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

[ABay]

Sherlock was dead to me after the depiction of Irene Adler. Moffat <spit>.

[MissAlmond]

Sleepy Hollow and Sleepy Hollow.  Maybe after that, Sleepy Hollow.

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, MissAlmond said:

Sleepy Hollow and Sleepy Hollow.  Maybe after that, Sleepy Hollow.

That's one of my top three. Once Upon a Time and General Hospital are the other two. All three were really great shows. I loved Sleepy Hollow and I even loved all the main characters which is very rare. It was so fun to watch.

[Lugal]

On 8/19/2021 at 10:14 AM, DearEvette said:

Yeah.  I freaking loved Legends of Tomorrow seasons 2 and 3.   But Season 4 was so disappointing.  Jax and Stein were gone.  Amaya was gone but even her 'Charlie persona disappeared for multiple episodes.  Mona was a terriby written character and seemed everywhere.  They started the truly chemistry-free Zari/Nate romance.  It was a mess.  I stopped watching and never started back up. 

Even worse, the contrast between the strong, wonderful bonkers season 3 and the meandering, try-hard season 4 was painful to sit through.

Yes!  This is pretty much me.  Although I will add, that I kind of liked Season 1 too.  The fact that they lost Ray while Sara and Mick (the last of the original cast) were pushed to the sidelines did not help.

I think part of it was that most of the stuff in Season 3 should not have worked, but somehow did, it made them think they could do anything, but Season 4 proved them wrong.  I don't remember if I even made it through all of Season 4 but I haven't watched since.

[Luckylyn]

Arrow was a show I loved but then got worse.  Too many characters added in that I didn’t care about, Oliver doing stupid things unilaterally and screwing over Felicity and Diggle, and bad writing.  I feel like once spin offs started too much became about using Arrow as a springboard for the next show rather than developing Arrow well.

[JustHereForFood]

11 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

Probably my #1 show for this thread is Sherlock (BBC), which doesn’t seem to have been mentioned yet.  I just fell so in love with the the characters of Sherlock and John that I think I overlooked some of the underlying structural issues with the writing that were always there, but really started to become apparent in season 3.

It was season 4 that absolutely enraged me, though, and I can’t watch even a clip of the show from any season anymore after that travesty of a season (probably series) finale. It’s kind of confusing that the show tipped so far off the cliff in season 4, given that the same writers, same production team and same actors were involved.  Normally you can attribute complete disintegration of the quality of a show to the showrunner moving on to another project (like JJ Abrams and Alias), major cast turnover (also Alias, haha) or a show just going on way too long (like The Simpsons).

I think maybe Moffat and Gatiss resented how seriously the show’s fanbase took the show.  Like in season 3, they tried to make jokes about how wound up everyone was about Sherlock’s “suicide” instead of take it seriously in-show.  I gather that they also didn’t care for the constant media and fan focus on the nature of Sherlock and John’s relationship, so maybe that is why Moffat and Gatiss consciously or unconsciously did not write them in scenes together in season 4 (or if they did, Sherlock and John were nearly always fighting or sniping).  Or maybe Moffat and Gatiss felt that they continuously needed to top themselves, hence the absolutely ridiculous writing of Sherlock’s sister having mind control superpowers in season 4, or turning Mary into a super spy assassin.  Who knows.  Still makes me mad, though.

I agree with absolutely everything you said, especially the bolded text. I loved seasons 1 and 2, but I have no desire to watch them again now, after how it all ended and the showrunners' attitude towards fans. 

[Scarlett45]

Game of Thrones- the further they got away from GRRM's novels the worst it got. Seasons 1-4 were pretty great.

Sleepy Hollow- it hurts too much to type out.

Once Upon a Time- I think I watched 2 episodes of season 7 and gave up, the end of season 6 was pretty bad. Again, seasons 1-4 were good.......

The Vampire Diaries- the fast paced fun vampire show about brothers became "The Elena Show", no shade on Nina Dobrev who could act, I loved when they had her play different characters, but the plot started making no sense, she left, and I didnt even finish the series.

[Mabinogia]

12 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

Or maybe Moffat and Gatiss felt that they continuously needed to top themselves, hence the absolutely ridiculous writing of Sherlock’s sister having mind control superpowers in season 4, or turning Mary into a super spy assassin.  Who knows.  Still makes me mad, though.

I think this was the biggest issue. I've seen it often with show runners who were fans of the source material (think Doctor Who as well, which Moffat also shat on to stroke his own ego). Moffat has a tendency to take a brilliant, genius, canon character, like Sherlock or the Doctor, and need to make his own character be somehow better, think Clara the Impossible Girl (which I think was a type and he meant Intolerable Knowitall) or like you say, Euros (quite possibly the worst character ever made. I mean, in a show with no supernatural elements this bitch has mind control? WTF) or Mary or his horribly sexist version of Irene Adler who can render Sherlock speechless by taking off her clothes? Again WTF?

Looking at who wrote which episodes, Gatiss' tend to keep more towards canon, as much as Victorian canon can be kept in a modern setting, while Moffat's tend more towards, look at the characters I can make that are way better than Sherlock!

There are still elements of the show I adore, the chemistry between the lead actors was great. There are some great bits of dialog here and there, there was some great eye candy (I'm shallow), but there were also some horrible elements, Irene, Euros, the way females were written and handled in general, everything about Euros' storyline and the ending where basically Euros just needed a hug. 

