The GoT Effect: Once Great Shows That Got So Bad They Sent You Into A Rage Spiral

[Kromm]

Probably both. I think if you like something, then you shouldn't feel like you have to hide behind things like hate-watching or watching ironically. Just say you know it's ridiculous but you love it anyway. It's the same when someone calls a show a guilty pleasure. Why not just say it's a pleasure. 

 

I feel like these phrases are just being used because people are ashamed of enjoying something and I think it's silly, because everyone watches something like that. Even if you're watching so you can later make fun of it with others, you're still enjoying it.  People care far too much what other people think about them.

 

Watching ironically especially bugs because of the people I see using it a lot. Hipster doofuses, as Kramer would say. 

I get that point of view, and I think it probably applies to certain shows, but I don't know if it would to all.

 

The way you're spinning it, hate-watching would simply be about shows that are over the top, where there's shame involved in viewing.  Let's say... Dance Moms. Or maybe even any Housewives of Wherever show.  

 

But the place I more often see it used is where there appears to be the public veneer that a show is still good, but a kind of Internet/Fan backlash that it's not really. A lot of people though claim they've gotten "invested" in the show and want to ride it until the end... but hate what they are seeing.  So in a perverse mood they justify keeping watching as a kind of game.

 

I'm sure it's both to some extent.  Almost Human is one of the few "new shows" I watched out of a perverse sense, almost from the beginning, to see how badly they could mess it up.  But a show like, let's say, Gray's Anatomy?  I bailed pretty totally when it passed a certain point of sucking, and couldn't really see my way towards enjoying it in some other... mode.

[pootlus]

I don't know, it's easier than typing out "watching the show only to shout at it and throw things at the television". :)

[BellaLugosi]

Right. In my experience, I see hate-watch used on shows that are over the top or ridiculous. I don't see it a lot, to be honest I didn't read a lot of comments and boards on stuff I watch, unless it was on TWOP or now here. The first time I even heard it was last year, about Under The Dome.  2 episodes in,  I had given up on it. I was told by a couple of people that I knew online that they still watched it. I was kind of surprised, because we'd chatted about it and agreed it was terrible. That's when I heard hate-watching. And then watching it week after week.  I guess I could see if you tuned in once in a while to see if something is still as terrible as you remember. But watching week after week....you can't really hate it.  And they don't sound like they hate it either. It just sounds to me like something to say to excuse liking a show, for whatever reason,  that other people think is terrible. YMMV. 

 

I guess I "hate-watched" the Rosemary's Baby remake then. I knew it would be terrible but I watched it anyway because I wanted to see how silly and ridiculous it would be.  I just didn't know I was doing that. Ha!

[ElleryAnne]

I never heard the term "watched ironically" before.  I must hang out with the non-cool kids.  Just as well.  That use of the word "ironically" is bringing to tears the little piece of my soul that sat through so many English classes. 

 

Another rage-spiral for me: Brothers & Sisters.  Started off as such a great show, and I loved all of the characters.  It started to go downhill when they found out there was second possible lost sibling (Ryan), but by the last season it felt like so many bad things were happening to everyone that it just wasn't fun to watch anymore.

[arc]

Heroes, though IMO it was never great.  It was very good and had tremendous potential, but I distinctly remember (1) being blown away that they would name November - the election - as being their first big milestone and then (2) that initial sense of dread I felt when the writers then made interview comments about how they might stretch out show time so "November" wouldn't actually happen in November.  It was only nine years ago, but back then sweeps still kinda counted for something and I really thought they would make something happen for November sweeps.  I still think they chickened out of the task of finding themselves anything bigger to end the first season than their November cliffhanger so they embarked on a massive stall.  But even so, most of S1 was pretty good; it's just that I think the cracks in the foundation were there almost from the beginning.  (And I felt the show and network -- OK, maybe it was NBC -- was leaning on the stupid S1 catchphrase way too hard.  Especially since saving the damn cheerleader had fuck-all to do with actually saving the world. (Ypu're a better fan than I am if you remember the chain of logic behind this.  I asked fans elsewhere and it turned out to be bone-stupid:

her immortality would have made Sylar invincible, except Sylar gained her immortality in a latter season anyways, and one way or another, this was not that germane to stopping a nuke from destroying NYC.

 

 

The Simpsons.  This used to be the funniest thing in the world.  The quality of the writing, acting, and animation were all top notch.  I used to be an uber Simpsons nerd.  My friends and I could quote large chunks of the show from memory, and we pretty much always had a quote for any situation.  I bought up to season 9 of the DVDs, but in real time I watched up to about season 12 or so.  It struck me when I was buying s9 that it was sad in a way that the Simpsons effectively ended for me about there.  And now "Zombie Simpsons" is, depending how you measure it, about twice as long-lived as "real" Simpsons.  Over years since I stopped regularly watching, people would occasionally tell me the Simpsons were back, and I would watch, and it was genuinely hurtful for me how bad the show had gotten.

