Pajiba

What about Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

I seem to recall that was on almost every night and then poofta! It was gone.

In fairness, I can't imagine the appeal of watching The X-Files post Mulder and Scully, it'd be like watching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, only replacing Buffy with Elisa Dumbfuck... I mean Dushku.

X-Files start eating its own shit when Mulder left. That's like having peanut butter but no jelly. Cereal but no milk. It just don't make no sense!

My Name is Earl was hilarious for the first two seasons. Can't say why I lost interest. I just decided to stop watching it one day.

Finally, I don't believe that 20 million people watched Dharma and Greg during its entire series run, let alone for one show. Granted I wanted to lay my hands upon Jenna Elfman after seeing "Keeping the Faith." I think it was the jogging fantasy scene. Nothing like a woman sheening with workout sweat, moaning while you help her stretch . . . naahhh. That show sucked all the dicks.

I can't believe some of these were ever so popular in the first place (According to Jim had over 10 million viewers?! WTF, America??). But for others, "flameout" is the optimal description. The X-Files, Prison Break, The Practice... They became such characatures of their former selves. I don't know what's worse: a shitty tv show that revels in its shitty-ness, or a promising tv show that stoops and ultimately ends its run in such a shit-tastic manner.

Interesting. Prison Break came to mind right away. That fall was pretty fast and precipitous.
I'd have to guess that Heroes will be joining the list next, right? Last week it pulled a 6 share. It opened season two with a 14 (an 11 million drop in two years!)
Wonderful time waster at work. Thank you, DR

Yup.
As an X-Files fanatic, the entire storyline was completely derailed when Duchovny had his hissy fit and left the series.
I continued to watch, off and on, because of Gillian Anderson and my strange fascination with Annabeth Gish but I just didn't really care what happened from that point on.
No surprise that the show's status went from "water-cooler" to "waste-basket".
I agree with NJ on "Heroes", as well. Loved the first season, haven't been back since the third ep of Season Two.

I can see The Office being on this list in a few years, if they don't end it until it has completely overstayed its welcome.

Also, Alias did turn fantastically shitty. Maybe it should be included on the list as a bonus entry? 8.5 or Version 8.02? Awesome premise and a great cast and it just spiraled into worthless shoddiness.

Actually, the title and premise of this list are a bit misleading. First, you aren't measuring percentage of viewership drop. X-Files may have lost more viewers in absolute numbers, but it had a much higher viewership, and therefore farther to drop. You could read these stats backwards and see that X-Files was actually the most successful of the selected shows, rather than the biggest loser.
Second, you didn't factor in time. How quickly did these shows lose viewers? Dharma and Greg(shudder) and Prison Break dropped pretty quickly, I think.
A more accurate ranking of shows would order by those which lost the greatest percentage of their viewers in the shortest time. Get too it. I'm waiting....

How many of these show premiered after the Super Bowl and some other huge TV event? skewed like Obama's approval numbers...

Are you sure ER shouldn't be on this list? It was SO big at the start that even as a top twenty show at the end I imagine the difference had to be better than 6 mil.

Come to think of it, I don't know why I stopped watching My Name is Earl either. I had it on my DVR for a few years, but a new season started at some point and I just didn't care.

I knew X-Files would top this list. Rightfully so, in my opinion, as the flameout wasn't just about viewers but also corresponded to a terrible drop in quality. With a lot of these sitcoms I feel it has less to do with quality (which many do not have much of in the first place) and more to do with repetitiveness. X-Files was still trying to push in new directions even near the end. Granted, there were some very silly directions therein.

That said, it does not seem completely fair to judge some of these on series finale ratings and judge some of them on final season average. I'm guessing the X-Files series finale had decent ratings. I didn't watch most of season 9, but I did drop back in for the finale just to see if they could do any sort of half-decent job of wrapping things up, and I bet there were many other fans who did as well.

Also, I'll defend the move to Los Angeles somewhat. Yes, the show was seeing diminishing returns at that point, but there were still some pretty good (and a few excellent) episodes in seasons 6, 7, and even 8. I maintain the failure had much more to do with the focus on the Mulder/Scully shipping and the refusal to do anything with the alien mythology and conspiracy aside from continually postponing its coming to full fruition.

Prison Break was a great show... for one season. Once you break out, you kind of lose your premise, right?

Considering the airplane list, I think Mamma Mia! is the best airplane movie in the world.

I'm terribly, horribly afraid of flying, and yet with Mamma Mia! on, I realized there were much worse things than a crashy, burny death.

How many of these show premiered after the Super Bowl and some other huge TV event? skewed like Obama's approval numbers...

Just FYI, that was not me. I think it's Ted Stevens, though I'm surprised he has time between legal proceedings to surf the net.

What's the matter, Spender, truth hurt?

Well, if it does hurt, at least he'll be able to get health care for it.

It's so adorable when they try to gloat now. It's an interesting juxtaposition: Low approval numbers didn't keep Bush from murdering tens of thousands of people, and the supposed low numbers didn't derail healthcare reform.

I don't think there's any danger of The Office ever being on this list because, despite perception, it's never had huge ratings. Therefore, any drop-off wouldn't be that far.

I still can't believe 27 million people once watched The X-Files. Do 27 million people watch anything anymore, besides maybe American Idol?

(Are smiley faces too corny for Pajiba?)

