Does ''TheXFiles'' really belong here? I mean, the feature film was only ever intended to bridge seasons five and six; further seasons, and additional films in fact, were always on the drawing board, hence the fact that the film didn't wrap up the conspiracy plot. What's more, many fans regard the sixth season, which included such classic episodes as "Drive", "The Unnatural" and "Dreamland", as possibly the best season of the show.

Re: B5. Whether season 5 is good, mediocre or bad is subject to debate. Not all threads had been finished in S4, some had just been dropped. However "composed of a lot of stories that had been cut from earlier seasons as they weren't as strong" is clearly wrong due to the nature of the show. The story continually evolves (the arc) and it's pretty much impossible to take a story that didn't make it into an earlier season and recycle it as the whole universe will have changed by then.

----
The discussion which resulted in this topic, relocated from WhatDoICallThisEntry:

RedShoe: I'm looking for a good name (or a good smackdown if it's already in here and I just didn't notice) for cases where a show radically and unnaturally alters its premise for its later seasons, typically because they got unexpectedly renewed after doing a GrandFinale. I was trying to find a play on "You have outlived your usefulness," but I can't seem to make it work.

LooneyToons: Got a show or two in mind? It might help focus the creative energies if we had an example to think about.

RedShoe: The most obvious example is probably ''Earth Final Conflict'', but it also happened to ''BabylonFive'', and possibly ''BlakesSeven''.

DarkSasami: Reminds me of the entire ''Highlander'' series, and that sector of the fans who (logically) point out that none of it could have happened after the first movie.

{{Gus}}: This seems to be covered in PostScriptSeason, now.

----
slb: Removed the following from the Mega Man X section for natter:

*** Doesn't anyone ''like'' Axl? Dang it.
**** Does it count if Axl is useful in ''SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters''?
**** [[YourMileageMayVary This Troper likes him in Mega Man X: Command Mission]]..

----
Can't the "castaways off the mysterious island" link to something other than Lost (Gilligan's Island)? Since Lost ''did'' get them of the Island without having a post script season and thus is a poor example.