The Times Networks RUINED long running TV Shows.

[numberthirty]

Here is my only question. Why would you let a guy, with a record of bad behavior, direct and episode?

Exactly.... there has been some buzz that most of the cast likes him, but his big name costar is the one upset and forcing the move.

If he is overreacting to events, there is a good chance that the "Riggs" character mindset is too close to the surface and bleeding over into his regular actions. The guy is playing an unstable lunatic every time he's on those sets.... lol.

I was actually watching something on this yesterday.

The piece included a cut to a photo of a sticker someone had put up on set that read "Clayne Crawford Is An Emotional Terrorist". Unless this is all Wayans doing a brilliant job of stirring it up from a distance, something weird must have been going on there.

[numberthirty]

Also, I think it's a stretch to say Lethal Weapon is a long-running show.

To say the least, they probably should have just cut their losses at one season when red flags started going up.

[Rincewind]

The Dukes of Hazzard

It was a top rated show for the first 4 seasons. At the beginning of season 5 the lead actors had a contract dispute over their payment on merchandising. The network replaced them with 2 similar actors, but the audience hated the replacements. Ratings took a nose dive and the original actors were brought back at the end of the season. The show regained some viewers, but the show never returned to its hit status. The show continued for 2 more years of mediocre ratings before being cancelled.

[Nate Grey]

Here's what happened with Angel, from what I can remember from the time.

The WB was looking to air a remake of the series Dark Shadows- which is about a vampire. For some reason some people really high up in the WB were super-hyped for this show, while at the same time they didn't like Angel at all. I don't know why- the only thing I remember clearly is that the WB mandated that Angel not show his vampire face at all during the 5th season (they were able to do it a couple of times, but it you rewatch the season you'll see he only morphed a handful of times, and one of those was as a puppet). Much like Lucifer, Joss designed a season ending cliffhanger that was meant to guarantee a 6th season, but the WB dicked around with the schedule and pre-empted a bunch of shows, and then said that they wouldn't be picking it up for a 6th season (what infuriated me at the time was that they knew they were getting canceled, and they STILL did an entire episode devoted to Harmony, a character that I absolutely LOATHED). And then, to put a cherry on top of the situation, the WB announced during the up-fronts that they were passing on Dark Shadows anyways.

That's how I remember it, too. That and Alec Newman (Drogyn from season 5 of Angel) was to play Barnabas.

[Panic]

This is what David Fury said of the circumstances surrounding Angel's cancellation:

The only reason that Angel didn't come back...it's a very simple thing. Because our ratings were up, because of our critical attention, Joss specifically asked Jordan Levin, who was the head of The WB at the time, to give us an early pick-up because every year they [would] wait so long to give Angel a pick-up [and] a lot of us [would] turn down jobs hoping that Angel will continue– he [Joss] didn't want that to happen. So, he was feeling very confident and he [Joss] just asked Jordan, "Like, make your decision now whether you're going to pick us up or not," and Jordan, sort of with his hands tied, with his back up against the wall, called him the next day and said, "Okay, we're cancelling you." Jordan's no longer there and The WB has since recognized...I believe Garth Ancier at The WB said that it was a big mistake to cancel Angel. There was a power play that happened that just didn't fall out the way they wanted it to. We wanted to get an early pick-up, we didn't. In fact we forced them [the WB] to make a decision, and with his hand forced he [Levin] made the decision to cancel us.
I guarantee that, if we waited as we normally did, by the time May had come around they would have picked up Angel. I can guarantee that.

(^from Wikipedia)

Basically Joss decided to play hardball at just the wrong time with the wrong guy. I can totally see his point about the way the network was messing the cast and crew around by not renewing it until the last minute, just unfortunate that the gamble didn't pay off.