28 TV shows that went on way too long — sorry

"The Big Bang Theory" was a pleasant enough show about a group of nerds (and one "dumb" woman), and the cast seems genuinely nice in real life — but it became way too hacky as the years went by, as Sheldon was reduced to a sentient pile of catchphrases (Bazinga, the soft kitty song, to name a couple), and the on/off relationship of Penny and Leonard lost its spark.

That it went on for 12 seasons, while other underrated, lovely comedies get canceled way too soon — looking at you "Party Down," "Selfie," and "Happy Endings" — is probably its biggest crime.

While we could all use a little more President Bartlet in our lives, it's undeniable that the show lost its true magic when Sorkin, who essentially wrote every script, left after season 4. That season could have been a logical endpoint to the series, with Bartlet securing a second term, and the rest of his staff living to see another day.

Instead, the show soldiered on for another three seasons, none of which are bad, but failed to achieve the same transcendence that Sorkin's episodes did.

"Scrubs" is frequently cited by medical professionals as the most realistic medical show portraying life as a doctor in a hospital. It also provided us with many laughs — and almost as many tears — across its seven seasons on NBC. The network canceled it, and ABC swooped in to pick it up for season 8. Creator Bill Lawrence provided fans with a beautiful finale that saw all of our favorite characters riding off into the sunset — or so it seemed.

ABC commissioned one more season of "Scrubs," known unofficially as "Scrubs Med." The show was moved from a hospital to medical school, only three of the original cast continued to star, and a bunch of new characters were introduced, much to the chagrin of audiences.

Thankfully, the show was really canceled after that, and many fans don't even acknowledge it as canon.

"Friends" is one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, which is why it's painful to admit that it lasted at least one season too long. Granted, the show revolved around a group of six friends, so storylines were in short supply. But when Rachel and Joey started dating in season 10, after nine seasons of having no interest in each other whatsoever, it became clear that the writers had run out of material.

Additionally, the characters became loud, obnoxious caricatures of themselves. Try watching an episode from the first season of "Friends," and then one from the 10th season — the differences are startling.

If you were on Twitter during an episode of "Pretty Little Liars," you might remember how captivating this show about a group of friends getting terrorized by an anonymous stalker named "A" used to be — it was a phenomenon.

But the show's runaway success led to it promising to reveal who the real "A" was every single season. Even though the identity of "A" was revealed in season 2, more "As" popped up every season.

How many "As" could there be? The show only got more confusing as it went on, and mercifully ended after season 7.

"The Vampire Diaries" originally started off as a love triangle between Elena (played by Dobrev) and two vampire brothers, Stefan and Damon, but as seasons went on, the show lost focus. However, it kept going, and doubled down on the uninspired romance between Damon and Elena. Arguably, it was never able to recreate its storytelling highs of season 2.

The show's sixth season ended with Elena in a coma, and curiously continued without her for another two unnecessary seasons. Without Elena, the main character, the show struggled, and finally came to an end after season 8 — though you can still see some of your favorites on spin-offs "The Originals" and "Legacies."

The post-high school stretch of "One Tree Hill," a show about a group of high school friends in a small North Carolina town called Tree Hill, just had way too much going on, becoming confusing and soap opera-esque.

"One Tree Hill" attempted to bypass the college problem that many high school TV shows encounter by jumping four years into the future, which was inventive at first, but became sort of ridiculous: the high level of success and fame this one group of friends had achieved was unbelievable.

The show ended in season 9, after two of its main characters had already been written off in season 6, and five years after its prime.

It could be argued that "Scandal" never recovered from the introduction of the all-knowing, super scary Black-Ops intelligence organization B-613.

That's when the show pivoted from a political case-of-the-week drama with an ongoing love story between political "fixer" Olivia Pope and the US president to a frankly unwatchable soap opera in which every character either became a murderer or died, and spent most of their time yelling at someone.

Millions of people watch "Grey's Anatomy," even after 16 years of deaths, break-ups, and literally every natural disaster you could think of — and this show was just supposed to be about a group of surgical interns and their relationship drama!

It's hard to pinpoint when the saga of Seattle Grace Mercy West/Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital should have ended. After season 5, when Katherine Heigl and TR Knight left? Or after season 8, when Chyler Leigh and Eric Dane decided to flee Seattle? It almost definitely should have been done after Sandra Oh left in season 10. Maybe now that Justin Chambers, aka heart of the show Alex Karev is gone in season 16? The point is, "Grey's Anatomy" has been on the air way too long.

"Once Upon A Time" was rightfully canceled after its low-rated seventh season — though it should have ended way before that.

