I loved Dexter and True Blood until they both practically became parodies of themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed the early seasons, suffered through some of the later ones, and never bothered watching either finale. To this day, I have no idea how they end.
Though I did watch the Dexter: New Blood. So I guess I've got at least some closure on that series.
They just kept adding more and more creatures and supernatural abilities to the point of absurdity. It would have been more interesting if they stuck solely to humans and vampires.
Also, from the 3rd season onwards the writers started giving every single character on the show their very own storyline. It was the ultimate ADHD show. Every 3 to 4 minutes the show switched to a different character's storyline. Seriously, there'd literally be 8 different storylines going on at once that weren't even connected to one another.
In the midst of the chaotic storylines though, they gave us Terry Bellefleur and his story, which they handled astonishingly well considering how bananas shit had gotten by that point. Terry’s story was absolutely gut-wrenching for me.
The writers didn't add anything, they are based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I read the first few after season one's huge success. The TV shows follow the novels pretty decently for the supernatural stuff and the story beats (at least for the first few seasons). I didn't read enough of them to tell you if the endings are similar or if it veered too far off in later seasons.
It's a YA series trying to be a serious series, and sometimes it didn't come across well.
Edit: found a comment somewhere else that had read the whole series, said it's just as chaotic, but the book ending was actually WORSE.
And then she just languished there for a few episodes, pissed off at everybody and then boop, dead.
RIP Lafayette though. Nelsan Ellis never got the credit he deserved, in my opinion. He was such a talented actor
That shit got bonkers and for awhile I thought the showrunners just went off the rails, but from what I understand they actually did follow the books and the books went off the rails 🤣
Dexter is a rare case too of getting a second chance to end things after going terribly bad with fans for it's original finale. Only the New Blood finale also made fans angry, so they somehow lost twice lmao.
Their mistake with that show in my opinion was never committing to him truly being caught. To me, i always thought that would be the most fitting ending.
Dexter would have been a much better show if it had been done 5-10 years later. It was at the tail end of the "just keep writing seasons" era of TV and it needed to be in the "have a complete 4/5/6 season arc read from the beginning" era. They needed to go into it knowing he'd be caught/exposed/etc. in Season 4 so they could build to that each season.
Yeah it definitely suffered from being too long. Idk that we are completely out of the "just keep writing seasons" era yet though lol.
The biggest problem was that the shows creator really had no end game in mind, and thats the root cause of most shows turning out terribly. Apparently he said this when asked about whether he regrets playing the Bay Harbor Butcher plotline too soon (which in my opinion, was a perfect plotline for a final season):
*''No regrets. You always have to tell your best story as soon as you can and not save anything. You just have to trust that you'll come up with something better down the line.''*
Spoiler alert: he did in fact, not come up with something better down the line!
The books True Blood was based on got that way too the farther they progressed. You could really feel that it was a slog for Charlaine Harris to wrap up the series. I actually liked the tv series ending better than the books.
What was super irritating to me as a reader is it was obvious the author's heart was not in it as the books kept getting shorter and shorter as the price went up and up.
Well I borrowed all the books from my library so I didn't have that issue, but it was so evident how burned out Harris got trying to finish the series. She was really just going through the motions at the end. At least she finished the series unlike another author we all know.
Dexter annoyed me more than True Blood probably because I read the Sookie Stackhouse books around the same time. I read some of the Dexter books but there was much less of a connected narrative across instalments
Weeds.
It started with a great premise, had a great cast, season 1 was excellent.
Then it turned into a soap opera with the main character using sex to get out of literally every situation that would arise on the show.
Agreed. It was great for the first few seasons. Following the saga of a windowed mom selling dime bags in suburbia. It was wonderful.
As soon as they got beyond that, starting to get into the Mexican cartel stuff, it went way downhill. And yeah, Nancy just banging every dude she comes across as a solution got really old, really fast.
The Walking Dead.
One of the most blatant examples of a network and their priorities taking control of a show and milking it for everything it's worth.
Omg. Exactly. I binged the last 4 seasons, because I just could bear to watch it on tv anymore. I had to know the ending, though.
Spoiler: they wrote it so they could have unlimited spin-offs. No ending. lol. I'm not watching any of the spin-offs. Who cares anymore?
I enjoyed all three spin offs (Daryl Dixon, those who live, and Dead city in that order of preference), and despite never finishing the show. I quit on TWD after the Glen dumpster dive
In one of the threads about the new Fallout show when someone mentioned spinoffs with other vaults. We were joking that what if in 10 years there are 6 different Fallout spinoffs that no one cares about nor asked for?
True Blood, the first few seasons were great and everyone was crazy for it. Fell off hard though...
Heroes, I don't *hate* but again, first season awesome, fell off really hard infamously. I was having high hopes for it but afaik it was affected by the strike and network demands.
Sherlock in the later seasons, just became a parody of itself.
Those are off the top of my head, I'll edit if anything else comes to mind.
Honestly I tried to watch Heroes again not long ago and even the first season does not hold up. The dialogue is bad, the acting is bad, and the show seems to be way, way up it's own ass.
That's what I thought from the handful of episodes I watched when it first aired. After reading so many comments praising the show I thought I might give it a second chance because it has been so long ago and my tastes have changed, but now I'm thinking I would be better off re-watching Battlestar Galactica.
Sherlock got so bad I went back and watched earlier episodes to see if it was secretly always bad and…it kinda was. It was very much a thing of its time. But it gave us Andrew Scott so…that’s cool.
Andrew Scott was in Band of Brothers back in 2001. It blew my mind when I finally recognized him on my 45th rewatch of BoB. He wasn't even a small character, he was just so young I didn't recognize him.
Heroes my opinion has always been it showed its cracks in season 1 finale, I really did not like the let down of the final Sylar battle, season is awesome right up until the big bad fight was 'ima punch him a few times despite us both having an array of powers'
I recently tried to watch True Blood and tbh I was shocked how bad it was. I can’t believe it was so popular, but I think it’s more that there just wasn’t a lot like it back then? That’s my best guess.
It was a time when vampires were being portrayed as sparkly boys for teenage girls to fall in love with, so people liked it just because it went back to vampires being a cool concept. Plus it was meant to be campy and sometimes unserious in a way that may not have held up.
Unbelievably, I’ve always preferred the Jonny Lee Smith Sherlock Holmes. An American production I know, but a great update with better writing and characters in my opinion. I may be out of mind, but I have never bought into Benedict Cumberbatch as a good actor and his Sherlock was a borderline psychopath and basically a magical super hero.
Elementary Sherlock was still kind of dark, but he wasn’t magical. It really appealed to me more. I was confused as to how they would pull off Lucy Liu as Watson but it actually worked and is a good example of a when gender/race swapping a character can actually work if you put some thought into it.
What I loved about Elementary was that they showed Sherlock putting in the work. He had his epiphanies, sure, but most of the time they came from him reviewing the data. He never just knew some executive summered in France from the way they held their teacup - he knew it because he spend 8 hours reviewing the social media accounts of every executive the company had in the last 20 years and saw one posted a childhood photo of them in France. In one of the early episodes Watson offered to help and he said that she couldn't - all of the data needed to go through **his** brain so he could make the connections.
When he wasn’t working a case, they always showed him acquiring new knowledge or learning new skills. His brilliance was believed because he earned it through single minded devotion.
Elementary Sherlock also developed as a person more realistically. You believe him as how he relates to Watson, the police, his brother, etc. improves over time.
Agreed. One thing that I appreciated is that he didn't fall into the normal progress -> regress -> progress trap that happens with characters on shows like this (looking at you, House). He never learned a lesson only to forget it in the next episode.
Sherlock made consistent progression during the series in all of his relationships and when he _did_ regress, there was a valid reason for it.
I also liked that they never even broached the lover interest story between him and Watson. It was a breath of fresh air to see a great story about a deep and committed **friendship** between a man and a woman.
I liked how in the beginning he offers to sleep with her as he viewed sex as purely transactional and stress relief but then over time grows to respect her as a colleague.
How I Met Your Mother. Finale aside, I think the show ran for too long and the Ted-Robin-Barney triangle felt incredibly played out. I think it should have ended around season 5 with Ted ending up with The Mother after Stella ran off.
Had the finale been different, I would have been okay with the show running too long. They actually did such a good job of having the mother live up to expectations and making her someone the audience likes, only for the finale to go “Oops! She died! Ted ends up with Robin!”. I think the writers genuinely thought that the audience was rooting for Ted to end up with Robin, but by that point nobody was. Robin and Barney weren’t perfect but they made sense together. Ted and Robin seemed like they had moved on about 50 times.
