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Post by James Fabiano on Jan 26, 2023 9:51:05 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) Remembering this, I am surprised that instead of changing it from a Married Couples vs. Survey Questions to Solo Players Q&A, Barry-Enright didn't try to make it into Celebrity Play the Percentages.
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Jan 26, 2023 10:27:20 GMT -5
Police Cops was never the same after they turned Homer Simpson into a goofball.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jan 26, 2023 10:33:41 GMT -5
Andromeda, after they fired the producer and retooled it to turn it into the Sorbo show, giving him creative input, making all the other characters into set dressing, and limiting what the writers could do to trying to make the show 'more accessible to casual viewers'.
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Post by Lance Uppercut on Jan 26, 2023 14:22:25 GMT -5
Something weird happened when Mike and Molly came back one year marketed as “the new adventures of Mike and Molly”. It was just wackier
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Post by Lance Uppercut on Jan 26, 2023 14:26:48 GMT -5
Since wrestling was brought up,
I don’t know if it’s better or worse but
AEW dark started as a recap/hype show for dynamite with Tony and Dasha with like one or two matches at the end. Then one day it just became straight up wrestling with no explanation
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Post by Lance Uppercut on Jan 26, 2023 14:29:45 GMT -5
As I said in my tnbc rewatch thread
Hang time. Season 1 to season 2 change: good Student bodies: season 1 to season 2 change: bad
Student bodies was still good, but felt weird going from this happy Nick feeling sitcom, to this weird friends style knockoff for kids
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Dr. T is an alien
Patti Mayonnaise
Knows when to hold them, knows when to fold them
I've been found out!
Posts: 31,306
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Jan 26, 2023 14:33:39 GMT -5
ABC should have just let them officially make it a spinoff. a weak spinoff is better than people pretending your nine-season tv show really only has eight season That's actually what it was supposed to be. ABC decided to change course so that they could both charge more for advertising based off of Scrubs' ratings instead of a new show's ratings and so they could charge more in syndication. That's why the title card looked like it did since it was supposed to be a full fledged spinoff. Had it been a spinoff and been charging new show advertising rights, they might not have lost advertisers at the rate that they did to cause them to cancel it. It also ran smack into the writers' strike, so that really hurt as well.
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Post by Gerard Gerard on Jan 26, 2023 15:29:59 GMT -5
Since wrestling was brought up, I don’t know if it’s better or worse but AEW dark started as a recap/hype show for dynamite with Tony and Dasha with like one or two matches at the end. Then one day it just became straight up wrestling with no explanation OG Dark and Powerr on a Tuesday was absolute wrestling bliss for the little window it lasted. I watched Dark recently and it’s mostly commentary popping each other, squashes and an actual match or two if you’re lucky. Britt Baker vs Billie Starkz was really fun this week.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Jan 26, 2023 16:05:27 GMT -5
Anyone remember Square One, on PBS? The Children's Television Workshop decided to make a middle-school-oriented math show, with fantastic actors and writers (I still hum some of those songs to this day). They taught basic mathematical concepts clearly using fun sketches. It was great.
And then in the last season, things changed. Instead of having the sketches and songs focus on teaching anything, they just sold the idea over and over that math is useful and worthwhile to learn, seriously, I promise. They went from telling us what an acute angle is to having people say things like "you mean I can be a PLUMBER and still use MATH?!" And even as a kid, the tacit behind-the-scenes drama here was just too depressing to handle. Something in their research or focus groups or whatever had led them to just completely give up in despair.
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schma
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,540
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Post by schma on Jan 26, 2023 23:22:50 GMT -5
Andromeda, after they fired the producer and retooled it to turn it into the Sorbo show, giving him creative input, making all the other characters into set dressing, and limiting what the writers could do to trying to make the show 'more accessible to casual viewers'. I came here to say that. They had a great continuous story but he wanted to go more episodic. Also, that final season was something else. Yeesh.
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Post by sfvega on Jan 26, 2023 23:47:11 GMT -5
I was obsessed with early American Ninja Warrior. The things those guys/gals pull off make them seem superhuman. But somewhere along the line, they became more interested in peddling sob stories, and I really have not watched it in quite some time. I can't imagine being someone who can do the equivalent of scale a two-story building with just their hands and feet, only to essentially be asked by a producer if they know any critically ill children or mentally handicapped people or dead family members the show can exploit to really sell your skills. Absolutely disgusting, and you couldn't pay me to watch that shit now.