The premise of "Once Upon A Time," that fairytale characters are all real and living in a fictional town in Maine, was interesting for a season or two, but as the show went on, the connections between characters became more and more unbelievable. Plus, by the end, basically every character on the show was somehow related.

"Family Guy's" creator Seth MacFarlane himself admitted that he has conflicting ideas about his show. MacFarlane told the Hollywood Reporter, "Part of me thinks that 'Family Guy' should have already ended. I think seven seasons is about the right lifespan for a TV series."

It's hard to argue with that, especially since the misadventures of the Rhode Island-dwelling Griffin family are wearing a little thin these days.

Thinking about "Glee" in 2020 is difficult, considering the tragedy of Cory Monteith's overdose and the death of Mark Salling, who was charged with the possession of child pornography.

But truthfully, the show probably should have taken its final bow after a couple of seasons — one critic even claimed that the show "got bad" in its second episode ever. The novelty of turning popular songs into show choir performances got old quickly, and the show's replacement characters in season 4, after a solid chunk of the glee club graduated high school, never quite worked.

Many people claim that the reveal that Dan Humphrey, resident New York City "Lonely Boy," was actually Gossip Girl ruined the show for them — but the show was pretty ruined long before that.

"Gossip Girl" is an example of a show not being sustainable outside of the high school years — it didn't make any sense that all of the main characters would go to college in Manhattan, even though Blair, Serena, Nate, and Dan all had expressed their desire to leave the city for college. Plus, by season 4 it didn't make sense for any of them to still be hanging out together ... they all openly hated each other.

If there's one thing fans can agree on, it's that the final season of "Gilmore Girls" — a show about a young mother-daughter pair in small town Connecticut — is a mess, due to the show's heart and soul, writer and producer Amy Sherman Palladino, leaving. But some argue that the mediocrity of season 7 is actually her fault — season 6 was a radical departure from the hijinks of perpetually happy town "Star's Hollow," and instead focused on Rory and her mom not speaking, and the slow, painful demise of Luke and Lorelai's engagement.

The Netflix reboot "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" somehow made it even worse, showing that Rory had gone through little-to-no personal growth since the show ended, and that Lorelai and Luke had made no progress on their communication issues that had been present since their romance first began in season 5.

How many seasons of CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) agent Jack Bauer saving the world, getting betrayed, torturing someone, and getting chased by the federal government can you watch? At least nine, apparently.

"24," which was first praised for its inventive structure (each week's episode is in real time, and each season covers a single day) and its willingness to kill main characters and take big risks, got old pretty quickly.

But the show became formulaic after a couple of years, and the amount of pain and suffering each "day" put Jack through became unnecessary — his wife, four girlfriends, father, and brother are all killed over the course of the show.

One of the pillars of the Superman canon is that Clark becomes Superman when he moves to Metropolis from his small town of, well, Smallville. But "Smallville" didn't get that memo, because Clark moves to Metropolis in season 5 with no red cape in sight. He didn't even wear the suit until the series finale (which is also when he finally learned to fly).

To be fair, the creators of "Smallville" probably had no idea that the show would last for 10 seasons when they instituted their "No tights, no flights" policy, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

"That '70s Show" took place from 1976 to 1979 — but the show lasted for eight seasons. It took five years for the core crew to graduate high school, so naturally the show began to drag. You can only watch a group of friends sit in a basement and get stoned for so long.

But the show should have ended for good when Topher Grace, who played main character Eric Forman, chose to leave after season 7. This was proven true when Ashton Kutcher, who played Kelso, left after the first four episodes of season 8 — and was replaced by an almost universally hated character named Randy (sorry, Josh Meyers!). Fans were also angry when Fez and Jackie began a relationship, seemingly out of nowhere, effectively ending fan-favorite relationship Jackie and Hyde.

It became apparent that "The Office" was running out of stories to tell after Jim and Pam finally got married in the show's sixth season — the writers kept throwing unrealistic obstacles at them, like the random cameraman that was suddenly in love with Pam. Such a melodramatic plot on a workplace sitcom like "The Office" (about a paper company in Pennsylvania) didn't make any sense.

But the final nail in the coffin of "The Office" was Steve Carell's decision to exit after seven seasons as the lovably incompetent Michael Scott. Season 8 was the first season of the sitcom to achieve a Rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. It would have been better to go out on a high note.

Urban Dictionary defines jumping the shark as "a term to describe a moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity." Where did such an oddly specific expression come from? Look no further than the season 5 premiere of "Happy Days," in which Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler, literally jumps over a shark on water-skis. This stunt left people confused — wasn't this supposed to be a show about small-town '50s nostalgia?

