How Long Should You Keep Your TV Security Blankets?

Like a lot of little kids, I had a "security blanket" that I had from pretty much when I was a baby, until I was probably 6-8 years old.  Then I think my mom finally gave the thing to the cats or dogs or something like that because it had become pretty worn by then.

After FXX announced new seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Archer, I got thinking that so many of these TV shows that have gone 10+, 20+, or even 30+ years (or 42 "seasons" like Survivor) manage to do so because they're like security blankets for viewers.  No matter how much else changes, there's always The Simpsons or South Park, or Always Sunny, or Survivor, or The Bachelor, and so on and so on.  In the bad old days when TV schedules were more crowded, networks were like our moms, ripping our security blankets away once they started getting worn.  But now that there's so much more competition, they seem to be coddling us, letting us keep these shows until apparently everyone involved in them dies--and then they'll reboot them.

I got thinking, how long should we keep these security blankets around?  My answer:  10 seasons maximum.  Why?  Because I can't think of any show I watched that got better after its 10th season, except for Archer and that's just that the 8-10th seasons were  so fucking awful that it was hard not to improve on them.  Simpsons had started to drift into meh by the 10th season and by the 10th season of South Park and Family Guy I was barely watching.  Always Sunny still had some good episodes in its 10th, 11th, and 12th seasons but when Glenn Howerton went missing for some episodes in the 13th season to do AP Bio and maybe some other stuff it kind of fucked up the chemistry and it just hasn't really recovered.  And with a live action show like that it just kinda gets sad after a while.  I mean when they were 20-something or early 30-something their antics were fun but when you're 40-something and doing the same shit it's just kinda pathetic.  Which is probably why it's good Seinfeld quit after 8 years, because them doing the same shit in their 50s or 60s would have just been sad.

By and large I don't think any show has really been so great after 10 seasons where I would desperately miss it.  Most shows don't need to hang around even half that time; a lot of them have pretty much strip-mined the premise bare by the time it gets to season 6.  In family sitcoms you get that problem where the kids start growing up, so those definitely don't need to be on long enough that the kids start having kids of their own.  And really, with streaming and DVDs and whatnot you can always revisit those old friends whenever you want.  You don't need them to basically do the same shows from 10, 20, 30 years ago over and over calling it "new."

I'm sure I mentioned before my breaking point with The Simpsons was seeing the episode description saying Selma was going to marry some rich guy.  Which they had already done at least once, if not more times before.  How many more times is she going to get married?!  How many more times can Lisa do something desperate to fit in?  How many stupid pranks can Bart pull?  How many more times can Homer quit his job and get a new one and then go back to his old one?  How many more careers can Marge try?  I mean, Jesus God, we've been over this same ground six hundred times by now!  How many more times can you watch the writers of South Park take some headline from the previous week and have the adults overreact to it and the kids be far more sensible?  Or for Cartman to play the adults overreacting to some stupid shit?  Or everyone overreacts to something until Kyle and Stan learn something?  Or have Family Guy basically do a lot of the same shit as The Simpsons with more R-rated humor and stupid cutaway gags?  How many times can you watch people bickering on these dumb "reality" shows?  The talent show ones at least you have slight differences, but isn't every season of Survivor just a bunch of bickering and stupid "challenges" until someone wins?  And isn't every The Bachelor just skanks throwing themselves at some hunky dude until someone wins--though they never actually get married because the show wraps months before it airs?  What the hell is wrong with you people?!!!  You have all these options and you keep watching the same shit, year after year after fucking goddamned year!!!

[OK, I'll calm down now.]

I suppose some people would say, "What's the big deal?  Wet me keep my bwankie if I want!"  But the reason your mom doesn't let you keep your security blanket forever is it retards your growth.  You can't grow up if you keep leaning on a security blanket.  In the same way, you can't really grow if you're just watching the same stuff forever.

Unfortunately, networks aren't responsible like your mom and all they really care about is making money.  So as long as there are enough babies clinging to these security blankets, those shows will keep making money and networks will keep them on the air.  And that makes it harder for new content to be successful.

I guess the other way to think of it is like an addiction.  So long as they churn these seasons out, people won't break away from them.  But it is pretty easy to just not watch something.  Especially with streaming, where you physically have to select something.  So, you know, don't.  Just because they keep making The Simpsons or South Park or Family Guy or NCIS or Blue Bloods or Law & Order SVU doesn't mean you have to watch it.  Just say no.  And don't worry about "FOMO;" you're not missing anything important.  They're just TV shows.

You can make the same argument for books.  Everyone has a favorite author or two who's like their security blanket.  But if you only read Stephen King or James Patterson or John Grisham or whoever's books, you're only going to get their perspectives.  You need to read other books by other authors to get new perspectives.  I do try to mix up my authors a little bit so I'm not always reading Lawrence Block or Donald Westlake or John Irving books.  I will usually find my way back there, but just reading a couple of authors all the time would get boring.

But apparently a lot of other people don't feel that way.  So, what's your security blanket for TV and books?