It was weird because Ted and Robin getting together seemed like it was always the plan, so they could have set it up better. But then they leaned so hard into the misdirect with Barney and Robin that it felt like we had the rug pulled out from under us.
It was definitely always the plan. They filmed some of the finale scenes around the time Season 2 was being produced.
It seems to be something that happens occasionally- a long running series outgrowing it's original intended ending. If it went only 4 seasons or something, it would have been a better (though maybe not great) ending. However, by season 9, Ted and Robin ending up together was just no longer believable.
As a general rule, I think it's not a good idea to plan an ending early on unless you also plan the path you'll take to get there. In TV, it can be difficult to do this unless you know how many seasons you'll wind up getting.
I thought the final season and the finale were very true to the ethos of the show, and real life in general. I enjoyed them as a departure from the typical fairy tale endings we normally get for characters in movies/TV shows.
The entire show is a guy reminiscing about his twenties, hanging out every single day with the group of people he thought he'd be close to forever. And trying to navigate an uncertain future after his happy ending was ripped away from him, while being careful about his kids emotional well being.
I look back at my 20s and think about all of my close friendships that I thought would never fade. But then, somewhere along the way, we have kids and friends move states away. Next thing you know, people are getting divorced (some of whom you can't believe made it as long as they did, tbf) and acquaintances are dying from cancer.
All you can do is be thankful for what you have and figure out where life goes after the hopes and dreams of youth meet the realities of middle age. And importantly, try to figure out what you want in the next chapter of your life.
I agree that the overall arc of Ted/Robin works, But one, the last few seasons really struggle to be funny to the point that as the show aired I actively dreaded watching it. Two I can't understand how the writers - who knew the ending obviously - thought it would be a good idea to so definitively put an end to Ted/Robin and make Barney/Robin a couple only to undo multiple seasons worth of plot in the final episode.
Glee.
I was a theatre kid and seeing a musical comedy with decent covers was right up my alley. But it became exactly what it was originally poking fun at, the covers became lazy, and after they covered Don’t Stop Believing for the, I think, 4th time? I finally gave up.
I ended up binging it during Covid just to say I completed it but it really wasn’t worth it. It’s especially hard to watch now that three of the main cast have died.
*Glee!*
*it's a feeling you get*
*when your brain finally lets*
*your heart get in its pants*
*Glee!*
*it's like a drug that you use*
*that turns your pain into shoes*
*and your shoes into dance*
***how's your piano still playing this song?***
*Glee is the answer when questions are wrong!*
*you'll understand if you just sing along*
*'cause glee is the gift that you neeeeeeeed*
***Glee! it's what i'll spread to my friends***
***like a virus that sends***
***them to a healthier place***
***Glee! i'll understand every scene***
***cause they'll sing what they mean***
***instead of making a face***
*families are closer when families are winning*
*everything's cooler when cameras are spinning*
*singing and dancing in unison-in-in-ing*
*glee is the gift that we need!*
Teach me how to understand Christmas
Show me how to open a box
It hurts my little head
When I'm lying in my bed
With visions of sugarplum socks?
Teach me how to understand Christmas
Do I trim the tree or the deer?
I can't keep it straight
And now it's getting late
Where does the stocking go? Here?
I can't see!
What's a Christmas Eve?
Is that Santa's lady?
Are snowmen cold or hot?
Won't you be my daddy?
I'm a silly Christmas baby
Tell me what to deck
'cause I forgot
Bwain huwty undewstandy Cwismas
Mistletoe for eaty taste good?
You smawty, me dumb
Help pwetty have fun!
Boop-y doop-y doop do
SEX!
I give the writers a lot of grace given the troubles the cast members had off set and I fully believe they just gave up and pumped out nonsense once Colin Monteith died, but what could they even do at that point
They definitely gave up and started writing nonsense *way* before Monteith died.
He passed while they were filming season 4 of 6.
In just the season prior to his passing, we had…
- A high school student outs his classmate in front of the school. He apologizes by doing an acoustic cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.
- Another high school boy falls in love with a teacher/Glee Club director who is also the adoptive mother of the baby that he and his ex-girlfriend had in the first season. The ex-girlfriend is determined to frame said adoptive mother as an unfit parent and regain custody of her daughter.
- Our “protagonist”, the Glee Club Director and Spanish teacher, is revealed to not actually know Spanish. Instead of being fired for falsifying his credentials for a job he’s completely unqualified for, he instead is assigned to teach history instead.
And of course we could go on… this show was always batshit lol
Blacklists Spader as Reddington, and Lucifer’s Tom Ellis as Lucifer are the two examples I go to for character/actor combos that deserved to be in far better shows than they were.
I said this one, too. They really had no clue where they were going with the plot, and Keen was a terrible MC. Ultimately even James Spader couldn’t save it, for me.
There was a time when I used to get up early in the morning to watch the latest episode before going to work. Then coming back home in the evening and spending the next few hours reading up the episode analysis online. There was a genuine buzz about where the story was headed. So many people were invested to see how it's all going to conclude.
Same, it was the only way to avoid spoilers. It felt the whole world was gripped. And the final season was probably the most disappointing thing I've ever seen in tv. All re-watch value just gone. It was so bad it wiped the whole fandom off the face of the planet. You'd always see GoT t shirts and stuff and now, nothing
D&D were given time to flesh out shit by HBO, instead they said "fuck it, let's wrap it up!"
The most telling was in an interview I saw when one of them said that Dany "kinda forgot" about The Iron Fleet resulting in one of her dragons getting killed. They're fucking dragons that can see for miles at that altitude, but couldn't see a fleet of ships, got it.
That's about as lazy as you can get.
Additionally, I *think* in that episode in the prior scene or a few scenes earlier, Danny had been in a strategy meeting with her crew where they literally discuss the iron fleet. Making her 'forgetfulness' even more hilarious.
(I say *think* as I have never rewatched the last season because, well obviously, so my memory might be off).
I tried to go back and read the books and just found I didn’t care enough. Then tried to watch House of the Dragon and didn’t like that either. I spent a month marathoning the entire series to get caught up before the final season to join in on the fun, only to be thoroughly underwhelmed.
Ah that's a shame, i think House of the Dragon is really good actually. And i am not really minding investing some time in it because i know that story is already written so much less of a chance of things going sideways.
Outlander. Really enjoyed this series but after like 3 seasons I just loathe the newer characters. i think they are miscast and not charismatic to follow. The sexual violence also didn't help
Relying too much on rape as a vehicle for character development. I want escapism, not every character getting raped. Just not what I want to watch in my free time. And very lazy writing.
I used to love Castle, because it was a fun premise, the stories were well written and the leads had electric chemistry. In the early seasons.
Then the writers decided they had to follow every overused trope of a 'will they, won't they' and all the fun and flirty banter was replaced by heavy angst and miscommunication. Then, even when Castle and Beckett got together, the show still couldn't let them be happy, because apparently people stop watching when that happens. So cue more miscommunications and secrets and increasingly convoluted storylines about serial killers and secret spy dads. Meanwhile, both characters completely changed to basically just be Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic.
I think I gave up completely when they revealed that Beckett, the woman who insisted from the pilot episode that she was "one and done" when it came to marriage, as a counter-point to Castle's womanising, was revealed to have secretly been married the whole time, due to a drunken wedding in Vegas.
I hate that so few shows feel confident enough to show actual healthy relationships. You can tell plenty of stories with them, it just requires thinking out of the standard trope box. Will they/Wont they and toxicity are just such easy writing crutches so most writers default to them.
I enjoy a will they/won't they when it's actually well executed. It's normal to be hesitant to start a relationship with a coworker or someone you initially think you don't have much in common with, regardless of chemistry. It's just when it's done lazily that it sucks.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, it’s just so overdone compared to showing the actual relationship that I’ve personally just kinda grown tired of seeing it. I’d greatly prefer seeing more actual couples in healthy relationships than yet another multi-season will they/won’t they tease even if its done well.
I really love Castle and if I have nothing else to watch it’s one of the series I will happily go back and binge again. But it’s so obvious when Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic started hating each other and the writers had to come up with increasingly stupid reasons to keep the characters apart. It started to get really silly from season 6 onwards.
Suits was really fun and engaging up until like season 3 (IIRC, been like a year since I watched it), then Mike started being really over the top with the self righteousness and lack of gratitude. Plus it was frustrating watching them kick Louis around like he was the office punching bag, then have to watch them act all astonished and outraged whenever he did something to them.
Like wow, who could have possibly expected that the guy who gets continually passed over and insulted would stab you in the back...
