To me Season 5 (the last black and white season) of the Andy Griffith Show was where the show started to go downhill. Despite having Barney, it seemed everyone knew the show's glory days were behind it and so we got episodes that were either not funny (Examples: "Man in the Middle," "Goober Takes a Car Apart," "Guest in the house" "Opie loves Helen,") cliche (Examples Family Visit, Barney's Bloodhound, The Lucky Letter") or just plain boring (Every episode Opie appeared in save for Three Wishes) The only real bright spots were Goodbye Sheriff Taylor, Three Wishes for Opie and The Case of the Punch in the nose. it also seemed this season that the writers decided to increase friction between characters and we started getting more plots about characters being jealous and angry with each other and unlike in previous seasons the anger was played dead straight to the point that the humor stopped existing and the episodes became a twenty-five minute soap opera. The worst offender was Guest in the House. This episode isn't funny at all and this should have been a warning to writer's that Helen's character needed to be worked on. So that's my two cents on the matter, what do you all think?"

I gotta go along with the general opinion that things started to fall apart in the sixth season. There were maybe three or four weak or very weak episodes in season five, but otherwise it was a great season. At about the fifth season even great shows begin to run low on ideas and the stories and acting usually start to be broader and out of character, like a few did here.
I think the Griffith show was the best sitcom ever, but as fans we expect it to be perfect all the time and are too critical. After about 150 episodes they have to add characters to get more stories, get sillier, or quit when it seems at it's peak, and fans still love it and want more. Thankfully they didn't add Jerry Van Dyke because that have driven things even sillier and more out of character. He was fine on Coach, but wrong for TAGS. Even with some weaker episodes this series did more good or great episodes than any other sitcom. It works well for watching even when we finds some faults.

Again, I'll go with when after Barney left the show went somewhat downhill. I mean there are some good moments after Barney left but it wasnt the same. Having Jack Burns literally play a Barney clone didnt help. I mean the episode where he arrests the whole Bingo club was just a ripped off Barney episode. I mean you can tell it was.

I think the show was strong all the way through the fifth season. After that it was still a good show, but a very different show from the black-and-white seasons. Quite simply, the loss of Don Knotts was a huge thing. The episodes in which he came back to guest star for the most part blow all the other color episodes out of the water.

They usually brought back the old writers, who were mostly dumped after the fifth season, to write the color Barney episodes. I'll guess that Andy insisted on that out of respect for Don, and so that he would be glad to make those return appearances.

No doubt losing Don was a huge blow. The show wasnt the same. Bringing in Jack Burns to literally play a Barney clone was no help. Ex. Jack's first episode where he arrests the Bingo Ladies. That was so a Barney thing. Thats something Barney would do. It didnt help that they literally made Jack do Barney things. He should have been able to have his own identity to the role.

I can't say for sure S5 was the beginning of the end, but I do think this show was really all about Andy and Barney. When Barney left, the fun left with him. Watching reruns in circulation, the arrival of the color episodes were always disappointing. Which makes me wonder why MeTV has only been airing color episodes since it put TAGS back on. That seems strange to me since it's the B&W episodes that people prefer. Could it be some contractual thing preventing them from airing the B&W episodes?

Maybe the market isnt there. I mean when they went colorized, the show got different. I mean Jack Burns didnt last long but even after him, the show wasnt the same. Like the funny part was gone without Gomer or Barney. Howard Sprague was too much of a wet blanket and Goober got on my nerves some times.

Again, I'll go with when after Barney left the show went somewhat downhill. I mean there are some good moments after Barney left but it wasnt the same. Having Jack Burns literally play a Barney clone didnt help. I mean the episode where he arrests the whole Bingo club was just a ripped off Barney episode. I mean you can tell it was.

I think pretty much everyone agrees Jack Burns was a mistake... how would Jerry Van Dyke have worked instead?

We'll never really know, but he did fit better than Burns from what I saw of him.

Jerry Van Dyke could've been worse. What if Goober became Andy's right hand man? Then Flora could run the gas station.

Jerry Van Dyke could've been worse. What if Goober became Andy's right hand man? Then Flora could run the gas station.

Goober and Flora would probably have worked okay here... after all, Goober was always going to be around, anyhow.

TAGS did seem to go downhill a bit in season 5. Maybe because Gomer had left for his own series and was replaced by Goober who was not nearly as endearing. And in season 5 there is more repetition of prior plots - Barney mistakenly thinking Andy is getting married, searching for a prison escapee, Barney becomes acting sheriff, Aunt Bee romance - which started getting stale.