 

 

HIMYM.  Compared to Rinaldo, I'm a very recent latecomer.  I actually only started regularly watching in the final season, and I never did binge-watch my way through previous seasons.  Big parts of the final season were pretty lame, but the finale -- or really, most of all the finale's last few minutes -- were still a complete clusterfuck of a disappointment after a season I'd largely enjoyed.  The finale alone, in about three major moments, two right at the end, managed to wreck most everything they'd built up over the last season as well as what I gather had come before.

 

I am surprised no one has mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer yet. To me this is the clearest example of a show that became so different in its final seasons, that one could really wonder if the same people were still making the show. Obviously, almost any show that is not canceled early on eventually runs out of steam but to me Buffy is the only show that gave me the impression that its creators actively disliked everything the show stood for in its early seasons and worked hard to make it about completely different things, often the exact opposite of the earlier messages and themes.

... I actually liked the first ten episodes each of S6 and S7.  I haven't rewatched in a while, but I remember thinking ep 10 or 11 of each was where each season went off the rails.  The way Buffy and the gang won s7's fight against the "big bad" -- by a deux ex machina she had no way of knowing was there -- really put the cherry on top, though this moment from the S6 finale also counts:

 

The semi bumps the patrol car a couple more times. Xander asks Buffy if she has "any ideas." Buffy's advice? "Drive faster." And then in my very favorite stupid moment from this stupid episode, Xander begins to drive faster, and the car speeds up enough to put some distance between them and the big frickin' truck that's been ramming them. Yes, that's right. It actually hadn't occurred to Xander to freakin' floor it until he was told to do so. He was fully prepared to drive to the conditions of the road. I've never considered Xander an incredibly smart guy, but I certainly never thought that he was THIS dumb.

Edited May 23, 2014 by arc

[arc]

Probably both. I think if you like something, then you shouldn't feel like you have to hide behind things like hate-watching or watching ironically. Just say you know it's ridiculous but you love it anyway. It's the same when someone calls a show a guilty pleasure. Why not just say it's a pleasure.

I didn't watch 2 Broke Girls as a guilty pleasure, I legit hate-watched it.  As in, I hated it, and I watched it because I hated it. It gave me spiteful energy: "if this shit is on TV, how am I not writing better than this?"

[kiddo82]

Even if you're watching so you can later make fun of it with others, you're still enjoying it. People care far too much what other people think about them.

Watching ironically especially bugs because of the people I see using it a lot. Hipster doofuses, as Kramer would say.

Agreed. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. You're not going to put up with something that doesn't give you some kind of emotional charge. Even if you flat out say you hate something, you keep coming back for a reason. It has to touch some kind of nerve or else it wouldn't be worth it. Edited May 23, 2014 by kiddo82

[Kromm]

Agreed. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. You're not going to put up with something that doesn't give you some kind of emotional charge. Even if you flat out say you hate something, you keep coming back for a reason. It has to touch some kind of nerve or else it wouldn't be worth it.

I think that ignores the very human reaction of mocking something as it's own category of entertainment.  It's true that's a better third state than simply being bored by something.  But it's not the same as loving something.  I imagine the three states (love, hate, indifference) as more formed into a triangle than on some spectrum with only two ends to it.

[kiddo82]

I think that ignores the very human reaction of mocking something as it's own category of entertainment.

True, but then you admit that there is some form of entertainment to be had by mocking it. So while the show may be awful, you are deriving some sort of enjoyment out of the experience one way or another. Sometimes we even just revel in how much we hate something (I mean like TV or Sports hate) but the emotional connection is still very real or else we wouldn't care.

[Bella]

A show I used to love and now feel completely indifferent towards (and delete from my TiVo unwatched more often than not) is The Amazing Race. When did it become so incredibly dull? The casting is flat, while the tasks are occasionally interesting, but not to the point where I can justify spending an hour (minus FFing through commercials) on it.

 

Bo-ring.

[Kromm]

A show I used to love and now feel completely indifferent towards (and delete from my TiVo unwatched more often than not) is The Amazing Race. When did it become so incredibly dull? The casting is flat, while the tasks are occasionally interesting, but not to the point where I can justify spending an hour (minus FFing through commercials) on it.

 

Bo-ring.

IMO TAR has slipped a lot, so it's now in the same class as Survivor.  A show that's just gone on so long, and in fact started to eat itself by reusing the same people and concepts, that it feels stale.

 

That said, I can't quite hate either show or get in a rage.  It's more a sense of disappointment, because of all reality shows they're the two that once were so much more.  Being less than they were, they're still a lot more than a lot of what else is on though.

