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

[JayKay]

Agreed on Dexter, but I didn't like the Lumen season because the resolution made even the good parts of it pointless. The Colin Hanks season was the nail in the coffin, though. Just plain stupid and beneath so-called "prestige" television.

[maraleia]

Hell on Wheels. The show was supposed to be about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad but instead it went down the Mormon and Wyoming politics rabbit hole. They didn't do themselves any favors when they had Louise (who was a canon lesbian) sleep with Campbell or when they hanged Ruth.

[Shannon L.]

We are in the last season of Bones on Netflix and have just decided tonight* that we're just about done with it.  It's becoming unwatchable.  The only reason we held on for this long is because there were still a few episodes amongst the junk that were really good--especially in regards to their serial killers (yes, even when we hated what they did to Zach, we still found that storyline intriguing). 

 

If someone can tell us that there is another good serial killer storyline coming now that they are done with Poulant (and what a disappointing end to that story!), we'll stick it out, but man, if this is it, then we're out.  It's gone from really good, to ok, to barely watchable to downright stupid (in our opinion, of course :)

 

*In case anyone is interested, we just finished the one where Hodgins was birthing that bug in his neck.  How the actors have held in for this long is beyond me.

[Kromm]

Bones was a once great show? The best I'm willing to credit it as is a show that was mildly entertaining at one point, but kind of silly.

[Shannon L.]

Well, it was certainly better than it is now.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Shannon L.

[Trini]

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, ....

 

In hindsight, this one started downhill after the pilot, which was actually intriguing. I hope one day, someone can re-do the concept for channel not targeted to teens.

 

-----------

The Mentalist. The first season was charming and fun, (even with the serial killer mystery in the background) and then the second season made Patrick a jerk, and then they made him a murderer and I lost all respect for the show.

[Featherhat]

Twisted certainly had a premise with potential that they started squandering in the 2nd episode. The Socio plot to a backseat to Jo's Pain at all times. Lacey's potential pain about a leaked sex tape with a guy she was famous for calling a socio a few weeks earlier took a back seat (and was no big deal) compared to Jo's Pain that Lacey and Danny were together behind her back. Jo even took forefront when it was revealed that Lacey's Dad had been on the Down Low for years.  

[Mulva]

When Taub showed up, I saw him as the replacement husband on The Starter Wife (a Bewitched new Darren kind of situation). I don't think they did anything with him that made him ever feel like a worthwhile addition.

I never understood the writers' infatuation with Taub. He wasn't funny, he wasn't interesting, he treated his wife like crap, and there's no way in hell that ugly little troll was a ladies man. But for some reason, the writers kept telling me that he was hilarious and wildly successful with women.

Of course, the worst thing on House was having House drive his car into Cuddy's home. He could easily have killed somebody. The character never recovered for me after that.

[Sweet Tee]

 

I never understood the writers' infatuation with Taub. He wasn't funny, he wasn't interesting, he treated his wife like crap, and there's no way in hell that ugly little troll was a ladies man. But for some reason, the writers kept telling me that he was hilarious and wildly successful with women.

 

Yeah.  The writers were always weirdly interested in the dullest characters.  Foreman was like this too.  They kept giving him all this screen time and stories and every single one of them was boring because the character was just not interesting at all.

[Shannon L.]

This isn't necessarily about the show itself, but about a character.  I've been watching Grimm this summer and am 2 episodes from finishing Season 4. The plan was to finish it, so I could pick it up this fall in real time.  It's good, cheesy fun, with interesting/charming characters and with some evil/drama thrown in to make it a bit more interesting.  It's sci-fi, so the writers can let their imaginations run wild and, for the most part, they've kept me entertained and looking forward to what's next.  However.....:

 

I'd like to congratulate them for making me hate, with a white, hot, seething, burning passion, a previously likable character and feel sympathetic towards a previously hateful one in record time.   All in the course of about 6 episodes. Seriously--I fight not to ffwd her scenes and am interested in the scenes with the other character! I don't care if the actress was leaving--they could've found a better way (even with the twist they threw in!).  But, as it stands right now, if the season finale and the first few episodes of the Season 5 don't make the anger worth it, then I may have to drop it.  Hate-watching is not fun for me.  I don't want to feel angry on a regular basis while watching a show.  And I'm usually one of those people who hangs on a lot longer than most people (many times to the bitter end).

Edited October 15, 2015 by Shannon L.

[CoderLady]

Whew. I thought it was just me. When I think of Grimm I get a bit sick now and very pissed that a show that had been appointment TV for me had to burn itself down like that. Luckily, there's always other good TV.

[blueray]

Has the new season even started yet?

Edited October 16, 2015 by blueray

[roamyn]

TBBT for its constant cow towing to, what has to be, the most self-centered, egotistical asshole that wasn't a murderer.

[Raja]

Major Crimes, the last season

[Spartan Girl]

SVU, or should I say "The Saint Benson Hour."

[Blergh]

I had that happen with Modern Family in which every single character devolved from a multifaceted, intriguing, likable person with some quirks and foibles to IMO becoming one-dimensional, meanspirited stereotypes.  I finally had to say 'never again'!

[ChromaKelly]

Sleepy Hollow, hands down wins the award for me. S3 was going along well and had recovered from the hot mess of S2, but then they went and killed Abbie. Should have been the end of the show. I don't even know WTF that mess was with S4. It was awful. I hated what they did to that show.
A show that died a quick death was Up All Night. It started off with such promise and I really liked it, but then it just totally went sideways.
Big Love. I didn't even finish the last season. It wasn't the same show.

[OtterMommy]

I have to second both Big Love and Modern Family.  I gave up on BL before the last season because it just became too ridiculous, and I seemed to forget that Modern Family was even on anymore.

