35 TV shows that went on way too long — sorry

Opinion by Gabbi Shaw

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We were never going to be mad about more "Stranger Things," but we are mad it took a decade to wrap up … and that the finale was on the underwhelming side.

This is more of a calendar problem than a content problem. When this show started, the "Stranger Things" kids were still actually kids. But just five seasons — and a whopping nine years later — these "kids" are adults. Like, "Millie Bobby Brown is a wife and mother" adults. Maybe that's why it was a bit laughable that the show concluded with its main characters graduating from high school.

It also became clear during the finale that perhaps this show was never suited to becoming as huge as it did. There's something to be said for seasoned franchise filmmakers knowing how to build an entire universe. The Duffer Brothers, the creators of "Stranger Things," were never that.

So, was it worth the wait? We'd argue no. We're begging for shows like "Severance" to get a more traditional release schedule to avoid wearing out the audience's welcome.

Did "Suits" really need to continue after Meghan Markle and Patrick J. Adams left in season seven?

The show's premise — that Adams' character Mike would be able to stay at a top law firm without a law degree for years without anyone important finding out — was always ridiculous, but the banter between Mike, his boss Harvey (Gabriel Macht), Harvey's secretary Donna (Sarah Rafferty), and paralegal Rachel (Markle), was impossible not to like.

But when real-life circumstances forced Markle to leave the show — like a royal wedding — Rachel and Mike were written off in the finale of season seven.

As the relationship between Mike and Harvey was the beating heart of "Suits," it was never the same after they were gone, and the show only lasted two more seasons.

The 22nd season of "Grey's Anatomy" returns this month, but it has overstayed its welcome.

Millions of people watch "Grey's Anatomy," even after 21 years of deaths, breakups, and every natural disaster you could think of — and this show was just supposed to be about a group of surgical interns and their relationship drama!

It's hard to pinpoint when the saga of Seattle Grace Mercy West/Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital should have ended. After season five, when Katherine Heigl and T. R. Knight left? Or after season eight, when Chyler Leigh and Eric Dane decided to flee Seattle? It almost definitely should have been done after Sandra Oh left in season 10. Or you could argue that it should've been when Justin Chambers, aka the heart of the show, Alex Karev, left in season 16.

However, now that Meredith Grey herself, Ellen Pompeo, has decided that it's time to leave Grey Sloan, it's time to pack it up.

The point is, "Grey's Anatomy" has been on the air way too long.

"Westworld" was unceremoniously canceled by HBO in 2021 after four seasons, even though the show had at one point been a prestige hit and only needed one more season to wrap up its sprawling story, according to its creators.

And now that "Westworld" will never get to finish its story, there's an argument to be made that it should've been a one-season limited series.

But as Business Insider's Kim Renfro pointed out, being a "Westworld" fan has been exhausting since season two's extremely confusing, aspect ratio-changing, time-jumping story premiered.

The first season, now, remains a perfectly entertaining season about a theme park version of the Wild West for the mega-rich who thrived off hurting the park's android population. There was much to dissect about AI, what it means to be human, and how much darkness one person can carry without losing their mind.

RIP, "Westworld," we barely knew you … because we had no idea what was going on half the time.

"Homeland" is another example of a show that could've been a limited series but dragged on for eight seasons total.

Spoilers ahead for a show that wrapped up its eighth and final season in 2020. And we're going to tell you a hard truth: Damian Lewis' Nicholas Brody should've died at the end of season one, and that should've been the conclusion of his and CIA case officer Carrie Mathison's story.

Instead, Lewis' chemistry with Claire Danes, who played Carrie Mathison, was so strong that the show kept putting off the inevitable, spinning its wheels until his death in season three.

Then, even though their relationship was the heart of the show, "Homeland" went on for five more seasons, each with diminishing returns.

"The Walking Dead" universe is somehow still kicking after 16 years and six spin-offs.

Since its premiere in 2010, viewers have been subjected to 11 seasons of the original show, which ended in 2022; eight seasons of "Fear the Walking Dead"; two seasons of "The Walking Dead: World Beyond"; a season of "Tales of the Walking Dead"; two seasons of "The Walking Dead: Dead City"; three seasons of "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon," and one season of "The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live" — with more on the way.

