10 TV Shows Ruined By Their Own Popularity

2. How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is better than Friends. Oh, people can disagree all they want, but what HIMYM has that its oft-compared rival doesn't is direction. From the very first episode it was clear the whole series, whether it ran for the originally planned twelve episodes or the ultimate two-hundred and eight, was building towards the moment when Ted Mosby would finally meet the love of his life. And thus everything had a sense of purpose; as Future Ted himself said, it's "the story of how I became who I had to become before I could meet her." And thus as the show stretched out much longer than any kids would sit still for, people were still fine with it, knowing everything would all be important in the end.

The decision to add another season midway through the eighth and presumed final season raised a lot of eyebrows, particularly when it became clear the final twenty-odd episodes would take place over a single weekend. Thankfully it allowed us to spend a bit of time with Cristin Milioti's Mother, allowing us to see (and not just be told) she was perfect for Ted.

Although that ultimately was the problem. Tracy McConnell was so much Ted's ideal girl that, even though their relationship disproved his belief in "the one" (she'd fallen in love before), fans were more than a little disgruntled when the creators played out their long planned ending.

Shot back at the end of Season 2 before the kids got too old, an epilogue to the main story (Ted meets the Mother, they have kids, she dies) sees the show reveal itself as an attempt for Ted to subconsciously get himself ready to once again try to win Robin's love. While it made sense when it was shot (Ted and Robin's relationship was still the dominant story drive), the events that had happened since made it seem rather out of place.