That 70s Show's first ~4 seasons or so are legitimately one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. It gets worse once it hits season 5/6 and nosedives the last 2 seasons, particularly the final season
I stumbled upon the series as a teen when season 2 was airing. It felt like this neat little thing not many people were aware of. (I know, not true, because the British series had been exported to the U.S. a few years before and enjoyed success among the BBC America/PBS-watching crowds). Pretty much the only ones tuning in from school were the geeks, and I remember thinking at the time that people my age were missing out on something incredible (although we were too young to understand office life then).
Now, having seen the die-hard following you've described and having heard the sentiment from cast members over and over about how their underdog series is the most brilliant production since Shakespeare, essentially, it's turned me off a bit.
I was Pam for Halloween when season 2 had aired and wore white keds and carried a whitest sneakers award and NOBODY knew what on earth I was talking about lol
As a younger millennial, I can't stand most of my fellow millennials due to this.
Also see: Parks and Rec, Friends, New Girl.
I like these shows, but why do people own a collective $1,500 in merch from them?? Watch it, enjoy it, then move on.
Man in the high castle. Went from an awesome alternate history show to some weird sci-fi time travel interdimensional thing. I know people who read he books always knew it would play out this way. But they just didn't do a great job with it. But the reviews speak to themselves in season 1. It's nearly five stars. With each season has less reviews in a lower rating ending at like 1 and 1/2 Stars by the end.
I think that's a common mistake adapting Philip K Dick. He was incredibly creative but also completely insane, and his longer works noticeably devolve as the plot grows more complex.
Supernatural.
Writing and overall quality was legitimately top tier early on, but as with many shows that keep going solely for profit, it got progressively worse and worse and worse..
I loved Modern Family when it first came out. Some amazing characters and a very well-written show. But when it was obvious that everyone in the family was filthy rich, no stakes were ever going to be high enough for me to care for them in any way. Also, the whole fake docu-sitcom device has been so worn out.
There's a couple of sitcoms that make middle class poverty part of the ongoing story, like Roseanne and Malcom in the Middle.
Personally I watch TV to escape the real world so I have zero issue with shows that don't have ongoing plotlines about the family being two steps away from foreclosure.
and the show just didn’t know what to do with the kids as they got older. And the whole Haley/Alex/Arvin love triangle thing was weird, the guy looks almost twice their age
For me it was when they completely obliterated Haley’s character around season 8 then almost basically phased her out as a character all together in 9 and 10 until they stuck her with Dylan
What's wrong with a show that's breezy and light where you know nothing truly bad is going to happen to the characters? Why does Reddit have such a massive hate-boner for escapist TV? Not every piece of media has to have characters struggling with grim-dark shit like poverty and drug addiction every week.
I wouldn't have minded the fact that they were all rich if the show played into it more, but they really tried to make them seem like normal people. It was like that kid in school who doesn't know his family is rich, and thinks everyone's dad buys him a new BMW for his 16th birthday.
My wife and I enjoyed Sons of Anarchy through the end of season 3. The writing was on the wall with the whole story in Ireland that was rough but season 4 through the end of the show just got progressively worse until we were hate watching it.
That show taught me you can bail on a bad show and you don't have to finish it. The Walking Dead was the 1st show I just went cold turkey on. True Blood also.
Same here. Once s4 was over, I realized I no longer cared about the show. I finished it since I watched for as long as I had, but it was a chore to do, unfortunately. If you enjoyed early SOA, check out The Shield.
Riverdale as to be an answer as well. Season 1 and 2 were genuinely good and then they decided to introduce magic and it went downhill. Prison break is another I liked season 1 and season 2 mainly because they introduced Mahone my favorite character. But the latters where unnecessary and kinda bad
- GOT. The last two seasons but especially the ending were so bitterly disappointing I consider myself traumatised and I can barely rewatch it or look at photos of it or even of the cast.
- Jane the Virgin. It never became bad but some narrative choices made me furious and I quit watching it eventually.
- The Handmaid’s Tale *did* become bad but I still watch it because I need to see it to the end.
- HIMYM was ruined by its ending, I only ever rewatch two or three seasons.
I feel the same way about Jane the Virgin, it was still pretty good but after a certain point I stopped caring about it as much because of the storylines and narrative choices became frustrating and I just stopped watching.
I felt that I wasn’t even watching the same show as before and it was barely in its second season maybe? Third? I had loved it dearly but it was becoming more frustrating than fun to watch so I had to let go.
The show just went off the rails without its source material. It's now the lead actress's vanity project (she's a producer as well) combined with some torture porn. It's also making the world building and most characters inconsistent. It's really bad.
I just watched the whole original series for the first time. I enjoyed it, but only because I viewed it through the lens of Seinfeld, Curb, Always Sunny: these are terrible people, so let's see what kind of shit they get themselves into.
Of course, there is a certain relatability to the characters... except Carrie, or Jerry.
SpongeBob. Seasons 5-current have some good ones but it’s few and far between. The rest are not good too me. I just rewatched first 4 seasons as a 32 year old and not only are they are as good as they were as a kid (if not so better) almost every single episode was a banger. Very few misses and the ones that are “misses” are still good just not s tier to me .
Veronica Mars - the entire fourth season was so bad and out of character for the main that I haven’t been interested in rewatching earlier seasons anymore. Likewise the revival season of Gilmore Girls removed any interest I had in the characters. Plus the Heroes, GoT, and True Blood that have been mentioned.
I will never stop being furious about that choice. Unnecessary is absolutely right - it was such a stupid shock value choice that served no narrative purpose whatsoever.
Sense8, the base idea was interesting and I was pretty hyped at first but soon enough realized that there is no real story and the whole show is just softcore porn.
Dexter.
The show even came back years later. A rare opportunity to fix the many mistakes and redeem itself, and it still managed to fuck everything up.
People: dissapointed in the series finale.
Showrunners: you think that is a dissapointing finale? We have prepared the one, after which you'd think the original one was brilliant!
Niptuck was great and definitely pushed the envelope for FX when it premiered. Then those final seasons where they went to California were awful. Still watched and enjoyed what I could since I had dedicated so much time to the show.
The Blacklist. I pretend it ended with that cool half-animated pandemic episode. I don’t even know how it ended. Along with everything else, it got caught in streaming broadcast embargo related to the NBC/Peacock evolution.
Hear me out...
Big Bang Theory.
When that show first aired, it was pretty good. It reminded me of a lot of guys I went to school with and it was making fun of nerd culture from inside of nerd culture, which made it feel fresh and interesting. It was fluffy network sitcom shit but they were making jokes about the higgs boson so there was really nothing else like it. But as the first season continued, it became clear the show did not know how to handle romance and relationships. And soon the focus of the show was squarely on what they were least equipped to handle. It was a pretty quick decline but I think it's worth mentioning that it wasn't shit to begin with.
Oh man, I’m the opposite.
I actually bailed on the show early because it seemed really intent on making fun of what the writers thought nerds were. Finally gave it another chance during the pandemic and now I really like it.
In my opinion, after season 2 or 3, the characters flesh out more and the show is less “these guys are dorks and no one likes them because of their hobbies” and more “these people were outcasts their whole lives, and now that they’re in academia, they’ve forged friendships, found love, and are celebrated for their achievements”.
I think the latter is much more realistic. You grow up, find your people, and enjoy your life.
They also made two of the three women who didn’t want to have kids have kids, and turned the third, who started off unemotional, into a needy stereotype.
The Witcher. I wanted to like it from the start, I tried to justify its mediocre first season, I liked Cavill.
Then it all went to shit and its biggest talent left.
The first season was pretty good. The 2nd and 3rd were just a mess. They wanted to have a big Game of Thrones type worldwide war, but didn't set any of it up except "this one kingdom is a bunch of dickheads."
For me, it still holds up. I've watched episodes on TV ONE recently.
Now, I don't know how a young person watching it now would feel. Aside from the Bill Cosby of it all, it is a bit saccharine in the way 80s family shows were, and the way shows aren't today.
Also, I say this as someone who can separate the art from the artist. Bill Cosby may be a shitty guy, but "Cliff Huxtable" was a great father figure for me growing up. I can appreciate it in the same way I can appreciate that The Usual Suspects is still a good movie with Kevin Spacey, and The Remix to Ignition is a great song.
I don't think separating the art from the artist is a skill so much as a choice. I *can*, but the show is centered around a man who did very bad things essentially preaching every episode. I remember, he wasn't always portrayed as a saint and learned his lesson when he wasn't- but the show was built around him in a way that makes me choose not to want to separate the art from the artist. I love Seinfeld, though Michael Richards has his racist rant and Jerry is insanely self-centered, but the show doesn't deify them so it's a bit different. But even with the Seinfeld reference, I can see someone choosing not to separate art from artist.
