At what point do you stop watching a series?

[Tsyroc]

Honestly I tend to stick with things through thick and thin but every now and then I just can't stand it anymore...best point counter-point. I was a devoted Veronica Mars fan. The first season was amazing but the second just DRAGGED forever but I stuck it out through a somewhat mediocre then suddenly awesome 3rd season before they canceled. Conversely with Dollhouse I stood by the 1st Season and then got really psyched by seeing the unaired episode...then the S2 premier happened and I just couldn't care anymore.

So now I've got Glee instead.

I thought you were another VM fan.

The first season was outstanding. Bits of the second season were also, but some of them were terrible. Season 3 was better than season 2 over all but I think they listened to the fans too often instead of just writing the show. Idealy I think that show should have ended with season one, minus the "cliff hanger" ending. I liked the characters a lot and kept on watching but between boneheaded writing moves, and budgetary constraints keeping some of the characters from being around all the time the show just wasn't as good as it was the first season.

Of course, I stayed through the bitter end as well. How did you like the pilot/proposal of VM as a junior FBI agent years later? I thought it was good but I don't know how well the creative team would have been able to maintain it. They showed that they were kind of spotty in that regard with seasons 2 & 3.

I've done that before where I'll stick with a show or book series through personal momentum and because I like the characters but eventually I'll just lose interest. Working the night shift all the time I usually have to put some effort into seeing a show so pretty much it comes down to whether my interest is high enough for me to actually bother to find the time to watch a show anymore. There have been a few shows where I stopped but then caught up to them later on on DVD or iTunes. Others I just gave up on all together.

[Thanas]

Andromeda, third season. The drop in quality was incredibly noticeable. You could feel the script writers hurriedly trying to clear away all the things that were competently set up in the last two seasons just to make way for their shit.

I hate how they really screwed it up. I just hated it how it underwent a shift from technology based sci fi to this metaphorical, metaphysical crap. Just out of curiousity (I know you stopped watching it but did you want to see how it ended) did you see the final episode?
Spoiler

Earth is destroyed and they kill the Abyss, which I couldn't stand what it was exactly. By trance going supernova. I also couldn't understand that part. Trance was an avatar of a star. The only contexts of heard avatar used in is the context of manifestation of a deity, a machine (like Rommie) or in the Ultima series the avatar (which was a title, rather than what he was) A star is just a ball of gas, it isn't alive

You should really read the ending the originial creator wrote. it clears up a lot and shows how the later producers just did not get it. Don't get me started on Andromeda and missed opportunities....

[Foggy NotGood]

CSI:
I don't know which season I stopped watching, but it was getting boring. Usually what makes it so I no longer wish to watch a show is that the plot or storyline just gets repetitive. Occasionally I'll catch an episode of a show I don't watch consistently anymore, but that's about it, once I find it longer interests me, I stop watching.

[Pick]

I will drop a show as soon as it no longer pleases me. That can be one episode I really loathed, or a run of a few utterly mediocre ones. I simply don't have the time to waste with shit.

I stopped watching House... 2 episodes into Season 5, I think. I thought the finale to S4 was the right ending, so to me, it is the ending. Ta da. I'll come back if it becomes interesting, but I sort of doubt it.

With Buffy, I fucking marathoned seasons 1-5. I also watched Tabula Rasa and Once More With Feeling from season 6, since I was told they were good, but frankly I didn't like either and that was it. No other watching was necessary. To me, Buffy ends at the end of Season 5, with one of the best "final" episodes I've seen.

I quit watching the original Fullmetal Alchemist one episode before the ending. True. I just decided it was dull and wouldn't put in the time to know the ending.

I really prefer shows that have an idea how to end, then do, such as Moral Orel, which, surprisingly, had one of the best seasons of any show I'd ever seen. (Season 3, the final season.) Weird, since the first season was sort of a hur-hur thing. Last season? Last episode? Amazing. Final episode of Babylon 5 was also unfathomably excellent, probably the best finale I've seen.

[Serafine666]

I tend to only start if it grabs my attention and end when it gets boring, I just plain get disgusted with the writing, or the writers decide to kill off a secondary character that is deeply important to rounding out the main character.
First one encompasses Heroes; I stopped around mid-Season 1.
Second one encompasses The Mentalist and nearly ruined House for me until the writers cleverly fixed it all by playing off the fact that the actress playing Alice Cameron left the show.
Third one encompasses Ghost Whisperer; Melissa's husband was the bases for the "I'm a normal person with a weird life" painting of the character... and they killed him. CLICK
Strangely enough, I remain a faithful adherent of CSI New York (I like the character of Mac Taylor) but neither of the other CSI shows. I'm also fond of Law and Order and Law and Order Special Victims Unit but avoid the other L&O spinoff like the plague. I suppose that there is no accounting for taste.

[Thanas]

I tend to only start if it grabs my attention and end when it gets boring, I just plain get disgusted with the writing, or the writers decide to kill off a secondary character that is deeply important to rounding out the main character.
First one encompasses Heroes; I stopped around mid-Season 1.
Second one encompasses The Mentalist and nearly ruined House for me until the writers cleverly fixed it all by playing off the fact that the actress playing Alice Cameron left the show.

She didn't leave the show and as of Season 6, is still a main cast member. Her storyline with House however got pretty much erased.

[Serafine666]

She didn't leave the show and as of Season 6, is still a main cast member. Her storyline with House however got pretty much erased.

