15 TV shows that should call it quits after this season

In 11 full seasons of CBS’s “Criminal Minds,” the show never dipped below 7 million viewers for a single episode. In fact, it usually averaged about twice that, and one episode in season 2 even drew more than 26 million people! Yet the show has struggled to keep its storylines fresh and unique, which has led to a steady decline in ratings. Season 12 started off with “Criminal Minds” barely hanging on, and the firing of Thomas Gibson (rightfully, as he had been in numerous altercations with the show’s crew members) cut the final thread. With the show currently in free-fall, CBS should cancel it before it hits rock bottom, or at least spin off some of the solid characters it has created and developed over the years.

CBS’s “Big Brother” will air its 19th and 20th seasons this year and next, but does it really need to? The show has become hopelessly repetitive year after year – same host, same situations, different contestants – and the ratings of season 18 were the lowest yet by a long shot. We know “Big Brother” acts as good summer filler, but is filler really the best CBS can offer?

We love Ken Jeong. Love him. But his sitcom, “Dr. Ken,” debuted in October 2015 and was sadly dead on arrival. Part of the reasoning for this is that fans fell for Jeong (who created, writes, and produces the show) for his wacky, off-the-wall characters from “The Hangover” and “Community,” so seeing him in a more subdued role just isn’t working. Viewers hoped the show might find its niche during its second season, but it was just as bad, reviews were just as harsh, and the ratings were even worse. Somehow “Dr. Ken” avoided the scalpel when ABC recently made some recent cuts, and we’re honestly not sure how.

Is anyone else surprised CBS’s “2 Broke Girls” is still on? The show debuted with a strong first season back in 2011, but ratings have been falling ever since, critics and award shows have rarely been kind, and the show’s one-liners, innuendos, and stereotype-based jokes seem to have run their course. Yet not only is the show still chugging along in its sixth season, it was even renewed for a seventh. We adore the show’s stars, Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs, but it’s time to move on – especially now that the series has reached syndication status.

When Netflix rebooted “Fuller House,” they knew it wouldn’t be brilliant, revolutionary, or critically acclaimed; it was strictly some nostalgia for fans to adore. However, fans haven’t adored it, with many deriding the show for its self-referential, unoriginal material or lack or original cast members. New viewers also complain that the show is not family friendly, which raises the question: who is actually watching “Fuller House”? Or, better yet, why did it get renewed for a second and third season?

E!’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” was never critically acclaimed and it never got overwhelming ratings, but it was a pop culture phenomenon, a source of humor, or, at the very least a guilty pleasure. However, the show is now in its 13th season, which is an extensive tenure for any show, especially one of the reality variety. The ratings have reflected this via a slow decline over the years, even with the last few episodes highlighting Kim’s robbery in Paris. And really, why should viewers continue watching the original show? It has already spawned seven spin-offs, and major events in the Kardashian/Jenner world can still be found on social media and in other entertainment news, which is generally much more up-to-date and accurate when compared to the admittedly semi-scripted E! show.

Remember back when “Grey’s Anatomy” was so popular that it was all anyone could talk about the day after a new episode aired? That was 12 years ago, or close to it, at least, as the show premiered back in 2005. Now half of those people don’t even watch the show anymore (ratings have dropped from around 18 million to less than 8 million), which makes sense, as more than half of the original cast have also left the show behind. ABC just renewed “Grey’s Anatomy” for a 14th season that will air later this year, but in our professional opinion, someone needs to pull the plug.

Last year, FXX’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” was renewed for a 13th and 14th season, which will tie it for longest running live-action American comedy series in TV history. We’re here to argue, however, that it shouldn’t make it that long. Although once very funny on a consistent basis, “Sunny” hasn’t attracted more than a million viewers since its eighth season back in 2012, and many of the episodes over the last year or two have proved that the creators are running out of ideas. Instead of the characters ignorantly pushing the envelope every week, they’re now blatantly shoving it in people’s faces, with the exception of the outside-the-box episodes, which needlessly complicate a show about five idiots and their bar. We hate to see “Sunny” go, but we also hate to see it slowly destroy itself like a metaphorical Rickety Cricket.

