The Wisdom Of TV Audiences

I've been using this web site that produces a graph charting the quality of TV shows over their existence.  It takes the ratings that people have given each episode (at IMDB) and uses that to create a line graph of how the show's worth has gone up and down over the years. (See this Wired article for more info.)

So what have I learned from it?

• The best episodes of any series are usually the famous ones you’re expecting them to be.
• The Simpsons was better for the first half of its existence.
• Happy Days did drop in quality after the infamous "jump the shark" episode, but not by much.
• Both Roseanne and Night Court had terrible final seasons.
• The rises and falls off Saturday Night Live are more or less in the expected places. What is surprising is their best overall era: Right now.
• Contrary to expectations, the quality of shows doesn't really change much over time.  And they are often against popular opinion: Buffy didn't go downhill in later seasons, and people thought Battlestar Galactica's last season was it's best.