision that having a different host each episode rather than a permanent one would help keep the show fresh. Nearly twenty years later and with Series 62 starting soon, they made the right call. I doubt the show would still be around had Deayton not been so allegedly fond of drugs and prostitutes. I remember the episode that they did after the stories came out. Was very much the embodiment of: If I remember rightly, I think from a Hislop interview, the final straw was when they wrote into the script that Angus would refer to Neil Hamilton as 'disgraced former MP Neil Hamilton' while Christine was on the panel. After a few rounds of that joke, she got a huge pop for saying 'if he's disgraced, then what are you?' Basically if Christine Hamilton can outdraw you with a gag on a panel show, it's time to go.
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Post by Ryback on a Pole! on Sept 28, 2021 19:19:27 GMT -5
Top Gear at its peak started to become way too scripted.
I mean, it was always scripted to an extent, but to a believable degree--like say, did Hammonds Dampervan really comically sink or was it set up to fail? Who know, but it was believable that it did.
Compare to later seasons which were still good but just had too much of scripted accidents.
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fw91
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Post by fw91 on Sept 28, 2021 19:35:29 GMT -5
South Park actually went with continuity in the most recent seasons, but I miss the days of silly one-off episodes.
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Post by Alice Syndrome on Sept 29, 2021 0:58:59 GMT -5
Archer's coma seasons. Only the second one was any good, and by the third people were just yelling at the writers to wake him up already.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Sept 29, 2021 5:57:30 GMT -5
Best Week Ever. I did not watch but Paul F Tompkins has a bit about it on one of his stand up specials and according to him the format change was not well received.
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Post by SmashTV on Sept 29, 2021 6:47:56 GMT -5
The Krypton Factor in 1995 trying to be more like The Crystal Maze and completely retooling the show to be more “modern”. It completely killed off all the charm the original had. Even adding the lovely Penny Smith couldn’t save it and it would be the last series until it was brought back fifteen years or so later. The assault course was probably most people’s favourite part of the show, so replacing it with the confusing indoor apparatus - didn’t you need to get keys to access certain parts? - it just became a chore to sit through.
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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Sept 29, 2021 6:52:04 GMT -5
Top Gear at its peak started to become way too scripted. I mean, it was always scripted to an extent, but to a believable degree--like say, did Hammonds Dampervan really comically sink or was it set up to fail? Who know, but it was believable that it did. Compare to later seasons which were still good but just had too much of scripted accidents. The most obvious one that comes to mind was the Bolivia special when Hammond "forgot" his handbrake was broken at the top of that huge dune and his Land Cruiser tumbled down. I can see the logic behind it - with how mechanically crippled the Land Cruiser was it would not have been safe to drive it down, and it served as an example as to what could happen to the other two. I feel there could have been a less ham-fisted way of setting that stunt in motion.
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Post by Glitch on Sept 29, 2021 7:06:11 GMT -5
seaQuest Oh dear. The first season was superb, then it went to shit. Also didn't help that they had super bait and switch advertisement. "There's giant robots in this episode! So watch it!" I watch and all the robots do is walk around and nothing really happens.
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Post by clodhopper on Sept 29, 2021 8:36:27 GMT -5
Not sure if they count as the same show or not but earlier Trailer Park Boys is one of the funniest series I've ever seen but the animated crap and the Out Of The Park stuff on Netflix are practically unwatchable.
In the UK, Bullseye. Went from a charming gameshow based around darts to the Dave Spikey era "look how lame this all is, nudge nudge wink wink" rubbish. That's not to even mention the couple of Alan Carr episodes not so long ago. Jesus.
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Post by 'Foretold' Joker on Sept 29, 2021 9:09:00 GMT -5
Question of Sport's recent retool could be a contender.
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Post by ltcproductions on Sept 29, 2021 10:29:29 GMT -5
77 Sunset Strip. When Jack Webb took over as executive producer for season 6, he turned it into almost a completely different show, and the show's fandom tuned out to the point that it was cancelled midseason.