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Rave
El Dandy
Perpetually Bored
Posts: 8,070
Member is Online
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Post by Rave on Jan 27, 2023 3:54:11 GMT -5
I was obsessed with early American Ninja Warrior. The things those guys/gals pull off make them seem superhuman. But somewhere along the line, they became more interested in peddling sob stories, and I really have not watched it in quite some time. I can't imagine being someone who can do the equivalent of scale a two-story building with just their hands and feet, only to essentially be asked by a producer if they know any critically ill children or mentally handicapped people or dead family members the show can exploit to really sell your skills. Absolutely disgusting, and you couldn't pay me to watch that shit now. Oof. Not everything has to be inspirational. To me, part of the appeal of the original Ninja Warrior was the joke competitors and randos who'd turn up to compete, something the American version never embraced. I mean, yeah, we still had the All-Stars and their arcs, but then there was the dude dressed like Superman, the Obama impersonator, and various other goofy/random contestants. Even had Hiroshi Tanahashi on one run, he failed right off.
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Post by Jedi-El of Tomorrow on Jan 27, 2023 5:39:30 GMT -5
I was obsessed with early American Ninja Warrior. The things those guys/gals pull off make them seem superhuman. But somewhere along the line, they became more interested in peddling sob stories, and I really have not watched it in quite some time. I can't imagine being someone who can do the equivalent of scale a two-story building with just their hands and feet, only to essentially be asked by a producer if they know any critically ill children or mentally handicapped people or dead family members the show can exploit to really sell your skills. Absolutely disgusting, and you couldn't pay me to watch that shit now.
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Post by thechase on Jan 27, 2023 6:26:40 GMT -5
Quantum Leap
Sam leaps into real historical figures.
Hopefully the current sequel series doesn't make the same mistakes.
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Sephiroth
Wade Wilson
Surviving
Posts: 28,830
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Post by Sephiroth on Jan 27, 2023 9:51:53 GMT -5
Family Matters was at its best when Urkel had officially joined the main cast but the show hadn’t yet started revolving completely around him. They added sone variety by doing the occasional episode that dabbled in the more fantastical like him building a robot or turning himself into another person, but for the most part the show was routed in the Winslow family and their misadventures. It’s been said before just how off the rails they went in the final few seasons.
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Ben Wyatt
Crow T. Robot
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
I don't get it. At all. It's kind of a small horse, I mean what am I missing? Am I crazy?
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Jan 27, 2023 15:04:13 GMT -5
Honestly, almost any show with highschool jumping to college, it tends to go badly pretty quick. I'm sure some stuff has survived the jump, but even things that stayed watchable like Boy Meets World still took a quality hit. I think I've said it before, but Boy Meets World's final season is fascinating to watch, for how surreal it is. They were originally only picked up for, I think, 13 episodes, so the first half of the season is very fast-paced: 1. Topanga dumps Cory after her parents' divorce, Angela then dumps Shawn. Jack and Eric move out of the apartment so Angela and Topanga can live with Rachel. 2. Cory and Shawn try to get Topanga's parents back together, to save their own relationships. Eric and Jack challenge Rachel, Topanga and Angela to a wrestling match for the apartment, with Mankind as the guest referee. The girls win, starting a short-lived storyline where Eric wants revenge on Topanga for making him submit. 3. Angela's father returns to town, Shawn trains for the army with him, and ultimately gets back together with Angela. Eric hunts down Topanga for revenge, unsuccessfully, while Cory has equal results with trying to get back together with her. 4. Cory gives up on getting back together with Topanga, then her dad reveals he cheated on her mom. Her mom convinces her to get back with Cory. Eric and Jack bet on a football game. *I'm including the Eric/Jack plots to hammer home the bizarreness of the season* 5. Eric and Jack run the student union together and hijinks ensue. Meanwhile, Shawn and Cory invade Rachel's personal space, until she turns the tables on them. *I never even knew this episode happened until years later when I watched it on Disney. It could've been a season 6 episode and who would've been any wiser?* 6. Cory and Topanga recount the hell of planning their wedding, before revealing the wedding will take place in the next episode. 7. Cory and Topanga get married, Shawn and Cory are fighting because Cory doesn't understand Shawn's concerns about their friendship after the wedding. Episode ends on a cliffhanger with the police breaking up the reception, because Eric got a heiress's wedding pushed forward and stole their ceremony. 8. On their honeymoon, Cory and Topanga are arrested, concluding the cliffhanger from last week. They later get a proper honeymoon, which they almost never end. And Eric spies on the honeymoon and almost gets cooked alive by cannibals... 9. Cory and Topanga, now married, must struggle with where to live. Shawn has moved in with Angela and Rachel, and Jack and Eric have taken Cory and Shawn's old room. They move into the filthy married dorms... 