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I agree that the emphasis of the show started to shift to the teens as the season's progressed. I think Treat Williams alluded to that after the cancellation. Because the writing and acting were so good though, it never seemed too soapy. It was a series that was at its simplest, forced sentimentality, but it just never seemed forced. Even when a plot point could be seen coming a mile away (Kyle the gay piano student for example) it was so well written and acted that it never seemed cliche. Andy's affair with the stroke victim's wife was a great example, all his friends were telling him it was wrong and I'm sure many other fans (besides myself) were quietly pleading at the TV for him to stop---yet it was the realism of his flawed human nature that would not allow him to end the relationship. That arc was so well constructed that when it finally ended nothing about it seemed contrived at all. That to me is what separated it from all the other family dramas on TV. I agree that pairing up Ephraim and Hannah in season 5 would come close to crossing the line but I bet it would have been written so well we'd have hardly noticed. And I would have given a lot to see it--even if it wasn't written that well. Everwood was a long way from jumping the shark when the idiots cancelled it.

Nicely said! I think you qualify what I was saying above quite sensibly. I had fears when the character of Irv had died – not that that was unrealistic, given the character's health history – that we were seeing the "grandparent" generation being eased out of the focus, to increase the teen screen time, which I thought would have disrupted the balance that was one of the most remarkable things of the show: the notion that all the stages of life are fulfilling, interesting, and drama-worthy.

An example. Even just the loss of Irv's voice-overs made me wonder whether the show was losing the conceit that perhaps all the story we were seeing was, in a sense, being told to us through the eyes of a story-teller. (Which, of course, was perfectly true, even if it was through a team of story tellers.) I didn't think those voice-overs were a convention that was unimportant to the show as it was conceived. Similiarly, the (mostly) Meredith Grey voiceovers in Grey's Anatomy are an important part to the story of that very flawed character coming to have some insight and control over her life. But that in Everwood it was an older story-teller, one whose story, mixed in with all these others', was still ongoing and important was significant to me, even though I was younger than both the Irv and Andy generations. I think not seeing their ages and lives devalued was an important aspect as to why multi-generation families were enthusiastic about watching Everwood together. So I'll agree with you that even a slightly wayward Everwood would still be better than most any other television offered.