Yep, Sherlock is the perfect addition to the once great shows that got so bad they sent you into a rage spiral thread. It pissed me off so badly I rewrote the ending, most of the Euros storyline really. Did I mention how much I hated the Euros storyline? Not because they gave Sherlock and Mycroft a sister, that could have been interesting. Not even because that sister was also super smart. Again, that could have worked. It was because they made her almost supernatural in her powers and abilities which was just absurd since that element never came up in the shows run. It just reeked of Moffat trying to prove how very clever he was, and how he's not really a male chauvinist pig because he wrote a strong female. Unfortunately his strong females tend to fall flat for me. 

Thank you for giving me something to vent about. That felt fairly cathartic. lol

[Ohiopirate02]

6 hours ago, MissAlmond said:

Sleepy Hollow and Sleepy Hollow.  Maybe after that, Sleepy Hollow.

I gave up on Sleepy Hollow when it became obvious one of the showrunners had a hard-on for the actress playing Katrina.  Her wardrobe looked like it came straight out of his wet dreams with Katrina wearing a corset without a chemise (the chafing, oh the chafing), skinny jeans,  and long flowing hair.  

Also, I signed up for a buddy cop time travel show with supernatural elements, not Crane family drama.

[scarynikki12]

17 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

The Vampire Diaries- the fast paced fun vampire show about brothers became "The Elena Show", no shade on Nina Dobrev who could act, I loved when they had her play different characters, but the plot started making no sense, she left, and I didnt even finish the series.

I’m the opposite who sees the downfall as the show becoming The Damon (and Originals before the spinoff) Show. When the show started I went into it expecting certain things to happen: Damon getting a bullshit “redemption” and a triangle from hell for Elena and the brothers. The former had already become a popular trope and the latter was inevitable since it hit the CW sweet spot of triangle+sibling swapping.

What soured me was when Kevin Williamson left and handed the reigns to Julie Plec. His time on the show didn’t do the Everyone Must Worship At The Altar Of Elena And Damon but instead set up the town as it’s own character with a problematic history that continued to inform the present. When Plec took over it became the Toxic Trope Story Hour. This was expanded when The Originals came along. I saw a Vampire Diaries panel  at a con years ago and she mostly talked about how much she loved working with hot guys which tells me all I need to know about how deeply she thought about the storytelling.

Post-Williamson there were bright spots and I’ve always wondered if it was as simple as it being about the “lesser” characters. What I’m referring to are: 1)Caroline and Tyler being a new vampire and werewolf together, 2)the whole of Katherine’s part of the show, and 3)Elena’s season 5 story.

With 1 the two characters we were supposed to dislike from the start ended up in a hugely popular story.

With 2 she was always supposed to be lesser when compared to Elena so the show could have fun with her villainy.

With 3 it was the only time that the show was honest about who Elena really was. We get a story about how similar Elena and Katherine are to the point that it takes the rest of the characters over a month show time to realize Katherine is possessing Elena’s body. And they only realized it because it was time to write Katherine off for good. This is something viewers had been pointing out for years but the show always doubled down on the “Elena is the most compassionate person to ever compassion and how dare you suggest she has anything in common with Katherine????” bullshit. But by season 5 Damon had taken over the show so thoroughly that even Elena had become a lesser than.

[tessaray]

On 8/19/2021 at 12:14 PM, DearEvette said:

 

I think there was a lot more they could have done with Carter.  They had left her out of the secret-circle for so long and when they finally cracked the door a bit for her, she proved invaluable in helping shield John.  They could have written her in many different ways.  If anyone's story was done it was Fusco's .. and yet he stayed.  Meanwhile I maintain that Carter was basically fridged so John could have a a bigger manpain-y story than he'd already had (his wife was fridged pre-show to get us to see his original manpain).

I agree about Carter but Fusco's journey from corrupt weasel to truly good guy meant more to me than I expected. As everything got weirder and weirder he helped ground the series. 

[Zella]

3 hours ago, tessaray said:

Fusco's journey from corrupt weasel to truly good guy meant more to me than I expected. As everything got weirder and weirder he helped ground the series. 

I also grew oddly fond of Lionel. I ended up being most deeply invested in him making it out alive. 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Zella

[Kel Varnsen]

On 3/18/2018 at 8:18 AM, Enero said:

Homeland and Heroes seemed to follow this path. I thought the first season of both were excellent, but with Homeland they made the mistake of keeping Brody for two additional seasons past his expiration date. My understanding was he was supposed to die at the end of Season One, but the writers loved him so much (as did the audience) they kept him on for two more seasons. I’ll admit I enjoyed the character too, but he should’ve died as originally plan. The show went off the rails during his extended stay and never fully recovered IMO. 

I feel like for Homeland they went for the worst possible option for Brody. Either they should have kept him alive for the whole series run in which case Clare Danes wouldn't have had to do so much and we wouldn't have gotten so many Carrie is off her meds or Carrie is the only person in the CIA who could save the world plots. Or they should have killed him in season 1 to show they meant business. Plus maybe if they killed him in season 1, Peter Quinn could have developed more as a character and not just someone to take punishment.