"Happy Days" lasted for 11 seasons total, but many people cite the jumping of the shark as a turning point in "Happy Days" history.

"Weeds," a show about a suburban single mom who grows and sells marijuana to support her family, started out with such promise. It was a fascinating look at what goes on behind closed doors in suburbia — until it became more focused on drug cartels, murder, and generally unpleasant subject matter that made it way too dark to be enjoyable anymore.

Seasons one and two, in which Nancy is a low-level marijuana dealer in the small California town of Agrestic, are nearly perfect. But when the show crossed the border into Mexico? Not so much.

"True Blood" kicked off the vampire craze in 2008, a month before "Twilight" hit the big screen, and a year before "The Vampire Diaries" premiered on The CW. And for three seasons it was a campy, bloody, sexy show about Sookie, a psychic waitress, her complicated relationships with hot vampires, and the lives of her family and friends.

But after Sookie was revealed to be a fairy in the show's third season, the writers scrambled to find more ways to integrate other mythological creatures, to little success. Original showrunner Alan Ball abandoned ship after season 5, and "True Blood" should have gone down with him.

The show ended on a low note, which is something that fans are still angry about to this day.

"How I Met Your Mother" should not have gone on for nine years, simply because taking nine seasons to tell one story is almost cruel to viewers — especially the eagle-eyed, devoted fans who spent years dissecting every episode looking for clues and Easter eggs as to the identity of the titular mother.

The slow pace of the story angered both Ted's kids and fans, and the show became less funny over time. Maybe if the show had spent only four or five years building up the mother, as opposed to almost an entire decade, fans would have been able to swallow Ted and Robin (his ex-girlfriend and best friend's ex-wife) ending up together.

Dexter was a serial killer who trained himself to only kill bad guys, but the show became less appealing, and more unrealistic, especially when writers increasingly tried to humanize Dexter.

Even if you were rooting for Dexter, it became impossible to watch him face no consequences for his actions — every single time someone came close to exposing him, someone else killed the threat, instead of Dexter being forced to abandon his moral code to kill an innocent person.

Plus, the series finale has become widely accepted as one of the worst ever.

When "Modern Family" premiered, it was universally loved by fans and critics alike. In fact, it was nominated for Best Comedy Series at the Emmys seven years in a row, winning five years in a row. It was a true 21st-century comedy, telling the story of a giant family that includes a gay couple, an interracial couple, divorce, adoption — basically, everything.

However, it should have been a clue to everyone when it lost the award for the first time in 2015 that it was probably time to start wrapping things up. However, the show continued, and even though it wasn't nominated for anything in 2018, the show soldiered on for a tenth season.

The show finally ended in April 2020.

"Desperate Housewives" began as an intriguing mystery about a group of friends who were rocked by their friend Mary Alice's shocking suicide.

But as the years went by, characters became more unlikable and plots more nonsensical — remember when Edie was electrocuted after surviving a car crash? Eight seasons was just too much time to invest in the ladies of Wisteria Lane.

One of the show's titular two and a half men, Charlie Sheen, left the show after eight seasons in 2011. He was dismissed after insulting the show and its creator, Chuck Lorre, amongst other things during a public meltdown.

The sitcom about a wimpy chiropractor Alan, his underachieving son Jake, and his ladies' man brother Charlie soldiered on for four more seasons, replacing Charlie with a depressed billionaire Walden, played by Ashton Kutcher.

The show ended on a low note, with IGN writing "don't think [we] could come up with a worse ending."

The truth is, the show was already in a downward spiral before Sheen left, but his departure should have been the final nail in the coffin.

In the end, it turns out "Supernatural" isn't immortal, like so many of its characters. The show deals with all sorts of otherworldly creatures, such as angels, demons, vampires, werewolves, and leprechauns, among others. Two brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester, are tasked with eradicating the world from these evils.

Not many, if any, shows can remain fresh for 300 episodes. There's only so many times someone can go to hell and back before it loses it oomph, which is probably why the show is ending after 15 years.

It's always a risky move when shows finally let their central couple be together — the romantic tension is usually much more fun.

"Castle" started as a procedural about a smarmy mystery novelist, the titular Castle, tagging along with a no-nonsense homicide detective, Beckett. The two had chemistry, and for four seasons, they danced around their obvious feelings for each other.

But, when the two finally got together, the show lost some of its mojo. The show had to twist itself into knots to inject conflict into their relationship instead of letting them be happy, frustrating fans to no end throughout the next four seasons.

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