The most notable, Lucifer. Most series run out of steam or go off in weird directions after many seasons.

Made them great. Some shows feel like different writers have taken over.

I also didn’t finish:

Homeland
Outlander
Billions
Ray Donovan
Walking Dead

Not on your list

Handmaidens Tale

Thanks for the reminder.

TWD is truly the only one where I just felt it had played itself out. For most of the others, I never even tried to jump back in without a review-rewatch, so not sure if the newer seasons would captivate me or not.

Maybe I'll try a new strategy and start at the most recent season, no matter how many I've skipped?

Agreed.

For me:

Orzak
You
Welcome to Chippendales
1899
Manifest
Shameless
Americans
Orphan Black

Shameless
The Americans

Pretty sure I finished Orphan Black, but who knows?

And Shameless. I loved Shameless at first, but it seemed to be wandering at some point, and I lost interest.

Vikings
Carnival Row
Game of Thrones
The Rain
Occupied
Yellowstone
1923

Mostly I’ll abandon something because it either becomes too violent or the writing goes sideways.

Love Outlander and can’t wait for the next season.

rural area,etc. We moved and have cable. There are a few we stopped watching, Billions for one. But we binged Homeland, West Wing, Borgias. etc. Caught up with Succession. It's a bit dizzying. I thought of keeping a short journal of what we're watching and where, so we don't lose track.

Succession was stunning tonight. Superb acting.The variety of what's out there does remind me a bit of a line from a Joni Mitchell song. The line is "None of the crazy that comes from too much choice".

Also, Stranger Things. But never The Walking Dead. I miss it and can't wait for the spin-offs. I wish they'd do an origin story of the virus/bacteria/fungus/alien invasion/whatever caused it in the first place.

The Last of Us is great and I'll probably watch it until the very end too.

Like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and The Last Man on Earth were two of my favorite horror movies.

They think it means people don't enjoy them.

which is there's just too much to keep up with. I want to, but can't seem to do it.

simply go on a season or three after they've really told the full story.

I keep on abandoning series with little or no regret. What the Brits do much better is they do limited series that complete a story arc and then ends. We need more of that here.

to squeeze too much out of them. Less is more.

Even though I don't work in Hollywood, I think I get it that continuing a series means everyone makes more money, and I understand the money motivation. Unfortunately, that leads to crappy excess seasons.

An expression that means "a show will reach a point at which far-fetched events are included merely for the sake of novelty, indicative of a decline in quality."

They could 'run out of a story-line', or, as stated elsewhere, the story had deviated too far from the original premise, some 'characters' have left the show, or the show has simply lost its way.

I have experienced several of these examples or combinations and variations of them. I also find it interesting to see the rate of success with 'spin-offs' - do they make it or not - and why?

When The Fonze went waterskiing and literally jumped over a shsrk?

That’s exactly where the term came from!

The last one I dropped was The Night Agent.

I mainly watch movies. I like to be done with a story after an hour and a half or so. I don't have the patience to watch most tv shows. They have to be incredible for me to watch.

and not finished, for almost the same reason, not because it wasn't interesting, but because when I'm searching for things to watch, I'll often start watching for just a couple minutes so that it pops up in my "Continue Watching" list rather than my gargantuan "To Watch" list. For all their talk about algorithms, I gotra say nobody has yet perfected video content management for my purposes. Seems I have to build it myself, if I ever get around to it, unlikely. Ah, first world problems.