[methodwriter85]

I think the only show I was able to watch from Beginning to End in real time even after the show decline was Mad Men, and in that case it was because even thought it was clearly being run by the showrunner's hardon for Jessica Pare, the show still managed to be really good.

On the opposite end I've been able to follow both Riverdale and Dynasty from the beginning over 5/4 years respectively in real time, and both shows were never really that good but the plot moved fast, especially on the latter show.

I guess technically I was able to watch the OC to the end despite the really bad drop in quality, but I skipped over a LOT of episodes so I don't know if that really counts. 

I almost made it to the end of Buffy but I just stopped caring, lol. It's funny to me that I loved that show so much and I still have never watched the last couple episodes of season 7 despite them being up for almost 20 years now. Because really, season 5 is the end for me.

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by methodwriter85

[WinnieWinkle]

I watched Coronation Street (British soap opera) for years and years.  Huge fan.  Never missed an episode and then a few years ago I just snapped.  It was partly one too many serial killer plots and one too many happy marriages ending miserably but what really sent me into that rage spiral was when I realized that every single woman between 12 and 50 was either pregnant, wanting to be pregnant, planning an abortion or kidnapping someone else's child because she'd lost her own baby.    I just went cold turkey and never looked back.  I do wonder sometimes how things are going for Ken and Rita but not enough to tune in!

[Mabinogia]

14 minutes ago, WinnieWinkle said:

I do wonder sometimes how things are going for Ken and Rita but not enough to tune in!

I've never seen that particular soap, but I have seen many others in my day. I'm going to assume Ken and Rita had a baby, Rita had tried to get an abortion but Ken talked her out of it. The baby died though and Rita spiralled out of control and ended up in an assylum. She is out now, and they are working on their marriage. But a young woman turns up on their doorstep.  She is their long lost daughter! Not the one that died but what they were never told was that Rita had twins and one of them was babynapped by the nurse and raised as her own. You should be all caught up now. 

[juno]

On 8/24/2021 at 5:07 PM, WinnieWinkle said:

I watched Coronation Street (British soap opera) for years and years.  Huge fan.  Never missed an episode and then a few years ago I just snapped.  It was partly one too many serial killer plots and one too many happy marriages ending miserably but what really sent me into that rage spiral was when I realized that every single woman between 12 and 50 was either pregnant, wanting to be pregnant, planning an abortion or kidnapping someone else's child because she'd lost her own baby.    I just went cold turkey and never looked back.  I do wonder sometimes how things are going for Ken and Rita but not enough to tune in!

I was a huge fan as well. Not hard here in Canada to find it. I used to watch all 4 shows on Sunday's. This show became a bit harsh with Curly leaving, Des and the great Mike Baldwin dying. I gave up and left for good. It seems the generation I most enjoyed was leaving one way or anther.

[Llywela]

On 8/25/2021 at 12:30 AM, Mabinogia said:

I've never seen that particular soap, but I have seen many others in my day. I'm going to assume Ken and Rita had a baby, Rita had tried to get an abortion but Ken talked her out of it. The baby died though and Rita spiralled out of control and ended up in an asylum. She is out now, and they are working on their marriage. But a young woman turns up on their doorstep.  She is their long lost daughter! Not the one that died but what they were never told was that Rita had twins and one of them was babynapped by the nurse and raised as her own. You should be all caught up now. 

Your parody suggestion is hilarious, perhaps especially so because Ken and Rita are both well into their 80s, and despite having both been in the show since the 1960s and both having turbulent love live, have never actually been romantically involved with one another. 

And even more hilarious because so many of those storylines have happened in the show for other characters...😄 

[Danielg342]

• Criminal Minds- I'd say the first five seasons are really the only seasons of the series worth watching. Everything else is, more or less, garbage. Sure, there were some great episodes and even some good arcs after S5, but they were few and far between. The show just never recovered from the ruined chemistry after shaking up a good cast just prior to S6.
• Elementary- When it started, it was quirky, it was intriguing and it was clever. By S2, it just got too wrapped up in its own hubris by trying to be too clever and it just wasn't quirky anymore.
• Designated Survivor- Speaking of hubris, Kiefer Sutherland, come on down! How do you ruin a show with a great premise (milquetoast political amateur thrust into the political spotlight after one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history)? By letting your ego get the better of you by demanding the show change so much, it loses everything that makes it special! Now, I don't know if Kiefer really did politick his way to changes in the show, but considering that midseason the show pretty much changed without warning from a show about a deer-in-the-headlights forced to make difficult decisions to one that's a poor West Wing knock-off where the President is a Mary Sue, I have my suspicions.
• The Simpsons- This is a bit of a strange one, since I really only stopped watching it because I went to university and just didn't find the time to keep up with it. However, when I could return to it after I finished school, I wound up deciding not to bother. The shows now pale in comparison to the shows that I used to love.
• Gotham- I was all-in on this when it started. For the first 18 episodes, I was hooked. Then it somehow became this strange series where it seemed the writers were all just trying to outdo each other with how "crazy" they could be, causing them to neglect even the most basic parts of storycraft. Lots of plots were recycled (notably Oswald's continuous rises and falls), character developed stalled, and the show relied more and more on shock value moments to drive the narrative than an actual, well-constructed story. I stayed until the end trying to convince myself that maybe it could get back on track, but it never did recapture its old magic.
• The Mentalist- Simon Baker is a treasure. The man has more charisma doing the simple act of drinking his tea than most actors ever achieve in their entire lifetime. The show also had an amazing premise- the former con man who cons other criminals in order to catch them. How could it fail? Because the showrunners insisted the show needed a "Big Bad" (it didn't), of which they compounded the problem by making said Big Bad so nonsensical, it just made the entire series utter nonsense.