It doesn't matter how much you love zombies. There's no way all of these shows can be good and stay good after hundreds of episodes.

"The Big Bang Theory" mercifully pulled the plug after 12 seasons in 2019 and approximately one million "Bazingas."

"TBBT" was a pleasant enough show about a group of nerds (and one "dumb" woman), but it became way too hacky as the years went by.

Sheldon was reduced to a sentient pile of catchphrases (Bazinga, the soft kitty song, to name a couple), and the on/off relationship of Penny and Leonard lost its spark.

That it went on for 12 seasons, while other underrated comedies got canceled way too soon — looking at you "Party Down," "Selfie," and "Happy Endings" — is probably its biggest crime.

While we could all use a little more President Bartlet in our lives, it's undeniable that the show lost its true magic when Sorkin, who essentially wrote every script, left after the fourth season in 2003.

That season could have been a logical endpoint to the series, with Bartlet securing a second term, and the rest of his staff living to see another day. 

Instead, the show soldiered on for another three seasons. None of them are bad, but they failed to achieve the same transcendence of Sorkin's episodes, before ending in 2006.

"Scrubs" is frequently cited by medical professionals as the most realistic medical show portraying life as a doctor in a hospital, as Slate reported.

It also provided us with many laughs — and almost as many tears — across its seven seasons on NBC. The network canceled it, and ABC swooped in to pick it up for season eight in 2008.

Creator Bill Lawrence provided fans with a beautiful finale that saw all of our favorite characters riding off into the sunset. Or so it seemed.

ABC commissioned one more season of "Scrubs," known unofficially as "Scrubs Med." The show was moved from a hospital to a medical school, only three of the original cast continued to star, and a bunch of new characters were introduced, much to the chagrin of audiences.

Thankfully, the show was really canceled after that in 2010, and many fans don't even acknowledge it as canon.

But, guess what? In 2026, we're heading back to Sacred Heart for a 10th season with Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, John C. McGinley, and Judy Reyes, so maybe we'll be taking this show off the list soon.

"Friends" is one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, which is why it's painful to admit that it lasted at least one season too long.

Granted, the show revolved around a group of six friends, so storylines were in short supply. But when Rachel and Joey started dating in season 10, after nine seasons of having no interest in each other whatsoever, it became clear that the writers had run out of material.

Additionally, the characters became loud, obnoxious caricatures of themselves. Try watching an episode from the first season of "Friends," and then one from the 10th season — the differences are startling.

When Variety reported in 2015 that HBO was adapting Liane Moriarty's best-selling novel "Big Little Lies," starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz, the expectations could not have been higher.

And when it premiered in 2017, it lived up to all of them. The cast had amazing chemistry, the story was well-paced and sufficiently ominous, and the soundtrack was superb.

When "Big Little Lies" won multiple Emmys in the limited-series category, it became clear that there were no plans to artificially extend the story past what Moriarty had written in the book.

But two years later, we were back in Monterey. Even though season two gave us Meryl Streep's screaming, "Big Little Lies" should've stayed a limited series.

Hollywood, stop doing this! If your show was based on a single book, it almost never pays off to extend the story — there's a reason the author didn't write a sequel.

It remains to be seen if the long-threatened third season will actually happen.

There are some who argue that there shouldn't have even been one season of "13 Reasons Why," a Netflix show based on the novel of the same name. Critics claimed the show, which premiered in 2017, "glorified" suicide and sent the wrong message to teens.

But whether you agree with it or not, even the biggest fans of the show have to admit that the story after season one went completely off the rails.

This show started as the story of Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford), a teenager struggling with anxiety and depression, who recorded 13 tapes, each dedicated to a different person she blamed for her eventual suicide.

But by the time season four rolled around in 2020, Hannah was long forgotten, and the show had turned into a murder-mystery thriller with extra trauma thrown in for no discernible reason, as NME wrote.

If you were on Twitter (now X) during an episode of "Pretty Little Liars," you might remember how captivating this show about a group of friends getting terrorized by an anonymous stalker named "A" used to be — it was a phenomenon.

But the show's runaway success led to it promising to reveal who the real "A" was every single season. Even though the identity of "A" was revealed in season two, more "As" popped up every season.