Y'know, I've been wondering that lately. I can't think of specifics, but I know there's been a couple of posts I made or nearly-made recently that I considered modifying with an emoticon to emphasise the fact that I was joking (to avoid sounding like the bitchiest bitch that ever bitched), but I was kinda scared to, 'cause I thought the cool kids would make fun of me. And this is the point where, on any other site, my natural inclination would be to throw in a sadface, but here I think people would just take it as an open invitation to mock me and poke me with sticks.

Topic? All of y'all hating on Alias are now officially on my list.

What about Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

I seem to recall that was on almost every night and then poofta! It was gone.

Posted by: John W at October 15, 2009 3:04 PM

Not quite. It is still on the air.

It dumped Regis, gave the slot to What's-her-name Viera, and moved to the afternoon.

And the kicker? Now there is a clock to compete against while answering the questions.
But then again I have no strong feelings on the subject.

No. 1....feels like knowing a loved one died alone in the wilderness and was buried in a pauper's grave.

I think I mourned its death when it actually disappeared into that wilderness, two seasons before its final demise.

Wait... 'My Name Is Earl' ditched the list?

I've only seen the first 2 seasons; I was going to get around to the rest on DVD eventually. But they ditched the list? Isn't that like Cheers ditching the bar?

I read somewhere that average TV audiences in the mid- to late-1990s were double that of TV audiences in the mid- to late-2000s, due to that whole intarwebs thing.

You could make the argument that these shows flamed out, but you could also make the argument that there are considerably fewer people watching TV, period.

Rike me.

Actually I prefer seasons 8 and 9 of the X-Files compared to season 7. That's the point where the decline started and ratings fell! Too many light, comedic episodes in that season that had nothing to do with the premise of the show and the reason why people loved it and even Mulder's character was a pale shadow of his good 3 first seasons self! Seasons 8 and 9 were a lot better and personally loved them!

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I don’t know where this site took that numbers but according to the official Nielsen Ratings site The X-Files had an average of 9 million viewers during its last season.

Analytically the ratings for the final season were:

Nothing Important Happened Today 10,600,000
Nothing Important Happened Today II 9,400,000
Daemonicus 8,700,000
Hellbound 7,800,000
4-D 8,700,000
Lord of the Flies 9,900,000
John Doe 8,700,000
Trust No 1 8,400,000
Underneath 7,300,000
Provenance 9,700,000
Providence 8,400,000
Scary Monsters 8,200,000
Audrey Pauley 8,000,000
Improbable 8,600,000
Jump the Shark 8,600,000
Release 7,800,000
William 9,700,000
Sunshine Days 10,300,000
The Truth 13,200,000

And the average viewers for all seasons were:
Season 1: 7,100,000
Season 2: 9,700,000
Season 3: 16,900,000
Season 4: 19,200,000
Season 5: 19,800,000
Season 6: 17,200,000
Season 7: 14,209,000
Season 8: 13,573,000
Season 9: 9,052,000
Also let’s not forget that The X-Files was a sci-fi series and we all know that sci-fi TV has a very limited audience and no other series before and after TXF has managed to get these numbers and also keep its audience for such a long time. We also have to remember that during seasons 3-5 was when the series became a huge international phenomenon and even my grandmother who knows nothing of science fiction and has never watched another sci-fi program used to watch the x-files (I’m not kidding)! It was only logical for these people to move on after a while! XF was no Friends or ER that anyone could follow; it was a series with a complicated mythology and many unanswered questions. Someone mentioned LOST and Fringe, when Lost started to focus more on the mythology lost almost half of its audience, same thing happens now with Fringe. And last but not least, there is a big difference between the audience in the mid 90s to the audience in the early 00s. So let’s not be hasty to jump into conclusions!

Also, 'Fringe' is freaking awful.

@ Max:
Very good points, I agree with everything you said.

@ sci-fi_fan:
I always prefered the scary and creepy MOTW too (Beyond The Sea, Squeeze, Darkness Falls, Irresistible etc.) and the mythology episodes that focused more on the cospiracy, the black oil, the hybrids, the cancer arc (E.B.E., The Erlenmeyer Flask, Tunguska/Terma, Memento Mori, Tempus Fugit/Max etc.). Although, I was never a huge fan of the comedic episodes, I believe that the comedy of the first 5 seasons was brilliant especially because there was the right balance between science fiction, horror, conspiracy and comedy. But in season 7 they overdid it with the light episodes and the light tone in general and the series for me lost some of its previous glory. Thankfully, in seasons 8 and 9 the dark tone came back and I enjoyed those two seasons very much, they had some of my favorites MOTW. But that's just my opinion. Many people prefer the MOTW epsiodes, others love the cospiracy stuff, others love the dark atmosphere of the series while others enjoy the light-hearted episodes. The X-Files is a series that had it all and I doubt there will ever be another series with such a huge range. And even though it had its share of some awful episodes (what series desn't?) it still remains one of the best series about the paranormal, the government conspirscies and the existence of life outside our planet. It was a series that made you thinking instead of just watching.

Love this show Sheldon's neurotic tendancies, Leonard's kind heart, Raj's inability to talk to women, Howard's sleazyness and Penny is hot! Best show on tv!

Im sorry to ask again, but have you an email or something. I-d like to ask you a few things. it-s quite important. thanks /instantempo

Uhm... I don't really know what to think... but I have a question I'd like to ask you in private, ideally by email. How can I reach you?

Hi, I just wanted to let you all know that there is a project being conducted at Harvard trying to compile the most effective arguments for and against Wikileaks. I think it's a brilliant idea and would be an interesting read for many of you. http://www.voteonwikileaks.com

Julian Assange has stood up to countless powerful, rich, lying idiots and exposed the deceit of our most powerful World Leaders.

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