I was having a conversation with a friend about this blog and to my surprise, she had actually read it and had some thoughts (Helpful ones, even. She’s a very smart friend.) She suggested that I talk about not just new TV, but also things that interest me about TV in general and why I fell in love with this medium in the first place.
Then later in the conversation, completely separate from the blog conversation, we started talking about shows that we loved but we wished had been cancelled long ago. We both felt that once a show has passed its prime, the ensuing “bad” seasons can often tarnish the love you once had for the “good” seasons. Enter the topic of this post: The Fifth Season Dilemma.
My theory is that the perfect length of a show is five seasons. Now, before you start throwing arguments at me, hear me out. I know this is bold statement city, but I’ve got my guns and I’m sticking to them. Just look at the successes of this theory: The Wire (probably the best exemplar I could ask for), Friday Night Lights, Six Feet Under, Angel, Chuck, and, one can assume though it still has a season left, Breaking Bad. And look at the failures, the shows that overstayed their welcome when they could have had an awesome five season run: Lost, The Office, Gilmore Girls, How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs and, point of contention, Buffy The Vampire Slayer.*
First off, let’s talk about syndication. As a general rule, a show gets to go into syndication once it reaches 100 episodes, that is, generally after season five. [In recent years, this rule has been reduced to 88 episodes, since there are more channels and thus laxer restrictions on syndicating a show. See the example of ‘Til Death which was given a fourth season just so it could be syndicated.] But the rule still stands up, five seasons is the golden fleece for television shows. Get there and you’re set for life. So, built into my theory, there is this element. There is some sort of magic in five seasons. It’s a golden number, a perfect number, a prime(time) number. However, I’m not going to defend my whole thesis just on the technicalities of a show making money. That would be silly and kind of pointless. I think there are far better reasons for a show to limit itself to five seasons, reasons which I’ll try to delve into now.
First Up: Greek Dramatic Theory. Oooh.
* I’d be remiss in this post if I didn’t at least make mention of the Writer’s Strike in 2007-2008. This obviously hampered some seasons and would poke holes in my theory if you wanted to go hole-poking. I think with certain shows, such as The Office, Bones, and Lost, one could argue that six season would be acceptable (Lost would be ripe for this argument) and I wouldn’t object. Let’s call it TV’s 61* exception.
Mary the TV Maven 
I really enjoyed this post.
I think an interesting side point to this topic would be Dollhouse, as it was intended to go for five seasons but was condensed into two. It suffers because of that.
Thanks for commenting. I didn’t know that Dollhouse was planned as a five season show. But that’s fascinating to know. And I agree, it did suffer from being shoehorned into two seasons. (I still love those seasons, though) I think Joss Whedon shows really are some of the best examples I could ask for when defending the five season theory. They just fit so perfectly.
Well at least that’s what I heard – It was certainly sketched out for a longer run than it had.
You can sort of see it in the show itself. If you remember in season 2 there is a section where Echo is working outside of the dollhouse. They more or less just skip over it because they literally didn’t have time to tell that story proprerly.
If it was to be a major season arc (which I feel it could well have been) then it would fit nicely with what you were saying about the third season breaking the established rules and taking more risks.
I still think the show would have ended in roughly the same way that it did, only they would have peered into a few more corners along the way. [That’s why I think it suffered, I quite like peering into corners 🙂 ]
Excellent article, and spot on regarding the quality benefits of a five season run. I would however have loved a season six of Angel, as there was some genuinely brilliant character development and interactions coming, in regards to Illyria, Wesley, Angel and Spike, and even Gunn, who I felt often lacked in good character development. Though, I feel that “Angel” season five is so fondly looked upon perhaps mostly because of the new dynamics explored, and that last six-episode range from “A Hole In The World” til’ “Not Fade Away”, which was among the best I’ve seen in television. There were some holes in the season, especially in the first half, but that was mostly negated by the inclusion of Spike into the cast. I actually wasn’t particular fond of him on Buffy, but his rapport with Angel was wonderful in all its pettiness, history, and emotional depth.
Basically though, the reason “Angel” was a good show was because it constantly changed, embraced the fleeting nature of human life and interaction, while maintaining its emotional charge. That “Angel” constantly reinventing itself was the drive and subtle matter of the show, as it was a show with an existential core, creating its own meaning and purpose, and then recreating them in different clothing and situations. This could be interestingly examined in contrast to the five season run limit you proposed, as it meant that the structure it built up wasn’t leading to any particular climax, just that the climax was fairly easily created out of it. Was “Angel” a show that by accident fit into the five show success mold, or was its wonderful ending and run due to its existential and constantly reinventing nature? The grand finale, where Angel the character chooses something he desperately wanted in favour of doing the right thing, would perhaps point to the latter, but the question would be up for debate.
Kathiravan Isak Arulampalam.