TV Show Whose Decline Saddens You the Most

[Soapsuds]

That was bad with Gonzo from Trapper John MD in full force too.

[Khan]

 

"Rape" was the first (aired) episode of the third season, not the fifth.  Ergo, "In the Heat of the Night" went to crap sooner than you think.

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That's what I meant when I asked, "What payoff?".  Because, I agree, there wasn't any, lol.

 

The Moldavian Massacre provided DYNASTY an excellent opportunity to shake up its' canvas.  Unfortunately, DYNASTY never knew how to payoff any of their cliffhangers, including the massacre.

[vetsoapfan]

 

I think there were still some good episodes in season eight, but by season nine, most of them were pretty bad. I did love The Last Farewell, but I think it was because we had Charles and Caroline back in Walnut Grove where they belong, and it was hard not to get caught up in the emotion of those last 10 minutes or so. 

 

I just wish they had made an effort to get Mrs. Oleson, Nellie, and Mary back for the finale. I'm sure Argrim would have said yes.

[Roman]

for me, I can't remember S8 much at all. S9 was bad. LOVE TLF. the entire finale. because the entire town lost. in the show's history, someway somehow the town would win in the end, but they lost. and the destruction of WG......that was as close to a perfect ending to a show as anything else. and they still walked off having won something. but it either became over the top tragic for me, or too much of a comedy. IA with you.....Allison would have said yes. Katherine was on a spiritual retreat in Tibet at the time of filming. and I think Mary had retired by then. would have been great to see them again.....and for Katherine, just one scene of her reacting to the destruction of her home and store and the town. she would have sold it.

I never heard that about her. have you read that she was difficult? 

[Roman]

No, what I was trying to say (And didn't at all LOL) was that I couldn't believe that the show ended one season with a great cliffhanger and then started the next season with another episode because of Carroll's influence. 

IA with you. they had great cliffhangers that were resolved in the first 3 episodes of the next season and never referenced again.

[vetsoapfan]

 

You have no doubt subconsciously blocked Season 8 from your mind, LOL. It had some bright spots, which made it better than season 9, but it also featured some horrible episodes as well.

 

That year saw a lot of attention paid to those "fake" Ingalls kids, James and Cassandra, and the "fake Nellie," also known as Nancy Oleson. Ugh. Mr. Edwards' son was murdered. Mr. Oleson was kidnapped and Harriet refused to pay the ransom. James was shot, but God arrived to  save his life. Painfully bad stuff, hard to sit through.

 

On the other hand, we did have a few memorable episodes, like The Christmas They Never Forgot, in which Mary and Adam returned for a holiday visit and the entire family along with Hester Sue got snowbound in the little house. In Days of Sunshine, Days of Hope, Almanzo had a stroke, leaving a pregnant Laura to carry on without his help when a tornado destroyed their house. Carrie, usually catatonic and mute in the background, actually had a line of dialogue to recite at Christmas. Woohoo.

 

The best thing I can say about season 8 was that the core characters were still there, so I kept watching and hoping that the writing would get better. It never did, and by the beginning of the following year, not only were the scripts putrid, but we had lost Mary, Adam, Nellie, Charles, Caroline, Albert, and Carrie, and had a huge number of irritating newbies dumped on us: Nancy, Jenny Wilder, Etta Plum, Mr. Montague, and the Carter family. I liked John Carter (well, I thought he was very sexy), but I loathed all the other new characters, and it was a chore to endure scenes featuring them. For me, Michael Landon should have gone directly from the end of season 8 to The Last Farewell. Season 9 and the follow-up film entitled Look back to Yesterday, in which Albert apparently died of a rare blood disease,, were totally unnecessary.

[Roman]

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. LOL you have brought me right back to that season. and everything you just named was exactly the way I remembered them. but question...did Albert die, or was it left open?

IA with you about ML. TLF should have been the end after S8. the Carter Family seemed like the Ingalls in every way but name. and I remember a line from WKRP ( a show that was truly excellent besides the crap way CBS treated it) when one of the characters said "Oh, LHOTP. wonderful show. every week there's either a fire of someone gets some incurable disease."

