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Until Daniel Craig took over.
...until they became all navel-gazingly po-faced and self-reverential.
Casino Royale - excellent, proper Bond with a bit of grittier (dare I say Bourne-like) outlook
QoS - was proper Bond in format, but was quite dull
Skyfall - return to form, although the worrying start of the backstory bollocks
Spectre - full on backstory bollocks
NTtD - oh FFS, get over yourself.
Reimaginings ... consider it a divorce from me.
The reimagined Battlestar Galactica of the mid-Noughties both refutes your thesis and conforms to this thread topic: brilliant first three seasons before vanishing up its arse for the fourth.
On the note of Bourne, they absolutely should have stopped that after the Ultimatum.
dare I say Bourne-like
Don’t think anyone has ever tried to deny that Bourne absolutely put a rocket up the Bond producers
NTtD - oh FFS, get over yourself.
I think the problem with the film was that the original script had a pandemic plot line, and (in the middle of COVID) they needed to re-script and re-shoot bits of it and the result was a confusing mess with unresolved plot lines, and bits of footage that made no sense. And secondly, they clearly hadn't a plan for what they were going to do after they dropped the bombshell at the end, IE it should've been resolved in the film.
I'll give them some leeway for the first, the second was just unforgivably bad planning.
...until they became all navel-gazingly po-faced and self-reverential.
Oh, and an obvious other franchise guilty of this is the Mission:Impossibles. I loved those films (mis-firing M:I2 excepted) as they were good, pure, bonkers-but-not-stupid blockbuster type stuff. Then the final two....
Dead Reckoning was great, and although the gaze was becoming worryingly navel-bound it kept the lightness of touch and level of comedy that kept it all enjoyable.
The last one though, f__k me, it completely disappeared up its own arse. So serious, so po-faced, it was, and I can't quite believe I'm saying this of a M:I film, really quite dull. Hated it, if I hadn't been there with twenty-odd Scouts that I had to look after I may well have left early.
Casino Royale - excellent, proper Bond with a bit of grittier (dare I say Bourne-like) outlook
QoS - was proper Bond in format, but was quite dull
Skyfall - return to form, although the worrying start of the backstory bollocks
Spectre - full on backstory bollocks
NTtD - oh FFS, get over yourself.
Agree with this. As soon as SPECTRE was mentioned* it started to go wrong IMO - they should have left that stuff in the Roger Moore era, with the secret lairs in volcanoes.
*Don't think it's mentioned in Casino Royal? It might get a mention in QoS, not sure
The Walking Dead is by far the worst culprit.
Vikings after Ragnar popped his clogs
Killing Eve after series 2
Line of Duty after series 1
Dexter completely lost it's way during / after season 6. Difficult to say when they should have called it a day as 6 had some good points but equally some bad.
The reimagined Battlestar Galactica of the mid-Noughties both refutes your thesis and conforms to this thread topic: brilliant first three seasons before vanishing up its arse for the fourth.
But that was because of the writers' strike wasn't it? I thought they had to really struggle to "finish" the whole plotline because they could not go the whole way, and then the strike ended after they had done a bodge job and they had to un-bodge a bodge for the last series (or something).
But that was because of the writers' strike wasn't it?
I think it was more to do with the writers deciding to kill off a main character (Starbuck) for no good reason, and then resurrect that character again for no good reason other than they thought it would "be cool" (I'm not making that up, that's the reason they gave) And that they'd deal with how to incorporate it into the story line later. It was hard to take it seriously afterwards.
edit: especially after all the piano playing and talking about her daddy for an entire series - Apologies if I've triggered any bad memories for fans.
They're making *another* Superman film, even though the original is still available! We get it OK, he can fly! Just how super does one man need to be?!
Still pales next to the number of Batman things we seem to get
The new Battlestar Galactica did kind of follow the 80s version though...Starbucks being lost and all that.
It was a decent watch as long as you didn't think, but as said the last series really did require a huge effort to not think.
