Cannibalism Unto Extinction, TV-Style

OK, so I just finished watching the season finale of "The Shield" last night. It's one of my favorite shows, it didn't disappoint at the end of this season, and I'm already curious to see what happen next season. As I watched it though, a thought occurred to me that every TV series, especially ones centered around action ("The Shield", "24", "The Unit", etc.) eventually runs through just about every plot line and device imaginable somewhere around season 5 or 6 generally. After all, there are only so many variations on the "Oh NO! The world is going to be destroyed...oh wait, here's Hero X to save the day!" theme that can be explored.

At that point, the show is close to jumping the shark, but it isn't quite there yet. It probably has about another season, maybe two left in the tank, because there remains one more twist they haven't done yet...corrupting, jailing, and or killing off one of the main characters. I'm not talking about maybe one of the good guys picks up a hooker and his wife finds out...I mean something like Hulk Hogan going from yellow and red, good guy Hulk on WWF/WWE to black, New World Order bad guy Hulk on WCW turning. For example, in "The Shield" this season, some of the shenanigans of the four main cops on the show were in danger of being brought to light by an Internal Affairs investigation. One of the cops was actually considering taking a deal that would send him to jail but protect his three cop friends, but one of the three didn't know that, so he dropped a grenade in his car and killed him to keep him quiet. Now the posse of four is down to a posse of 3, with the main character/head cop and his best friend/supporting cop/co-conspirator set to be gunning for each other as the next season starts up, which will ultimately lead to the Fab Four becoming the Fab Two...and don't even get me started about how nearly EVERYONE except Jack Bauer on "24" has been a mole, a traitor, or something at one point nin the show. "24" is quickly turning into a WWE-type series, only much less entertaining because La Raza and CAIR seem to be writing the script.

This is just a phenomenon I've noticed. Your mileage may very, but it is my blog after all, so there it be. :)