[vetsoapfan]

 

In the season 10 TV-movie, Look Back to Yesterday, Albert was diagnosed with a "rare blood disease" (that seemed like leukemia to me), and Pa told Half-Pint that her brother was going to die. Albert and Laura took a trip to the mountains to reflect on the past, and that is the last we ever saw or heard of Albert. In The Last Farewell, he was neither present nor mentioned, so we can presume that he had died, but...who knows? Only a year earlier, In Home Again (season 9), Laura narrated a voice-over at the end of the episode saying that Albert (at that point battling opium addiction...oy vey) would return triumphantly to Walnut Grove 20 years later to become the town's doctor. And besides, if God could come down from on high to personally save James when he got shot in season 8, why wouldn't He be there to rescue Albert too, LOL? Ultimately, however, Albert's fate was left vague and unknown.

 

If ML simply had to introduce a slew of newbies, he should have tried to make them individuals in their own right instead of clones of original, beloved characters. Nancy Oleson's Nellie-ish appearance and behavior came of as stupid, not entertaining, and the actress who played her did not have the oomph that Arngrim had. Shannen Doherty, decked out in Laura-like braids, was no Melissa Gilbert. Did anyone in the audience like her? Stan Ivar was sexy as hell as John Carter, but he just wasn't our Charles Ingalls. Pamela Roylance was bland as Sarah Carter, and faded into the background. Our Caroline never did. The Carters NEVER should have moved into the little house. It was an obvious ploy to force the audience to accept them as the "new" Ma and Pa, but...no thank you. Laura and Almanzo deserved to take control of that house; it would have felt much more appropriate and natural to the audience. I resented the Carters for being there, which lead to me just wanting them off the show.

 

LHOTP, so good for so many years, really collapsed towards the end, alas. :( But at least we can look back fondly on seasons 1-7!

[Roman]

you should do this professionally. seriously, because you nailed everything I felt about the declining years of that show. 

[robbwolff]

 

The absolute worst was Leslie Landon as Etta Plum. I loved Little House but resented Michael Landon for keeping the characters in Walnut Grove. The books provided so much fodder for storylines when the Ingalls brood moved to De Smet. There was no need to create new character like Albert (spare me), James and Cassandra, and Adam. 

[dragonflies]

Yeah James and Cassandra weren't needed, but I like that they kept the show in WG, cause that's what fans had come to love. 

 

I think LHOTP was good until Season 9

[Soaplovers]

 

The only difference I saw between the Carters and Ingalls was that the Carters had sons and the Ingalls had mostly daughters.  Still I recall the two Carter brothers were male versions of Mary and Laura without the charm of both Mary and Laura.

 

Also, Nancy was way worse than Nellie was... and I think that was due to both the writing and how the actress chose to act out those scenes.  I recall even the show would make reference to the fact that Nancy was ten times worse than Nellie.. and even an adult Nellie asked her parents if she was ever that bad as a kid.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Thank you, that is nice of you to say. I sometimes refrain from posting on the boards because i KNOW that I can babble on endlessly about shows I dearly love. I'm always afraid I will annoy other posters, LOL.

 

 

Yes, Leslie Landon was particularly bad, and Etta Plum was a totally unnecessary and worthless character anyway. There was no point in her being on the show.

 

 

The Carter boys were similar in character to Mary and Laura, but just without the charm. I found them both to be pretty wimpy. Nellie had been deliciously fun. Nancy was just a cardboard bitch, overacted and underwritten, a desperate attempt to recreate the magic of Nellie, which was an abysmal failure.

 

What do you guys think of this list, a ranking of LHOTP's best episodes?

 

https://littlehousebluray.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/top-10-little-house-on-the-prairie-episodes/

 

I agree with many of them, but some of what I consider to be the series' best eps are not at the top of the list.

 

https://littlehousebluray.wordpress.com/episode-rankings/

 

 

[Soaplovers]

 

Mary going blind totally deserved the #1 slot because you knew it was going to happen... but you were hoping the show wouldn't go there.

 

Too many Laura/Amanzo episodes on the list.. I liked the first few seasons better before Laura fell in love.  

 

I still like the episode where Laura runs away after blaming herself for her baby brother's death and she prays to God to exchange her life for her baby brothers life, and I liked the episode where Caroline Ingalls took over as school teacher and helped a student most wrote off as stupid learn to read.   Basically there are so many to choose from to truly get a top 10. imho

[vetsoapfan]

 

I also loved the episode about Laura blaming herself for her baby brother's death, but it was nowhere near the top of the list. As much as I bitch about season 8 and particularly season 8, having TOO MANY great episodes to choose from is more of a positive than a negative. :)