 

Now if we want to talk about truly rage-inspiring reality shows, I wouldn't even go Top Chef or Chopped or even Project Runway (none of which were ever in the "greatest" category of Survivor and TAR anyway).  I'd go straight to The Biggest Loser.  A show that, at it's worst, can make you hate the fact that TV even exists.

[Anna Yolei]

Honorable mentions for Burn Notice season 7, Pretty Little Liars which fell off a cliff after season 3A and Gilmore Girls seasons 6-7.

Oh, GG season six. The one where Rory dropped her lifelong dream all because of one highly biased man whose wife thought her son was too good for her, and dropped outta Yale for her pity party. Good God almighty, than pissed me off.

Also, Luke's illegitimate daughter (cuz we needed more of those!). This was a popular plot in fanfiction that disappeared almost overnight in S6. Make of that what you will :/

[3catsrule]

And why has no one mentioned the Q????    :-)

Edited May 26, 2014 by 3catsrule

[Kromm]

And why has no one mentioned the Q????    :-)

The Quantum Leap?  The Quincy M.E.?  The Queer as Folk?  The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?  Or if you are British, the QI?  Or The Quartermass?

 

If it's not any of those, I'm not gettin' it.

[3catsrule]

The Quantum Leap?  The Quincy M.E.?  The Queer as Folk?  The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?  Or if you are British, the QI?  Or The Quartermass?

 

If it's not any of those, I'm not gettin' it.

Um, I was just trying at humor?

[Kromm]

Um, I was just trying at humor?

Alright then. Carry on! (so was I, BTW)

[BellaLugosi]

And I don't know what either of you are talking about! LOL

[Jamoche]

I'll see your Glee and raise you...Dexter.

A friend of mine got the east coast feed, so in the Colin Hanks season I'd ask "so how much is Dexter going to suck tonight?" before deciding if I'd watch or not. And the final season, the decision was always "not".

[iMonrey]

Survivor is the big one for me. Fairly early on, they settled on a particular cast of characters and kept casting the same types to fulfill those same roles season after season. Worse, contestants have gotten wise to the idea that winning isn't the ultimate goal. Becoming "infamous" in the world of Survivor is more important, hence the continual return of characters like Russell Hantz. If you do something "memorable" the show will keep inviting you back over and over again.

 

Amazing Race hasn't gotten quite as bad, but it has a similar casting problem. It's like they have a set list of 11 particular types of teams and only pick people who fit those 11 molds every season. Plus the tasks have gotten completely lame. I watched the first season and was astounded at how hard those teams had to work just to get through one leg. Now the tasks are childishly simple things nobody is really challenged by. 

 

Roseanne is probably the best example of a sitcom gone horribly wrong in its final season.

 

I've had it with Grey's Anatomy, too. I won't be back next season. They've added too many boring and/or unlikable characters and tried too hard to make them work, when they don't. 

[Crim]

For me, this fits Glee to a T.

[ramble]

A show I used to love and now feel completely indifferent towards (and delete from my TiVo unwatched more often than not) is The Amazing Race. When did it become so incredibly dull? The casting is flat, while the tasks are occasionally interesting, but not to the point where I can justify spending an hour (minus FFing through commercials) on it.

 

Bo-ring.

This is where I'm at & I used to love Amazing Race. I can't seem to stop DVR'ing it, but I only watched 1 episode this time around. I love the travel shots but any more the lack of enjoyment of the people on it & disliking some of the tasks are too much for beautiful scenery to overcome. 

Edited May 29, 2014 by ramble

[Rinaldo]

I still watch The Amazing Race, and even enjoy the occasional short stretch. Phil's opening speech at the starting line still stirs me. But the show is a shadow of its former self and seems totally by rote now. Even if some of the teams care, the producers don't seem to, except in the sense of filling up each leg efficiently so there are X number of episodes to show, on to the next. I stopped making permanent recordings of it a year or so ago, when I realized I no longer cared about preserving it, and was surprised to find that I felt not the slightest pang about the decision. Now I delete it from the DVR as soon as I've watched, and often I've been doing other things while watching. I don't hate it, but I sure don't care about it the way I used to.

[Kromm]

The thing is I still believe TAR is fixable, whereas I'm not as sure with Survivor.  With TAR the key is simply "back to basics" (including stopping using the same people, but primarily just getting back to the basic rules and approach) and it will work, because unlike Survivor there are no real long-term strategies people have discovered that can change how the core "game" works.  With Survivor, you can't do that, because the old "core game" that people played back in it's early days won't work anymore.  Survivor is far more "meta" in how its affected by it's previous seasons than TAR is, and that's ultimately been it's downfall.

[Tunia]

One hearty vote here for The View!  The loss of Meredith Viera, Lisa Ling, and Joy Behar brought this screechfest to its knees, and the additions of Bitsy Hasselbeck and Sherri Shephard were daggers to the heart.  This one is really circling the drain these days.

