5 Things that Can Cause a Great TV Show to Start to Suck

Ever notice how some television shows start out really strong by grabbing your attention and keeping you coming back every week to check in on characters who become more like friends? And then, from out of nowhere, that once great show that smacked of Must See TV becomes almost unbearably unwatchable. What's the deal? The deal with great TV shows that start to suck is that they fall victim to one of several different recurring mines placed right in plain view of the makes. It takes a great mind with a nurturing talent to keep a television show from stepping one of these self destructive landmines. See how many shows you can attach at victims to each of these problems that cause a TV show to suck.

Releasing Sexual Tension

The problem with creating a TV show that revolves around the sexual tension of two characters is similar to the problem inherent in a striptease. The tease is what keep eyes glued, but once the last shred of clothing comes off, there is really nowhere left to go but backstage. Sexual tension is the lifeblood of some shows and it takes a major dedication by all involved to keep the tension tight rather than give into loosening the creative pressures it places upon the makers. "Cheers" managed to keep going strong even after it gave in to the pressure and allowed Sam and Diane to consummate things. By contrast, "Moonlighting" never recovered from allowing the tension between Maddie and Dave to devolve into painfully athletic sex.

Pregnancy

Some shows can withstand a pregnancy while others die a quick death. Interestingly, some shows have been able to withstand the actual pregnancy of an actress without the associated pregnancy of her character while others have died by making the character pregnant along with the actress. The worst thing about having a character become pregnant a few years into the show is that the show then revolves around that aspect so audiences get things like Lamaze classes and baby showers and the inevitable Sweeps Week birth. Pregnancy played a part in bringing about an unexpectedly sudden end to shows as diverse as "Mork and Mindy" and "Mad About You."

Recasting Major Characters

"Bewitched" proved that a hit show can survive not only recasting a major character, but recasting that character with an inferior product. Same thing goes for "The Jeffersons" when it recast Lionel. Those are the exceptions that prove the rule, however. TV shows that must recast a major character almost always suffer in some way and though the recasting itself may not be the vital element that sends it to Cancellation City, it certainly doesn't help. So ingrained is this truism outside the unique world of soap operas that you very rarely ever seen a major character recast anymore.

Young Relatives to Replace Growing Kids

Call this one the Cousin Oliver Rule. "The Brady Bunch" was doomed to a quick death as a result of the aging of the kids around which the show was built. Once Cindy and Bobby started becoming less and less cute, it was decided to bring in a cuter relative: Cousin Oliver. The problem wasn't so much that Robbie Rist wasn't cute; he was. The problem is that he wasn't a Brady! "The Cosby Show" managed to avoid this problem through the luck of finding a cute replacement once Rudie started aging. In almost every other case, bringing in a younger relative of kids who have grown past the age of cuteness is a shortcut to death for a TV show.

Spinning Off The Best Character

This might well be called the Benson Effect. It rarely happens because most of those involved in a hit show recognize the risk: call that the Fonzie Paradox. "Soap" didn't die when it lost its funniest character Benson to an inferior spinoff, but it was never quite as snarkily funny. Henry Winkler realized what the producers of "Happy Days' apparently could not: if you took Fonzie out of the "Happy Days" lineup not only would it kill that show, but a spinoff would result in such Fonzie overkill that it had little hope of becoming a hit. When a character is spun off from a TV show these days, it doesn't tend to be a character too vitally important. Even so, in far too many cases the spinoff is a disappointment and the original show needlessly suffers.