Now, those shows may have infuriated me despite so much early promise, and I think they're all up there in terms of missed opportunities.

However, I think there's one show that rises above all else, far and away, when it comes to missed opportunities. One show that could have been a classic if their writers just bothered to put in the work for it.

The Blacklist.

I don't believe a show defines for me more than The Blacklist does in terms of a show that really missed its opportunity. At least when it comes to other shows, you can point to an excuse for why things went downhill, such as Criminal Minds being a long-running police procedural and likely executive meddling in regards to Designated Survivor and Gotham.

The Blacklist? It just confounds me how much it utterly failed. The only reason I can think of is the utter incompetence of the writers, who may have been skilled at hiding the fact they didn't know what they were doing at first only for their luck to run out as the series wore on.

The Blacklist was very much like The Mentalist, with a very charismatic lead (James Spader) portraying a criminal character (in this case, Raymond "Red" Reddington) who assisted the FBI in finding criminals. It was darker than The Mentalist, and didn't have an identifiable "Big Bad" from the outset.

It did have a lot of mysteries, central of which is why the world's most notorious criminal (Red) seemingly decided he found his morals and now wanted to catch criminals instead of cavorting with them.

In short, The Blacklist offered me a character in Red who wasn't just this "cool" anti-hero who always dispatched his foes with smug smirk and a quick quip (like Simon Baker's Patrick Jane on The Mentalist), Red also offered me the prospect of several layers and lots of depth to his character, with a narrative that just begged to be explored.

...and, for four seasons, I did.

...but, after a while, it seemed like all the writers were doing was taking all the questions I had and just adding more questions, and then piling those questions with even more questions.

Suddenly, Red was no longer a "cool criminal with a mysterious past", he was a convoluted labyrinth of a human being that made less and less sense the more I got to "know" him.

Which is why I checked out. The writers had no plan for the character, and when they don't have a plan for their main guy, there's no hope for the rest of the show.

Which is a shame. Red didn't need to have constant piles of mysteries heaped on to him to remain "shadowy" and intriguing- Red needed to have a purpose, an overarching reason for doing what he needs to do.

We didn't need to know all the details of his life, or even all the details of his various adversaries.

...but, if we're asked to go on a journey with him, I gotta know why we're going on it in the first place.

Why should I care about his struggles with all these criminals? Why does his struggle matter? What stakes are there in this fight?

I mean, fights between criminal empires happen all the time. Why should I bother caring about this one? Simply because this criminal emperor is being portrayed by James Spader?

Please.

There's gotta be more. Once you establish the reason and the stakes for the fight then you can more conceivably build a narrative- and a mystery- that better befits that struggle because at least you have a guiding principle and you're not just throwing things at the wall and hoping they stick.

It's a very simple concept, which is amazing that more do not understand it.

Unfortunately for Red, that failure to understand it is what holds him back from being one of the greatest TV characters of all time, if not the greatest character there ever was.

[Cloud9Shopper]

Agreed with all the earlier criticism of Glee. I started it again last month when I was in school because I go online and can’t work in silence, and I knew Glee had the music. I’d already seen the series twice and didn’t need to pay close attention either. But from what I could pay attention to, the show just felt so problematic and weird now. Maybe it’s just my age (mid 30s) showing. Maybe it’s because Cory, Naya, and Mark are dead. But it doesn’t hold the same charm for me that it used to. Once I get through the series this time, I’ll retire it to nostalgia and just keep enjoying the music. 

ER is another one for me. I just finished the series a few weeks ago, and it will always be the GOAT of medical dramas, IMO. But I honestly think now it could’ve ended in S11 when Carter departed. There were some moments in that show too ridiculous for reality after a while, like the helicopter of death and the one episode in S12 where they care for a chimp in the ER. It was like the writers forgot what the show was at one point and were just throwing stuff at the wall hoping it would stick. Plus, S13 and S14 were so miserable that I felt more depressed for having watched them. (Except when Jeanie came back in S14. She’s cool.) Then there was an absurd S14 character, a 19-year-old intern who kept asking sex questions of his supervisor and coworkers. I was so confused as to what show I was actually watching after it had so many great early years. 

I held on to the end to see the OG cast make cameos, but I don’t think I’d do a full rewatch again. 

[Annber03]

5 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

after a while, it seemed like all the writers were doing was taking all the questions I had and just adding more questions, and then piling those questions with even more questions.

I can't speak for the "The Blacklist", as I've not seen that show, but I feel like this is an issue with a lot of shows nowadays. They feel this need to drag out their twists and turns and keep piling on more and more of them, to the point where the plot gets so convoluted it's hard to keep up. I think writers/showrunners/etc. need to remember that it is okay to answer at least some questions. You can always resolve one mystery while keeping another going, or before starting a new one, or something. 