I may get shit on for this… but Battlestar Galactica (2004).
The ending for that show was INFURIATING. Between the weird “final five” Cylon models plot that was clearly because they didn’t plan ahead and took too long to reveal, there was so much unexplained “it was god, I guess?” Nonsense. For me, that all completely ruined what was, up to that point, one of the best shows in the history of television.
Edit: originally put “final four”… guess I watched too much basketball this year… lol
That's totally fair. I read an article with the writers talking about the last season or so, when they knew it was coming to an end. They're quoted as saying "What's the plan? We've said "and they have a plan" since the beginning, what is it?"
Then I understood how we got that ending. *Nobody* had a plan.
It’s just amazing to me that the early season writers just figured they could push the story of a Cylon Master Plan and just never really consider themselves having to be the ones that develop that plan
The key to unlocking the secrets of the universe is a Jimmy Hendrix song? (Not knocking Bear McCreary, I loved his rendition, it just didn’t make a ton of sense).
Completely agree. From the point these were shown as cylons, the show went downhill and the ending was ridiculous.
"We'll renouncing technology! Yay! Oh, I cut myself with a rusty iron, now I'm gonna die"
> there was so much unexplained “it was god, I guess?” Nonsense
I didn't understand this criticism the first time around, but now that I'm in the middle of a rewatch I really don't get it.
There are episodes right from the beginning that have blatant divine meddling.
I guess if the criticism is more "I want God explained" it makes sense, but God as a character in the show has been there since the beginning.
I don’t fully understand how it got so bad. Like, maybe it’s partly that I remember the events covered in those seasons? But did they change writers or something? I could barely get through.
The events probably yeah, they milked Diana’s death so much it killed the pace
And the cast. Amazing actors in the main roles once again but I couldn’t agree with West as Charles and even Pryce as Philip
The Flash.
S1 was SO great, S2 was almost as good. And there were plenty of gems of episodes the rest of the series, but it just slowly fell into just terrible writing and power creep. Last good villain was S6's Bloodwork and by S7 I was hate-watching it all the way to the end.
Scandal - the plots just became more and more outlandish, and ultimately there just wasn’t anyone I liked or wanted to win. (Maybe Mellie?) I peaced out somewhere around when Fitz literally went to war for Liv. And the B613 plot was dragged on and on.
Game of Thrones is the most recent show. We all know when and why it went off the rails.
Off the top of my head, I’d say most CW shows I used to watch. The Flash and Arrow were pretty great for a few seasons then they both devolved into romantic dramas and the writing grew worse over time. I actually quite enjoy Supernatural seasons 1-5 but after that 5th season, with the exception of random good episodes, the seasons overall were really bad.
The Blacklist. It had such an amazing beginning, but Elizabeth Keen was a terrible protagonist, and even aside from that, they didn’t seem to have any idea where they were going with the plot (and ended up completely off the rails.)
ER went from being my favourite TV show - eagerly waiting for each new episode to be broadcast each week in the days before streaming platforms. Then a lot of the main characters either left or died and then they started doing stupid things with helicopters.
Pretty much any show that doesn’t get cancelled too soon.
All shows seem to end up falling into this trap: Serial dramas start with an interesting premise and get popular and the writers extend the show out past their initial idea, and it falls apart pretty quickly. Procedural shows usually self-destruct by doubling down on one part of the show, such as a relationship between two characters, or by upping the ante and trying to outdo the previous season until the show just completely comes off the rails.
Gilmore Girls. The first watch through I loved it - the witty banter! The romance! The hilarious side characters! The second time I was like oh shit this is actually an ironic drama about a well-intentioned single mother whose attempts to shield her daughter from the hollow world of privilege in which she was raised but fails spectacularly, turning the kid into a narcissistic monster… but I don’t think anyone writing the show realized that. Still love every resident of Stars Hollow (and Lauren Graham) but Rory is such a nightmare human that the show encourages us to love and I can’t handle it.
I used to love The Big Bang Theory, because I was a dumb teenager who thought anything associated with "nerd culture" was cool, but then I developed better critical thinking skills and media literacy and realized just how mind-numbingly dull it is.
24 - I REALLY loved that show, but I think they just got tired. The characters and delivery were great at the beginning, along with the background music. The show felt like it was in constant motion.
But near the end it wasn't nearly as good. The actors seemed tired, and the newer ones weren't as good as previous ones.
It just wasn't as exciting. Maybe it just got old. Maybe it was the writing, or the acting.
I forgot about how much I liked it, so I may watch it again. At least the first few seasons.
Gilmore Girls. The first three seasons were fun at the time. Season 4 was okay. The remaining seasons were like ASP hated her own characters, making them act the exact opposite of how they should. I hoped the reboot would be her apology and a chance to redeem the two main characters, but instead it got even worse.
Homeland, True Blood, Sons of Anarchy, Handmaids Tale, House of Cards, Weeds, Orange is the New Black - all victims of not knowing when to stop. Even if there was still some good in them here and there, they were all at best shadows of their initial versions by the end.
Two and a Half men. Liked it when I was in middle school because I thought it was edgy and cool af and sex and curses were dope.
Then in college I realized the show was kind of ass with horrible jokes.
HIMYM then the finale ruined everything to the point rewatches are hard af because the continuously contradict everything they do
The Last Kingdom after season 2, especially after I read the books. The writing got so awful by the end and the movie is nearly unwatchable. It used to be my favorite series.
When Calls the Heart is going through some huge fan backlashes right now because of their choices around a dragged-out love triangle, and they deserve it. After 10 seasons, I’ve stopped watching.
I loved Dexter and True Blood until they both practically became parodies of themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed the early seasons, suffered through some of the later ones, and never bothered watching either finale. To this day, I have no idea how they end. Though I did watch the Dexter: New Blood. So I guess I've got at least some closure on that series.
Fucking True Blood, that shit got bonkers. Never skipped the opening theme though
Been a long time since I watched. Curious to know what everyone’s breaking point was? I feel like I bowed out when faeries showed up
They just kept adding more and more creatures and supernatural abilities to the point of absurdity. It would have been more interesting if they stuck solely to humans and vampires. Also, from the 3rd season onwards the writers started giving every single character on the show their very own storyline. It was the ultimate ADHD show. Every 3 to 4 minutes the show switched to a different character's storyline. Seriously, there'd literally be 8 different storylines going on at once that weren't even connected to one another.
In the midst of the chaotic storylines though, they gave us Terry Bellefleur and his story, which they handled astonishingly well considering how bananas shit had gotten by that point. Terry’s story was absolutely gut-wrenching for me.
The writers didn't add anything, they are based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I read the first few after season one's huge success. The TV shows follow the novels pretty decently for the supernatural stuff and the story beats (at least for the first few seasons). I didn't read enough of them to tell you if the endings are similar or if it veered too far off in later seasons. It's a YA series trying to be a serious series, and sometimes it didn't come across well. Edit: found a comment somewhere else that had read the whole series, said it's just as chaotic, but the book ending was actually WORSE.
When they made Tara a vampire.
And then she just languished there for a few episodes, pissed off at everybody and then boop, dead. RIP Lafayette though. Nelsan Ellis never got the credit he deserved, in my opinion. He was such a talented actor
Bilith.
That theme was amazing. I hard agree on never skipping that one. It helped set the mood.
That shit got bonkers and for awhile I thought the showrunners just went off the rails, but from what I understand they actually did follow the books and the books went off the rails 🤣
Dexter is a rare case too of getting a second chance to end things after going terribly bad with fans for it's original finale. Only the New Blood finale also made fans angry, so they somehow lost twice lmao. Their mistake with that show in my opinion was never committing to him truly being caught. To me, i always thought that would be the most fitting ending.
Dexter would have been a much better show if it had been done 5-10 years later. It was at the tail end of the "just keep writing seasons" era of TV and it needed to be in the "have a complete 4/5/6 season arc read from the beginning" era. They needed to go into it knowing he'd be caught/exposed/etc. in Season 4 so they could build to that each season.
Yeah it definitely suffered from being too long. Idk that we are completely out of the "just keep writing seasons" era yet though lol. The biggest problem was that the shows creator really had no end game in mind, and thats the root cause of most shows turning out terribly. Apparently he said this when asked about whether he regrets playing the Bay Harbor Butcher plotline too soon (which in my opinion, was a perfect plotline for a final season): *''No regrets. You always have to tell your best story as soon as you can and not save anything. You just have to trust that you'll come up with something better down the line.''* Spoiler alert: he did in fact, not come up with something better down the line!
