The Diane years comes to an end in Cheers’ fifth season as Shelly Long leaves the show. Following Sam's marriage proposal in the Season 4 finale, he and Diane enter an on-again, off-again engagement; meanwhile Frasier and Lilith reconnect and begin a relationship, Carla buys a new house, Cliff joins a lodge, and Norm gets a new job. Additionally, the season features a special holiday episode (“Thanksgiving Orphans”) and several interesting guest stars make appearance; including John Cleese, Brent Spiner, and Billie Bird. Also, the season finale is incredibly touching and provides a nice sendoff for Diane; bringing a sense of closure to her story. Season 5 of Cheers closes the book on the Sam and Diane chapter and would’ve made for a great end to the series, but when one door closes….
Shout by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2020-07-11T03:19:03Z
Average episode rating for this season: 7.03846154
Things picked up at the end, but I did think too much of this season focused on Sam+Diane, to the near exclusion of all other characters' development. That impacted my average rating because I tended not to like those episodes.
In this situation, I'd often round my rating up anyway, based on enjoyment of the season as a whole, but in this case I'll refrain. I'm just glad that Shelley Long left after this episode, and Season 6 will have a chance to see the show evolve past Diane's suspension-of-disbelief-threatening pseudo-faux intellectualism.