[festivus]

On 1/4/2018 at 9:49 PM, Raja said:

Major Crimes, the last season

Oh boy, am I with you on that. In general I'm not a fan of procedurals, I've only seen a handful of episodes of The Closer. I happened to catch one with Sharon Raydor and I loved the character so when they did Major Crimes, I watched from the start. I loved Sharon, she is one of my favorite characters ever and I watched the show mainly for her although I enjoyed the rest of the cast too. Yes, I know that TNT sucks for cancelling the show but I feel that is no reason to kill off the main character. Sharon was a mature woman with an important job, two great kids and then a third who she adopted and we got to see that relationship evolve and it was lovely to watch. Then she found a great love after being married to not so great person. Here is a woman that is in a great place in her life and the showrunner decides to kill her off for drama, a fit of pique, whatever, I don't care I find it very problematic. You just don't have many characters like her on TV. I refuse to watch the rest of the episodes after she died. I don't give a hot damn about Phillip Stroh and now I don't care how the series ends. The show has been retroactively ruined for me now and I'm damn pissed about it

[legaleagle53]

Once Upon a Time owns this thread and has kicked all of the previous tenants out.

[OtterMommy]

49 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

Once Upon a Time owns this thread and has kicked all of the previous tenants out.

I only made it through 2 episodes of OUaT, but I can't think of any crash and burn that even comes close to the massive clusterf*ck that was Grimm.

[festivus]

4 minutes ago, OtterMommy said:

I only made it through 2 episodes of OUaT, but I can't think of any crash and burn that even comes close to the massive clusterf*ck that was Grimm.

I've never watched OUaT and I quit Grimm when that chick got pregnant so I don't know how bad it got but I still think Sleepy Hollow deserves a place up at the top with them. I think there's a rant from me somewhere on this site about that trainwreck.

[OtterMommy]

Just now, festivus said:

I've never watched OUaT and I quit Grimm when that chick got pregnant so I don't know how bad it got but I still think Sleepy Hollow deserves a place up at the top with them. I think there's a rant from me somewhere on this site about that trainwreck.

That was wise of you--that was just the edge of the abyss and it just got much, much worse.

I heard Sleepy Hollow was on the same trajectory when I realized that Grimm, the one show I made a point to watch live, was trying to commit a spectacularly painful suicide, so I decided to not even start with that show.

[festivus]

Probably for the best. I do have a rant on here somewhere about how great it was to have a show with a really cool concept and with mostly POC as the cast to how the people in charge just shit right on it and lit it on fire.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, festivus said:

In general I'm not a fan of procedurals, I've only seen a handful of episodes of The Closer. I happened to catch one with Sharon Raydor and I loved the character so when they did Major Crimes, I watched from the start. I loved Sharon, she is one of my favorite characters ever and I watched the show mainly for her although I enjoyed the rest of the cast too. Yes, I know that TNT sucks for cancelling the show but I feel that is no reason to kill off the main character. Sharon was a mature woman with an important job, two great kids and then a third who she adopted and we got to see that relationship evolve and it was lovely to watch. Then she found a great love after being married to not so great person. Here is a woman that is in a great place in her life and the showrunner decides to kill her off for drama, a fit of pique, whatever, I don't care I find it very problematic. You just don't have many characters like her on TV. I refuse to watch the rest of the episodes after she died. I don't give a hot damn about Phillip Stroh and now I don't care how the series ends. The show has been retroactively ruined for me now and I'm damn pissed about it

I'm waiting until the finale to determine whether it's retroactively ruined for me, and I am really nervous that it will be. 

I thought the way she died was great - I love that she was Sharon to the very end, and went out doing what she loved; a line of duty death that wasn't about a hail of gunfire was particularly refreshing - but I wish the decision to kill her off had not been made in the first place.  I am truly upset that Sharon Raydor is dead; I've never had anything near this level of reaction to a fictional character's death in my entire life, but I loved her beyond reason, so I guess it's just the inevitable proportionality of the grief to the love. 

If the Stroh storyline ends with extrajudicial execution, which would be spitting in the face of everything Sharon and, by extension, the show stood for (which is why I loved it in a way I could never love The Closer), then Major Crimes is going to wind up in this category for me.  If it ends in a way that honors the way Sharon changed the squad, and Rusty, for the better, I will always wish she was still alive, and always think it was a mistake to kill her off (on its own merits, and as part of the "expendable woman" problem Mary McDonnell talked about in response), but still be able to enjoy the show on DVD/in syndication. (Although methinks I'll just stop season six after the wedding, even though I like the case in the Conspiracy Theory arc even more than the Sanctuary City case; my heart might go the way of Sharon's if I put myself through losing her again and again).

Edited January 7, 2018 by Bastet

[festivus]

Seems like this is the day for me to rant.

Sleepy Hollow: Maybe was never a great show but certainly had the potential to be. Had a great cast. First they started by basically ignoring John Cho's character. You have John Cho for chrissakes. Who does that? Then they decided, okay let's shit upon Orlando Jones. Again, what kind of boneheads do that? Bring in a boring white character to replace him. Then you decide that the vapid Katrina would make a better lead than your black main character and shuffle her aside. Oh, the dumpster is burning high now. Then they finally decide somewhere in the third season to get Abby back to where she belongs which is being awesome btw. Then they throw gasoline on the fire and kill her. Then you make a fourth season anyway? (Which I did not watch and never will) Winner of this thread. TPTB should be so proud.

 

The Walking Dead: I will always think the first four seasons were pretty great and I will still watch them. Alexandria wasn't that bad, but could have been way better. Then they showed us Glenn "dying" in a literal dumpster. We should have all got the message right then and bailed. Nope, I continued to stick it out until this mid-season finale. Well let's just say that they also are telling me something about the show with having people who can't talk right living in a trash dump. Okay show, I've got cha now. Bye Bye.

 

Okay. I'm done.

Edited January 7, 2018 by festivus
Just wanted to add this software is racist. It keeps giving me the red line under Cho. Just joking but only sorta. It does still give me the red line under Scully too.

