News out of the TCA this week is that “How I Met Your Mother” — currently in its 7th season and contracted by CBS for eight — may actually extend beyond 2013, despite earlier suggestions that the sitcom would wrap up next year and the identity of Ted’s wife would be revealed. That’d be a lousy idea. Even if most of us have moved beyond caring about the show’s initial premise, eight seasons is enough. In fact, notwithstanding a number of great episodes over the last two years, five seasons probably would’ve been enough.

Nevertheless, despite record ratings, I doubt “HIMYM” will go beyond eight seasons anyhow: Jason Segel is a big Hollywood star now and probably has no desire to stick around; Cobie Smulders’ movie career may get a boost from The Avengers; Neil Patrick Harris probably has an awesome talk show in his future; and Josh Radnor has been expressing frustration with working on the sitcom for years now. Those guys don’t want to come back. If “HIMYM” were to stick around, it’d have to move ahead 20 years and replace Radnor with his voice over, Bob Saget. And then the show would really run off the rails.

But it wouldn’t be the first — or last — beloved show to do so. Here are ten other initially adored television shows that overstayed their welcomes.

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“Dexter” has been on a rapid decline, peaking in season four with John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer and gradually moving down the ladder of quality, from the mediocre Julia Stiles’ season to the most recent and horrific Colin Hanks’ season. The one thing that show had going for it, up until the final two episodes of last season, was Jennifer Carpenter, who plays Dexter’s foul-mouthed sister, Deb. Acting-wise, she was the weak link in the first couple of seasons, but both she and her character picked up their game considerably, right up until [SPOILER] she revealed that she wanted to bang her brother. Guh.

The best thing about her character, however, is her penchant for swearing, no matter the context. Yesterday, “Dexter” fans asked Jennifer Carpenter to curse them out on Twitter, and in typical Deb form, she obliged.

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“Dexter” has been on Showtime for six seasons now. That’s longer than the broadcast runs for “Friday Night Lights,” “The Wire,” “Deadwood,” “Twin Peaks,” “Six Feet Under,” and “Battlestar Galactica.” It’s been renewed for two more after this one, which will leap frog it over “The Sopranos,” “Mad Men,” and “The Shield.” Just say that out loud: Eight. Seasons. Of. “Dexter.” And if the next two are anything like the formulaic-to-a-fault one that mercifully finishes on Sunday, may God have mercy on us all. The two Big Bads (a term that means the main villain in a single season) this year, played by Colin Hanks and Edward James Olmos, have been the main problem. Why? Well, read on, as they’re one of the nine worst single-season villains in TV history.

(Spoiler alert, obviously.)

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TV's most controversial show

Here are some sweeping political generalizations I made, based on a recently released survey, conducted by Experian-Simmons and published on EW.com, on what shows “Liberal Democrats” and “Conservative Republicans” love and hate:

Democrats love: Sarcasm (“30 Rock”), New Orleans and/or white guilt (“Treme”), alcohol (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Cougar Town”), gays (“Glee,” “Modern Family”), nudity (“Shameless”), and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report”). Also, funny things (“Parks and Recreation,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” “Raising Hope”).

Democrats hate: Swamps (“Swamp Loggers,” “Swamp People,” “River Monsters”) ghosts (“Ghost Hunters,” “Ghost Adventures”), teen pregnancy (“The Secret Life of the American Teenager”), Drew Carey (“The Price is Right”), and catching bad guys (“Dog the Bounty Hunter,” “COPS”).

Republicans love: When life re-sets itself every week (“Hawaii Five-0,” “NCIS”), swamps (“Swamp Loggers,” “Swamp People,” “River Monsters”), romance based on a lie (“The Bachelor”), Larry the Cable Guy (“Only In America with Larry the Cable Guy”), Nathan Fillion (“Castle”), antique collecting (“American Pickers”), and jokes that begin with “This is in the news” (“The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”).

Republicans hate: Marijuana (“Weeds”), exposing hypocrisy (“South Park”), divorce (“Divorce Court”), gossip and/or water bottles (“TMZ”), zombies (“The Walking Dead”), cancer (“The Big C”), people who take the law into their own hands when it’s not filmed with a shaky camera (“Dexter”), and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report”).

Full list below.

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Some time in the next two weeks, or at least before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we’ll post our holiday gift guide, which will certainly include this and probably include this, too. But we haven’t decided which Timothy Olyphant poster to include yet, so for now, you’ll have to settle for some Walter White and Dexter high-tops.

Jon Defreest, the artist behind the “I Just Blue Myself” and “All of the Bacon and Eggs You Have” fake Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors, created “Breaking Bad,” “Dexter,” and “Walking Dead”-inspired Chuck Taylor’s for Tauntr.com, and they’re all pretty great. (Even if Michael C. Hall looks a bit like Javier Bardem.) My suggestion: buy the “Walking Dead” shoes and put a “Breaking Bad” logo on them – BOOM, you’ve got your very own Gus Fring kicks.

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