Much of me agrees, but part of me disagrees, solely for the reason that shorter episode orders means no episodes like "Road Trip". Sometimes longer seasons are better for world-building and just being able to hang out with the characters (as their characters are further fleshed out).

If only Suburgatory was still a drama… (but now with the adoption and mother arcs out of the way)

I'm so sad that Parenthood is done for the season after tonight, but the flip side is I can finally get to watch Justified live.

I posted this before I saw the soap-incident.

Outside of The Middle and Castle, that "conservative"-list is not just old-skewing, but depressingly piss-shit TV.

Does that mean we're gonna get the Maguires? I doubt it, so I don't think it's particularly fair to say that this U.S. adaptation can't deviate and be better than the original British show.

I want to keep liking this show as a good TV show, but it's getting harder to care. I started watching this show as a sort-of-"complimentary" show to Parenthood, but this show is going more down the Weeds-track rather than focusing on primacy of family.

I think everyone invested or involved with the show will agree that the Landry storyline was tremendously regrettable. Otherwise, the show was some of the finest TV ever. No TV show hit all of the right notes (Katims does great, but even he misses things), but FNL (and now Parenthood) hit a lot of good ones.

I don't know who I like less: Frank, or Debbie?

Where half the fans still cheer for Michael Vick, no?

Part of me is happy there's less TV on tonight. But it's not like I'm getting the sleep benefit from it, so boo, I wish there was more TV on tonight.

Brilliant!

Brilliant!

I'd say:
S1: first half: C+, back half: B
S2: A/A-
S3: A
S4: B
S5: B (different standard, but man did this season have purpose)

Understand and mostly agree with your response. To somewhat counter, I'd argue that 13 episodes isn't really enough time to go into world-building outside of the specious sort, and the writers were more interested in narrating the closing, grand, "aesop"-ish, morally-righteous chapter of this story.

To be honest, upon reflection and rewatching, I enjoyed Season 1 (even though I'm not a fan of procedurals in general, I've actually learned to like non-crime procedurals). Season 5 is just different, since as some people have mentioned, it acted more like a mini-series or long-form movie to close the series.

I can't think of anything that tops Friday Night Lights. And I can't wait to see how Parenthood closes its story (albeit hopefully not for a long time, well, maybe except for Sarah).

When you say Lost was engaging, you mean criminally underwhelming a lot of people in the finale?

I mean no harm asking this, but I presume you're someone who thinks the show essentially jumped the shark after Season 3 and the Peter-erased-from-the-timeline business? Most of the people who are underwhelmed with the finale seem to be in that group, and it would make sense then.

If anything, this gave us finality. Most of the mythology was already resolved/addressed, and you can posit that Season 5 was too narrative or different from the character-driven procedural structure of the show.