10. Cory and Topanga try to find a place to live, only to end up making the best of living in the married dorms. Shawn, Eric and Jack move back into the apartment, while Angela and Rachel move into the dorms. Then... it gets weird. We get an episode where Eric and Jack have to dress up as women to avoid a criminal, while in the b-plot, Topanga and Cory have differing opinions on how to decorate their dorm. We get Alan's birthday party and a Shawn-centric plot that feels like it should've happened in season 4 or 5, followed by Cory and Topanga fighting because Cory feels inferior to her, while in the B-plot, Eric finds a lucky penny. Next episode, Eric and Alan have a father-son episode that feels like a rehash of season 3 or 4, while Cory has hypochondria. The next two episodes are the infamous "Prank War" two-parter, with the bad future flash-forward where the gang aren't happy and no longer friends. Following that, the remaining few episodes before the finale get more surreal. Topanga thinks she's fat and goes on a diet, which causes Cory and Shawn to think she's pregnant. She lets the lie go up to the point that they throw her baby shower, before she tells the truth and Cory tells her she's beautiful (because of course a character played by DANIELLE FISHEL would have to be convinced that she's gorgeous...). This is also the final time the entire original cast is together in one episode. Then, Cory and Topanga, convinced they're an "old married couple" try to throw a party, while Eric gets struck by lightning and becomes psychic. After that, another episode that feels more in line with an earlier season, as the two pairs of brothers try to bond. Then, Topanga dreams that she's in Casablanca. Then we get the final three episodes. In the first, Angela moves to Europe with her dad, Jack's stepdad cuts him off, and in a cliffhanger to set up the finale, Topanga lands an internship - in New York. The two-part finale then sees Jack and Rachel decide to join the Peace Corps, while Shawn and Eric decide to move to New York along with Cory and Topanga. And we end in Mr. Feeney's classroom: "I love you all, class dismissed." It just feels like they had a plan, then got ten extra episodes, so they recycled ideas from earlier seasons and mixed them with planned stories... with weird results. As one of the biggest BMW fans you'll find, I'll never forgive them for not doing the wedding episode straight up. Shawn and Corey actually fight at the wedding? Topanga allowing either of them to breathe after that? Shawn standing at the alter? The Eric nonsense? Good grief.
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Post by Jaws the Shark on Jan 27, 2023 15:42:23 GMT -5
Room 101. The original format was great because especially when Paul Merton was the host it was all quite chilled out, and the conversation was allowed to veer off a bit and go in interesting directions. Turning it into yet another BBC panel show kind of got rid of all its charm and made it all a bit boring, and you end up with a lot of pretty worthless guests to make up the numbers. Who honestly gives a shit what Judy Murray hates?
It's a shame because I'd enjoy seeing Frank Skinner as host with the original format.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Jan 27, 2023 16:18:11 GMT -5
Anyone remember Square One, on PBS? The Children's Television Workshop decided to make a middle-school-oriented math show, with fantastic actors and writers (I still hum some of those songs to this day). They taught basic mathematical concepts clearly using fun sketches. It was great. And then in the last season, things changed. Instead of having the sketches and songs focus on teaching anything, they just sold the idea over and over that math is useful and worthwhile to learn, seriously, I promise. They went from telling us what an acute angle is to having people say things like "you mean I can be a PLUMBER and still use MATH?!" And even as a kid, the tacit behind-the-scenes drama here was just too depressing to handle. Something in their research or focus groups or whatever had led them to just completely give up in despair. I don't remember the last season. But I do remember Square One. With Mathman, and Mathnet.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Jan 27, 2023 16:25:54 GMT -5
I was obsessed with early American Ninja Warrior. The things those guys/gals pull off make them seem superhuman. But somewhere along the line, they became more interested in peddling sob stories, and I really have not watched it in quite some time. I can't imagine being someone who can do the equivalent of scale a two-story building with just their hands and feet, only to essentially be asked by a producer if they know any critically ill children or mentally handicapped people or dead family members the show can exploit to really sell your skills. Absolutely disgusting, and you couldn't pay me to watch that shit now. Oof. Not everything has to be inspirational. To me, part of the appeal of the original Ninja Warrior was the joke competitors and randos who'd turn up to compete, something the American version never embraced. I mean, yeah, we still had the All-Stars and their arcs, but then there was the dude dressed like Superman, the Obama impersonator, and various other goofy/random contestants. Even had Hiroshi Tanahashi on one run, he failed right off. Yeah, the fact that the original seemed more like an open call was one of the reasons it's great cause you'd always get the folks that had no business being there. But also I always felt that even with the weirdos and stuff the original just felt like it had more of an air of seriousness to it than I ever got from the American version.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2023 16:56:13 GMT -5
The Muppets 2015 tv show, the first half of the season was great, but people complained because it wasn’t “family friendly”, even though it was no worse than episodes of the Muppets Shows, the Muppets don’t change just the world around them. They retooled the show making it more PG and focused on tropes like Kermit’s and Piggy’s relationship and it just got bad. I wasn’t surprised when they canceled it.
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