no show should be longer than 5 seasons
what show have you watched where you are like “oh yeah season 7 definitely was the best one”
the thing is– there are shows when they get past season 6 or 7, does get better because somewhere there the writing crews tighten up again and its like the show changed its game and the show gets new viewers starting off from that season onwards.
tl;dr quality fanfiction later seasons are the best
This post by Leverage showrunner John Rogers is illuminating.
Season 1 is finding your groove.
Season 2 is trying to replicate your S1 successes.
By S3, you’ve figured out the optimal recipe, and and you can really start paying off things you’ve set up in the first two seasons. This is why in 5-year runs, season 3 is often held up as a highlight.But then you get a giant writer turnover. The loyal audience has spent more time with and has a better feel for these characters than the new writers do, unless you have fans of the show coming in as the new writers, as Leverage did. It’s essentially another sophomore season, and S4-S5 an entire sophomore phase for longer-running shows, as the new writers find their bearings. Worse, the showrunners have probably spent the initial character arcs that originally inspired them in S3, so they start messing with the format and the relationships to see what creatively shakes out. This is why so many S4s take that “main cast starts to drift apart” season arc route that can make sense narratively, but fans really hate.
So by S6, you either have worked out the kinks yet again, or you have another writer turnover, but the show has been going long enough that the probability of your third phase of writers being fans of the show and knowing what they want out of it is much higher. Hence their tendency to go back to the roots of what made S1-S3 work. That, and the showrunner has generally worked out the worst of their “Ooh, let’s see what happens if we TEAR THE ENSEMBLE CAST APART WITH ANGST” impulses out of their systems, and pace things at one break-up at a time, along with a build-up somewhere else, instead of a simultaneous cascade of destruction. Because hey, it’s season 4, according to 5-act structure we’re due for a spiral season that’s obviously a great idea! 8D
See also this post. Using the previous timeline, most shows complete their initial community-building arc by end of season 3. (“We’ve graduated high school!”) In order to continue without just feeling like masturbatory epiloguing, they have to evolve the show into something else, create a new trajectory for each character their relationships, and the overall plot. Again, many shows make the mistake of going from a community-building arc to a community death-and-rebirth arc, which is powerful but still requires a death section that fans will all hate. So that third phase of S6+ is, as the article puts it, after having restabilized the cast from a team to a family, exploring what that family means, which is always going to be more enjoyable to watch on a paced viewing basis than said breaking the team up to make them a family instead.
That, or S6 is the start of a complete reset of 5-act structure, so we’re back on mostly positive build-ups through the next round turning points.
This would actually explain how uneven the season 4 of Person of Interest. Season 4A was fantastic and then with the loss of Shaw, and probably behind the scenes, Nolan focusing on his new shows and ventures there’s less of a guiding hand to the writing? I imagine POI had two showrunners for a reason.
i'll apple your turnover 