Should They Stay or Should They Go?

Rumors flew last year when Alec Baldwin reportedly said he planned to leave 30 Rock at the end of the 2012 season. Some reports said the show would end if he left; others said Tina Fey was leaving too. The latest reports bring it all back into perspective. As far as executive producer Lorne Michaels knows, Fey’s not going anywhere, Baldwin may or may not leave, and no matter what Baldwin decides to do, the show will go on.

And should that be any surprise to us? That a popular series would carry on without one of its major stars?

After all, this season we have not one, but two successful, long-running series continuing without important members of their casts. Steve Carell’s Michael Scott character will be replaced by Robert California (played by James Spader) in The Office, and Ashton Kutcher will replace Charlie Sheen, whose character will be literally killed off, on Two and a Half Men.

It’s a gimmick as old as Dick Sargent playing Darrin #2 on Bewitched. The new characters are sure to add a splash of novelty to these old shows, but come on, how much longer can they possibly last without their main characters?

Let’s look at TV history, shall we? When Cindy Williams left Laverne & Shirley in 1982, the series only lasted one more season before getting cancelled.

When Gabe Kaplan and John Travolta left Welcome Back, Kotter, appearing as occasional guest stars in the fourth season, the show was canned after one year. (Beau De Labarre a Sweathog? Really?)

When Phil Hartman passed away, NewsRadio brought in a replacement, but ultimately the series only lasted—you guessed it—one more year.

And when Howard Hesseman left Head of the Class… well, you get the picture. Let’s not beat this dead horse—the networks are already taking care of that.

So again I ask, with their stars gone, how many more seasons can we expect from The Office and Two and a Half Men, which are entering into their eighth and ninth years, respectively? If the trends of the past are any indication, one.

I understand the mantra that “winners never quit.” But when applied to a TV show, that philosophy has a tendency to turn winners into losers. It’s a popular trap for sitcoms to fall into: the longer they go, the more outlandish they get. And by the final season they’re hollow shells of what they used to be.

The first example that springs to mind is the ABC sitcom Family Matters. It went through quite the metamorphosis in its nine-year run. Though early on it was fairly realistic—about as realistic as slapstick ever gets—by the end, Steve Urkel had cloned himself, transformed his clone into the cool Stefan Urquelle, gotten engaged to Laura Winslow, and invented dozens of impossible gadgets and gizmos that could easily have made him a billionaire if not for the inevitable kinks they always came with. The show became science fiction and beared little resemblance to its earlier years, when Steve was just the annoying neighbor and Laura wanted nothing to do with him.

Another classic example is 7^th Heaven. Come on! That show wouldn’t quit! Our family stopped watching after season six, when Robbie was practically adopted into the Camden family, Mary and Lucy were fighting over him, Matt married a Jewish girl he’d known for one day, and Simon was involved in a televised police chase because his grandpa told him to keep driving. The show was nonsense and we were sure it wouldn’t last much longer. But it kept going. Five more years.

What I’m saying is, too many good shows refuse to pull the plug until they’re already past their prime. They drag on for so long that they become laughingstocks, losing the respect they worked so hard to obtain.

That’s why I admire the few series that keep their integrity and end on a high note. Jerry Seinfeld was reportedly offered $110 million to do a tenth season of Seinfeld, but he declined the offer because he wanted to go out on top. (His show was #1 in the ratings—how do you top that?)

The first series to go off the air at #1 was I Love Lucy in 1957; the second was The Andy Griffith Show in 1968. And after a 30-year gap, Seinfeld became the third and last series on the list, which goes to show that when a sitcom hits #1, the last thing networks want to do is cancel it. Instead, they exploit it.

Can The Office function without Michael Scott?

Sure, winners never quit, but when you’re receiving Emmys and topping the Nielsens, the race is over and you’ve already won. So take your medal and go home. Challenging your opponents to multiple rematches will only tire you out, and eventually you’re going to lose, especially with the extra hurdles of departed cast members.

At some point you've got to ask, can this show really get any better? And if the answer is no, then end it while you're still proud of it.

Two and a Half Men has lasted eight seasons, and that’s a feat for any series. What do you think? Is the race over? Should it and The Office be put out of their misery before they ruin themselves? Or will the new cast members be a change in pace that fuels them to the finish line?

Only time will tell.