What series do you think kept their quality all the way through?

[Kirby101]

Yes on The Good Place.

Big Bang Theory kept it's quality as well.

[Lukmendes]

Avatar: The Last Airbender - stands out to em because it was one of the series smart enough to pace itself out early on, so it really only increased in quality overall, and not only is there only *one* filler episode, but the show knew how to properly mock it.

Honestly, the problem with that episode isn't it being "filler", it adding nothing wouldn't be as much of a problem if it wasn't so boring lol.

Big Bang Theory. It was just as funny at the end as it was at the beginning.

I wonder if that's a stealth insult lol.

I'm not going to lie: After "Jurassic Bark," I never watched another episode. It upset me just that much. I'm talking "Old Yeller" levels of trauma so that I just can't watch a single episode of that show again without getting depressed.

If it makes you feel any better, nothing else in that cartoon was even half as depressing as that lol.

This was such a common sentiment that time travel shenanigans were actually used to retcon the dog's fate slightly by expanding on the life it lived up until the fossilization.

Honestly, I don't see how the retcon made much of a difference, the Fry who stayed on the present left New York for like 12 years, and once Fry came back, he only pet Seymour on the head, got attacked by Bender, and left to live in the future as Lars without a care about Seymour.

I guess at least Fry stayed around for an year or two before he decided to leave, but after he left New York, it's not that different.

Either I would way 30 Rock, Breaking Bad and Avatar are the ones who stayed more consistent from beginning to end that I remember.

Futurama, definitely doesn't make it into this list for me, I don't remember if the quality was always good back at Fox (Though I'm pretty sure I thought its last season was worse than the previous ones), but what came afterwards, the movies were hit or miss, the later seasons were just pretty meh... Setting up obvious jokes with obvious lines, which weren't really funny to begin with, and I have no idea why the last episode is praised, since it's just yet another half assed romance between Fry and Leela.

[AndrewCrossett]

I think Lost started to go off the rails in the middle seasons when they started flaliling for plots, introducing the diamond thieves and whatnot. But then they righted the course by declaring an end date and getting back to the mythology.

I thought the ending was disappointing, but I'm not sure what ending they could have thought up that wouldn't have been disappointing.

These Mystery Box shows really need to know the ending when they start. No show is going to end well if it requires the writers to write themselves out of multiple corners.

[useridgoeshere]

I wonder if that's a stealth insult lol.

It was written intentionally as a set up for someone to finish the joke. I enjoy BBT and still watch it on TBS a lot, but I know a lot of folks don't so I thought wording it that way would be funny.

Futurama, definitely doesn't make it into this list for me, I don't remember if the quality was always good back at Fox (Though I'm pretty sure I thought its last season was worse than the previous ones), but what came afterwards, the movies were hit or miss, the later seasons were just pretty meh... Setting up obvious jokes with obvious lines, which weren't really funny to begin with, and I have no idea why the last episode is praised, since it's just yet another half assed romance between Fry and Leela.

I didn't think of the movies, only the original series on Fox, which I have on DVD. I don't remember if I've even watched the movies.

[Starter Set]

The first run of Futurama, from 99 to 03, is pretty much flawless in my book.

With some of the most witty dialogues i have ever seen in a show, animated or not.

And the last episode, the devil's hands are idle playthings", was a great end for the show.

[The Gold Stream]

venture bros

peep show

the larry sanders show

[JBatmanFan05]

Two comedies that retained their quality to the end: 1) Strangers With Candy (3 seasons) and Get A Life (2 seasons)

And they just happen to be favorite shows of mine.

[frankiedetroit]

I think Lost started to go off the rails in the middle seasons when they started flaliling for plots, introducing the diamond thieves and whatnot. But then they righted the course by declaring an end date and getting back to the mythology.

I thought the ending was disappointing, but I'm not sure what ending they could have thought up that wouldn't have been disappointing.

These Mystery Box shows really need to know the ending when they start. No show is going to end well if it requires the writers to write themselves out of multiple corners.

Yep, seeing the finish line really helped Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse pull the story together. If they could go back, they'd probably not jump through so many hoops to explain why Walt was growing "so quickly" and why Hurley didn't lose weight. That set up a lot of BS storylines that they didn't want to deal with as the show was ending.

Two more shows that stuck the landing all the way through:
The Wonder Years
Quantum Leap

[hyped78]

The Americans
Breaking Bad
Black Sails
Deadwood

[AndrewCrossett]

Yep, seeing the finish line really helped Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse pull the story together. If they could go back, they'd probably not jump through so many hoops to explain why Walt was growing "so quickly" and why Hurley didn't lose weight. That set up a lot of BS storylines that they didn't want to deal with as the show was ending.

As I recall, they devoted an entire episode to how Jack got his tattoo. Bleah.

[Mark Trail]

Twin Peaks wasn't cancelled a second time. Lynch & Frost told the story they wanted to tell and ended it. It wasn't intended to continue.

That only makes it worse.

[Jim Kelly]

I haven't seen a lot of these shows from the last twenty odd years.

The one show I liked the best was THE LEFTOVERS. I think it was pretty good throughout. But it had to reinvent itself every season. With the third and last season being the best.

Likewise THE GOOD PLACE had to keep rebooting the concept. And I wasn't as pleased with the later episodes.

FRIENDS probably was successful at maintaining the same level of quality throughout--in that it was neither very good nor very bad, just sort of in the middle.

High quality shows have a hard time staying at the same level throughout. They either start out strong and fall off later or they start out not knowing what they want to be and come into their own later.

The series that maintained its high quality throughout and never lost its charm is the two seasons of MEISTER EDER UND SEIN PUMUCKL--1982-1983 and 1988-1989--52 episodes in all. The reason for the gap between seasons is the animation for Pumuckl had to be done in Hungary and it took a long time to do animation back in those days. Sadly, Gustl Bayrhammer who played Meister Eder passed away in 1993 and they never could do a third season.

[C_Miller]

No show that gets cancelled on a cliffhanger, gets brought back thirty years later and gets cancelled on another cliffhanger can be said to have kept its quality all the way through

Twin Peaks was not cancelled a second time. Whether or not Season 4 happens is up to Lynch and Frost. Season 3 ended ambiguously. Not necessarily a cliffhanger. Kind of the same with Season 2. Despite the cancellation, the last episode was a purposeful conclusion.

[Lukmendes]

I didn't think of the movies, only the original series on Fox, which I have on DVD. I don't remember if I've even watched the movies.

If it's just the Fox stuff, then Futurama stayed mostly consistent, movies were hit or miss, and the seasons afterwards had pretty noticeable misses.

The first run of Futurama, from 99 to 03, is pretty much flawless in my book.

With some of the most witty dialogues i have ever seen in a show, animated or not.

And the last episode, the devil's hands are idle playthings", was a great end for the show.

I remember not really like that finale, but then again, I really don't like musicals lol.

[gwhh]

Married with children
Cheers