[Lugal]

6 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

I only made it through 2 episodes of OUaT, but I can't think of any crash and burn that even comes close to the massive clusterf*ck that was Grimm.

I have never seen a show implode like Grimm did.  Up until that point it was probably my favorite show on TV at the time and then it just went up in flames like Aunt Marie's trailer.  I would swear that it went to unwatchable in about three weeks. The Black Claw stuff was a mistake.  At first, I could fanwank that it was because the royals were killed and things were in chaos that Black Claw emerged, but it just didn't feel like the same show anymore.  I never did watch the last season. I have the final episode on the DVR and someday I'll watch the last ten minutes or so.  I heard it was a decent ending.

 

3 hours ago, festivus said:

Sleepy Hollow: Maybe was never a great show but certainly had the potential to be. Had a great cast. First they started by basically ignoring John Cho's character. You have John Cho for chrissakes. Who does that? Then they decided, okay let's shit upon Orlando Jones. Again, what kind of boneheads do that? Bring in a boring white character to replace him. Then you decide that the vapid Katrina would make a better lead than your black main character and shuffle her aside. Oh, the dumpster is burning high now. Then they finally decide somewhere in the third season to get Abby back to where she belongs which is being awesome btw. Then they throw gasoline on the fire and kill her. Then you make a fourth season anyway? (Which I did not watch and never will) Winner of this thread. TPTB should be so proud.

Sleepy Hollow.  Yeah.  It was a show that never should have worked yet somehow did and that goes entirely to Nicole Behari and Tom Mison with help from Orlando Jones and Lyndie Greenwood.  I can forgive them for ignoring John Cho, he was up and coming (and busy) since it was just before he got Selfie (still miss that show).  And a note about Orlando Jones: he was the guy that was all over social media promoting the show, which makes their choice to shit on him even stupider.  And Katrina.  I never minded her, but it was clear that the PTB liked the actress and wanted to keep her around, until they realized that they had no idea what to do with her, so they just turned her evil and killed her, and I hate that Abbie was shuffled aside for her.  And killing Abbie, it should be noted that Nicole Behari asked to leave, so how shitty did they have to treat her for that to happen?  As for season 4, yeah never watched and never will.  For that matter I never made it to the end of season three.

[OtterMommy]

6 minutes ago, Lugal said:

I have never seen a show implode like Grimm did.  Up until that point it was probably my favorite show on TV at the time and then it just went up in flames like Aunt Marie's trailer.  I would swear that it went to unwatchable in about three weeks. The Black Claw stuff was a mistake.  At first, I could fanwank that it was because the royals were killed and things were in chaos that Black Claw emerged, but it just didn't feel like the same show anymore.  I never did watch the last season. I have the final episode on the DVR and someday I'll watch the last ten minutes or so.  I heard it was a decent ending.

 

I watched through season 4 and then the first 2 episodes of season 5 until I realized that they were really going there and heading towards my third rail.  I came back and watched the first 2 episodes of season 6, hoping that the fact that ratings plummeted during season 5 would convince them to right themselves, but then I realized that they were actually just doubling down on everything that was wrong and then making it even worse with probably the worst dialogue I have ever heard in a scripted show.  After episode 2 of that season, I made a hard break and didn't look back (except to rant and rave about how horrible it was...look I'm doing it again!). 

It was never going to "art," but it was a fun and unique show that, ironically, was set up for a very long run--if the show runners had not dropped every single story line and disregarded every single rule in the universe that they created (and then went places that they really, really should not have gone...).  I actually wondered if they were trying to get themselves canceled--and then I read some interviews with the show runners and it really seemed like they were trying to do exactly that!

I heard very conflicting things--well, it was "not terrible" to "OMG what the hell was that???" about the ending.   But what it does sound like is that it was a blatant rip-off (of course, what wasn't in this show?) of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.

[AntiBeeSpray]

CSI. I remember seeing part of an ep where Gil and Sara divorced and then the characters kept on driving home the point about it. It was so annoying and fourth wall breaking that I didn't bother watching the show again until the series finale. There's nothing like insulting life long fans. It was enough to just quit.

[andromeda331]

Agree about Sleepy Hollow, it started out so good and had so many great characters Abbie and Crane had such great chemistry and were so good together. It was really fun watching them work together and building their great friendship. Jenny and Irving were so good. John Cho is always good. They really had something really good. There was so much potential. Then decided to destroy it by shoving Katrina down our throats. She wasn't too bad in the beginning but that didn't last. Finally killing her off was the best decision they could have made. So of course they decide to kill off Abbie.     

[festivus]

12 hours ago, Lugal said:

And a note about Orlando Jones: he was the guy that was all over social media promoting the show, which makes their choice to shit on him even stupider. 

Oh, I remember. He was so funny too, he almost got me to join Twitter. ;)

 

Well after reading these responses, I'm glad I left Grimm when I did. I'll always have my fond memories of Rosalie and Monroe, they were my favorite part of the show.

[ChromaKelly]

The first season of Grimm was fantastic. Heck, I even liked Juliette because she was finally a cop's wife/girlfriend who wasn't all OMG why are you late? Sitting at a dinner table with candles burning. She had her own life, a career, and wasn't all jealous and demanding. She did finally want to know what the heck was going on with the weird stuff. He told her, and then she was part of the gang. I hated all that they did to her character. Don't even get me started on Adalind. I would have rather she stayed a villain.

[Chaos Theory]

Pretty Little Liars. 

I was always out of its age group but it was a fun little show for the first half of its history.  Then the shippers got ahold of it and some interesting stories got backtracked to make the shippers happy.   This was originally a fun if improbable thriller by the end it became a teen romance drama.  

