MovieChat Forums > The Good Wife (2009) Discussion > Why did the show end?

Why did the show end?

posted 8 years ago by Elliot1976
6 replies | jump to latest

Is there a specific reason they ended the show?
I could have watched a couple more seasons.

[–] LeoNatan25 8 years ago

Not enough people were willing to watch "couple more seasons". The writing quality has steadily went downhill over the years, from a wittily written show with interesting characters to soap opera borefest, and most viewership went away. My guess is writers are hoping to score higher with the spin-off, and that's why they killed this one sooner rather than later.

[–] heartyburgundy 8 years ago

Please look up information before confusing people who want correct information.

[–] LeoNatan25 8 years ago

Viewership was going down from its glory seasons (2-3). How is this incorrect information?

[–] heartyburgundy 8 years ago

It's incorrect information because the show was never a ratings draw and its ratings always came from a demographic that any studio never primarily caters to. It was always the prestige drama that rolled in awards and nominations consistently for 6 of its 7 seasons; it was the only CBS drama doing that for quite sometime. The network has admittedly said that they know the show is worth it for their studio because of its critical success rather than its viewership.

The creators themselves - even during the initial seasons of the show's airing - stated that they wanted to end the show after seven seasons. That was always the plan. Any fan or person who googles about the show can find the information pretty quickly. This was evidenced in their use of increasing and decreasing word amounts in each episode's title during a given season, which they talked about at PaleyFest.

Here's the network's continued interest in keeping the show past its seven seasons somehow with or without the creators:
http://tvline.com/2016/01/12/the-good-wife-season-8-renewed-robert-michelle-king-leaving/

You can say that what studios put in press releases or in the media isn't true, but it's the only solid information one can base their arguments - anything else is just conspiracy or conjecture. The fact that they're willing to gamble their new streaming platform away partially with a spin-off of this show is substantial enough evidence that CBS loves this show and wants to keep it around. The show did not end because they gave up on it - they, clearly, haven't given up on it because they enjoy it.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (5715013) 8 years ago

Robert and Michelle King, who created the show and wrote it for the first few seasons, always said they had a seven-season arc in mind, and they hadn't planned to do it for any longer than that.

There were hints that, if the ratings had been huge and the network asked them to, they might have been willing to keep on with it. But the ratings were not that great after a while, so they just wrapped it up after seven seasons, like they had always planned to do.

But speaking of RATINGS -- I don't know how a network thinks a show will be a success when they schedule it for a Sunday evening when every awards show there is comes along and bumps it. And there were seasons where they were actually showing two new episodes followed by a rerun. Friends I had encouraged to watch it were giving up on it because, with all the back and forth, they couldn't follow what was going on.

And why put it after FOOTBALL, which is notorious for slopping over its time slot much more often than not? Loyal viewers in the east were getting very angry at having to wait for their show to start until after the jocks were finally through running around and falling down -- and people who were DVRing it got tired of missing the endings because their recording hadn't run long enough to get it all.

[–] Elliot1976 8 years ago

I was lucky(for me) to watch it after the show so I got to binge watch in on Netflix. Obviously it's a different watching experience that way.
It did tend to get a bit soapy later on but that happens to a lot of shows. I was just watching Suits before I discovered this show and Suits is in that stage where it's getting a bit soapy too. I still enjoy both tho.

Thanks for your reply.