 

I admit it - I'm a reality TV junkie.  What bugs me, though, is that they all start out pretty good and then deteriorate as time goes on.  At first, I thought it was just familiarity boredom, but then came to realize that what I really hate is how TPTB "goop" up the formats with a pile of "cutesy" extraneous crap that just gets sillier by the episode.  (Think Big Brother:  The first year gave us this new, interesting concept, and the houseguest were relatively normal people being put in reasonable circumstances.  Remember George the chicken man?  Their tasks were to grow a garden and tend their chickens.  Fast forward the later seasons with their Head of Household, power emblems (or whatever the hell they were), ridiculous challenges, nasty alliances, etc.  They really to get back to basics.  Same with Survivor with the immunity idol and redemption island, yada-yada-yada   Ruination!

 

And, if they keep messing with my TAR, I'm going to be really pissed!

Edited May 30, 2014 by Tunia

[Mrs. P.]

I still watch The Amazing Race, and even enjoy the occasional short stretch. Phil's opening speech at the starting line still stirs me. But the show is a shadow of its former self and seems totally by rote now. Even if some of the teams care, the producers don't seem to, except in the sense of filling up each leg efficiently so there are X number of episodes to show, on to the next. I stopped making permanent recordings of it a year or so ago, when I realized I no longer cared about preserving it, and was surprised to find that I felt not the slightest pang about the decision. Now I delete it from the DVR as soon as I've watched, and often I've been doing other things while watching. I don't hate it, but I sure don't care about it the way I used to.

I feel much the same way about my beloved Amazing Race. Its decline has not sent me into a 'rage spiral'; it's just made me very sad. I still watch, but there is no longer the enthusiam and excitement I used to experience while watching. I really miss the show it used to be.

[BellaLugosi]

 

One hearty vote here for The View!  The loss of Meredith Viera, Lisa Ling, and Joy Behar brought this screechfest to its knees, and the additions of Bitsy Hasselbeck and Sherri Shephard were daggers to the heart.

Man.......I used to LOVE The View. It died for me when Lisa Ling left. It was never the same, and it just wasn't entertaining to me anymore. I think that Meredith, Star, Barbara, Joy & Lisa were the perfect combination for that show. Hasselbeck killed it for me. 

[Kromm]

I feel much the same way about my beloved Amazing Race. Its decline has not sent me into a 'rage spiral'; it's just made me very sad. I still watch, but there is no longer the enthusiam and excitement I used to experience while watching. I really miss the show it used to be.

Again, I think because unlike Survivor it's hard to permanently corrupt the core of the show (because the gameplay/strategies haven't been forced to change).  It's mostly the casting that's gone wrong, and maybe come to think of it it's ultimate problem is the reverse of Survivor's.  Survivor changed too much and can never go back. Although I mentioned "back to basics" before for fixing TAR, maybe the reverse is actually true, come to think of it.  Stop casting the same damn people and types of people and go back to the simpler is better casting, with real people and not characters.  But change up the game itself a hair.  For example, I must be the only person on the planet who didn't think Family Edition was totally worthless.  Not that I want to see a repeat of that, because Domestic only was lame and so were kids on the show, but I'm intrigued with the idea of trying a different sized team.  How about a Trio season?  Work with that, within the normal rules otherwise just to see what differences it makes (for one thing, airline seating gets MUCH tougher!) I'm not even opposed to the idea of a Solo Racer season--I can think of ways to make that happen within the context of the game we know overall, but with temporary duos imposed on the players for certain legs of the game (because while personality conflict shouldn't be the point of TAR over the excitement of the Race, lets be honest.... forcing people to get along to help win a game IS part of the game).  Stuff like that might be okay for TAR, if only because the problem with TAR is it seeming STALE, vs. Survivor, which just seems overwrought.

[Irlandesa]

Heroes, though IMO it was never great.  It was very good and had tremendous potential, but I distinctly remember (1) being blown away that they would name November - the election - as being their first big milestone and then (2) that initial sense of dread I felt when the writers then made interview comments about how they might stretch out show time so "November" wouldn't actually happen in November.

 

 

I agree.  Glee is in this category for me too.  For the first half of the first season, it worked.  But then it stopped working.

 

But when it comes to "so much untapped potential" hate-watching, I'd like to submit Smash.  Smash's had issues, even in its pilot.  But the pilot, overall, was enjoyable and held a lot of promise.  So the hope was that once they went into production, they'd highlight the good and tone down the bad.  They didn't.  They doubled down on the bad.  And when they got a second season, I had hoped they'd listen to the critics and criticisms to correct their mistakes.  Instead, they quadrupled their bad quotient. 

 

But the character of Ivy was awesome so I watched...but I hate watched. 