Just ick.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[Lady Calypso]

I remember falling in love with Grimm in the first two seasons. I thought it was one of the best shows on TV at the time and always praised the show. I don't know exactly when it was that flipped the switch for me, but at some point, I realized that I didn't like the show anymore because it was not just getting boring, but predictable as well. I think I stopped watching around....season 4, I want to say? When Juliette randomly turned into a Hexenbeist, went apeshit crazy and evil, and then was killed. I loved Juliette in season 1, as well. Then they did some really weird and stupid stuff with her character. 

I tried giving season 5 a chance, but I really didn't make it past episode 2, and then just stopped caring. I read up occasionally on what happened afterward, and was glad I quit. I didn't even bother watching the series finale, although I read up on it and thought it was the stupidest ending ever. 

I do remember what got me pissed off, which was how they left plot points dangling for many seasons, sometimes not even revisiting it. None of these characters seemed to talk to each other all that much, and a lot of it was left off screen. For example, Nick's plot in the season 3 premiere, which was kind of carried through for about three episodes and then suddenly, his new special ability was completely dropped and never mentioned again (at least, in the rest of the episodes I ended up watching). 

Also, the Nick/Adalind stuff I read about in season 5? Nope, no thanks. Her character became worse once she got pregnant the first time, especially when the show carried out her pregnancy, which felt like forever. 

[ABay]

For me, Grimm started downhill when they stopped using fairy tales as the basis for the plots. That's the whole premise of the show: the creatures from fairy tales are real.

Sleepy Hollow was a fun and utterly crazy ride the first season. Not great, but fun. Then Katrina happened

[OtterMommy]

5 hours ago, ABay said:

For me, Grimm started downhill when they stopped using fairy tales as the basis for the plots. That's the whole premise of the show: the creatures from fairy tales are real.

Sleepy Hollow was a fun and utterly crazy ride the first season. Not great, but fun. Then Katrina happened

I think that there are 2 ways great shows can die.  They can just...live on past their expiration date, in which case they sort of go out with a pathetic whimper.  Or, in the case of Grimm and I bet most of the shows mentioned here, the showrunners can betray the audience by "breaking the contract" of what the show is about.  I'll use Grimm as an example but, as I said, I'm sure it can be applied to any show that is mentioned here.  They did a great job in the pilot and the maybe 2 or so following episode of saying "this is what this show is about."  As you mentioned, it was about creatures from fairy and folk tales being real.  Great!  Then, somewhere around the end of 3rd season through the 4th season, the show runners decided to change course (they claimed it was because they ran out of fairy tales....translated: they ran out of ideas.  In the case of Grimm it was so drastic, the show runners put out a letter to the viewers after the 4th season basically saying, "Forget everything we said this show was about, it's a new show now!"  Um, no...).  Anyway, once they decided to break the agreement with the audience (if you watch this show, we will deliver this...), the viewers started to tune out--as they should.  If one side isn't going to keep up their agreement (we'll deliver this show), why would the other (we'll watch your show).  It's this sort of death that inspires the nuclear level rage spirals that lead to people ranting about it online long after the show is done.

As I said, I didn't watch Sleepy Hollow, Once Upon a Time, or the other shows mentioned here--but it sounds like the same thing happened.  It's really pretty simple--if a show does this, it dies.  Which begs the question--why do networks, producers, whoever let this happen?

[methodwriter85]

6 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

Pretty Little Liars. 

I was always out of its age group but it was a fun little show for the first half of its history.  Then the shippers got ahold of it and some interesting stories got backtracked to make the shippers happy.   This was originally a fun if improbable thriller by the end it became a teen romance drama.  

Just ick.

I didn't watch the final few episodes, but from what I understood, the writers went so far as to kill off Toby's wife just to make sure that he'd be available to get back with his high school girlfriend Spencer. That's just...stupid. Of all the characters, Spencer and Toby would have never made sense being together post-high school. And the Emily/Ali surrogacy plot was just creepy. (Which kind of surprised me they went that way, because I thought Emily's most popular pairing was with Paige.) I could buy Hannah/Caleb and I could buy that Aria would never let go of her Ezra fantasy, but the other two ships just didn't make that much sense to me.

For me though, the transphobic Charlie/Charlotte plot was pretty much it for me. It was offensive on so many levels, and for a show that prided itself on being inclusive, them using the crazy transgender stereotype seemed like even more of an affront.

Sleepy Hollow....god. I just can't even think about it. I'm glad I jumped ship in season 2 because if I had followed the show in season 3 I would have been even more rage-filled. It made me realize that the Mad Men Meghan years weren't nearly so bad.  There are way too many shows around now to focus on shows that are clearly headed down a bad path.

[Chaos Theory]

49 minutes ago, methodwriter85 said:

I didn't watch the final few episodes, but from what I understood, the writers went so far as to kill off Toby's wife just to make sure that he'd be available to get back with his high school girlfriend Spencer. That's just...stupid. Of all the characters, Spencer and Toby would have never made sense being together post-high school. And the Emily/Ali surrogacy plot was just creepy. (Which kind of surprised me they went that way, because I thought Emily's most popular pairing was with Paige.) I could buy Hannah/Caleb and I could buy that Aria would never let go of her Ezra fantasy, but the other two ships just didn't make that much sense to me.

For me though, the transphobic Charlie/Charlotte plot was pretty much it for me. It was offensive on so many levels, and for a show that prided itself on being inclusive, them using the crazy transgender stereotype seemed like even more of an affront.

 

I think the Charlie/Charlotte plot was less transphobic and more tone deaf.   A well written trans villain would be an interesting storyline just not right now.    Timing is everything as they say right now in this particular plot the timing was just off.  Plus the writing was kinda bad.  If they did a better job with storyline then....maybe.    One of my all time favorite horror stories is the Candyman Series  and the first two tell truly vidid tales of a black man turned into a demon Ghost haunting at first a Chicago Project and then a southern white family.  Both were well told stories and I thought the villian was given proper motivation and a well thought out backstory.  That is what was missing with Charlotte.  A backstory.  So I don't think it was essential transphobic just badly written. 