How many "As" could there be? The show only got more confusing as it went on, and mercifully ended after season seven in 2017 — though there were also two spinoffs.

"The Vampire Diaries" probably should have called it quits after the show's star, Nina Dobrev, left in season six. It finally ended two years later.

"The Vampire Diaries" originally started as a love triangle between Elena (played by Dobrev) and two vampire brothers, Stefan and Damon, but as seasons went on, the show lost focus.

Still, it kept going and doubled down on the (polarizing) romance between Damon and Elena. Arguably, it was never able to recreate its storytelling highs of season two. 

The show's sixth season ended with Elena in a coma, and curiously continued without her for another two unnecessary seasons.

Without Elena, the main character, the show struggled, and finally came to an end after season eight in 2017 — though you could continue some characters' journeys on "The Originals" and "Legacies" until they ended in 2018 and 2022, respectively.

"One Tree Hill," a show about a group of high school friends in a small North Carolina town called Tree Hill, would have been great if it had said goodbye after high school graduation.

The post-high school stretch of "OTH" just had way too much going on, becoming confusing and soap opera-esque.

The show attempted to bypass the college problem that many high school TV shows encounter by jumping four years into the future, which was inventive at first, but became sort of ridiculous: the high level of success and fame this one group of friends had achieved was unbelievable.

It ended in 2012 after season nine, arguably five years after its prime.

In 2024, Variety reported that stars Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton were working on an "OTH" revival with Netflix, so there might be more yet.

"Scandal" became increasingly ridiculous and soapy as time went on, ultimately concluding in 2018.

It could be argued that the show never recovered from the introduction of the all-knowing, super-scary Black-Ops intelligence organization, B-613.

That's when "Scandal" pivoted from a political case-of-the-week drama with an ongoing love story between political "fixer" Olivia Pope and the US president to a frankly unwatchable soap opera in which every character either became a murderer or died, and spent most of their time yelling at someone.

"Once Upon a Time" was rightfully canceled in 2018 after its low-rated seventh season. The show had tried to continue after ditching six of its main characters, but it would have made more sense to pull the plug.

The premise of "Once Upon a Time" — that fairytale characters are all real and living in a fictional town in Maine — was interesting for a season or two, but as the show went on, the connections between characters became more and more unbelievable. Plus, by the end, basically every character on the show was somehow related.

"Family Guy's" creator, Seth MacFarlane, admitted that he has conflicting ideas about his show. In 2011, MacFarlane told The Hollywood Reporter, "Part of me thinks that 'Family Guy' should have already ended. I think seven seasons is about the right lifespan for a TV series."

It's hard to argue with that, especially since the misadventures of the Rhode Island-dwelling Griffin family are wearing a little thin these days.

However, season 24 is set to kick off in February, and as Variety reported, the show is guaranteed to air through season 29.

"Glee" really started to go off the rails when some of the original characters graduated high school.

Thinking about "Glee" in 2023 is difficult, considering the tragedy of Cory Monteith's overdose, Naya Rivera's unexpected death, and the death of Mark Salling, who was charged with the possession of child-sexual-abuse material.

But the show probably should have taken its final bow after a couple of seasons. In a review of the 2015 series finale for Vox, one critic even wrote that the show "got bad" in its second episode.

The novelty of turning popular songs into show choir performances wore off quickly, and the show's replacement characters in season four, after much of the Glee Club graduated from high school, never quite worked.

Many people claim that the 2012 reveal that Dan Humphrey, resident New York City "Lonely Boy," was actually Gossip Girl ruined the show for them … but the show was pretty ruined long before that.

"Gossip Girl" is an example of a show not being sustainable after the high school years. It didn't make sense that all of the main characters went to college in Manhattan: Blair, Serena, Nate, and Dan had all expressed their desire to leave the city for college.

Plus, by season four, it didn't make sense for any of them to still be hanging out together. They all openly hated each other.

If there's one thing fans can agree on, it's that the final season of "Gilmore Girls" — a show about a young mother-daughter pair in small-town Connecticut — is a mess, due to the show's heart and soul, writer and producer Amy Sherman-Palladino, leaving in 2006.