 

I agree with so many already mentioned but I think I might put The West Wing in here.  The first Sorkin-less season, the fifth, was so miserably awful and dreary that I was very mad...and sad.  The fact that it somehow pulled itself back up and morphed into something I looked forward to watching in its seventh season is something of a miracle but that doesn't change how I feel about the fifth season. 

Edited May 31, 2014 by Irlandesa

[andromeda331]

Completely agree about Burn Notice, they destroyed one of the best shows in the last season. Gilmore Girls with Rory stealing a boat because of a bad review and Luke's long lost daughter? Seriously? 

LOST too, I still haven't gotten over it and its the main reason I shy away from similar shows I don't want to get broken hearted again.

The Amazing Race is getting there for me, the tasks are too easy and yet a lot of are getting the answers without even trying. I mean what's the point then? 

Agree with Rosanne it was good for many years and then went bad. 

General Hospital has to make my list. Thanks to that soap I'm not longer a Shipper, they destroyed all of my favorite couples, and the mob took over the show. Goodbye Quartermaines, goodbye anyone not related to Sonny, they destroyed so many couples and characters to turn it into the Sonny Show. It used to be such a good show I held on so long thinking it would get better but I had to quit. And speaking of Soaps I have to add Guiding Light. That's a soap they purposely ran into the ground in order to justify in canceling it. Seriously if you want to end a show, end it, why do you have to destroy it? 

Edited June 3, 2014 by andromeda331

[Haleth]

I so agree about TAR.  I'll never stop watching because of the travel porn, but the last few seasons have been lackluster.  Stale indeed.  But I'm not sure what the producers can do about it.  They tried to change things up with the family edition which was universally (except for Kromm ;) ) panned.  One thing they do need to put into the rules is that a team cannot give another team the answer to a problem/riddle.  Teams need to do their own work, dammit!  Casting to fit certain "types" is a problem unless maybe they do an edition with just (say) teachers or military.  For years I'd thought Survivor should try that, setting up teams of people with the similar occupations (first responders vs scientists) and they finally did come up with brain vs brawn vs beauty and it turned out to be pretty interesting.  TAR producers should take note.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Haleth

[Anna Yolei]

Gilmore Girls with Rory stealing a boat because of a bad review and Luke's long lost daughter? Seriously? 

Back when that aired, a few people pointed out thst Rory was a product of the times....thst nowadays, kids are so sheltered and coddled and praised for everything that many don't know how to take criticism. From what I remember, everyone loved and petter Rory. That's not to say she was a Mary Sue (Yale doesn't apply for itself) but for five years she had one dream and one highly biased person didn't think she was a special snowflake....so she crumbled.

I think had the show addressed that in season six instead of her acting like a trust fund brat, it would've been a nice change of direction.

[midge]

Oh, lord.  This could become a very long thread...

 

- Battlestar Galactica:  2/2.5 seasons or so of some of the most brilliant television ever, only to have it be an insult to everyone's intelligence from then on. 'Mitchondiral Eve"  Really, BSG?   Angels?   Ugh.    I only remember being moved by 1 scene for the last season (when Rosilyn finds out that Baltar was complicite in the orginal attacks and struggles with her need to kill him.) What a let down this show was. 

- The Real World:  Ok. I admit that I aged out of the show pretty early ( I think I was 21 s1)  but seasons 1 - 5 I loved.   Then Miami happened, not withstanding Cynthia's "I'm going to call a ho a ho when thy act like a ho." brilliance, this was the season where the contrivance went completely over the top.   Yes, it was not exactly "real' the first 5 seasons, but the minute they tried to force everyone to work together, etc  (in season 5 - Boston - they had to volunteer together.  Which I guess was the seed but not so  bad) it became the poster child for why reality TV is evil. 

- True Blood:   Sookah and Beeel were fun camp at first, but it simply could not sustain it for all seasons.  They should have changed to the Eric Show around season 3  and gotten rid of all the crap. 

- Dexter:  As has been said by others

- Boardwalk Empire: No Richard = no heart left on the show 

- Ally McBeal, LA Law, Miami Vice..... good shows going bad has been goin' on for decades....

Edited June 1, 2014 by midge

[torqy]

Suits. I found the original premise interesting, but gave up when it turned into the sort of infighting I could see by going to my own office.

In all fairness, I'm not sure how many stories actually could have been built on the premise of Mike as not!a!lawyer.

 

L&O: SUV. Mrs. Torqy will watch until they pry the remote from her dead fingers, but at this point I'm only hate-watching. L&O: original survived turning over the entire cast, this show should have done the same. (not a typo; I've been calling it that for years)

Edited June 1, 2014 by torqy

[FlamingWench79]

Boy, do I have a list of shows that owned me in the beginning, just to leave them in the dust 2 or 3 seasons later.  I'll keep it simple.

