Either end beloved, or go on long enough for people to wonder why your still around.

[Slumberlumber 158]

Sad as it is for Gen 4 Fim to end, it could always be worse. I used to watch a CBC TV series, Heartland, years ago, and it was good! For a while. Than it kept going, and going, and going. First, one of the main characters was shot dead cause drama. Than they were teasing that someone might die! Oh no! Except don't worry, it was just someone's fish. Than one characters dad kept coming, and going, and coming into her life. Another characters dad came back into his life again, and so on, and so on, all for the ratings. And they dropped, and dropped, and dropped. Now, their teasing that one of the characters, which originally DIED, YEARS AGO, is now coming back. It's like the saying "Either die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain." Except in TV lines, it should be "Either end soon enough to live on in the memory and hearts of a loving fanbase, or keep continuing on leaving everyone to wonder why your still around."

[WanderingSoul 27]

I know how that feels… completely 

[Slumberlumber 158]

3 hours ago, WanderingSoul said:

I know how that feels… completely 

I stopped watching that show years ago once the titular characters got married. Saw no reason to keep watching it after words. Feels like the writers keep chasing a high the got once they reached a climactic end on one episode and thought they could keep the reatings up forever.

[Pentium100 2,128]

Yeah, eventually writers run out of ideas or they write themselves into a corner (power creep is one way of doing that) and the show just becomes boring. 

[Slumberlumber 158]

1 hour ago, Pentium100 said:

Yeah, eventually writers run out of ideas or they write themselves into a corner (power creep is one way of doing that) and the show just becomes boring. 

Power creep? Don't think I heard that one before.

[Pentium100 2,128]

14 hours ago, Slumberlumber said:

Power creep? Don't think I heard that one before.

I have two good examples (at least I think so) for this. Dragon Ball and Stargate SG-1.

The protagonist starts as somewhat powerful, but not completely OP, because it may be boring if Goku just beat up everyone he met on the first try. So, he needs an opponent who is stronger than him, so he can train or do whatever to become more powerful and beat up the opponent. Now what? Now you need an opponent who is even stronger. So, Goku trains some more and beats that opponent up. Repeat that multiple times and you get ridiculous power levels - fights that explode entire planets, then fights with literal gods (and bosses of those gods etc). At some point it becomes just too stupid. 

Stargate SG-1 is similar in this - first, the big bad was Apophis - the team was lucky to survive encounters with his troops and when he sent two ships to Earth it was pretty much game over (but the team got lucky). Then they started getting better technology and killing individual System Lords (even if it was never a straight-up space battle). Now come the Replicators - something way worse than the Goa'uld which again puts the team on the defensive, then Anubis who is half-god, then the Ori, who are pretty much gods. All were defeated by the team with the team gaining even better technology each time. 

When that happens you need some kind of reset (somehow the hero lost most of his power, but that's OK, because the opponents he's now fighting are also weaker) or a limit (teams from Stargate went to some other galaxy and now they are cut off from Earth and supplies, so they are not as capable as they were).

[Slumberlumber 158]

7 hours ago, Pentium100 said:

I have two good examples (at least I think so) for this. Dragon Ball and Stargate SG-1.

The protagonist starts as somewhat powerful, but not completely OP, because it may be boring if Goku just beat up everyone he met on the first try. So, he needs an opponent who is stronger than him, so he can train or do whatever to become more powerful and beat up the opponent. Now what? Now you need an opponent who is even stronger. So, Goku trains some more and beats that opponent up. Repeat that multiple times and you get ridiculous power levels - fights that explode entire planets, then fights with literal gods (and bosses of those gods etc). At some point it becomes just too stupid. 

Stargate SG-1 is similar in this - first, the big bad was Apophis - the team was lucky to survive encounters with his troops and when he sent two ships to Earth it was pretty much game over (but the team got lucky). Then they started getting better technology and killing individual System Lords (even if it was never a straight-up space battle). Now come the Replicators - something way worse than the Goa'uld which again puts the team on the defensive, then Anubis who is half-god, then the Ori, who are pretty much gods. All were defeated by the team with the team gaining even better technology each time. 

When that happens you need some kind of reset (somehow the hero lost most of his power, but that's OK, because the opponents he's now fighting are also weaker) or a limit (teams from Stargate went to some other galaxy and now they are cut off from Earth and supplies, so they are not as capable as they were).

Ahhhh I get it now. Yeah it does sound dumb when it happens. Thankfully, FiM didn't power creep. Though season five felt to me and my sibling who watched it was the pony-fication of the writers going "Yeeeaahhhh! Twilight ascended (What my sibling and I call it when a pony becomes an alicorn who isn't born one) to an alicorn! Essentially our universes version of a goddess! Oh man, those trials that she faced earlier when she couldn't fly or have uber powerful magic will seem like nothing!.....Now what." Thankfully they fixed that eventually, like adding the bady Tirek who absorbs power.