Now, for my part, if I care about the characters, I can generally overlook the above for the most part, because at least the characters are keeping things grounded enough for me and keeping my interest. But, as you note with what seemed to be one of your biggest issues with "The Blacklist", if I can't even invest in the characters' struggle to figure out these complicated stories, then...yeah, what's the point, really? 

[Dancingjaneway]

ER-Once a great drama turned into an absolute joke. Season 6 was really the turning point. Once Abby showed up it was all about her & her family. I stopped watching after Dr. Greene died. I saw a few eps during re-runs on TNT but was glad I stopped when I did. 

Will & Grace- As soon as the word baby was uttered I knew it was the end. Leo was the final nail in the coffin. I hate when shows that are comedies decide to turn into dramadies.

 

[JustHereForFood]

2 hours ago, Dancingjaneway said:

Will & Grace- As soon as the word baby was uttered I knew it was the end. Leo was the final nail in the coffin. I hate when shows that are comedies decide to turn into dramadies.

The original finale is the saddest thing I've ever watched on TV, but I loved the revival. The last season was weaker and had some questionable episodes, but I could still appreciate the finale and will be forever grateful that they retconned the first one.

[Danielg342]

12 hours ago, Annber03 said:

I can't speak for the "The Blacklist", as I've not seen that show, but I feel like this is an issue with a lot of shows nowadays. They feel this need to drag out their twists and turns and keep piling on more and more of them, to the point where the plot gets so convoluted it's hard to keep up. I think writers/showrunners/etc. need to remember that it is okay to answer at least some questions. You can always resolve one mystery while keeping another going, or before starting a new one, or something. 

Now, for my part, if I care about the characters, I can generally overlook the above for the most part, because at least the characters are keeping things grounded enough for me and keeping my interest. But, as you note with what seemed to be one of your biggest issues with "The Blacklist", if I can't even invest in the characters' struggle to figure out these complicated stories, then...yeah, what's the point, really? 

Hollywood mysteries in general, I think, tend to fail because showrunners hardly ever plan them out beforehand. They prefer to make it up as they go along and while there are a few skilled writers who can keep their stories straight while doing so, most utterly fail at the venture because they don't realize what they're creating.

Perhaps this is understandable. Even if you've got a series that has the potential to be a long-running series, you never know if all you'll get are a dozen episodes, a season or several of them. This is true whether or not you're on network TV, cable or even Netflix, because any of them could pull the plug on your series at any given moment. So I think it can be hard to come up with a mystery that you'll need several years to build, because you'll never know if you'll get to finish it.

Plus, you have to weigh how cagey you want your mystery to be with the patience of the audience. I'm not just talking about impatient executives who want "bombshell" episodes to drive ratings and grab viewers- even the most patient of audiences will eventually want a payoff for all the time they've invested in the show. You can't keep dragging things out hoping the audience will stick with you, because they won't. Constant waiting is just not exciting.

So creating a series-long mystery can be tricky. I always believe it's best to treat the mystery like one of the characters- because that's really how the mystery operates- so that when you're building it you have a framework for what it's supposed to be. I also think it's prudent, early on, to establish why the mystery matters. It sounds obvious, but it's baffling why so many creators fail to understand if their audience doesn't care about what's happening they're not going to stick around.

Yeah, "sometimes it's the journey not the destination" but the journey has to matter too.

[ABay]

I wish writers, showrunners, etc. would just get past the idea they have to shock the audience with a major twist no one saw coming, just for the sake of the effect, without considering where the story is ultimately going. If the audience figures out where the story that's GOOD. It means the writer has correctly foreshadowed and given the viewers something to talk about and figure out. It is more satisfying to me as a viewer to find out I was right and enjoy the payoff than to end up think WTF was that because the writer's vanity made him derail the story because someone figured it out.

Maybe if they didn't interact with fans it would help. Just tell your damn story and stop thinking you have to pull one over on the audience.

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, ABay said:

Just tell your damn story and stop thinking you have to pull one over on the audience.

I would take a well written story about interesting characters where I know exactly how it's going to turn out over one with "shocking twists" any day. The former I can watch over and over and often catch little moments I missed. The later, once I know the twist, I have no desire to watch it again unless it also is a well written story with interesting characters. 

Shocking twists should never be the reason for a story but more an extra little bonus that isn't necessary to enjoy the story. 

[greyflannel]

It's been a while since I've watched The Mentalist, but I remember thinking that Simon Baker was over the show a couple of seasons before it ended. I thought the same about Jonny Lee Miller and Elementary. Both shows hung on longer than they probably should have.

[Zella]

Never watched Blacklist, but I'm still salty about how badly off the rails The Mentalist went. It's the show that has made me deeply suspicious of any show that has a recurring Big Bad connected to the protagonist's past. I know that can be done well, but damn did that just spectacularly miss the point of what made the show so enjoyable. 

[methodwriter85]

11 hours ago, ABay said:

I wish writers, showrunners, etc. would just get past the idea they have to shock the audience with a major twist no one saw coming, just for the sake of the effect, without considering where the story is ultimately going. If the audience figures out where the story that's GOOD. It means the writer has correctly foreshadowed and given the viewers something to talk about and figure out. It is more satisfying to me as a viewer to find out I was right and enjoy the payoff than to end up think WTF was that because the writer's vanity made him derail the story because someone figured it out.