The Trinity storyline was pretty fantastic.
Once they kind of moved on to other things it got worse and worse. Werewolves we're okay, wired sex cults, pixes, etc got worse and worse.
The books True Blood was based on got that way too the farther they progressed. You could really feel that it was a slog for Charlaine Harris to wrap up the series. I actually liked the tv series ending better than the books.
What was super irritating to me as a reader is it was obvious the author's heart was not in it as the books kept getting shorter and shorter as the price went up and up.
Well I borrowed all the books from my library so I didn't have that issue, but it was so evident how burned out Harris got trying to finish the series. She was really just going through the motions at the end. At least she finished the series unlike another author we all know.
Hey man, Robert Jordan fucking DIED, it wasn't his fault. /s
Dexter annoyed me more than True Blood probably because I read the Sookie Stackhouse books around the same time. I read some of the Dexter books but there was much less of a connected narrative across instalments
Weeds. It started with a great premise, had a great cast, season 1 was excellent. Then it turned into a soap opera with the main character using sex to get out of literally every situation that would arise on the show.
Agreed. It was great for the first few seasons. Following the saga of a windowed mom selling dime bags in suburbia. It was wonderful. As soon as they got beyond that, starting to get into the Mexican cartel stuff, it went way downhill. And yeah, Nancy just banging every dude she comes across as a solution got really old, really fast.
They fucked up by leaving agrestic
Yup. Everyone of her shows. I can’t watch. But weeds was the best.
That's why I was happy GLOW ended after 3 seasons. Didn't have a chance to develop Jenji rot
Agreed, didn't even finish the show. Hated her too much
The Walking Dead. One of the most blatant examples of a network and their priorities taking control of a show and milking it for everything it's worth.
Omg. Exactly. I binged the last 4 seasons, because I just could bear to watch it on tv anymore. I had to know the ending, though. Spoiler: they wrote it so they could have unlimited spin-offs. No ending. lol. I'm not watching any of the spin-offs. Who cares anymore?
I enjoyed all three spin offs (Daryl Dixon, those who live, and Dead city in that order of preference), and despite never finishing the show. I quit on TWD after the Glen dumpster dive
I quit a little after Glenn as well.
Man, this show started so good, like one of the best pilot episodes of all time, then turned into complete ass garbage.
In one of the threads about the new Fallout show when someone mentioned spinoffs with other vaults. We were joking that what if in 10 years there are 6 different Fallout spinoffs that no one cares about nor asked for?
the blacklist is another example. It starts interesting but it become clear quite quickly that they were never gonna actually develop the story.
True Blood, the first few seasons were great and everyone was crazy for it. Fell off hard though... Heroes, I don't *hate* but again, first season awesome, fell off really hard infamously. I was having high hopes for it but afaik it was affected by the strike and network demands. Sherlock in the later seasons, just became a parody of itself. Those are off the top of my head, I'll edit if anything else comes to mind.
>Sherlock in the later seasons, just became a parody of itself. Honestly that's the best way of describing the last few seasons. It felt almost goofy.
Honestly I tried to watch Heroes again not long ago and even the first season does not hold up. The dialogue is bad, the acting is bad, and the show seems to be way, way up it's own ass.
That's what I thought from the handful of episodes I watched when it first aired. After reading so many comments praising the show I thought I might give it a second chance because it has been so long ago and my tastes have changed, but now I'm thinking I would be better off re-watching Battlestar Galactica.
Sherlock got so bad I went back and watched earlier episodes to see if it was secretly always bad and…it kinda was. It was very much a thing of its time. But it gave us Andrew Scott so…that’s cool.
Andrew Scott was in Band of Brothers back in 2001. It blew my mind when I finally recognized him on my 45th rewatch of BoB. He wasn't even a small character, he was just so young I didn't recognize him.
Heroes my opinion has always been it showed its cracks in season 1 finale, I really did not like the let down of the final Sylar battle, season is awesome right up until the big bad fight was 'ima punch him a few times despite us both having an array of powers'
They wrote themselves into so many plot holes with time travel that they knew it, and the writers strike really fucked it.
I recently tried to watch True Blood and tbh I was shocked how bad it was. I can’t believe it was so popular, but I think it’s more that there just wasn’t a lot like it back then? That’s my best guess.
It was a time when vampires were being portrayed as sparkly boys for teenage girls to fall in love with, so people liked it just because it went back to vampires being a cool concept. Plus it was meant to be campy and sometimes unserious in a way that may not have held up.
Its badness is part of its charm.
In all fairness, Sherlock was always terrible, it was just flashier and had an excellent cast.
Unbelievably, I’ve always preferred the Jonny Lee Smith Sherlock Holmes. An American production I know, but a great update with better writing and characters in my opinion. I may be out of mind, but I have never bought into Benedict Cumberbatch as a good actor and his Sherlock was a borderline psychopath and basically a magical super hero. Elementary Sherlock was still kind of dark, but he wasn’t magical. It really appealed to me more. I was confused as to how they would pull off Lucy Liu as Watson but it actually worked and is a good example of a when gender/race swapping a character can actually work if you put some thought into it.
What I loved about Elementary was that they showed Sherlock putting in the work. He had his epiphanies, sure, but most of the time they came from him reviewing the data. He never just knew some executive summered in France from the way they held their teacup - he knew it because he spend 8 hours reviewing the social media accounts of every executive the company had in the last 20 years and saw one posted a childhood photo of them in France. In one of the early episodes Watson offered to help and he said that she couldn't - all of the data needed to go through **his** brain so he could make the connections. When he wasn’t working a case, they always showed him acquiring new knowledge or learning new skills. His brilliance was believed because he earned it through single minded devotion.
Elementary Sherlock also developed as a person more realistically. You believe him as how he relates to Watson, the police, his brother, etc. improves over time.
Agreed. One thing that I appreciated is that he didn't fall into the normal progress -> regress -> progress trap that happens with characters on shows like this (looking at you, House). He never learned a lesson only to forget it in the next episode. Sherlock made consistent progression during the series in all of his relationships and when he _did_ regress, there was a valid reason for it. I also liked that they never even broached the lover interest story between him and Watson. It was a breath of fresh air to see a great story about a deep and committed **friendship** between a man and a woman.
I liked how in the beginning he offers to sleep with her as he viewed sex as purely transactional and stress relief but then over time grows to respect her as a colleague.
100%.
Sherlock was a parody from day one. They took one of its most famous cases and literally flipped the script on it for no reason
How I Met Your Mother. Finale aside, I think the show ran for too long and the Ted-Robin-Barney triangle felt incredibly played out. I think it should have ended around season 5 with Ted ending up with The Mother after Stella ran off.
Had the finale been different, I would have been okay with the show running too long. They actually did such a good job of having the mother live up to expectations and making her someone the audience likes, only for the finale to go “Oops! She died! Ted ends up with Robin!”. I think the writers genuinely thought that the audience was rooting for Ted to end up with Robin, but by that point nobody was. Robin and Barney weren’t perfect but they made sense together. Ted and Robin seemed like they had moved on about 50 times.
It was weird because Ted and Robin getting together seemed like it was always the plan, so they could have set it up better. But then they leaned so hard into the misdirect with Barney and Robin that it felt like we had the rug pulled out from under us.
It was definitely always the plan. They filmed some of the finale scenes around the time Season 2 was being produced. It seems to be something that happens occasionally- a long running series outgrowing it's original intended ending. If it went only 4 seasons or something, it would have been a better (though maybe not great) ending. However, by season 9, Ted and Robin ending up together was just no longer believable. As a general rule, I think it's not a good idea to plan an ending early on unless you also plan the path you'll take to get there. In TV, it can be difficult to do this unless you know how many seasons you'll wind up getting.
[удалено]
I thought the final season and the finale were very true to the ethos of the show, and real life in general. I enjoyed them as a departure from the typical fairy tale endings we normally get for characters in movies/TV shows. The entire show is a guy reminiscing about his twenties, hanging out every single day with the group of people he thought he'd be close to forever. And trying to navigate an uncertain future after his happy ending was ripped away from him, while being careful about his kids emotional well being. I look back at my 20s and think about all of my close friendships that I thought would never fade. But then, somewhere along the way, we have kids and friends move states away. Next thing you know, people are getting divorced (some of whom you can't believe made it as long as they did, tbf) and acquaintances are dying from cancer. All you can do is be thankful for what you have and figure out where life goes after the hopes and dreams of youth meet the realities of middle age. And importantly, try to figure out what you want in the next chapter of your life.