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Post by DiBiase is Good on Sept 29, 2021 15:45:29 GMT -5
The Krypton Factor in 1995 trying to be more like The Crystal Maze and completely retooling the show to be more “modern”. It completely killed off all the charm the original had. Even adding the lovely Penny Smith couldn’t save it and it would be the last series until it was brought back fifteen years or so later. The assault course was probably most people’s favourite part of the show, so replacing it with the confusing indoor apparatus - didn’t you need to get keys to access certain parts? - it just became a chore to sit through. The assault course was still there, it just moved to the opening round. They also changed it so instead of the women being given a head start, all the contestants started at the same time but they were given target times based on their age, sex, physical fitness etc. The person who beat their target by the most got the ten points, so it wasn’t as clear as “first over the line wins”. It was another unnecessary adjustment to make something simple more complicated for no real reason.
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SmashTV
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Post by SmashTV on Sept 29, 2021 16:00:57 GMT -5
Question of Sport's recent retool could be a contender. I’m still giving it the benefit of the doubt, as the majority of it seems to be the same. However, things like trampolining challenges, interviewing specific guests and non sportspersons appearing on the show all stick out like sore thumbs. It was fine as was, as it always had been, so why tinker with it?
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SmashTV
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Post by SmashTV on Sept 29, 2021 16:02:13 GMT -5
The assault course was probably most people’s favourite part of the show, so replacing it with the confusing indoor apparatus - didn’t you need to get keys to access certain parts? - it just became a chore to sit through. The assault course was still there, it just moved to the opening round. They also changed it so instead of the women being given a head start, all the contestants started at the same time but they were given target times based on their age, sex, physical fitness etc. The person who beat their target by the most got the ten points, so it wasn’t as clear as “first over the line wins”. It was another unnecessary adjustment to make something simple more complicated for no real reason. I stand corrected, sir!
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Sept 29, 2021 16:40:46 GMT -5
Top Gear at its peak started to become way too scripted. I mean, it was always scripted to an extent, but to a believable degree--like say, did Hammonds Dampervan really comically sink or was it set up to fail? Who know, but it was believable that it did. Compare to later seasons which were still good but just had too much of scripted accidents. The most obvious one that comes to mind was the Bolivia special when Hammond "forgot" his handbrake was broken at the top of that huge dune and his Land Cruiser tumbled down. I can see the logic behind it - with how mechanically crippled the Land Cruiser was it would not have been safe to drive it down, and it served as an example as to what could happen to the other two. I feel there could have been a less ham-fisted way of setting that stunt in motion. I think not framing it so that his jeep would perfectly roll away on cue in the background of a perfect shot might have helped
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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Sept 29, 2021 17:23:55 GMT -5
The most obvious one that comes to mind was the Bolivia special when Hammond "forgot" his handbrake was broken at the top of that huge dune and his Land Cruiser tumbled down. I can see the logic behind it - with how mechanically crippled the Land Cruiser was it would not have been safe to drive it down, and it served as an example as to what could happen to the other two. I feel there could have been a less ham-fisted way of setting that stunt in motion. I think not framing it so that his jeep would perfectly roll away on cue in the background of a perfect shot might have helped Considering they always talk via radio and only ever really get out of their cars when one of them has broken down, Hammond suddenly jumping out of his car to go to Jeremy's window to talk to him didn't help either.
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Post by James Fabiano on Sept 20, 2022 13:35:50 GMT -5
All the game show examples, and I didn't pick the easiest one...
"Put 'celebrity' in the title..." in general.
Barry-Enright did this twice over, on Bullseye and Hot Potato. Worse on the former, IMO, as it made an already lagging game go EVEN SLOWER by making games 2 out of 3. Some days you didn't see the bonus game at all. I guess Hot Potato was pretty much the same game and format, but the celebs could goof around a lot and it killed one of the unique elements of HP (instead of families, the teams were 3 people with the same job)
Over on Buzzr, we saw how this affected Whew! The rules were convoluted as it was, but when you have to change the rules more to fit in the celebrity player...oh boy. Some of the material was dumbed down, yet there were celebrity players who couldn't handle it still. It was still fun and unique, but you know it wouldn't be the same.
The original US Millionaire and Weakest Link went out overdosing on celebrity editions.
On the other end, Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud have successful celebrity editions on network television now.
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salz4life
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Post by salz4life on Sept 20, 2022 14:09:20 GMT -5
I think a question with a smaller pool of possible answers might be, When did a format retool on an actively running show actually make it better? Current example, IMO, is Roseanne getting canned for being stupid and the show was retooled as The Connors. It's not revolutionary like the original Roseanne, but I really like the show.
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