But some argue that the mediocrity of season seven is actually her fault. Season six was a radical departure from the hijinks of perpetually happy town "Stars Hollow," and instead focused on Rory and her mom not speaking, and the slow, painful demise of Luke and Lorelai's engagement.

The 2016 Netflix reboot "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" somehow made it even worse, showing that Rory had gone through little to no personal growth since the show ended, and that Lorelai and Luke had made no progress on their communication issues that had been present since their romance first began in season five.

"24" had an innovative premise: Each week's episode was in real time, and each season covered a single day. But it definitely didn't need eight seasons, a 2008 TV movie, a 2014 revival, and a 2017 spin-off.

Realistically, how many seasons of CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) agent Jack Bauer saving the world, getting betrayed, torturing someone, and getting chased by the federal government can you watch? At least nine, its creators thought.

"24," which was initially praised for its inventive structure and its willingness to kill main characters and take big risks, got old pretty quickly.

But the show became formulaic after a couple of years, and the amount of pain and suffering each "day" put Jack through became unnecessary — his wife, four girlfriends, father, and brother are all killed over the course of the show.

One of the pillars of the Superman canon is that Clark becomes Superman when he moves to Metropolis from his small town of, well, Smallville.

But "Smallville" didn't get that memo, because Clark moves to Metropolis in season five with no red cape in sight. He didn't even wear the suit until the 2011 series finale (which is also when he finally learned to fly).

Yes, it took "Smallville" an excruciating 10 seasons for Clark Kent to finally become Superman.

To be fair, the creators of "Smallville" probably had no idea that the show would last for 10 seasons when they instituted their "No tights, no flights" policy, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

"That '70s Show" took place from 1976 to 1979, but the show lasted for eight seasons. It took five years for the core crew to graduate high school, so naturally, the show began to drag. You can only watch a group of friends sit in a basement and get stoned for so long.

But the show should have ended for good when Topher Grace, who played the main character Eric Forman, chose to leave after season seven in 2005.

Then, Ashton Kutcher, who played Kelso, left after the first four episodes of season eight — and was replaced by an almost universally hated character named Randy (sorry, Josh Meyers!).

Fans were also angry when Fez and Jackie began a relationship, seemingly out of nowhere, effectively ending the fan-favorite relationship between Jackie and Hyde.

Even though the 2023 sequel series "That '90s Show" (which was canceled after two seasons) confirmed that Jackie and Kelso got back together and brought back Eric, we'd be fine without it.

It became apparent that "The Office" was running out of stories to tell after Jim and Pam finally got married in the show's sixth season. The writers kept throwing unrealistic obstacles at them, such as a random cameraman who was suddenly in love with Pam. Adding such a melodramatic plot to a workplace sitcom like "The Office" (about a paper company in Pennsylvania) didn't make any sense.

But the final nail in the coffin of "The Office" was Steve Carell's decision to exit after seven seasons as the lovably incompetent Michael Scott.

Season eight was the first season of the sitcom to achieve a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. It would have been better to go out on a high note.

Urban Dictionary defines jumping the shark as "a term to describe a moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity."

Where did such an oddly specific expression come from? Look no further than the season five premiere of "Happy Days," in which Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler, literally jumps over a shark on water-skis. This stunt left people confused — wasn't this supposed to be a show about small-town '50s nostalgia?

"Happy Days" lasted for 11 seasons from 1974 to 1984, but many people cite the jumping of the shark as a turning point in "Happy Days" history.

"Weeds," a show about a suburban single mom who grows and sells marijuana to support her family, started with such promise. It was a fascinating look at what goes on behind closed doors in suburbia — until it became more focused on drug cartels, murder, and generally unpleasant subject matter.

Seasons one and two, in which Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) is a low-level marijuana dealer in the small California town of Agrestic, are nearly perfect.

But when the show crossed the border into Mexico? Not so much.

It's borderline impossible to find someone who watched "Weeds" all the way until the end in 2012, when it became way too dark to enjoy.

"True Blood" kicked off the vampire craze in 2008, a month before "Twilight" hit the big screen, and a year before "The Vampire Diaries" premiered on The CW.

