Jonathan Storm: More series are setting deadlines to go off air

BEVERLY HILLS - All good things must come to an end. In television, though, many good things end badly. Series drag on as money machines, long after the creativity has drifted off.

But that's changing, at least in one segment of the business, as strong serialized dramas proliferate on cable.

The final season of FX's still-popular

The Shield

, contemplated for a number of years, begins in January. And the network has already set an end date two years out for

Nip/Tuck

, even though it remains basic cable's No. 1 scripted series among that juiciest of all TV demographic groups, adults 18-49.

Though the advance-planning finale strategy is unusual on broadcast TV, ABC has one bang-up finish lined up: The answers on

Lost

will be found in the spring of 2010, no matter what.

HBO set the pattern, with series like

The Sopranos

and

Six Feet Under

.

FX president John Landgraf said, "These are not shows about the case of the week," like

CSI

and

Law & Order

, which, "while they can have fantastic acting . . . and excellent storytelling and wonderful characters . . . theoretically could go on forever."

Mentioning

Shield

creator Shawn Ryan,

Nip/Tuck

's Ryan Murphy,

The Sopranos

' David Chase, and Matthew Weiner, the man behind the AMC sensation

Mad Men

, he said, "They're taking on social commentary . . . grand sweeping questions about human characters and human nature. . . . So if we want to go after that brass ring, I think we have to bear the challenges of limited shelf life."

"I think if you tried to do 150 episodes of

The Sopranos

or

The Shield

, you would have diminished the caliber and the quality of those shows."

The phenomenon of series' running out of ideas long before they leave the air is so pervasive - how long did Archie Bunker hang around, anyway? - that it has been institutionalized and even has its own Web site,

» READ MORE: www.jumpedtheshark.com

.

The term "jump the shark" is derived from a scene in the 91st episode of the ABC sitcom

Happy Days

, at the beginning of its fifth season in 1977, which was so absurd it could not be ignored: Cool-guy Arthur Fonzarelli goes waterskiing in his leather jacket and jumps over a shark.

It happened in a three-part story about the gang traveling to Hollywood that had nothing to do with the show's story of '50s hometown kids in Milwaukee, but the shift in tone and scores of subsequent similar flights of fancy didn't stop the series from hanging on for another seven years and 164 episodes.

"I don't know if you will ever see a drama series go more than 100 episodes on FX," Landgraf said. He has even set a cutoff date for the network's subversive sitcom

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

, after four more seasons of 13 episodes each.

"Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton, who created it and star in it, will remain as stars and executive producers for all 52 of those episodes," he said.

The original executive producers of series usually take off after a few seasons, leaving their old shows to develop new ones. Locking them to the end is a key component of the finale strategy. ABC signed

Lost

's Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for the duration, as it announced the show's end date last year.

"The final season - we're very excited about it, and we've known a lot of what we wanted to do there for a long time," Cuse told TV critics at their just-ended summer gathering here. "We just feel fortunate that we know exactly how much more time we have."

The big broadcast networks, however, may have a hard time weaning themselves from moneymaking shows, no matter how dull they become.

Desperate Housewives

creator Marc Cherry, who, after four seasons has evinced no plans to start working elsewhere, intimated that he sees an end to his extremely popular and lucrative series.

"I've made the decision that after seven years, I will probably keel over in a lump and die," he told the critics in a Q&A session. "The idea of letting anyone else take the show, kind of makes me sad and sick to my stomach. . . . I think we're going to get out while people still like us."

From somewhere deep in the cavernous ballroom, the voice of ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson rang out, "Not going to happen."