As for the pairings themselves I always liked Emily and Paige as a couple and all the way until the end that is where I thought the show was heading.  Then out of nowhere they made that creepy Ali pregnancy thing and suddenly it was Emily and Ali.   I wouldn't have minded quite as much if it was Original Ali.  The one with some bark but they rewrote Ali into some innocent little lamb that needed Emily's protection from the big bad world.   The first bunch of seasons Ali was the big bad world.  

Spencer and Toby were a cute couple in high school.  I am one of the few people who liked Spencer and Caleb but ultimately I think Hanna and Caleb were always kinda written in the stars

The one pairing I alway aways hated was Aria and Ezra.  I think the bravest storyline the show did was actually when they made it look like Ezra was A for awhile.  Then of course the shippers revolted and that stupid book thing happened.  I would have preferred it if Ezra had been A but had genuinely fallen for Aria.  It would have made more sense storewise.

Still Pretty Little Liars isn't horrible TV at least the first half.  

Edited January 9, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[Lady Calypso]

13 minutes ago, methodwriter85 said:

I didn't watch the final few episodes, but from what I understood, the writers went so far as to kill off Toby's wife just to make sure that he'd be available to get back with his high school girlfriend Spencer. That's just...stupid. Of all the characters, Spencer and Toby would have never made sense being together post-high school. And the Emily/Ali surrogacy plot was just creepy. (Which kind of surprised me they went that way, because I thought Emily's most popular pairing was with Paige.) I could buy Hannah/Caleb and I could buy that Aria would never let go of her Ezra fantasy, but the other two ships just didn't make that much sense to me.

They really did ruin a lot in Pretty Little Liars but for me, the beginning of the end was the Charlotte/Charles reveal, followed by all time jump stories. I think they could have gone so many ways with the time jump, but the major issue they ran into with the idea was this: why would any of the girls willingly come back and stay in Rosewood? It made no logical sense, especially at the point of some of their careers. And from there, the show tested out things that they shouldn't have ever tested out (Spencer/Caleb, Good Ali). But, like you said, they also decided to go with the original pairings, even when it made no sense. And the pairings that did make sense were ruined long before the series ended. The last good pairing they ruined was Hanna/Caleb with the Spencer love triangle. 

I really don't get the Ali/Emily shipping because they only shared a couple of scenes a season. Ali's interest in Emily was really more to jumpstart Emily's story early on, and that's when they should have dropped it. Except they decided at some point during the time jump, or right before, that Emily/Ali needed to be endgame, but then barely put in the effort until the final 10 episodes. And that meant half assing Ali's own sexuality story, which was done quite poorly to begin with. They grew Emily/Paige as an endgame couple very well, because their relationship was there from the beginning, and Emily always went back to Paige. 

I was cheering the most for Toby for moving on but the finale didn't quite end them together. I mean, when it turns out that all the romantic moments shared from the time jump to the finale are with Spencer's twin sister, I don't think that Spoby ship has even been set to depart. 

Sadly, the only pair that made relative sense by the end for me was Ezria. EZRIA, of all couples. Hanna/Caleb were pretty much ruined because Caleb was ruined, Spencer/Toby were ruined because of Alex Drake, and Emily/Ali were never really a thing that I bought to begin with. Plus, creepy rape babies were brought into the picture.

This show did go for the most offensive while portraying it in a twisted light. For example, the Charlotte/Charles thing was incredibly offensive, but they had Ali basically make the Liars come back to get Charlotte out of the mental hospital because "she's her sister". Which...is very wrong to have Charlotte's victims come to bail her out, especially since the only one who actually spoke out against Charlotte after that was Aria. ARIA. Oh, and Mona, I guess, but the show never really liked to give Mona anything close to the redemption that Ali got, or Ezra, or 80% of the other antagonists. 

But the major issue with making Charlotte the second A was that I am 90% positive that it was thrown in a couple of episodes before the reveal. No hints up to that point seemed to point at Charlotte in any way. So if Marlene King had actually planned for A to be a trans villain, then there'd be more insight and careful consideration into how the reveal would play out. But because it was clear that Charlotte was not meant to be A and it was thrown in at some point during season 6, it was sloppily handled and, thus, moderately offensive. 

Yeah, that show had an excellent story with the Dollhouse and the aftermath, and then it got ruined with the A reveal and got further ruined from the time jump onward. 

And I think that's part of the problem with many of these shows that go downhill, now that I think about it. It's when shows not only humanize the villain, but villainize the heroes to make them look on similar levels to the villains, and then make the villains the main characters. See: Ali from PLL, but also Regina/Rumple from Once Upon a Time, Adalind from Grimm, and I've never seen Sleepy Hollow so I don't quite know what happened there. 

[OtterMommy]

25 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

And I think that's part of the problem with many of these shows that go downhill, now that I think about it. It's when shows not only humanize the villain, but villainize the heroes to make them look on similar levels to the villains, and then make the villains the main characters. See: Ali from PLL, but also Regina/Rumple from Once Upon a Time, Adalind from Grimm, and I've never seen Sleepy Hollow so I don't quite know what happened there. 

Oh definitely...I think that goes back to the contract idea.  They introduce these characters as villains, which is part of a balancing act with the heroes.  And then they upset the power balance, which I think is a way of breaking that contract.  Now, I think it can be done effectively and in a way that isn't detrimental to the show (it shifts the power balance instead of upending it), but it is very difficult and requires very skilled writers....which none of these shows had.

