Me too Jim, I loved "Connections." There were some good British cooking shows too like, "Death By Chocolate."

Then "The Learning Channel" stopped being very educational and those programs went away. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

No learning on The Learning Channel, no history on The History Channel, no discovery on The Discovery Channel, no science on The Science Channel, no music on MTV.

All diluted by competition for ratings which puts programming in the hands of a few people. It costs extra if you want reasonably current content, just add a + behind the channel name. "Connections" was a British 6 episode mini series in 1978 and can purchased or even watched if you're willing to search the web for the right streaming channel. Same for "Death By Chocolate."  I watch "Northern Exposure" now and then and the 1940's Batman serial is entertaining. The late 1930s Superman serial was animated where super stuff like flying was involved. It's surprisingly good, Good writers. I think that's probably because animation is so labor intensive and time consuming the writers had time to do better work.

I guess my point was, Popularity often kills quality; I can get into examples I've been experiencing but I'll spare everybody and keep it short. If a product, TV show in this case, is popular similar shows start appearing to catch a % and they all go down hill. Too often the original has higher standards and costs more to produce so it's the first to go out of production and to reruns.

"Forged In Fire" is a perfect example, we've discussed here quite a bit. It being "reality TV" was no secret from the beginning if not advertised and the contests were genuinely robust. By season 2 I could usually pick the ringers during the introductions reducing the contest to one on one. Now it's mostly the panelists gabbing instead of watching blades being made. Non of the spin offs lasted long but they keep trying. 

It isn't the producers fault, they have to make a profit. It's popularity providing easy pickings for less able producers to skim some cream.

Heck, libraries look at popularity to determine what books to acquire and many don't participate in ILL program. 

Competition for resources is the basis for all life, chemistry and oh heck it's universal.

Frosty The Lucky.