And for three seasons, it was a campy, bloody, sexy show about Sookie, a psychic waitress, her complicated relationships with hot vampires, and the lives of her family and friends.

But "True Blood" went downhill after it was revealed that Sookie was a fairy. She described it best when she found out the news: "I'm a fairy? How ... lame."

After this reveal, the writers scrambled to find more ways to integrate other mythological creatures, with little success.

Original showrunner Alan Ball abandoned ship after season five, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and "True Blood" should have gone down with him.

The show ended on a low note in 2014, which is something that fans are still angry about to this day.

"How I Met Your Mother" should not have gone on for nine years, simply because taking nine seasons to tell one story is almost cruel to viewers — especially the eagle-eyed, devoted fans who spent years dissecting every episode looking for clues and Easter eggs as to the identity of the titular mother.

The slow pace of the story angered both Ted's kids and fans, and the show became less funny over time.

Maybe if the show had spent only four or five years building up the mother, as opposed to almost an entire decade, fans would have been able to swallow Ted and Robin (his ex-girlfriend and best friend's ex-wife) ending up together, instead of raging that it was one of the worst endings of all time.

Dexter was a serial killer who trained himself to only kill bad guys, but the show became less appealing, and more unrealistic, especially when writers increasingly tried to humanize Dexter.

Even if you were rooting for Dexter, it became impossible to watch him face no consequences for his actions — every time someone came close to exposing him, someone else killed the threat, instead of Dexter being forced to abandon his moral code to kill an innocent person.

Additionally, the 2013 series finale has become widely regarded as one of the worst ever, although it was slightly redeemed by the subsequent revivals and prequel: "Dexter: New Blood," "Dexter: Original Sin," and "Dexter: Resurrection."

When "Modern Family" premiered in 2009, it was universally loved by fans and critics, as evidenced by high Rotten Tomatoes scores.

In fact, it was nominated for best comedy series at the Emmys seven years in a row, winning five consecutive years. It was a true 21st-century comedy, telling the story of a giant family that includes a gay couple, an interracial couple, divorce, and adoption.

However, when it lost the award for the first time in 2015, it should've been a clue that it was probably time to start wrapping things up. Yet, the show continued, and even though it wasn't nominated for anything in 2018, it soldiered on for a 10th season.

The show finally ended in April 2020.

"Desperate Housewives" began in 2004 as an intriguing mystery about a group of friends who were rocked by their friend Mary Alice's shocking suicide.

But as the years went by, characters became more unlikable and plots more nonsensical — remember when Edie was electrocuted after surviving a car crash? Eight seasons were just too much time to invest in the ladies of Wisteria Lane.

One of the show's titular two-and-a-half men, Charlie Sheen, left the show after eight seasons in 2011. He was dismissed after insulting the show and its creator, Chuck Lorre, Deadline reported, amongst other things, during a public meltdown.

The sitcom — about a wimpy chiropractor Alan, his underachieving son Jake, and his ladies' man brother Charlie — soldiered on for four more seasons by replacing Charlie with a depressed billionaire, Walden, who was played by Ashton Kutcher.

The show ended on a low note in 2015, with IGN writing "don't think [we] could come up with a worse ending."

The truth is, the show was already in a downward spiral before Sheen left, but his departure should have been the final nail in the coffin.

In the end, it turns out "Supernatural" isn't immortal, like so many of its characters.

The show dealt with all sorts of otherworldly creatures, such as angels, demons, vampires, werewolves, and leprechauns, among others, and two brothers (Dean and Sam Winchester) were tasked with eradicating the world from these evils.

Not many, if any, shows can remain fresh for 300 episodes. There's only so many times someone can go to hell and back before it loses its oomph, which is probably why the show ended after 15 years.

It's always a risky move when shows finally let their central couple be together — the romantic tension is usually much more fun.

"Castle" started in 2009 as a procedural about a smarmy mystery novelist, the titular Castle, tagging along with a no-nonsense homicide detective, Beckett. The two had chemistry, and for four seasons, they danced around their obvious feelings for each other.

But when the two finally got together, the show lost some of its mojo. The show had to twist itself into knots to inject conflict into their relationship instead of letting them be happy, frustrating fans to no end throughout the next four seasons until its end in 2016.