Cranberry

I almost gave up on season three, too! The first third was boring, and I felt that they were assassinating Carrie's character. However, just as I was about to quit, the end of episode four happened and it hooked me again. I don't love the show like I did back in season one, but I was happy enough with episodes 5-12 of season three.

Wow, that'll teach me to write a post at 6am after being up all night -- I totally forgot about Heroes! I was done after season two, or maybe after "volume one" of season three. I can't even remember. I remember thinking that Sylar was overpowered, which ruined a lot of the fun. Glee is terrible (I agree 100% with your succinct assessment), but I still watch. The end is in sight.

I'll list the shows I actually gave up on. Grey's Anatomy: I left right after they killed George. I didn't leave because they killed George, but after I suffered through that whole Izzie/Ghost Denny thing, my bullshit tolerance was low. I found the "John Doe is George" twist manipulative and unbelievable, and I was out. As far as I know, the show just got worse from there, one-upping itself constantly with bigger and badder disasters. I used to read the writers' blog, and they always seemed like a pretentious bunch who thought they were making high art, too. LOST: I just checked Wikipedia for the season summaries, and I guess I didn't actually give up on this one. I feel like I did! I only remember bits and pieces from seasons four through six. I can't pinpoint exactly when I stopped enjoying it, but I think it was sometime during the "Oceanic Six" story line, when they were trying to get the body back to the island. It all started being a bit too out there for me at that point. I felt like a lot of LOST was filler in general, just stretching the days out over too many episodes. I bet it could have been a fantastic show with 13-episode seasons. Desperate Housewives: I stopped watching after season two, I think, although I can't actually remember why. Maybe Susan's whining and physical "comedy" finally got to me (did she fall down a lot? I feel like she fell down a lot). I didn't like Gabrielle at all by that point, either, I remember. Gossip Girl: I lost interest after the writers dragged the inevitable Chuck and Blair reunion out too long. I found that entire story line where Blair married a prince boring, and I'd long since stopped caring about Serena and Dan. I skipped half of season five and all of six, although I came back for the finale (which I enjoyed partly because it was ridiculous as hell).

I love the episode titles! From a fun Entertainment Weekly recap.

I don't know how she does it, but it's always so obvious when Tatiana is playing a clone pretending to be another clone. I knew who Sarah-as-Cosima was before she even opened her mouth to say "shite." I liked that her hair was just curly instead of full-on dreads, too, because there's no way they had time for that. Alison is the best, as always. Love that she gun-shopped in a Walmart-esque parking lot and that she'd send a gun to Sarah in a flower arrangement complete with homemade, glittery card. Never change, Alison. I figured that the Dyad Institute didn't have Kira and that it was the Prolethians instead. I'm interested to see how the three groups -- Dyad, Prolethians, and Sarah and Co. plus Art -- clash this season. I'm also interested to see more of Rachel. I find her boring/unlikable right now, but Maslany has said that Rachel was her favorite clone to play this season, so I'm expecting something bigger to happen with her. I'm also happy that Helena is alive.

I love Felix. His expressions are always the best. I loved it during Alison's intervention when she locked herself in the bathroom and refused to talk to anyone but Felix -- the smug look he gave all of the ladies was great. I also enjoyed his horror at Alison cleaning his entire loft.

Yeah, but we already knew that was on purpose. Her plan was to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. to find out more info about her parents (because her previous searches dead-ended at a redacted file), and that's exactly what she did. Love that finale scene idea! Now that would be a reboot. I'd actually enjoy a TV show all about the bad guys.

There's also the whole double meaning thing (Grant Ward hates patriots so much that he even hates the Patriots).

I didn't want to copy TWoP, so I picked a new one. I thought that was a clever line!

Ugh, I shudder to think of how Glee will handle dog training. The world does not need more misinformation out there; a certain reality star dog "rehabilitator" has done quite enough harm already.

I liked this one, although I think the only time I laughed out loud was when Winston entered in that all-white suit, holding a cane. It was just so silly and unexpected. I like how they're handling the breakup, too. I'd much rather see this than antagonistic behavior or complete avoidance.

I've seen speculation to that effect, yeah.