Maybe if they didn't interact with fans it would help. Just tell your damn story and stop thinking you have to pull one over on the audience.

There's a lot of speculation that Pretty Little Liars abruptly changed who they meant Charlie to be (Wren) and instead came up with the "Evil Transwoman" plot instead because a staffer leaked the plot. Vanessa Ray herself said that she only knew a few weeks before they shot the episode. Personally, I thought PLL lost ANY footing they had with the LGBT community with that POS storyline. Marlene King herself seemed to stumble over her words when she asked about this plot twist and it was clear to me she did ZERO research or what it meant to have decided to rely on the "let's make the transwoman the villain!" trope.

Of course, PLL was never a great show but pretty much turned me off the show for good.

Anyway, This is Us has really great acting but I just couldn't keep going with all their twists and the show's apparent refusal to let characters/situations organically evolve in order to be 'twisty." 

[Danielg342]

11 hours ago, Zella said:

Never watched Blacklist, but I'm still salty about how badly off the rails The Mentalist went. It's the show that has made me deeply suspicious of any show that has a recurring Big Bad connected to the protagonist's past. I know that can be done well, but damn did that just spectacularly miss the point of what made the show so enjoyable. 

I think if it weren't for The Blacklist, The Mentalist would have been my pick for the show with the most wasted potential.

In addition to wasting a great premise and a charismatic lead who could have carried the whole show by himself, The Mentalist also went with a textbook example of how not to write a "Big Bad". Bruno Heller, the showrunner, is even on record as stating that he didn't know who Red John was until halfway into season four. Which means that the show went through three and a half seasons of "clues" regarding who Red John was without even knowing if they would even stick on the person they'd eventually be tied to. How could the writers be expected to write a coherent set of information regarding who RJK was if there was no basis for whom RJK was in the first place?

Small wonder the storyline fell so flat.

Spoiler

I remember before The Mentalist forum here got lost to the sands of time there was a "Mentalist do-over" topic. I remember weighing in on what should have been the "game-changing" moment at the end of S3 where Patrick Jane supposedly shot dead RJK. I felt that, even though RJK had, still, by that point become ridiculous, killing him at the end of S3 would have opened up far more narrative opportunities since I'm not convinced there was anywhere else to go with RJK.

Instead, the show decided that the person Jane killed at the end of S3 was yet another RJK imposter, and by that point all believability with regards to the RJK storyline was lost.

 

[Lugal]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:57 AM, ABay said:

I wish writers, showrunners, etc. would just get past the idea they have to shock the audience with a major twist no one saw coming, just for the sake of the effect, without considering where the story is ultimately going.

That's so aggravating!  First, because the audience is a collective, I don't think any writer  is going to come up with something that someone out there doesn't know or can't guess.  If your story hinges on who played shortstop on the losing team in the 1929 World Series, or knowing the meaning of a word in ancient Gaulish, someone out there will know it and thanks to the internet, the whole audience probably will find out soon enough.

On 8/28/2021 at 10:54 AM, Mabinogia said:

I would take a well written story about interesting characters where I know exactly how it's going to turn out over one with "shocking twists" any day.

It doesn't matter if I can predict where the story is going, if I enjoy watching it unfold.  That's the trick right there.

[Scarlett45]

On 8/27/2021 at 8:03 AM, Cloud9Shopper said:

Agreed with all the earlier criticism of Glee. I started it again last month when I was in school because I go online and can’t work in silence, and I knew Glee had the music. I’d already seen the series twice and didn’t need to pay close attention either. But from what I could pay attention to, the show just felt so problematic and weird now. Maybe it’s just my age (mid 30s) showing. Maybe it’s because Cory, Naya, and Mark are dead. But it doesn’t hold the same charm for me that it used to. Once I get through the series this time, I’ll retire it to nostalgia and just keep enjoying the music. 

I haven’t done a full rewatch of the series but I still enjoy the music regularly. I agree with what you said here. 

[marketdoctor]

Quote

I wish writers, showrunners, etc. would just get past the idea they have to shock the audience with a major twist no one saw coming, just for the sake of the effect, without considering where the story is ultimately going.

There's a variation of this where reality shows will talk about the "shocking" outcome, because the election results didn't fit the producer's expectations.  In other words, a plurality of fans "predicted" the outcome by voting for the performer/act they liked, but the producers and (sometimes) the hosts, some of whom have ACTUALLY SEEN THE RESULTS, are surprised.

When the host or judges don't know the results, surprise could be normal, but stop being surprised that an election means other people might not agree with you.

[Mabinogia]

9 minutes ago, marketdoctor said:

When the host or judges don't know the results, surprise could be normal, but stop being surprised that an election means other people might not agree with you.

Or that people are going to vote for who they like rather than perhaps the "most talented". We're human. Humans like what they like and they are going to vote for who they like. If the producers don't like that, then don't let the audience vote. 

I remember when Dancing with the Stars first started and the judges would be shocked by a bad dancer with a huge fan base making it week after week. Duh. I love David Tennant. I will watch pretty much anything with David Tennant in it. If he were on DWTS and was a terrible dancer I would still vote for him because I love seeing him in anything. Also, he is the type of person who, even if he sucks at something, he'd be highly entertaining in his suckage. 