That's one reason why I generally despise redemption arcs.  It's not that I don't want to see people redeemed, I just think it is very rare that shows do it well.  For one thing, I don't think it works with villains.  I may be black and white about this, but I really feel that a villain is a villain is a villain (which is not a bad thing--frequently, the villains are the most entertaining characters in a show!) and redeeming them does nothing really but neuter them.  The only way I can see a redemption arc working is if you have a character who isn't "bad," but might have made a mistake or have some personality trait that is negative and then, through the story, they grow and change...and that is not something you will generally find in a show that just crashes and burns.

[scarynikki12]

26 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

It's when shows not only humanize the villain, but villainize the heroes to make them look on similar levels to the villains, and then make the villains the main characters. See: Ali from PLL, but also Regina/Rumple from Once Upon a Time, Adalind from Grimm, and I've never seen Sleepy Hollow so I don't quite know what happened there. 

That's usually the beginning of the end for me (though I think of it as 'heroizing the villians').  I might stick around to see if my fears will be realized and, when they are, I'm out. 

1 hour ago, OtterMommy said:

and I bet most of the shows mentioned here, the showrunners can betray the audience by "breaking the contract" of what the show is about. 

Amen.  Grimm did this both by moving away from the creature stories and by turning villains into heroes.  The Captain not turning out to be the series Big Bad and Adalind becoming a hero because she raped Nick and got pregnant were two huge mistakes that the show never came back from.  I can buy that the Captain was on the back burner to build suspense and I even think that Adalind raping Nick as revenge is perfectly in character but then the former was abandoned and the latter was used as a reason to get rid of Juliette and move Adalind into position as endgame love interest.  Cause nothing's sexier than rape and nothing means Happily Ever After like a rape baby right?  I lived through that shit on daytime I don't need to watch it on the "better" shows in primetime. 

Once Upon A Time did something similar with Rumpel and Regina.  Rumpel was set up to be the final Big Bad, always on the back burner pulling strings until it was time for Emma to take him down.  Regina was the more immediate threat, the unstable bomb that could explode at any moment and was a great initial distraction for Emma from the bigger threat that was Rumpel.  Then the idiot showrunners spent too much time on social media and decided to rework the show so that Rumpel was no longer the last Big Bad, and Regina muscled out Emma as the hero. 

5 minutes ago, OtterMommy said:

That's one reason why I generally despise redemption arcs. 

Yep.  I long for a good redemption story but every show I watch that has "redeemed" characters always take a shortcut.  The characters basically declare themselves redeemed (or have lead POV character do it for them) and everyone's supposed to go along with it.  No work gets put it, no one questions whether redemption can even be achieved, and they don't even apologize to their victims which, in my view, is usually Step 1 if you want to go down that road.  And it gets worse when timeline shenanigans come into play.  Once and Vampire Diaries are both shows that did the "villain decides he/she wants redemption, tells the lead character, and Boom! they're considered redeemed" but it managed to be worse because each show's episode takes place either the same day or the day after the previous one.  So, if Regina decides she wants redemption, and is declared redeemed a few episodes later, she literally hasn't begun to put the work in because it's only a few days later in the show.  If Damon wants redemption, and Elena declares it so a few episodes later, he, again, literally hasn't begun to put in the work because it's only a few days later in the show.  There are seasons of Once and Vampire Diaries that literally take place over only a couple of months and the characters wanting redemption would need more time just to apologize to their victims (the aforementioned Step 1).  Last I saw on Once, Regina still had a vault full of hearts taken from various people over the decades.  Some taken by her, some by her mother, but she never once tried to return them.  If they wanted to sell the audience on an actual redemption attempt from Regina, I'd have that be her main objective.  Last I saw on Vampire Diaries, Damon was BFF with Caroline (who he raped repeatedly when she was human) and Bonnie (who he tried to murder).  Nothing from him on making amends to either, since Caroline's a vampire and Bonnie's still alive, as Elena made enough frowny faces at them to get them to start being his friend.  Widdle Damon's feelings are so much more important than the women his brutalized.

Just once I want a show to put in the time with a redemption story.  I will happily watch it.

[OtterMommy]

2 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

Amen.  Grimm did this both by moving away from the creature stories and by turning villains into heroes.  The Captain not turning out to be the series Big Bad and Adalind becoming a hero because she raped Nick and got pregnant were two huge mistakes that the show never came back from.  I can buy that the Captain was on the back burner to build suspense and I even think that Adalind raping Nick as revenge is perfectly in character but then the former was abandoned and the latter was used as a reason to get rid of Juliette and move Adalind into position as endgame love interest.  Cause nothing's sexier than rape and nothing means Happily Ever After like a rape baby right?  I lived through that shit on daytime I don't need to watch it on the "better" shows in primetime. 

I've been tiptoeing around it (because that is ragiest rage spiral for me), but THANK YOU!  That is my 3rd rail--the reason I turned Grimm off and will turn off any show that tries to pull that crap.  Yeah, I actually had no problem accepting that Adalind would rape Nick (he was, after all, the 3rd guy she raped on the show), but where they went with it after that was just...so not okay.  Oh, I'm the edge of quite the rant here, so I'll pull back except to say that making a rape romantic will make me turn off any show, not matter what.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

the showrunners can betray the audience by "breaking the contract" of what the show is about. 

Great description.  And it's why I will freak my shit and be back here posting "Major.Fucking.Crimes." Tuesday night (or upon regaining consciousness Wednesday) if killing off Sharon - bad enough on its own - was to get her out of the way so the squad could revert to vigilante form and anoint themselves jury, judge, and executioner of Stroh, as if the past six years never happened.  The show has been a huge breath of fresh air as a character-driven crime drama, rather than a true procedural or a relationship drama that happens to take place in a precinct, and also as a celebration of policing done right - and, further, a condemnation of policing done wrong.  It has been so needed in general, and especially for the years it has been on the air.  I don't want to get drawn into negativity before it even ends, but the past couple of episodes have tossed out some pretty heavy hints that I can only hope are misdirection. 