Once upon a time, “Once Upon a Time” was a fresh, innovative show that blurred the lines between fantasy and reality by literally inserting a parallel fairy tale world complete with plenty of familiar characters into real-life America. However, ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” also once pulled in twice as many viewers as it does now, because after a while, fairy tales can grow old and tiresome. That’s why they all have endings. Earlier this year, it was announced that the main storyline would end after season 6, but we think the show would be better off ending completely, or at least spinning off into a similar but different series.

After its premiere was watched by 10 million viewers, the ratings for FOX’s “Sleepy Hollow” fell back to Earth, and have been falling ever since. The show, now in its fourth season, attracts close to 2 million fans every week, but the idea of Ichabod Crane living in present day times is getting cheesier and more confusing each week, and a 2015 crossover with “Bones” didn’t help its cause in the least. If FOX chooses to renew “Sleepy Hollow” for another season, it’ll be clear the Horseman isn’t the only person who has lost their head.

Two bits of news about CW’s “Supernatural” surprised us. First, we were shocked to see the show was renewed for a 13th season in January 2017. And second, we were positively incredulous that it was renewed after the current season couldn’t even muster two million viewers for any episode other than the premiere. The original showrunner, Eric Kripke, intended for “Supernatural” to end with season 5, and he even left at that point, but the show has nevertheless continued for another seven exhausting seasons and counting. The name of the season 5 finale, by the way: “Swan Song.”

After 10 solid years of nerd jokes, we’re through – but “The Big Bang Theory” clearly isn’t. Although a “young Sheldon” spin-off was just announced, there’s no official end in sight for the original, even though a couple of its formerly “young” stars are now in their 40s, and the show is entering “Friends” territory in terms of length. Then again, the ratings are still going strong and this is Chuck Lorre and CBS we’re talking about, the folks who dragged out a past-its-prime “Two and a Half Men” to 12 seasons, even though one-and-a-half of the men had departed the series.

When the first episode of CBS’s “Survivor” aired back in 2000, some 15 million people tuned in, with more than 50 million watching that year’s season finale. Fast forward to now, the 34th season, and the numbers have slipped considerably, with “Survivor: Game Changers” only drawing 7 or 8 million viewers each week. This obviously isn’t terrible, but how long can the show really continue? Not only does it tend to get repetitive after 34 seasons, but numerous other programs have come along over the years that are more challenging and impressive than the once-novel concept of “Survivor” –such as “Man vs. Wild” and “Naked and Afraid” – making it less impressive and less interesting than ever before.

This is particularly painful, as “The Simpsons” is, without a doubt, one of the funniest, silliest, smartest, and most relevant TV comedies to ever air. And, for the most part, the first three adjectives are still accurate; the problem is the “funny” part. People prematurely claimed “The Simpsons” jumped the shark way back around season 10 or 12, but it still had plenty to offer – especially in comparison to most other television programming. But the show is now in its 28th season and there’s no more denying that it has run out of ideas. The plot lines are repetitive, self-referential, and not nearly as light-hearted or consistently funny as they used to be. As much as it pains us to say this (especially knowing the show has already been renewed through its 30th season), it’s time for The Simpsons - probably the greatest television family to ever exist - to retire.

Get your angry letters ready because we’re about to tick off a whole lot of people. “The Walking Dead” needs to die. There, we said it. Don’t get us wrong, we used to be huge fans of the show and would anxiously tune in every week to see what would unfold in the dark, twisted post-apocalyptic zombie (sorry: “walker”) world. But then the walkers – the main reason many people tuned into the show in the first place and continued watching - took a major backseat to the living-on-living violence. Such a major backseat that we’re pretty sure most of the walkers missed the bus entirely. Now the show changes the archvillain on a seasonal basis and kills off characters without discrimination (with the exception of Rick, Carl, and Daryl, of course) so much so that current the show is nearly unrecognizable compared to its former self. If you don’t believe this, read some synopses of recent season 7 episodes; if you haven’t watched the show for a year or two, you’d have no idea who or what the summaries are talking about. Sure, “The Walking Dead” is still passably entertaining, but now is the time to kill it off before... well, before it becomes a walker: still moving, but dead on the inside.