I can see it being a lot more annoying on something like American Idol, where the show is giving a record deal to the winner and doesn't want to have to give that deal to someone who sucks. But again, they set up the rules so they've only got themselves to blame. You can't predict what the general public is going to do no matter how hard you push someone's sob story. 

[EtheltoTillie]

On 9/3/2021 at 9:18 PM, Mabinogia said:

Or that people are going to vote for who they like rather than perhaps the "most talented". We're human. Humans like what they like and they are going to vote for who they like. If the producers don't like that, then don't let the audience vote. 

I remember when Dancing with the Stars first started and the judges would be shocked by a bad dancer with a huge fan base making it week after week. Duh. I love David Tennant. I will watch pretty much anything with David Tennant in it. If he were on DWTS and was a terrible dancer I would still vote for him because I love seeing him in anything. Also, he is the type of person who, even if he sucks at something, he'd be highly entertaining in his suckage. 

I can see it being a lot more annoying on something like American Idol, where the show is giving a record deal to the winner and doesn't want to have to give that deal to someone who sucks. But again, they set up the rules so they've only got themselves to blame. You can't predict what the general public is going to do no matter how hard you push someone's sob story. 

OT. I see your avatar has WENN. I used to love that!  

[Kel Varnsen]

On 8/28/2021 at 10:57 AM, ABay said:

I wish writers, showrunners, etc. would just get past the idea they have to shock the audience with a major twist no one saw coming, just for the sake of the effect, without considering where the story is ultimately going. If the audience figures out where the story that's GOOD. It means the writer has correctly foreshadowed and given the viewers something to talk about and figure out. It is more satisfying to me as a viewer to find out I was right and enjoy the payoff than to end up think WTF was that because the writer's vanity made him derail the story because someone figured it out.

Maybe if they didn't interact with fans it would help. Just tell your damn story and stop thinking you have to pull one over on the audience.

I read the book "The Revolution was Televised" a few years ago. In the chapter about Lost it talked about how in a modern tv show it is basically impossible to have a big surprise twist or mystery. Sure back in the day there might have been a small number of people who were really into Dallas and figured out who shot J.R. and why. But now the equivalent of those people are on message boards and social media and can share their theories with a ton of people and anyone who really cares can probably read about it. 

[Danielg342]

On 9/15/2021 at 11:35 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

I read the book "The Revolution was Televised" a few years ago. In the chapter about Lost it talked about how in a modern tv show it is basically impossible to have a big surprise twist or mystery. Sure back in the day there might have been a small number of people who were really into Dallas and figured out who shot J.R. and why. But now the equivalent of those people are on message boards and social media and can share their theories with a ton of people and anyone who really cares can probably read about it. 

While I do agree, I think TV execs crave "event television" nowadays for a different reason- they want the people who just watched that episode to log on to their social media or write on the message boards and start long-winded discussions about what they just saw.

They're no longer going, simply, for the audience to wonder "who shot J.R.?" No, now TV execs want people to debate ad nauseum about not just who shot JR but why they did it as well, and whether or not JR actually deserved it.

Nothing keeps a TV show relevant than millions of people who talk about it and getting them to keep talking about it.

"You thought last week had people talking- wait until you see what we've got this week!"

Social media I think changes the game by adding an immediacy to every episode. Since now we can browse topics and find out about things at lightning speed, it's more important than ever to keep TV shows in the discussions and not lose them in the shuffle.

Which means, I'm sure, there are execs who think we can't have TV shows with "simple" episodes- what's needed are episodes that gets people talking, because that keeps the TV show in the forefront.

How effective such a strategy is I don't know. One of the biggest complaints I had about Gotham is that the writers seemed too focused on generating "event" episodes and viral moments that they lost what it meant to tell a really good story. I do grant quite a lot of people dug "the craziness" of the show, but I felt, after a while, the "crazy" meant nothing because none of wound up meaning anything in the long run. Shocking moments have no value if they have no staying power, which was Gotham's downfall.

[roamyn]

Hubby and I just finished Longmire, and the finale was ridiculous!  Actually the whole season was rage inducing.  Walt, not letting go of his Nighthorse obsession.  Ferg accusing Meg of working with the notorious Cowboy Bill.  Kady, a lawyer, helping to kidnap a kid off the reservation.  Then thinking she could be sheriff.  A lame death for Malachi & Darius - they needed to suffer.  Walt & Vic becoming a couple.  They had no on screen chemistry.  And Walt, a sheriff of a large county, not having a cell all series, but finally gets one when he retires?!

Thank Lucifer (or Chuck) for the little bit of Ruby and for Zach’s return.  And that Henry got to take over the casino.  That I didn’t mind.

[DoctorAtomic]

10 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

While I do agree, I think TV execs crave "event television" nowadays for a different reason- they want the people who just watched that episode to log on to their social media or write on the message boards and start long-winded discussions about what they just saw.

We can thank Lost for this. Arguably, the greatest pilot in TV history, and not arguably the best ending line. 

But that meant they had to up the ante from there, but had no idea how. 

[Ohiopirate02]

20 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

We can thank Lost for this. Arguably, the greatest pilot in TV history, and not arguably the best ending line. 

But that meant they had to up the ante from there, but had no idea how. 