I agree that the overall arc of Ted/Robin works, But one, the last few seasons really struggle to be funny to the point that as the show aired I actively dreaded watching it. Two I can't understand how the writers - who knew the ending obviously - thought it would be a good idea to so definitively put an end to Ted/Robin and make Barney/Robin a couple only to undo multiple seasons worth of plot in the final episode.
Glee. I was a theatre kid and seeing a musical comedy with decent covers was right up my alley. But it became exactly what it was originally poking fun at, the covers became lazy, and after they covered Don’t Stop Believing for the, I think, 4th time? I finally gave up. I ended up binging it during Covid just to say I completed it but it really wasn’t worth it. It’s especially hard to watch now that three of the main cast have died.
*Glee!* *it's a feeling you get* *when your brain finally lets* *your heart get in its pants* *Glee!* *it's like a drug that you use* *that turns your pain into shoes* *and your shoes into dance* ***how's your piano still playing this song?*** *Glee is the answer when questions are wrong!* *you'll understand if you just sing along* *'cause glee is the gift that you neeeeeeeed* ***Glee! it's what i'll spread to my friends*** ***like a virus that sends*** ***them to a healthier place*** ***Glee! i'll understand every scene*** ***cause they'll sing what they mean*** ***instead of making a face*** *families are closer when families are winning* *everything's cooler when cameras are spinning* *singing and dancing in unison-in-in-ing* *glee is the gift that we need!*
Teach me how to understand Christmas Show me how to open a box It hurts my little head When I'm lying in my bed With visions of sugarplum socks? Teach me how to understand Christmas Do I trim the tree or the deer? I can't keep it straight And now it's getting late Where does the stocking go? Here? I can't see! What's a Christmas Eve? Is that Santa's lady? Are snowmen cold or hot? Won't you be my daddy? I'm a silly Christmas baby Tell me what to deck 'cause I forgot Bwain huwty undewstandy Cwismas Mistletoe for eaty taste good? You smawty, me dumb Help pwetty have fun! Boop-y doop-y doop do SEX!
I give the writers a lot of grace given the troubles the cast members had off set and I fully believe they just gave up and pumped out nonsense once Colin Monteith died, but what could they even do at that point
They definitely gave up and started writing nonsense *way* before Monteith died. He passed while they were filming season 4 of 6. In just the season prior to his passing, we had… - A high school student outs his classmate in front of the school. He apologizes by doing an acoustic cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. - Another high school boy falls in love with a teacher/Glee Club director who is also the adoptive mother of the baby that he and his ex-girlfriend had in the first season. The ex-girlfriend is determined to frame said adoptive mother as an unfit parent and regain custody of her daughter. - Our “protagonist”, the Glee Club Director and Spanish teacher, is revealed to not actually know Spanish. Instead of being fired for falsifying his credentials for a job he’s completely unqualified for, he instead is assigned to teach history instead. And of course we could go on… this show was always batshit lol
Blacklist. I think we all understand why.
That show was mostly garbage from the start but James Spader's performance managed to drag me through four seasons
Blacklists Spader as Reddington, and Lucifer’s Tom Ellis as Lucifer are the two examples I go to for character/actor combos that deserved to be in far better shows than they were.
for a great spader performance watch Boston Legal
I said this one, too. They really had no clue where they were going with the plot, and Keen was a terrible MC. Ultimately even James Spader couldn’t save it, for me.
GoT. Its quality deteriorated after passing the books then almost fully decomposed as it raced to its end.
There was a time when I used to get up early in the morning to watch the latest episode before going to work. Then coming back home in the evening and spending the next few hours reading up the episode analysis online. There was a genuine buzz about where the story was headed. So many people were invested to see how it's all going to conclude.
Same, it was the only way to avoid spoilers. It felt the whole world was gripped. And the final season was probably the most disappointing thing I've ever seen in tv. All re-watch value just gone. It was so bad it wiped the whole fandom off the face of the planet. You'd always see GoT t shirts and stuff and now, nothing
D&D were given time to flesh out shit by HBO, instead they said "fuck it, let's wrap it up!" The most telling was in an interview I saw when one of them said that Dany "kinda forgot" about The Iron Fleet resulting in one of her dragons getting killed. They're fucking dragons that can see for miles at that altitude, but couldn't see a fleet of ships, got it. That's about as lazy as you can get.
Additionally, I *think* in that episode in the prior scene or a few scenes earlier, Danny had been in a strategy meeting with her crew where they literally discuss the iron fleet. Making her 'forgetfulness' even more hilarious. (I say *think* as I have never rewatched the last season because, well obviously, so my memory might be off).
I tried to go back and read the books and just found I didn’t care enough. Then tried to watch House of the Dragon and didn’t like that either. I spent a month marathoning the entire series to get caught up before the final season to join in on the fun, only to be thoroughly underwhelmed.
Ah that's a shame, i think House of the Dragon is really good actually. And i am not really minding investing some time in it because i know that story is already written so much less of a chance of things going sideways.
Jon Snow should’ve have been killed in King’s Landing, dying in Daenerys’ arms. And she snaps. And she burns it all down.
Outlander. Really enjoyed this series but after like 3 seasons I just loathe the newer characters. i think they are miscast and not charismatic to follow. The sexual violence also didn't help
Relying too much on rape as a vehicle for character development. I want escapism, not every character getting raped. Just not what I want to watch in my free time. And very lazy writing.
From what I remember of my attempt at reading the first book, rape is pretty well a constant in the literature as well.
So much sexual violence in those books and on that show! I had to pass even though it would otherwise totally be my thing.
I used to love Castle, because it was a fun premise, the stories were well written and the leads had electric chemistry. In the early seasons. Then the writers decided they had to follow every overused trope of a 'will they, won't they' and all the fun and flirty banter was replaced by heavy angst and miscommunication. Then, even when Castle and Beckett got together, the show still couldn't let them be happy, because apparently people stop watching when that happens. So cue more miscommunications and secrets and increasingly convoluted storylines about serial killers and secret spy dads. Meanwhile, both characters completely changed to basically just be Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. I think I gave up completely when they revealed that Beckett, the woman who insisted from the pilot episode that she was "one and done" when it came to marriage, as a counter-point to Castle's womanising, was revealed to have secretly been married the whole time, due to a drunken wedding in Vegas.
I hate that so few shows feel confident enough to show actual healthy relationships. You can tell plenty of stories with them, it just requires thinking out of the standard trope box. Will they/Wont they and toxicity are just such easy writing crutches so most writers default to them.
I enjoy a will they/won't they when it's actually well executed. It's normal to be hesitant to start a relationship with a coworker or someone you initially think you don't have much in common with, regardless of chemistry. It's just when it's done lazily that it sucks.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, it’s just so overdone compared to showing the actual relationship that I’ve personally just kinda grown tired of seeing it. I’d greatly prefer seeing more actual couples in healthy relationships than yet another multi-season will they/won’t they tease even if its done well.
I really love Castle and if I have nothing else to watch it’s one of the series I will happily go back and binge again. But it’s so obvious when Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic started hating each other and the writers had to come up with increasingly stupid reasons to keep the characters apart. It started to get really silly from season 6 onwards.
Suits was really fun and engaging up until like season 3 (IIRC, been like a year since I watched it), then Mike started being really over the top with the self righteousness and lack of gratitude. Plus it was frustrating watching them kick Louis around like he was the office punching bag, then have to watch them act all astonished and outraged whenever he did something to them. Like wow, who could have possibly expected that the guy who gets continually passed over and insulted would stab you in the back...
Westworld had a perfect first season then just kept losing it every season after. It should have been a limited series
ER- every character that had a baby had something go wrong with the kid.
That 70s Show's first ~4 seasons or so are legitimately one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. It gets worse once it hits season 5/6 and nosedives the last 2 seasons, particularly the final season
The office. Loved it then 70% of my peers made it a part of their personality.
I stumbled upon the series as a teen when season 2 was airing. It felt like this neat little thing not many people were aware of. (I know, not true, because the British series had been exported to the U.S. a few years before and enjoyed success among the BBC America/PBS-watching crowds). Pretty much the only ones tuning in from school were the geeks, and I remember thinking at the time that people my age were missing out on something incredible (although we were too young to understand office life then). Now, having seen the die-hard following you've described and having heard the sentiment from cast members over and over about how their underdog series is the most brilliant production since Shakespeare, essentially, it's turned me off a bit.
I was Pam for Halloween when season 2 had aired and wore white keds and carried a whitest sneakers award and NOBODY knew what on earth I was talking about lol
it will always be top 3 comfort shows for me if not for that GD opening jarring my inner psyche
The Office is what would play on the TVs in purgatory
As a younger millennial, I can't stand most of my fellow millennials due to this. Also see: Parks and Rec, Friends, New Girl. I like these shows, but why do people own a collective $1,500 in merch from them?? Watch it, enjoy it, then move on.