 

Glee - First season was amazing.  Second season had me going "what the what?"  Third season, interest had definitely faded.  Fourth season, watched 3 or 4 episodes, stopped and haven't bothered looking back.  I also think I have an irrational hatred towards Ryan Murphy as well for the demise of what really did start off as a wonderful ensemble/musical series.

 

Top Chef - This past season made me realize that I am growing less fond of it when I found myself fast-forwarding through many of the challenges, just to get to the end to see who would get the boot.  And when I didn't fast-forward through (meaning that I was watching it with my mom), I found myself horribly bored.  Once you've see one crazy challenge that involves cooking with limited space, ingredients, equipment, you've seen them all.  Yawn.

 

HIMYM - I can't remember what season I stopped watching...probably when Barney and Robin first hooked up.  I never liked them as a couple.  And judging from the reaction of many fans regarding the finale, I'm glad I never went back.

 

New Girl - Adored this show the first 2 seasons, until TPTB decided that Nick and Jess just had to be a couple.  This might be an unpopular opinion, but I preferred Nick and Jess as friends.  Once the show paired them together, coupled with the constantly bs with Schmidt and CeCe, a once hilarious show, now filled me with anger.  Damn them.  

 

One Life to Live - For a canceled soap that ended on a high note, I wished Prospect Park would have just left well enough alone.  Because once it was finally resurrected and returned to fans via Hulu, it was a sad, sorry shell of its former self.  After watching a week of episodes, I removed it from my queue.   

[Bill C.]

It was never a great show, but Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda is a personal touchstone for this sort of thing.  It started out as an interesting arc-driven ensemble space opera, but TPTB turned it into what a lot of us dubbed "Kirkules" halfway through its run--and then they tried to go back the other way during its bizarre final season.

[BellaLugosi]

 

 

HIMYM - I can't remember what season I stopped watching...probably when Barney and Robin first hooked up.  I never liked them as a couple.  And judging from the reaction of many fans regarding the finale, I'm glad I never went back.

New Girl - Adored this show the first 2 seasons, until TPTB decided that Nick and Jess just had to be a couple.  This might be an unpopular opinion, but I preferred Nick and Jess as friends.  Once the show paired them together, coupled with the constantly bs with Schmidt and CeCe, a once hilarious show, now filled me with anger.  Damn them.

 

I could have written this. I just hate when they seem to force couples together. 

[Joe]

It was never a great show, but Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda is a personal touchstone for this sort of thing.  It started out as an interesting arc-driven ensemble space opera, but TPTB turned it into what a lot of us dubbed "Kirkules" halfway through its run--and then they tried to go back the other way during its bizarre final season.

Apparently Kevin Sorbo was a producer, he decided to indulge his ego.

[DiamondDoll]

Hawaii Five-0 - It's first season is probably my favorite season of any show ever. Steve/Danny's epic bromance, the sense of Ohana with Chin,Kono,Danny,Steve, the action, the humor. Season 2 was still very watchable and for the most part enjoyable. Then season 3 happened and the quality went way down. Suddenly, instead of an ensemble show, it became all about Steve McGarrett and Catherine Rollins. Steve's shady mom also showed up to chew scenery and eat way too much airtime. Instead of a capable cop, Danny became a marginalized buffoon side-kick, Chin slowly but surely became an after-thought and I have no idea what the hell happened to Kono. The first 10 or so episodes of season was all about Steve/Cath. I think at this point Lenkov forgot there were other people on the show. I hope now that cancer known as Catherine is gone, we'll get back some of the magic of season 1. 

 

Once Upon A Time - I stopped watching for good when Hook's white washing fully took up speed. In their haste to push this ridiculous Emma/Hook ship, the writing has so far destroyed 3 characters. No matter how much they try to sell Hook as a good man, he was the ass who shot innocent Belle IN THE BACK just because he wanted to hurt Rumple. I'm sorry, Hook is not a white knight.

[reeneebob]

The Young and the Restless.  A cautionary tale in what happens when you let Eric Braeden's ego run the show.

[GaT]

I see that Dexter, Revenge, & True Blood have already been mentioned, but let me add Mad Men. For a show that was so great in the beginning, it's turned into the "what crap thing is Don doing now" show, & I don't care. The only interesting character to me on the show is Sally, everyone else is just an annoying ass, most especially Don. The fact that they're making me wait a year to see the final 7 episodes to end this thing seriously enrages me.

[Jeebus Cripes]

 But no show has ever gone as bad at the end as Roseanne did when they had her win the lottery and start with the child abuse as a kid drama and all of that.  That was some programming gone horribly wrong right there.  That show didn't just need to die, it needed to die horribly. She completely ruined her entire premise of the show.  Dumb dumb dumb. 

 

So much word. I stopped watching altogether after she won the lottery.

 

Oh God, Alias.  I stopped watching that at the end of S3, otherwise known as the year with the blonde chick with the terrible accent.  Was it ever determined what nationality she was?

