When TV shows go bad

What do you do when a TV show you're enjoying takes a turn for the worse? Do you stick with it to bitter end? Give it a shot till the end of the season? Half-assedly watch it while checking out other programming? Check out the story development/reviews before investing more time? Dump it?

I have dumped a few shows that I've invested myself into. I quit Lost shortly after the second season convinced me that the writers had no plan for the show and were just bullsh*tting as they went along. I refused to watch any more Dexter after its terrible first few episodes of the fifth season due to the de facto retconning of the series. I gave up Avatar: The Last Airbender after a handful of episodes (I'm considering checking out a few more, if just to see if there are any ideas worth salvaging from it for my creative side). I wouldn't have followed along with Heroes after the first episode if I hadn't received the first two seasons on DVD (unlike many others, I thought the show was a mess beginning with its very first episode).

Part of the difficulty with TV shows is that they seem to be usually intended to last for as long as they remain more worthwhile for their producers than the expected returns of another show. The show's makers also face a potential conflict-of-interest between a possible desire to write a well-written show, the desire for a return on their production and an income for themselves and everyone involved, and the demands of the show's producers and distributors (as well as standard practices regarding season lengths, episode lengths, and appealing to casual viewers).

These days, my brother and I are watching the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica [SPOILER ALERT}. We're on the second season and just finished up an arc of bad episodes, beginning with the out-of-the-blue attempt at space noir with "Detective" Adama, followed by Starbuck's oh-I-really-do-love-that-possibly-dead-guy crisis (these two episodes are also marred by flashback narratives), then the atrocious Billy-must-die-so-Nualla-and-Apollo-can-hook-up episode, and concluded with the incompetent-new-commander-must-make-grave-mistake-then-die-in-self-sacrifice-rather-than-face-court-martial episode. They were just wretched and none of them have a lasting emotional impact other than the urgent desire to wash them from memory. They also reek of filler material, prompting my brother to wonder whether they're result of the lengthened season (Season One consists of thirteen episodes while Season Two consists of twenty episodes).

We will still watch, at least through Season Two. We'll probably continue with the rest, assuming that this Arc of Awfulness is an exception rather than a new rule for the BSG series.