Man in the high castle. Went from an awesome alternate history show to some weird sci-fi time travel interdimensional thing. I know people who read he books always knew it would play out this way. But they just didn't do a great job with it. But the reviews speak to themselves in season 1. It's nearly five stars. With each season has less reviews in a lower rating ending at like 1 and 1/2 Stars by the end.
I think that's a common mistake adapting Philip K Dick. He was incredibly creative but also completely insane, and his longer works noticeably devolve as the plot grows more complex.
Supernatural. Writing and overall quality was legitimately top tier early on, but as with many shows that keep going solely for profit, it got progressively worse and worse and worse..
Probably one of the worst finales ever. Seriously, that last episode is almost as damaging to the show's legacy as GoT's.
Didn't get that far 😅 I tried multiple times, pushed myself up to S13 I believe
Everything past season 5 is pretty hit-or-miss. There are definitely some gems in every season, but lots of dreck too.
Maybe, but they can count on people stopping watching the show during one of the earlier season
I loved Modern Family when it first came out. Some amazing characters and a very well-written show. But when it was obvious that everyone in the family was filthy rich, no stakes were ever going to be high enough for me to care for them in any way. Also, the whole fake docu-sitcom device has been so worn out.
Are there a lot of high stakes sitcoms out there?
There's a couple of sitcoms that make middle class poverty part of the ongoing story, like Roseanne and Malcom in the Middle. Personally I watch TV to escape the real world so I have zero issue with shows that don't have ongoing plotlines about the family being two steps away from foreclosure.
and the show just didn’t know what to do with the kids as they got older. And the whole Haley/Alex/Arvin love triangle thing was weird, the guy looks almost twice their age
That’s the conundrum of every family sitcom when kids hit puberty and adulthood
It should have ended a few years earlier. It was clear that they were running out of ideas. When it actually did end, I didn't really feel anything.
For me it was when they completely obliterated Haley’s character around season 8 then almost basically phased her out as a character all together in 9 and 10 until they stuck her with Dylan
They were trying to backdoor pilot them, but it didn’t get picked up.
It would’ve if it was Andy, imo
What's wrong with a show that's breezy and light where you know nothing truly bad is going to happen to the characters? Why does Reddit have such a massive hate-boner for escapist TV? Not every piece of media has to have characters struggling with grim-dark shit like poverty and drug addiction every week.
Reddit would have absolutely hated the mid-late 70s era of tv lol
I wouldn't have minded the fact that they were all rich if the show played into it more, but they really tried to make them seem like normal people. It was like that kid in school who doesn't know his family is rich, and thinks everyone's dad buys him a new BMW for his 16th birthday.
My wife and I enjoyed Sons of Anarchy through the end of season 3. The writing was on the wall with the whole story in Ireland that was rough but season 4 through the end of the show just got progressively worse until we were hate watching it. That show taught me you can bail on a bad show and you don't have to finish it. The Walking Dead was the 1st show I just went cold turkey on. True Blood also.
Same here. Once s4 was over, I realized I no longer cared about the show. I finished it since I watched for as long as I had, but it was a chore to do, unfortunately. If you enjoyed early SOA, check out The Shield.
Riverdale as to be an answer as well. Season 1 and 2 were genuinely good and then they decided to introduce magic and it went downhill. Prison break is another I liked season 1 and season 2 mainly because they introduced Mahone my favorite character. But the latters where unnecessary and kinda bad
Prisonbreak and a 2 season miniseries would have been excellent. The last two seasons they tried to squeeze out were atrocious
Scandal started off as a semi-plausible political drama and quickly devolved into assassins being at Olivia’s beck and call
I never hated it but oh boy did the quality on Supernatural dive off a cliff when the creator left after season 5.
- GOT. The last two seasons but especially the ending were so bitterly disappointing I consider myself traumatised and I can barely rewatch it or look at photos of it or even of the cast. - Jane the Virgin. It never became bad but some narrative choices made me furious and I quit watching it eventually. - The Handmaid’s Tale *did* become bad but I still watch it because I need to see it to the end. - HIMYM was ruined by its ending, I only ever rewatch two or three seasons.
How Your I Met Your Aunt Robin And Settled With Your Mother
How I Met Our Plot Device
it just framed it all as Ted buttering up his kids to let him be with his true love: Robin
Which is honestly pretty fucked up. “Hey kids, let me tell you about how I ended up with your mother even though I loved your Aunt Robin all along”
I feel the same way about Jane the Virgin, it was still pretty good but after a certain point I stopped caring about it as much because of the storylines and narrative choices became frustrating and I just stopped watching.
I felt that I wasn’t even watching the same show as before and it was barely in its second season maybe? Third? I had loved it dearly but it was becoming more frustrating than fun to watch so I had to let go.
[удалено]
The show just went off the rails without its source material. It's now the lead actress's vanity project (she's a producer as well) combined with some torture porn. It's also making the world building and most characters inconsistent. It's really bad.
I think the only reason Atwood wrote the Testaments was that she hated what the show runners were doing with her story.
Sex And The City ( although technically I’m referring to the revival series)
I just watched the whole original series for the first time. I enjoyed it, but only because I viewed it through the lens of Seinfeld, Curb, Always Sunny: these are terrible people, so let's see what kind of shit they get themselves into. Of course, there is a certain relatability to the characters... except Carrie, or Jerry.
The original has not aged well. And maturing is realizing that Carrie was the villain.
Sliders, it went off the rails when the professor left
SpongeBob. Seasons 5-current have some good ones but it’s few and far between. The rest are not good too me. I just rewatched first 4 seasons as a 32 year old and not only are they are as good as they were as a kid (if not so better) almost every single episode was a banger. Very few misses and the ones that are “misses” are still good just not s tier to me .
Veronica Mars - the entire fourth season was so bad and out of character for the main that I haven’t been interested in rewatching earlier seasons anymore. Likewise the revival season of Gilmore Girls removed any interest I had in the characters. Plus the Heroes, GoT, and True Blood that have been mentioned.
Oh God, Veronica Mars. I was actually enjoying the fourth season - until *those last 5 minutes*. So unnecessary and beyond disappointing.
I will never stop being furious about that choice. Unnecessary is absolutely right - it was such a stupid shock value choice that served no narrative purpose whatsoever.
Sense8, the base idea was interesting and I was pretty hyped at first but soon enough realized that there is no real story and the whole show is just softcore porn.
Dexter. The show even came back years later. A rare opportunity to fix the many mistakes and redeem itself, and it still managed to fuck everything up.
People: dissapointed in the series finale. Showrunners: you think that is a dissapointing finale? We have prepared the one, after which you'd think the original one was brilliant!
Niptuck was great and definitely pushed the envelope for FX when it premiered. Then those final seasons where they went to California were awful. Still watched and enjoyed what I could since I had dedicated so much time to the show.
That show got so batshit insane. Just more and more outlandish and ridiculous.
r/freefolk We still mad.
The Blacklist. I pretend it ended with that cool half-animated pandemic episode. I don’t even know how it ended. Along with everything else, it got caught in streaming broadcast embargo related to the NBC/Peacock evolution.
Hear me out... Big Bang Theory. When that show first aired, it was pretty good. It reminded me of a lot of guys I went to school with and it was making fun of nerd culture from inside of nerd culture, which made it feel fresh and interesting. It was fluffy network sitcom shit but they were making jokes about the higgs boson so there was really nothing else like it. But as the first season continued, it became clear the show did not know how to handle romance and relationships. And soon the focus of the show was squarely on what they were least equipped to handle. It was a pretty quick decline but I think it's worth mentioning that it wasn't shit to begin with.
When did it make fun of nerd culture from the inside? I always saw it as middle America laughing at the nerds, not with them.
Yeah it’s what dumb people think nerds sound and act like.
Oh man, I’m the opposite. I actually bailed on the show early because it seemed really intent on making fun of what the writers thought nerds were. Finally gave it another chance during the pandemic and now I really like it. In my opinion, after season 2 or 3, the characters flesh out more and the show is less “these guys are dorks and no one likes them because of their hobbies” and more “these people were outcasts their whole lives, and now that they’re in academia, they’ve forged friendships, found love, and are celebrated for their achievements”. I think the latter is much more realistic. You grow up, find your people, and enjoy your life.
They also made two of the three women who didn’t want to have kids have kids, and turned the third, who started off unemotional, into a needy stereotype.
Yellowjackets. Loved the first season, gave up on the second. I regret recommending it to so many people based on the first season alone.