 

This was exactly when I stopped watching, and I never looked back. To this day, I have no idea how that show ended.

 

Supernatural, for sure. I loved that show in the beginning, I even own the first two seasons on DVD. I stuck with it through season 7 and I think I even watched a few episodes of season 8, but it just got so bad. Its premise was always teetering right on the edge of ridiculous (saving people, hunting things!) but once they got killed and came back so many times, they had a ghost of their former friend haunting them, the angel/demon-heaven/hell stuff started, I was straight up done. I've read that it was only originally planned to have a 5-season arc, and since it was renewed earlier this year for its tenth season, they're definitely out of ideas.

 

This is my no.1 pick for this topic. I used to love it so much, and now I have to force myself to watch, as I can't seem to cut all ties and be done with it. For me, I think it was the season that Sam got sucked into hell at the end. Not sure which one that is, but I remember liking the first half of the season --in fact, I think that was meant to be their final season but it got renewed-- and then instead of the big Dean/Michael vs. Sam/Lucifer showdown, they shoehorned in the derp half-brother. The show has never recovered.

 

- True Blood:   Sookah and Beeel were fun camp at first, but it simply could not sustain it for all seasons.  They should have changed to the Eric Show around season 3  and gotten rid of all the crap. 

 

I know the exact moment for me when this one went to shit, and it was when they revealed Sookie was a fairy. I loathe all that fairy bullshit.

 

Smallville was perhaps never great, but those first two seasons were good. Season 3 had some standout episodes as well, but certainly by season 4, the show became a vortex of suck. Lana Lane, man. Lana. Fucking. Lane.

[applecrisp]

Urlittledogtoo, totaly agree about sitcoms ruining shows with the "favorite character".   Another sitcom ruined was Good Times, I guess the parents( John Amos and Esther Rolle) were the stars and JJ became popular.  It was DYNOMITE this and that.  Very anoying.  There is something about sitcoms that stay on too long.  They get bad.

Edited June 2, 2014 by applecrisp

[iMonrey]

 

The Young and the Restless.  A cautionary tale in what happens when you let Eric Braeden's ego run the show.

 

Ain't that the truth. And if we're including Soaps here, I'll add All My Children. That show became obsessed with adding new characters, all the time, and then focusing almost exclusively on those new characters to the detriment of the established fan favorites. Days of our Lives, too, for almost turning it into a teen show.

[Sweets McGee]

The Walking Dead completely lost me midway through season 2. I know people swear it got better in season 3 but I just stopped caring. That show just can't pull off angst/emotion without being annoying.

[Guest]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer yet. To me this is the clearest example of a show that became so different in its final seasons, that one could really wonder if the same people were still making the show. Obviously, almost any show that is not canceled early on eventually runs out of steam but to me Buffy is the only show that gave me the impression that its creators actively disliked everything the show stood for in its early seasons and worked hard to make it about completely different things, often the exact opposite of the earlier messages and themes.

 

I thought the biggest problem was that they stuck too close to the themes.  They went from metaphor for adolescence to single mother.  Everything went down hill after Dawn came into being.

 

Alias went horribly wrong as well.  That show suffered from having more hype than viewers.  They kept resetting the premise to allow new viewers to find an entry point to the show.  I bailed after the second or third time they did that. 

 

I liked the original version of the show.  Even then, I was glad when they brought Syd cleanly into the CIA.  But only because they couldn't resist every random CIA agent Syd met being in awe of her reputation.  I nearly lost it when she walked through a giant CIA operation center.  She was supposed to be a double agent.  So shutting down / blowing up SD-6 made for a viable reason she continued to live.  So yea Super Bowl episode.

 

But they lost me as a consistent viewer after the two year time jump.  I can't remember when I gave up entirely, but I haven't seen the finale.

 

Supernatural's finale this season annoyed me by having a Crowley breaking the fourth wall in a diatribe about how this show always handles finales {that's how I heard it anyway} and proceeded to repeat the exact same thing while pretending it was different.

 

GoT near misses with Stark reunions (its still great though) is beginning to remind me slightly of Heroes.  Although with GoT I just want a familial hug,  With Heroes, I was frustrated with heroes taking on the villains alone when they knew a bunch of people with super powers, many of whom were family.  The beginning of season 2 where everyone was scattered in 5 minutes, after a season of working there way to unite all season 1, infuriated me.  The show would have survived if they'd put a little more X Men into it.

Edited June 3, 2014 by ParadoxLost

[Raja]

The Miami Vice pilot ended with Calderon escaping on a plane showing the ultimate futility of the Drug War. However the second season premiere had Crockett and Tubbs shot down a fleeing drug dealers helicopter with their pistol and sawed off shotgun as the show became fashion, hit song and shootout. It lasted a few more years solely on the strength of that first season in my opinion. In a less rigorous TV competitive schedule many of us came back week after week hoping for that magic that was season 1.

