TV shows getting overly formulamatic.

[Weetabix]

'Castle' is predictable as hell. You can generally assume they'll arrest 2-3 suspects before they get the right one. About the only saving grace for me on that show is Nathan Fillion's relishing an opportunity to chew the scenery, and Molly Quinn.

My kids and I are watching this. We're on season 3. It is becoming a bit predictable, but it's still fun. In addition to your likes, I kind of like the ME's.

The "We're completely stopped!" "Yo! I got something!" is becoming a bit formulaic, though, as well as the first two "That's our guy!"'s. (interesting punctuation there, Weet)

[MiddleAgedKen]

Is Katee Sackhoff still on "Longmire?"

Last show I got invested in was "Fringe." I liked the episode or two I saw of "The Last Ship," but I'm a sucker for the Arleigh Burke class.

[Greg]

'Castle' is predictable as hell. You can generally assume they'll arrest 2-3 suspects before they get the right one. About the only saving grace for me on that show is Nathan Fillion's relishing an opportunity to chew the scenery, and Molly Quinn.

My kids and I are watching this. We're on season 3. It is becoming a bit predictable, but it's still fun. In addition to your likes, I kind of like the ME's.

The "We're completely stopped!" "Yo! I got something!" is becoming a bit formulaic, though, as well as the first two "That's our guy!"'s. (interesting punctuation there, Weet)

For crying out loud, it's a cop show. Of course it's going to be predictable.

But it had some differences that gave it charm (like excuses for Nathan Fillion to ham it up), and even the stock materials were well done. But it does seem played out.

[Weetabix]

For crying out loud, it's a cop show. Of course it's going to be predictable.

But it had some differences that gave it charm (like excuses for Nathan Fillion to ham it up), and even the stock materials were well done. But it does seem played out.

I'm not vilifying, just commenting. I'm still enjoying it. And I do enjoy Fillion's hamming. When it plays out for us, we'll stop buying seasons, put them away for a while, and start from the beginning later.

We watched one last night where he's eating whipped cream out of a can. Alexis tells him he'll spoil his dinner. Castle mumbles through the whipped cream, "This is my dinner." My girls turned to me and shouted, "Dad! It's you!"

Season 4 is on the way.

[toad]

Gazing at a well endowed woman, " You realize those can't be real." , Fillon:
"Santa Claus isn't real but I still expect presents." IIRC

[HTRN]

Don't make me laugh - it hurts too much!

[Jericho941]

'Castle' is predictable as hell. You can generally assume they'll arrest 2-3 suspects before they get the right one. About the only saving grace for me on that show is Nathan Fillion's relishing an opportunity to chew the scenery, and Molly Quinn.

As Greg noted, that's generally how cop shows work. You'll notice House is the same way, just treat diseases as suspects (which was actually their intent going in, "CSI for doctors").

I think the real problem is that the people making TV shows want to make shows with longevity, that go on for a decade or more and has fans wrapped up in buying merch for two more decades after. You can't figure out the ending before anything else because, ideally, it won't end until it's absolutely forced to.

Nobody seems to be doing "I want to tell a story over two seasons, then move on to the next one." So they have to just create a gag-a-day formula with a small dose of continuity.

[Greg]

'Castle' is predictable as hell. You can generally assume they'll arrest 2-3 suspects before they get the right one. About the only saving grace for me on that show is Nathan Fillion's relishing an opportunity to chew the scenery, and Molly Quinn.

As Greg noted, that's generally how cop shows work. You'll notice House is the same way, just treat diseases as suspects (which was actually their intent going in, "CSI for doctors").

I think the real problem is that the people making TV shows want to make shows with longevity, that go on for a decade or more and has fans wrapped up in buying merch for two more decades after. You can't figure out the ending before anything else because, ideally, it won't end until it's absolutely forced to.

Nobody seems to be doing "I want to tell a story over two seasons, then move on to the next one." So they have to just create a gag-a-day formula with a small dose of continuity.

The Shield.
Babylon 5.

Series that tell a coherent story over the course of the entire series are rare and special. 'Story arcs' were a thing for a while, but that seems to be out the window. Too difficult, too risky, not enough mass-market payoff.

[Erik]

I think the real problem is that the people making TV shows want to make shows with longevity, that go on for a decade or more and has fans wrapped up in buying merch for two more decades after. You can't figure out the ending before anything else because, ideally, it won't end until it's absolutely forced to.

Nobody seems to be doing "I want to tell a story over two seasons, then move on to the next one." So they have to just create a gag-a-day formula with a small dose of continuity.

The Shield.
Babylon 5.

Series that tell a coherent story over the course of the entire series are rare and special. 'Story arcs' were a thing for a while, but that seems to be out the window. Too difficult, too risky, not enough mass-market payoff.

I can think of a few more, to varying degree. (Not sure about all of them though, since I didn't really follow them, and only know them from trailers and rumors.)
Game of thrones
The walking dead
Falling skies
24
Lost
Flash forward
The 4800
Heroes
Battlestar Galactica (the new version)
Scandal
American crime (?)

There was also a supposedly ground breaking legal drama some years back that had the idea of following one trial over a full season. They gave up on that after a few episodes and started mixing it up with shorter storylines lasting one or a few episodes. It was just too boring to watch "witness of the week" give "deposition of the week".

The problem is that a lot of these shows are really bad, and I think the creators writers dont really think it through before they start it. One problem might be that they dont know how long they will be on air. So they end up making it up as they go along, filling the story with a lot of noise that just takes up time, or making the story more and more complicated to keep the interest up and the audience coming back. Which means that everyone except the most loyal fans give up on it, since it's just too difficult to follow, and makes no sense as a longer story.

Personally I tend to stay away from shows with this format. Babylon 5 did it well, the episodes were watchable as stand alone episodes and the larger story was used as a background. It was also well thought out and fit together as a five season story arc. That's how it should be done.
But generally I get the impression that the writers dont know where they want to go, and just try to lock in the audience with more and more complex storylines, making it impossible to follow unless you commit to the whole show without missing one episode and accept that they will throw in the occational deus ex machina when they have to get themselves out of a corner.

[Jericho941]

I can think of a few more, to varying degree. (Not sure about all of them though, since I didn't really follow them, and only know them from trailers and rumors.)
Game of thrones
The walking dead
Falling skies
24
Lost
Flash forward
The 4800
Heroes
Battlestar Galactica (the new version)
Scandal
American crime (?)

Lost and New BSG are two examples of having no actual plot: They were exercises in throwing spaghetti at the wall. It really showed with how BSG tended to go off the rails for a few episodes. There was no overall story and nobody knew where they were going with it until they absolutely had to wrap it up. I don't know about Heroes but I heard it was the same way.

24 has an actual story arc for each season, but they're pretty much self-contained. The overall story, such as it is, is simple: Terrorism happens, Jack Bauer stops terrorism. Part of the problem is you can only kill off so many side characters and have so many trusted friends stab Jack in the back before there's very little continuity left besides "Terrorism happens, then Jack happens."

Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead... kinda. But they're adaptations of long-running series.

And I have no idea about the rest.

I would submit that Dollhouse kinda fits, but mostly because when it became clear they weren't going to get a third season, they had to plan on wrapping it up by the end of the second.