If Shakespeare wrote for television, Romeo and Juliet would be dying for the 23rd time. The real tragedy would be that you are still watching.
There comes a point in watching a television show when clicking “next episode” feels like an obligation. I still care about the characters and want to know what will happen to them. But another breakup? It’s only their fifth time breaking up. Oh, let me guess! They got back together again. Eventually, I have to wonder whether there is still a story to tell or just another season to film.
But no show has tested its audience’s loyalty, or intelligence, quite like Riverdale. From 2017–2020, Riverdale was one of the most loved shows. It absolutely blew up and stole the hearts of countless teenagers and adults. Don’t even get me started on the South Side Serpents Shirt that would populate the halls of my middle school. Looking back at it, I am so thankful to my mom, who immediately said no when I asked her for a shirt. So how did Riverdale lose the plot so drastically, changing the genre from murder mystery to full-blown science fiction and all the way to supernatural fantasy? How little respect do the writers have for their fans to change the entire premise of the show and assume loyalty will make up for it? Apparently, an alternate universe wasn’t enough: A new character named Tabitha also becomes an angel who tries to stop the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. When executive director Sarah Schechter was asked about that storyline, she responded with “Maybe I won’t comment on that.” It is hard to blame her for this explanation. When your teen murder mystery reaches the point where you are explaining angelic interventions in American history, where do you even begin?
Seven seasons isn’t necessarily too many. Riverdale’s problem was that its later seasons barely resembled the show people originally wanted to watch.
Take Grey’s Anatomy for example. How much can happen at one hospital before it should get shut down? Apparently a lot because even when THE Meredith Grey leaves her own show, Grey’s Anatomy still lives on — as it was just renewed for a 23rd season. And Riverdale? The show began as a murder mystery following five teenagers and their romantic drama. So imagine my surprise when I found out that, by the seventh season, they were stuck in an alternative universe in the 1950s. Television shows have been using fans’ loyalty for profit, dragging out shows long after they have run out of stories worth telling.
Grey’s Anatomy follows a group of attractive surgeons who seem to be flirting with each other more than treating patients. Still, it managed to convince me, for three years, that I wanted to become a surgeon. Clearly, I’m a big fan, which makes watching the show drag on even more painful. When Grey’s Anatomy produces so many disappointing new seasons, people forget about how good it really was in the beginning. Due to the recency effect — where people tend to think more about information that was just presented to them — the show’s worst seasons are given an unfair advantage in leaving an impression.
Grey’s Anatomy began with nine main characters, and yet only two have remained in the show full time: Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr). Richard Webber was supposed to retire in season one. 20 seasons later, his retirement plan apparently consists of outliving the cast at 72 years old. Then again, if Pickens really earns a reported $125,000 per episode, I can understand why he wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave. Wilson reportedly also earns $125,000 per episode, while Ellen Pompeo, the actress who plays Meredith Grey, makes a whopping $575,000 per episode. And yes, she still got paid every episode during season 17 when Meredith had COVID and a latex doll was used in her place. At this point, it feels as if everyone is getting something out of another season, while the audience gets their time wasted.
Season 19 of Grey’s Anatomy averaged 3.33 million views, while its earlier seasons had 15–20 million views. At what point should we start blaming the people still watching it? What can anyone still watching the show get out of it? As loyal a fan as I have been, I refuse to waste another hour watching a show that has clearly run out of reasons to exist.
A lot of the responsibility can be put on ABC and The CW. A television show can disappoint most of their viewers and still attract enough of them to justify another season. Networks don’t look at the quality of a show before renewing it, but rather the amount of money the shows give them.
Don’t you think we deserve to share some of the blame? Viewers complain about lazy writing and pointless seasons and then sit down every week like we owe those shows our time. We don’t. Our loyalty has become an excuse to serve us lazy shows, and we keep coming back for more. Let the ratings drop. Let the show end.
Ella Labinskiy is a member of the Class of 2030 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a contributor for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at el897@cornell.edu.