Hmmm, for films I think a Sequel where it either goes in a slightly different direction, fleshes out the world/Lore a bit or just draws a story arc to a close/ties off lose ends is OK
So as a child of the 80s/90s:
-Alien, Aliens /Done
-Predator, Predator2(?) then Jump to Prey /Done
-Terminator, T2 /Done
-Indiana Jones 1/2/3/Done
-Star Wars - 4/5/6 -> Rogue One Then jump to (some of the Series) Kill or condense the prequel and definitely do Not Hire JJ Abrams to start (and not finish) for the follow on trilogy
But other series should have just stood and ended on their first instalment:
-Jaws
-Matrix (although I re-watched the first one recently with my youngest and it's not aged well)
-Psycho
Some Film Franchises need to carry on forever:
-Star Trek (it's just hilarious as the cast ages and the plot's thin)
-Bond (needs to be reinvented every Decade or so to reflect the contemporary world and the UK's place and self image in geopolitics...
As For TV shows almost all should be killed after 2 series, some get a third, it is often better to leave the audience wanting more than to Wring 48 episodes of "Meh" out of an idea with limited mileage...
^ similarly, there can only be one Highlander movie.
Nooo, there is one more being filmed at the moment 😀
Mr Mercedes on Netflix.
The first series was ok, although I thought a little clunky. In the second series though, they've got the bad man locked in a coma, and now he's looking out of the eyes of a nurse who gives him a bed bath as if he's watching telly and he can control the nurse through suggestion.
Ludicrous.
MASH
Movie was good, TV show started off ok then turned to rubbish once Henry Blake and Trapper John left.
Star Trek (it's just hilarious as the cast ages and the plot's thin)
How dare you 😀
You could argue the final original cast film - Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country - is the best one. (it isn't its the Wrath of Khan, but its still very good.)
The final two TNG films were stinkers though.
The JJ Abrams / Kelvin timeline reboots are a but of mixed bag too.
Apparently there is a new original film in development that won't be based on any of the existing tv or films.
Have we all forgotten the Godfather 3?
Jaws didn't need sequels, but apparently 2 was ok. Not seen it.
I seem to remember Rosanne being quite a funny comedy. I tried to watch The Connors. OMG.
Slow Horses began to repeat itself in worse ways after a couple of seasons. Kept watching it though.
Have we all forgotten the Godfather 3?
I'll admit, I had. I gave it half an hour before I binned it off.
FWIW, the original novel is absolute pulp, airport/holiday/beach book tosh. The transformation of it into such a brilliant, stylish, nuanced film is remarkable.
Slow Horses began to repeat itself in worse ways after a couple of seasons. Kept watching it though.
Roddy was spectacular in the last season. Worth it just to watch him being a dick.
Right, well, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and watched the second episode of the Night Manager.
I ain't not gonna be watching no more.
(Oh, and a tip to all you gun runners and spies out there, maybe don't discuss all your super secret stuff in a slightly loud voice in a hotel lobby)
Lost was the beginning of the end.
A proper story has a beginning, a middle, then an end - Lost hinted at a big reveal and failed to deliver. Or did it?
Then the people behind it revealed that they could just go on and on, and crucially, that that was their intention, to just go on and on until the ratings fell, and they had to stop.
The end was now at the mercy of the scheduler, not the story-teller - so we invariably get stories that have a beginning, a middle, a middle, a middle, a middle, a middle, a middle, a drop in viewing figures, then a hackneyed end. Fewer 'middles' are available.
See also Desperate Housewives for the same phenomena.
- Man in the high castle (series 3), great cast but lost its way
My impression was that they had written half of the season 3 when some bigwig walked into the room and told them they had to wrap the whole thing up because it was being cancelled.
Walking Dead is the perfect example of a series that should have called it a day after about three seasons. Pretty much everything after that is dire.
Alien3 could have been a great way to finish the series, but they made some terrible decisions, so they really should have stopped at Aliens.