Edited January 9, 2018 by Bastet

[Miss Dee]

52 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

Just once I want a show to put in the time with a redemption story.  I will happily watch it.

I think this might be why I like Legends of Tomorrow so much. Mick Rory is not the villain he started as on The Flash, but his journey to hero is on its third season and is not done yet.

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

I think that there are 2 ways great shows can die.  They can just...live on past their expiration date, in which case they sort of go out with a pathetic whimper.  Or, in the case of Grimm and I bet most of the shows mentioned here, the showrunners can betray the audience by "breaking the contract" of what the show is about.  I'll use Grimm as an example but, as I said, I'm sure it can be applied to any show that is mentioned here.  They did a great job in the pilot and the maybe 2 or so following episode of saying "this is what this show is about."  As you mentioned, it was about creatures from fairy and folk tales being real.  Great!  Then, somewhere around the end of 3rd season through the 4th season, the show runners decided to change course (they claimed it was because they ran out of fairy tales....translated: they ran out of ideas.  In the case of Grimm it was so drastic, the show runners put out a letter to the viewers after the 4th season basically saying, "Forget everything we said this show was about, it's a new show now!"  Um, no...).  Anyway, once they decided to break the agreement with the audience (if you watch this show, we will deliver this...), the viewers started to tune out--as they should.  If one side isn't going to keep up their agreement (we'll deliver this show), why would the other (we'll watch your show).  It's this sort of death that inspires the nuclear level rage spirals that lead to people ranting about it online long after the show is done.

As I said, I didn't watch Sleepy Hollow, Once Upon a Time, or the other shows mentioned here--but it sounds like the same thing happened.  It's really pretty simple--if a show does this, it dies.  Which begs the question--why do networks, producers, whoever let this happen?

I agree. That really basically what happens. Had Sleep Hollow had started the series with it being about Katrina or even Katrina and Crane I would have watched one episode realized it wasn't what I wanted and moved on. No different from the many other new shows you try and realize it is not what you want to watch. Same with ONCE.  But that's not what happened the audience was sold shows that suddenly changed out of the blue. ONCE became all about poor Regina and Rumple and who cares about their victims and Sleepy Hollow suddenly became all about Katrina. These shows were doing well in ratings so you don't understand why there's a sudden shift or why the producers or networks or whatever aren't questioning the changes. Do they notice when shows suddenly start going down in the ratings and don't try to figure out why? Sometimes I tried to be patient thinking they were Sophomore Slumps which happens. But not in these cases. Both shows were so good, had so much potential, and a really good cast. I really hate seeing all that wasted.   

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, scarynikki12 said:

That's usually the beginning of the end for me (though I think of it as 'heroizing the villians').  I might stick around to see if my fears will be realized and, when they are, I'm out. 

Amen.  Grimm did this both by moving away from the creature stories and by turning villains into heroes.  The Captain not turning out to be the series Big Bad and Adalind becoming a hero because she raped Nick and got pregnant were two huge mistakes that the show never came back from.  I can buy that the Captain was on the back burner to build suspense and I even think that Adalind raping Nick as revenge is perfectly in character but then the former was abandoned and the latter was used as a reason to get rid of Juliette and move Adalind into position as endgame love interest.  Cause nothing's sexier than rape and nothing means Happily Ever After like a rape baby right?  I lived through that shit on daytime I don't need to watch it on the "better" shows in primetime. 

Once Upon A Time did something similar with Rumpel and Regina.  Rumpel was set up to be the final Big Bad, always on the back burner pulling strings until it was time for Emma to take him down.  Regina was the more immediate threat, the unstable bomb that could explode at any moment and was a great initial distraction for Emma from the bigger threat that was Rumpel.  Then the idiot showrunners spent too much time on social media and decided to rework the show so that Rumpel was no longer the last Big Bad, and Regina muscled out Emma as the hero. 

Yep.  I long for a good redemption story but every show I watch that has "redeemed" characters always take a shortcut.  The characters basically declare themselves redeemed (or have lead POV character do it for them) and everyone's supposed to go along with it.  No work gets put it, no one questions whether redemption can even be achieved, and they don't even apologize to their victims which, in my view, is usually Step 1 if you want to go down that road.  And it gets worse when timeline shenanigans come into play.  Once and Vampire Diaries are both shows that did the "villain decides he/she wants redemption, tells the lead character, and Boom! they're considered redeemed" but it managed to be worse because each show's episode takes place either the same day or the day after the previous one.  So, if Regina decides she wants redemption, and is declared redeemed a few episodes later, she literally hasn't begun to put the work in because it's only a few days later in the show.  If Damon wants redemption, and Elena declares it so a few episodes later, he, again, literally hasn't begun to put in the work because it's only a few days later in the show.  There are seasons of Once and Vampire Diaries that literally take place over only a couple of months and the characters wanting redemption would need more time just to apologize to their victims (the aforementioned Step 1).  Last I saw on Once, Regina still had a vault full of hearts taken from various people over the decades.  Some taken by her, some by her mother, but she never once tried to return them.  If they wanted to sell the audience on an actual redemption attempt from Regina, I'd have that be her main objective.  Last I saw on Vampire Diaries, Damon was BFF with Caroline (who he raped repeatedly when she was human) and Bonnie (who he tried to murder).  Nothing from him on making amends to either, since Caroline's a vampire and Bonnie's still alive, as Elena made enough frowny faces at them to get them to start being his friend.  Widdle Damon's feelings are so much more important than the women his brutalized.

Just once I want a show to put in the time with a redemption story.  I will happily watch it.