That's a great trailer! I love trailers that don't give away the entire movie, but still manage to tell you a lot about it. I saw many important plot points from the book in there. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because I think this would be a very difficult book to adapt and I've been fooled by great trailers before, but... yes. Looks good.

Clark Gregg didn't say that -- all he said was, "The organization is not a secret. What we do is." That comment about fans having too much time on our hands was from the publication itself, Yahoo TV.

Why could Rachel not stay funny? Veronica Mars stayed funny after she went to college. She's still funny now, 10 years later. Seth Cohen stayed funny. Brooke Davis stayed funny. They all matured (somewhat, in Seth Cohen's case), but they didn't drastically change in personality like Rachel did. Glee is not strictly a comedy. It's a dramedy, if we need to categorize it. The writers absolutely could have allowed the characters to change and grow without ruining the show and without replacing them with stock character newbies. Back to the One Tree Hill example -- that show had its flaws, but it did a great job of keeping some of the main cast, losing some, and cycling in new characters who ended up just as beloved as the old ones over its nine years on the air. It never made the mistake of replacing an old character with (basically) a clone of that character.

Even Dawson's Creek maintained its quality longer than Glee did. Gossip Girl, too. Pretty Little Liars is going into its fifth season (with the girls still in high school!) and has barely dropped in viewers over the years. One Tree Hill had nine seasons and managed to handle the switch from high school to "real life" with finesse (it lost two of the main characters, but that didn't ruin the show). Some would argue that The O.C. maintained its quality as well (personally, I wasn't the biggest fan of season three). Same for Veronica Mars. And the fact that they're not "comedies" is irrelevant. Glee is only a comedy some of the time and is nominated in that category for awards shows because it would never win drama awards. (As far as actual comedies go, Awkward. is going into its fourth season now and is still generally well-received by critics.)

I actually loved Popular, and I can't quite pinpoint why I loved it but am so disappointed by Glee. It was also completely wacky, characterization varied by the episode, and the "very special episodes" were eye-rollingly bad. Maybe it's simply the fact that it only lasted a couple of seasons and didn't have time to completely ruin any characters I loved. I liked Glee for the first couple of seasons, too.

I enjoy AHS, but he can't even handle characterizations and continuity for 13 episodes. Coven was a hot mess. Entertaining, but a hot mess. Cordelia and Delphine especially were all over the place. I just think that in general, Ryan Murphy is about style over substance.

They mentioned that at PaleyFest:

I guess the issue is that watching the story of a true prodigy, if that's indeed what Rachel's meant to be, is boring. I like Rachel. She's one of my favorite characters on the show and has been since the very beginning, even though I've found her more and more unlikable as the series has gone on. I do want her to succeed. But I don't want her to succeed this easily and then complain about her success. I want to watch her work hard for it, to suffer setbacks, and to ultimately rise up and prove anyone who ever doubted her wrong. Currently, Rachel is acting like a spoiled brat who refuses to play by the rules (and apparently doesn't have to because she's just that talented and will achieve everything she ever wanted -- and then some -- almost immediately). How is that a good story?

They should never have jumped straight to Funny Girl. Whatever they do now, they're screwed. If they make Rachel succeed in a major way, it's unbelievable, and it's also anticlimactic because we haven't seen her work for it; it feels like this is all just being handed to her. If they have her fail, they'll ruin her because that would be one of her biggest dreams crushed right off the bat -- she would have blown her shot; she could never do Funny Girl again. What they really should have done was have her get a small part in a terrible show and rise above the crap material enough to be noticed and cast in a better show. Funny Girl should have been saved for near the end of the series. But of course we can't have that; RIB needed to fast-track her success so that she could realize she really belonged in Lima with Finn or whatever. Ugh. They can't do that anymore, but I've resigned myself to the fact that no matter what they do, the Glee finale will be terrible.

Man, I would watch the hell out of that. Agent Carter was my favorite of the shorts.

Thanks to this interview at IGN, we now know that Victoria Hand is definitely dead.

Wasn't there something with Adele songs, too? I don't remember the details.

There's no need to use the spoiler tags unless you're actually posting spoilers -- we can handle long posts. Many of us spent years complying with the 15 pages or 15 days rule at TWoP, after all!