Star Trek has had so many false starts and restarts, 2,4, and 6 were good, as was First Contact and the first one in the reboot. You keep watching them because you never know which end of the quality spectrum you're getting.
FWIW, the original novel is absolute pulp, airport/holiday/beach book tosh
The entire section about the woman with the massive lady parts was thankfully dropped from the film version
Yeah, that was a particularly odd, unexpectedly gynaecological, side-plot...
watched the second episode of the Night Manager.
We got about two thirds of the way through the second episode. It's a nah, unfortunately as we're pretty much out of things to watch. May go back to the Bear.
Whoops. Mixing this up with the Netflix etc thread.
FWIW, the original novel is absolute pulp, airport/holiday/beach book tosh. The transformation of it into such a brilliant, stylish, nuanced film is remarkable.
So many 'classic' movies have mediocre source material. Jaws is the most obvious example. The novel is a mess.
montgomery
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Prison Break. Season One. Done
Came here to say this. It was called Prison Break. Spoiler, they broke out. Done.
The last two seasons of Game of Thrones were crap, but not because it had gone on too long, not because the wrapped it up too quickly.
They rushed the end of that - the Wire suffered from same, budget meant the last season was shorter and missing a load of plot
Have we all forgotten the Godfather 3?
Slow Horses began to repeat itself in worse ways after a couple of seasons. Kept watching it though.
There a recent recut of GF3 that improve it a lot - not to the standard of 1 or 2, but makes it a half decent film
Slow Horses is getting very silly indeed. Oldman still just about carries it.
Avatar.
The ones that spring to mind to me were pretty trashy/'lite' watches and just ended up getting boring;
- True Blood
-Nip/Tuck
I'd concur on Westworld in a similarish vein.
It may be a bit premature, and i'm sure i'll get shot down for it but:
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
Just to be clear, i absolutely love watching it and its about the only thing that i want to watch regularly, but it just isn't the same any more. I almost hope they don't do another series, or they do a finale with them both walking off into the distance with rods over their shoulders and Ted by their side - fade to black.....
TV
The Blacklist
Totally agree with the Blacklist, dragged out and completely and utterly shit final episode.
House went on too long.
This question is resolved by Nick Cage in this movie (which is silly, but amusing).
IMDB.COM
🤣 Just seen the excellent quote in that film. I'm definitely going to watch it sometime now.
The ones that spring to mind to me were pretty trashy/'lite' watches and just ended up getting boring;
- True Blood
-Nip/Tuck
They're blasts from the past! But also two series I absolutely loved and stuck with until the end (although admittedly both went through some pretty farcical but still trashy fun spells!)
Slow Horses is getting very silly indeed
Getting? Have to disagree as it's always been silly, starting with Mick Jagger doing an outrageously camp impression of Mick Jagger. It's also reasonably faithful to the books, including in how it chews through characters and gives too much screen time to Oldman, which means there's a lot of plot and world building milage left in it.
They're blasts from the past! But also two series I absolutely loved and stuck with until the end (although admittedly both went through some pretty farcical but still trashy fun spells!)
Yeah, I feel I would have probably continued to enjoy them if I'd pushed through the dodgy bits! Now they are both stuck in the situation where I couldn't really pick them up again as I wouldn't have a clue what was going on, but on the flip side I'm never going to find time to start them again from the beginning.
Slow Horses is getting very silly indeed
Arguably that's the point. But it's still miles better than practically everything else on TV.
The ones that spring to mind to me were pretty trashy/'lite' watches and just ended up getting boring;
- True Blood
I was enjoying True Blood but it was getting increasingly contrived and finally jumped the shark for me with faerie world.
I did laugh a lot more than I'm proud to admit at the fart jokes in slow horses. Admittedly haven't watched hardly any comedy for a while. Did enjoy this series more for making me laugh rather than taking itself too seriously which maybe the previous series was guilty of at times. Have enjoyed them all though.
The Magnificent Seven.
… and I don’t need anyone telling me that it’s a remake of The Seven Samurai and they should have stopped after that.