It seems that you are out of date, Thanas. She DID leave the show (Here and here.); in the show, she quit and moved to Chicago which pretty much removes her from a hospital in Princeton, New Jersey.

[Thanas]

Oh, I was not aware of that. I gave up on House after the season six premier. I thought you had confused that with the season 1 storyline...


EDIT: Read one EW article on it and now I have got to wonder if the writers of House are just too stupid or do not care anymore. What was the reason for putting her on the backburner and paying her for the last three years if they were just going to fire her? Looks like some more shoddy character work to me.

Sigh. I once more wish House had ended with Season 3 - you had a perfect ending and a clean cut and while some storylines could have been wrapped up a bit better, I cannot find fault with them (except for the fact that one bugged me).

[Serafine666]

Oh, I was not aware of that. I gave up on House after the season six premier. I thought you had confused that with the season 1 storyline...

EDIT: Read one EW article on it and now I have got to wonder if the writers of House are just too stupid or do not care anymore. What was the reason for putting her on the backburner and paying her for the last three years if they were just going to fire her? Looks like some more shoddy character work to me.

Sigh. I once more wish House had ended with Season 3 - you had a perfect ending and a clean cut and while some storylines could have been wrapped up a bit better, I cannot find fault with them (except for the fact that one bugged me).

I enjoy House for the Sherlock Holmes aspect and the fascinating representation of diagnostic practices even though such depiction is more drama than truth.

[CmdrWilkens]

On another show where its worth talking about: West Wing. Season 2 is quite arguably the best total season of television period. Season 1 and 3 both had a long sequence of excellent episodes (though both got off to slow starts) and 4 was satisfying in its own right...but Season 5 oh Season 5. Aside from The Supremes it was just horrendous I mean horrendous. Then Season 6 wasn't all that much better, between the ridiculous contrivance to give CJ the CoS job, the inability of the season to figure out if Josh was a genius or lucky and the narrative dementia of switching between the two main season arcs. So I think it was quite a testament to myself and the host of other fans who stuck it out to get a VERY satisfying Season 7 that handled an off screen death better on screen that anybody else I've seen while also delivering everything one could hope for in a series finale.

I'll say it this way: anybody who stuck out Season 5 in order to get to the end of Season 7 will stand through anything if a show proves potential at any point in its run.

[Thanas]

On another show where its worth talking about: West Wing. Season 2 is quite arguably the best total season of television period. Season 1 and 3 both had a long sequence of excellent episodes (though both got off to slow starts) and 4 was satisfying in its own right...but Season 5 oh Season 5. Aside from The Supremes it was just horrendous I mean horrendous. Then Season 6 wasn't all that much better, between the ridiculous contrivance to give CJ the CoS job, the inability of the season to figure out if Josh was a genius or lucky and the narrative dementia of switching between the two main season arcs. So I think it was quite a testament to myself and the host of other fans who stuck it out to get a VERY satisfying Season 7 that handled an off screen death better on screen that anybody else I've seen while also delivering everything one could hope for in a series finale.

I'll say it this way: anybody who stuck out Season 5 in order to get to the end of Season 7 will stand through anything if a show proves potential at any point in its run.

Very, very true. I think the main problem was that in season 5 and 6 John Wells wanted to do a more centrist show...which did not mesh at all with the characters (asides from the other problems you mentioned. As soon as CJ got the CoS, I stopped really caring for the white house. Josh though....he got really buggered in Season 5 and 6 didn't start out any better, as you said.

However, I note that any episode of season 5 and 6 of TWW is still better than most crap out there today because of the great actors who still pulled it off.

[Terralthra]

Really? I always blamed the precipitous fall-off in quality on Andrew Sorkin's departure from the head writer position.

[CmdrWilkens]

Really? I always blamed the precipitous fall-off in quality on Andrew Sorkin's departure from the head writer position.

There is some reason for that but the writers (as evidenced by episodes such as 5.17 "The Supremes") were still a very talented and hard working group. The problem was they were essentially ordered to shift characters
how had a 4-5 years backstory in a completely new and unrealistic direction. Josh became sarcastic and petty where before he was idealistic and intense, CJ became pragmatic and doubtful where before she was the strongest in the room, Toby became bitter where before he always had a huge heart underneath. I mean that's just off the top of my head even before we get to Donna. Donna who I love and adore and think the world of...but she was an executive/legislative assistant. She didn't have a shred of experience in politics outside of what she learned at Josh's feet and yet suddenly she was demanding to be given policy authority and responsibility?

[Big Orange]

I agree with Stark that to get dramatically better Torchwood almost became a different show, but the same could arguably be said for Star Trek: The Next Generation after S2 (John Barrowman mentions Torchwood possibly carrying on).

I stopped watching Stargate SG-1 compulsively around S6-8, not because it was getting genuinely bad, but that the characters and plot formula was getting repetitive and past their prime. I found Atlantis dryer and more formulaic than VOY and ENT, I dropped it within a couple of episodes. I didn't mind Stargate Continuum.

CSI: Vegas has gone past its prime, perhaps the last very huge show on US network television, but Lawrence Fishburne is a much needed shot in the arm and the show can still turn out the odd good episode after running for many seasons now. CSI: NY has gotten better, I caught up on it, but CSI: Miami has gotten so much worse from what relatively little I've seen of it (in spite of supposedly being the most watched TV show in time and space).