Kill it Before it Dies

Anybody who has watched an entire television series can tell you how heartbreaking a finally is. Seeing the final moments for characters you’ve spent years with come to a close before a final credit real can bring tears to the eyes of many. However, people who watch a lot of television know how much worse it is to see the show you once loved become a formulaic and senseless shadow of its former self before being cancelled three seasons too late leaving a terrible taste in your mouth about the entire series.
Television series can only go on for so long because progress needs to constantly be made in a narrative to bring any sense of fulfilment to an audience. If all you do is ask questions without providing any answers the audience will get frustrated, yet at the same time when there are no questions left the show becomes pointless. Some shows try to cling to life by introducing more and more ridiculous scenarios to try to keep viewers invested while destroying the very identity of the show itself. Other shows lose major cast members yet chug along by writing indispensable members of the show out of the script entirely. Some of the best endings of television shows come from the series that decide when to go out. When the writers and directors of a show plan ahead of time how long they intend to keep a show running, it gives them the ability to properly pace out a narrative structure that will be cohesive and fulfilling. It is best to choose when a show should go out on top rather than let it crash to the ground in a fiery explosion of disappointment.