Tune in or turn off? These shows overstayed their television welcome

It’s hard to know when to end a story, unless you work for Netflix, where they think that cliffhangers and plots that never pay off are the cool new thing. Can’t get it done in a single season? Too bad! This is just fact. I’m not upset that they canceled "First Kill." Not at all.

For other content producers, sometimes they do the opposite and will let the show go on forever if they can. Is it still making money? Then let’s keep going, even though the story bucket ran dry about two seasons ago. Sometimes it’s better to bow out gracefully when you can make a great ending as opposed to when your stars decide to leave or the show gets canceled, and you’re left with an ending that’s terrible or rushed.

Here are some shows that didn’t learn that lesson and went on a bit too long. Keep in mind there are spoilers for each of the shows on this list!

"Supernatural" (2005-2020)

This one had an ending — and they chose to ignore it. Those behind "Supernatural" had originally planned to end the story of monster-hunting brothers in season five, but popularity kept it going. It would have been a way better ending with the two Winchester boys defeating Lucifer, Dean getting to enjoy the civilian life that was taken from him and Sam appearing to be freed of the hell that he was trapped in after saving the world.

A nice little ribbon is wrapped around the show, and the fanfiction writers can play with the fact that Sam's back to keep the adventure going if they want.

But then the show kept going, and the showrunners and writers desperately sought things for the boys to fight, even letting them become possessed by a variety of things just for the drama. Also, people keep dying and coming back to life so much that it feels like this show became "Dragonball Z." Finally, the show ended with the boys fighting the darkness that came before the creation of the world and God himself. 

When you’re writing a show like this, you can only throw those boys into the wall so many times before fatigue sets in.

"The Walking Dead" (2010-2022)

You know how most movies and shows have the protagonists trying to stop world-ending events? That’s because there are not a whole lot of places to go after you end the world.

Hence, the problem with almost any media that features a zombie apocalypse. How do you bring the world back when most of it is just the undead looking to chomp the rest of the world's bottle-necked population? The only book that I’ve read that figured it out was "World War Z" — and that's indeed the book, not the terrible movie.

The problem with "The Walking Dead" is that they’ve spent the last 11 years playing the same song but mixing up the verses and choruses. The group is traveling somewhere, someone gets bit, they either hide it or show the group and have to get put down like Old Yeller. Then, they encounter a new group of humans, and it turns out that man is the real monster. The group is safe — nope! Here comes a new group of people to mess things up for them. The same fatigue from "Supernatural" sets in even faster.

And, it’s still unclear how they’re going to repopulate the world and get rid of the zombies.  Maybe this one could have ended with the zombies getting the W. Let them have this one — they wanted it more.

"Riverdale" (2017-2023)

The CW seems to have the opposite problem of Netflix, where they let things continue forever despite having no idea what the writers are doing. 

The first season of "Riverdale" was a taut — kind of weird murder mystery that had the cast of the "Archie" comics trying to solve the death of Jason Blossom while being young and pretty and hanging out in Pop’s Diner that’s lit like a club for some reason. After that, the show leaped off the rails and destroyed them on their way out. Presented without context, here are some things that happened in Riverdale after season one.

Archie fought in a WWI-style war despite them still having modern technology. There was a slew of episodes with an alternate magical school called Rivervale where Sabrina Spellman from "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the Witch" showed up, which means that there is a canonical hell in Riverdale. Veronica has opened up a jewelry store, and then a speakeasy and a casino in that jewelry store. Betty joined the FBI. Jughead went on a hunger strike to stop a prison from being built. There were two musical episodes, multiple gang wars and serial killers.

That’s just scratching the surface of the insanity of this show. At the end of the last season, a comet is heading toward Riverdale, and everyone has superpowers for some reason. They end up destroying the comet with said superpowers and get thrown back in time to 1955.

My predictions for the end of season seven are that Betty will have taken over the East Coast, Veronica will have walked on the moon and Archie will have become a hot centaur. It makes as much sense as anything else on that show.

"The Office" (2005-2013)

I'm probably going to get some hate for this one, but this show had two endings that could have come naturally — but it kept going. The first ending could have been when Jim and Pam got married. It would have made sense. The show was focused on them, and their marriage could have been a fitting end to their story.

But it kept going. Then, Michael Scott — another main character on the show — left, and that would have been a nice ending, too. Michael walks away at the airport, another episode or two wraps things for the others, and we’re out. But the show didn't end there either.

The greatest indicator that this show went on too long was the rejected storyline from season eight. This plot line would have seen Jim cheating on Pam with an interim worker, Cathy. John Krasinski pushed back against this, saying that it would be terrible. He managed to save the tail end of the show and make sure that "The Office" didn’t end in a "Game of Thrones" garbage fire of bitterness that left us feeling like our time was wasted.  

They did attempt to bring some of that drama in the last season of the show by turning Jim into a selfish ass by starting a terrible company and being a lousy husband and father. 

Then, the minds behind "The Office" tried making everyone super best friends forever despite this show always having had a simmer of antagonism between all of the characters. They could have had a nice ending, but instead, the whole thing felt kind of muddled and rushed.

While some shows need extra seasons to gain breathing room and become the best versions of themselves that they can be, some shows are given too much leeway and end up wearing out their welcome, sometimes even tarnishing their legacy.