Show got better every season until year 5 (the gay season) killed it

this was definitely one of the oddest runs of a series ever...

Year one was called These Friends Of Mine with Ellen, Holly, Adam, Anita

Year 2 changed to ELLEN, holly and anita were gone and Paige joined and Ellen now owned the book store... the book group, good not great

Year three adam was gone and spence joined (great year)... the running gag of waiting for the opening credits was awesome, horshack, paige getting married, all great and the finale was the best

year 4 it was on a roll... great season, the coming out season, ed (bruce campbell) joined as the new manager of the bookstore, every episode had a silly coming out joke... the series had a fun quality to it and you could tell they were having fun doing it... then of course the puppy episode... they had so much good will and attention and then year 5 happened...

Year 5: all gay all the time... wow this show really changed... she moved into her house, the book store was gone, it was all about being gay and learning to be gay and date gay... she started dating a woman with a child... the supporting cast (Audrey, Joe, Paige, Spence) all were shoved to the side. Almost disappeared. Instead of being an ensemble it became a very different show. Ratings plummeted. They started strong at the beginning but as people realized all the changes it dropped week after week

Some people think it was because it was gay but it was more because it changed too much.

It gets me angry knowing they ruined it. I love ellen and i'm gay but the series should never have been altered as much as it did for year 5. She could have just been gay and kept as an ensemble and her dating women could have been just seamlessly added to the plot but instead it became an entirely different series. For a show that was hitting it's groove it was really bad timing to change things up. All that pressure must have all gone to her head.