I agree. I love a good redemption story but its so rare to get one. If it happens its almost always like you say a short-cut. Why? Is it laziness? Do they not know how to write one. I enjoy watching a villain or someone trying to change for the good. To be better. Whether its to change for someone they love, their child or even for themselves. They can have fall backs, hurdles to over come, and it could be really interesting see someone hit rock bottom and then work their way back up. To try and do better, to face people they hurt, lives they ruined. But I hate the instant change, the instant hero.  If your not going to do a redemption arc then don't do an instant hero. I don't want to see Regina suddenly declared a hero but never apologize to any of her victims, never return the hearts, have to change nothing and never have to face the consequences of what she did.  I'm also not against villains remaining villains. Maybe they don't want to change or care. Or whatever. But if you have where there's Heroes and Villians at some point the one has to go. It just starts looking pathetic that the Heroes haven't beaten the Villain and vica versa.     

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, scarynikki12 said:

That's usually the beginning of the end for me (though I think of it as 'heroizing the villians').  I might stick around to see if my fears will be realized and, when they are, I'm out. 

Amen.  Grimm did this both by moving away from the creature stories and by turning villains into heroes.  The Captain not turning out to be the series Big Bad and Adalind becoming a hero because she raped Nick and got pregnant were two huge mistakes that the show never came back from.  I can buy that the Captain was on the back burner to build suspense and I even think that Adalind raping Nick as revenge is perfectly in character but then the former was abandoned and the latter was used as a reason to get rid of Juliette and move Adalind into position as endgame love interest.  Cause nothing's sexier than rape and nothing means Happily Ever After like a rape baby right?  I lived through that shit on daytime I don't need to watch it on the "better" shows in primetime. 

 

1 hour ago, OtterMommy said:

I've been tiptoeing around it (because that is ragiest rage spiral for me), but THANK YOU!  That is my 3rd rail--the reason I turned Grimm off and will turn off any show that tries to pull that crap.  Yeah, I actually had no problem accepting that Adalind would rape Nick (he was, after all, the 3rd guy she raped on the show), but where they went with it after that was just...so not okay.  Oh, I'm the edge of quite the rant here, so I'll pull back except to say that making a rape romantic will make me turn off any show, not matter what.

This! ONCE did almost the same thing with Regina's sister Zelena raping Robin, who was Regina's boyfriend. She changed her appearance to look like his wife and got pregnant. In the beginning it was called out for rape. But Robin wasn't the one who got to force or storyline for it. He was the one raped but Regina was the one who called Zelena out on it. Regina was the one who decided what happened to the rape baby not Robin. How did Robin feel about what happened to him or how he felt about the baby? Who knows he never got to say anything. Then after a few episodes it was completely dropped. Zelena is happy Mommy to her daughter, Robin's dead, and Regina's feelings towards her sister depends on her mood and the moment not what happen to Robin. This was the second time ONCE had a man raped by a woman, the first time it was Regina who raped Graham for 30 years. The writers tried to claim it wasn't rape or that all they did was play chess. Despite the fact Regina had his heart and could order him to do anything, he didn't have his heart at all during the 28 year old Curse and the scene showing Regina ordering her guards to take him to her room. This year they did it once again.  I really would like this pattern to stop. If your going to have a rape scene call it what it is and give it the fallout that comes from a rape. If the writers don't want to do that then don't have a rape scene.      

[selkie]

So, Sleepy Hollow has some of the same creative team as Fringe and I'm hearing some of the same complaints about it that bugged me with Fringe in terms of some great ideas for the first season, and then a constant morphing of premise until it lost what made it original and compelling to begin with. Though in Fringes case, it was a slower burn from Olivia and her special abilities as the focus to the  show to her getting shoved over as Peter's love interest and not as important as the Peter-Walter father-son relationship. 

 

While the last season didn't send me into a rage, I just got rather bored with it and the Observers as omnipotent bad guys and never got around to watching the last few episodes. 

[Jack Shaftoe]

16 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

Pretty Little Liars. 

I was always out of its age group but it was a fun little show for the first half of its history.  Then the shippers got ahold of it and some interesting stories got backtracked to make the shippers happy.   This was originally a fun if improbable thriller by the end it became a teen romance drama.  

Just ick.

I don't think shipper pandering alone can explain the train wreck that was PLL post season 3A. The plots were always on the silly and implausible side but the characterization made it all worth it. Then at some point the writers stopped giving a damn about any consistent characterization and made the show completely plot driven. Problem is the plot never made a lick of sense and it only became ever more absurd as the show went on.

Quote

And the Emily/Ali surrogacy plot was just creepy. (Which kind of surprised me they went that way, because I thought Emily's most popular pairing was with Paige.

Apparently Emily/Alison was really popular with teenagers on Twitter and the PLL showrunner was really active on twitter, so I guess she assumed that this vocal minority represented a majority of the viewers (maybe it does but I for one doubt it).

Quote

And I think that's part of the problem with many of these shows that go downhill, now that I think about it. It's when shows not only humanize the villain, but villainize the heroes to make them look on similar levels to the villains, and then make the villains the main characters.

I hate this trope so much. So many good shows have been ruined by it. No, showrunners, the protagonist who isn't totally perfect but is a decent person at heart is not on the same level morally as the "redeemed" antagonist who has literal blood on their hands, period. Then again, I am also inclined to blame the fans, many of whom demand villains to be redeemed, no ifs, no buts. When I see fans wondering "how come the Liars are not friends with Mona" or "why the Scoobies don't treat Spike better", I want to tear my hair out. Forgiveness and second chances can make for incredible, deep stories, don't get me wrong. On TV, however, in 99% of the cases those stories are just an excuse to keep a villain around or expand their roles because the fans or the writers are too attached to said villain. Even shows which do it better than the rest like Person of Interest take some shortcuts with the redemption storylines.

As for Grimm, I bailed out in early season 3 and never looked back. To this day I don't understand why the powers that be decided to make Adalind an important character with a redemption storyline. Not only was she boring but the actress was mediocre at best. Plus, the character was entangled in that incredibly stupid Royals plotline.

[ABay]

I quit OUAT when it became so blatantly an advertisement for Disney that I couldn't ignore it anymore.