[Enero]

Twisted – This show had a lot of potential. A teen sociopath returns to the community after spending 5 years in juvie for strangling his aunt to death. Oh the possibilities.  It started off intriguing enough, but quickly ventured into plots that made little sense and teen angst, all of which revolved around Jo Masterson who is probably one of the most obnoxious and un-relatable characters I’ve seen on TV in a long time. She, her ever present scowl and annoying parents became such a force on the show that it became unwatchable, which forced me to abandon ship less than half way through the first season.

Supernatural – I loved this show so much. It was, IMHO, one of the best shows the CW ever put on the air. The ongoing mythology was interesting as was the mysteries of the week.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the love and connection between Sam and Dean. But then the show started chasing Angels, then the Devil, then God and quickly went off the rails. To this day I feel the show should’ve ended when Sam returned from the dead (I know there’s been many seasons of this) and Dean had gone to be with his former love because he thought Sam was gone for good. That would’ve been a sad, but fitting end to the show. Anyway, I gave up the ghosts around this time (no pun intended), but not in a bitter rage, just in disappointment.

Eureka – This was a fun, interesting and intelligent show. I enjoyed all of the geek speak and the characters were oftentimes a riot. But the show seemed to lose a bit of it’s edge when it killed off one of the main characters. It seemed to get progressively darker from that point on. There were still a few moments when the lightness and intellect of previous seasons would shine through, but it IMO never regained the brilliance that it had in the first two seasons.

Scandal – It was an entertaining show, with some interesting cases, until it turned into the Olivia can’t keep her hands off Fitz show. Her addiction to that sorry excuse for a man and a President, destroyed the show for me.

Merlin – Another fun, interesting show that had a LOT of potential. Unfortunately, the writers were more interested in Merlin/Arthur hoyay, minimizing the female characters and making sure all the boxes next to The Legend of King Arthur plot points were checked (eta: Lancelot, Excalibur, Guinevere, Mordred etc.) than writing a tight story that gave everyone their due. Before it was over Merlin was obsessed with Arthur, and lived only for him. Arthur was a complete dunce who didn’t know his ass from his elbows, much less how to run Camelot. Guinevere  was just there because the legend said she was supposed to be, and Morgana was a raging lunatic without reason. It was a complete mess and extremely frustrating, so much so that I didn’t even make it to end of the final of season.

[Geeni]

Wow the title of this thread is literally the definition of Dexter. Rita's death made the show go downhill. Hannah's existence just made it even worse.

 

Nip/Tuck got bad, too. After the Carver storyline, it literally got way too OTT.

 

 

[Pickles Aplenty]

I second Boardwalk Empire.  Once Jimmy and Angela died, I just didn't care as much.  Richard was the only reason I kept watching, but, well, we all know what happened to him. *sniff*

 

Also, the US version of The Office.  I stuck with it up until the end of season five, then it became terrible.  Couldn't watch season six or seven, and I didn't even bother with eight and nine.

[MarkHB]

I'll agree with Bones.  I really enjoyed the first few seasons: the intelligent banter in the car between Booth and Bones, the Kings of the Lab, the Angelator.... and then they made Zak the apprentice to a serial killer using the dumbest excuse possible and ruined the show.  I barely watched the "looking for a new assistant" season and gave up for good after that.  I still remember how brilliant Emily Deschanel's smile was on the rare occasions she got to use it.

 

Another one for me: Ghost Whisperer.  "Hey, let's kill Jim and make him a ghost!"  Very, very high on the list of Worst Ideas Ever.

 

Conversely, I actually enjoyed all 4 seasons of Heroes, although I did see that it took an awful turn after the WGA strike (which itself killed half of S2).

Re: Andromeda

Apparently Kevin Sorbo was a producer, he decided to indulge his ego.

I think he specifically said he wanted more action, less philosophy.  I kind of lost interest after that (although in my market it was on at 11:30 Saturday night and I didn't have a DVR in those days, so losing interest wasn't hard). 

 

The Miami Vice pilot ended with Calderon escaping on a plane showing the ultimate futility of the Drug War. However the second season premiere had Crockett and Tubbs shot down a fleeing drug dealers helicopter with their pistol and sawed off shotgun as the show became fashion, hit song and shootout. It lasted a few more years solely on the strength of that first season in my opinion. In a less rigorous TV competitive schedule many of us came back week after week hoping for that magic that was season 1.

The "high concept" pitch for Miami Vice that they used to sell it to the network was "MTV Cops," so "music, fashion and shootout" was always in its blood,  and my gut says that a show that brought in G. Gordon Liddy as an actor (one of the first things he did post-prison) in the midst of the Reagan 80's probably wasn't going to put a lot of energy into pushing an "ultimate futility of the Drug War" message.