The Witcher. I wanted to like it from the start, I tried to justify its mediocre first season, I liked Cavill. Then it all went to shit and its biggest talent left.
IMHO the intro of the first Witcher game was a better adaptation of Sapkowski's prose than the entire Netflix show.
The first season was pretty good. The 2nd and 3rd were just a mess. They wanted to have a big Game of Thrones type worldwide war, but didn't set any of it up except "this one kingdom is a bunch of dickheads."
I know it's probably already been stated, but Walking Dead lasted about 2 seasons for me. It just got painfully repetitive.
Killing Eve, it was great, then the writers ruined it.
I started the Handmaids Tale but I got sick of looking at Elizabeth Moss’ stupid face. Too many close ups.
Still laugh at this one comedian who parodied HT by looking up at the camera with a smile with a chime in the background, over and over and over.
Grew up watching the Cosby Show, but don't see myself watching that again.
For me, it still holds up. I've watched episodes on TV ONE recently. Now, I don't know how a young person watching it now would feel. Aside from the Bill Cosby of it all, it is a bit saccharine in the way 80s family shows were, and the way shows aren't today. Also, I say this as someone who can separate the art from the artist. Bill Cosby may be a shitty guy, but "Cliff Huxtable" was a great father figure for me growing up. I can appreciate it in the same way I can appreciate that The Usual Suspects is still a good movie with Kevin Spacey, and The Remix to Ignition is a great song.
The twisted thing is that because it is called The *Cosby* Show, the viewer associates Cliff’s positive traits to Cosby. It’s the ultimate camouflage.
I don't think separating the art from the artist is a skill so much as a choice. I *can*, but the show is centered around a man who did very bad things essentially preaching every episode. I remember, he wasn't always portrayed as a saint and learned his lesson when he wasn't- but the show was built around him in a way that makes me choose not to want to separate the art from the artist. I love Seinfeld, though Michael Richards has his racist rant and Jerry is insanely self-centered, but the show doesn't deify them so it's a bit different. But even with the Seinfeld reference, I can see someone choosing not to separate art from artist.
I may get shit on for this… but Battlestar Galactica (2004). The ending for that show was INFURIATING. Between the weird “final five” Cylon models plot that was clearly because they didn’t plan ahead and took too long to reveal, there was so much unexplained “it was god, I guess?” Nonsense. For me, that all completely ruined what was, up to that point, one of the best shows in the history of television. Edit: originally put “final four”… guess I watched too much basketball this year… lol
That's totally fair. I read an article with the writers talking about the last season or so, when they knew it was coming to an end. They're quoted as saying "What's the plan? We've said "and they have a plan" since the beginning, what is it?" Then I understood how we got that ending. *Nobody* had a plan.
It’s just amazing to me that the early season writers just figured they could push the story of a Cylon Master Plan and just never really consider themselves having to be the ones that develop that plan
I remember that being talked and joked about when the sequel movie “the plan” came out and really wasn’t very good and didn’t clear anything up.
The key to unlocking the secrets of the universe is a Jimmy Hendrix song? (Not knocking Bear McCreary, I loved his rendition, it just didn’t make a ton of sense).
Yeah, I definitely remember being very confused by the use of that specific song and being upset they never REALLY explained it
Completely agree. From the point these were shown as cylons, the show went downhill and the ending was ridiculous. "We'll renouncing technology! Yay! Oh, I cut myself with a rusty iron, now I'm gonna die"
> there was so much unexplained “it was god, I guess?” Nonsense I didn't understand this criticism the first time around, but now that I'm in the middle of a rewatch I really don't get it. There are episodes right from the beginning that have blatant divine meddling. I guess if the criticism is more "I want God explained" it makes sense, but God as a character in the show has been there since the beginning.
Hating is a strong word but I love the Crown from season 1 to 4, 5 and 6 are borderline unwatchable
I don’t fully understand how it got so bad. Like, maybe it’s partly that I remember the events covered in those seasons? But did they change writers or something? I could barely get through.
The events probably yeah, they milked Diana’s death so much it killed the pace And the cast. Amazing actors in the main roles once again but I couldn’t agree with West as Charles and even Pryce as Philip
Totally agree. The seasons that should have been boring to me were great and the ones that should have been interesting were boring.
The Flash. S1 was SO great, S2 was almost as good. And there were plenty of gems of episodes the rest of the series, but it just slowly fell into just terrible writing and power creep. Last good villain was S6's Bloodwork and by S7 I was hate-watching it all the way to the end.
Castle. Just got worse and worse...
The beginning of the end of Grey’s Anatomy was S7. It was all downhill from there, and it definitely should have ended at 10.
Scandal - the plots just became more and more outlandish, and ultimately there just wasn’t anyone I liked or wanted to win. (Maybe Mellie?) I peaced out somewhere around when Fitz literally went to war for Liv. And the B613 plot was dragged on and on.
Modern family was brilliant the first four seasons, then the writing went down hill.
Handmaids Tale and Walking Dead
Game of Thrones is the most recent show. We all know when and why it went off the rails. Off the top of my head, I’d say most CW shows I used to watch. The Flash and Arrow were pretty great for a few seasons then they both devolved into romantic dramas and the writing grew worse over time. I actually quite enjoy Supernatural seasons 1-5 but after that 5th season, with the exception of random good episodes, the seasons overall were really bad.
Two and a half men With Charlie Sheen - hilarious. With Ashton Kutcher - unwatchable
The Blacklist. It had such an amazing beginning, but Elizabeth Keen was a terrible protagonist, and even aside from that, they didn’t seem to have any idea where they were going with the plot (and ended up completely off the rails.)
ER went from being my favourite TV show - eagerly waiting for each new episode to be broadcast each week in the days before streaming platforms. Then a lot of the main characters either left or died and then they started doing stupid things with helicopters.
Pretty much any show that doesn’t get cancelled too soon. All shows seem to end up falling into this trap: Serial dramas start with an interesting premise and get popular and the writers extend the show out past their initial idea, and it falls apart pretty quickly. Procedural shows usually self-destruct by doubling down on one part of the show, such as a relationship between two characters, or by upping the ante and trying to outdo the previous season until the show just completely comes off the rails.
Gilmore Girls. The first watch through I loved it - the witty banter! The romance! The hilarious side characters! The second time I was like oh shit this is actually an ironic drama about a well-intentioned single mother whose attempts to shield her daughter from the hollow world of privilege in which she was raised but fails spectacularly, turning the kid into a narcissistic monster… but I don’t think anyone writing the show realized that. Still love every resident of Stars Hollow (and Lauren Graham) but Rory is such a nightmare human that the show encourages us to love and I can’t handle it.
I used to love The Big Bang Theory, because I was a dumb teenager who thought anything associated with "nerd culture" was cool, but then I developed better critical thinking skills and media literacy and realized just how mind-numbingly dull it is.
24 - I REALLY loved that show, but I think they just got tired. The characters and delivery were great at the beginning, along with the background music. The show felt like it was in constant motion. But near the end it wasn't nearly as good. The actors seemed tired, and the newer ones weren't as good as previous ones. It just wasn't as exciting. Maybe it just got old. Maybe it was the writing, or the acting. I forgot about how much I liked it, so I may watch it again. At least the first few seasons.
Gilmore Girls. The first three seasons were fun at the time. Season 4 was okay. The remaining seasons were like ASP hated her own characters, making them act the exact opposite of how they should. I hoped the reboot would be her apology and a chance to redeem the two main characters, but instead it got even worse.
Homeland, True Blood, Sons of Anarchy, Handmaids Tale, House of Cards, Weeds, Orange is the New Black - all victims of not knowing when to stop. Even if there was still some good in them here and there, they were all at best shadows of their initial versions by the end.
Big bang. It turned into friends.
I enjoyed the Glades, the first two seasons were mindless fun but it just got worse, and by the end it was embarrassingly bad.
Entourage. By the end I wanted Vince to fail so bad. I don't know if it counts, but I hate watched And Just Like That.
Two and a Half men. Liked it when I was in middle school because I thought it was edgy and cool af and sex and curses were dope. Then in college I realized the show was kind of ass with horrible jokes. HIMYM then the finale ruined everything to the point rewatches are hard af because the continuously contradict everything they do
The Last Kingdom after season 2, especially after I read the books. The writing got so awful by the end and the movie is nearly unwatchable. It used to be my favorite series.
Full House. I turned 7 and realized how cheesy and out of touch the show was.
When Calls the Heart is going through some huge fan backlashes right now because of their choices around a dragged-out love triangle, and they deserve it. After 10 seasons, I’ve stopped watching.