The problem with a show like Lost is you have to know the end while writing the beginning but also be flexible in your writing.  You have to know how many seasons it will take to tell your story up front as well laying out all of the necessary beats so the seasons flow together and you don't paint yourself into a corner like How I Met Your Mother.  

[Kel Varnsen]

37 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

The problem with a show like Lost is you have to know the end while writing the beginning but also be flexible in your writing.  You have to know how many seasons it will take to tell your story up front as well laying out all of the necessary beats so the seasons flow together and you don't paint yourself into a corner like How I Met Your Mother.  

I am not sure how much I agree with that. Ther is a documentary called The Showrunners I watched last year. I can't remember who the writer was but he basically said how it is super hard to come up with one great show idea, but to come up with an idea and the entire story arc before you have a writing team or a cast and expect it to be the best possible idea is basically impossible.

The classic example of making things up as you go along is Breaking Bad. In the first half of season 5 (from 2012) they had a flash forward in the first episode that showed part of the series finale. But when they wrote that flash forward they didn't know how the final episode (which came out 14 months later) would play out.

[ParadoxLost]

56 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

The problem with a show like Lost is you have to know the end while writing the beginning but also be flexible in your writing.  You have to know how many seasons it will take to tell your story up front as well laying out all of the necessary beats so the seasons flow together and you don't paint yourself into a corner like How I Met Your Mother.  

How I Met Your Mother didn't actually paint themselves into a corner.  They went willingly into the corner because they couldn't let go of how cool they thought it would be to use that original footage of the kids in the finale.

If only deepfake technology was in existence when the were writing the final season  it could have gone in a totally different way.

[Ohiopirate02]

3 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I am not sure how much I agree with that. Ther is a documentary called The Showrunners I watched last year. I can't remember who the writer was but he basically said how it is super hard to come up with one great show idea, but to come up with an idea and the entire story arc before you have a writing team or a cast and expect it to be the best possible idea is basically impossible.

The classic example of making things up as you go along is Breaking Bad. In the first half of season 5 (from 2012) they had a flash forward in the first episode that showed part of the series finale. But when they wrote that flash forward they didn't know how the final episode (which came out 14 months later) would play out.

I haven't watched that documentary, but I see that Damon Lindelof was included in it.  I hope he was not the one who said that.  Any show with fantasy elements like Lost need to have some sort of plan in place as early as possible.  Once Lost was renewed for season two, the writers needed to create their show bible and figure out for themselves what the mystery was about the Island.  

[Bort]

I submit 12 Monkeys (the show, not the movie) as probably the best example of a show whose arc was laid out in advance and followed to a satisfying conclusion. As it starts, you ask a zillion questions of who what when where why how and by the end of that show EVERY SINGLE QUESTION you ever asked is answered. And makes sense! And if you rewatch the show again, knowing all the answers, you pick up on hints totally missed the first time around. I truly believe that show is a masterpiece of storytelling.

[Danielg342]

I believe it's imperative to treat "the mystery" like a character, because the mystery affects the plot in the same ways that a character does. You don't necessarily have to have the mystery completely fleshed out and developed from the go, but you should have the basic framework from the get-go. That way you can at least keep the development of the mystery consistent.

 

[ABay]

Dark Matter was planned out for 5 seasons but Syfy cancelled it after 3. There were a lot of little things that seemed like throwaways and later turned out to be significant (like 5 looking at Sarah's coffin seemed lie nothing but paid off later on) and now I'll never know what the hints were. Although the biggest mystery to me was how Three managed to retrieve his hideous vest from the prison. And even more, why.

[DoctorAtomic]

7 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The classic example of making things up as you go along is Breaking Bad.

I don't know if that's technically correct. The show was billed as Mr. Chips to Scarface, so they kind of knew where they were going, as opposed to Lost, where they 'threw everything at the wall to see what would stick' and no idea where they were going.

7 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Once Lost was renewed for season two, the writers needed to create their show bible and figure out for themselves what the mystery was about the Island.  

They don't necessarily have to reveal the mystery, but they have to have a handle on it in terms of storytelling in order to be consistent within that mystery. The fact that Locke could walk or the lady's cancer went into remission in and of itself is fine and doesn't require explanation. The island itself can't basically do whatever it wants all the time. 

You can tell when they decided on an end date with X episodes remaining that the story got way way tighter.

 

[Zella]

10 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't know if that's technically correct. The show was billed as Mr. Chips to Scarface, so they kind of knew where they were going, as opposed to Lost, where they 'threw everything at the wall to see what would stick' and no idea where they were going.

Yeah my understanding is they always knew Walt would die. The details needed to be filled in, but they had a final destination in mind the whole time. 

[Mabinogia]

11 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Lost, where they 'threw everything at the wall to see what would stick' and no idea where they were going.

I think Lost did know where it was going, it just didn't know how long it was going to take to get there. As you said, once they had a deadline the story got tighter, because they didn't have to keep throwing a bunch of filler in to extend the story. It really is a shame Lost didn't come out now, in the age of limited releases. I think, if they had not went for the money grab and said "this is the story we are going to tell and this is how many seasons we are going to tell it and we will not do any further seasons with this particular story" it could have gone down in history as one of the greats. Instead it squandered all it's potential and by the time it reached the end a lot of fans had long gone. 

Still, it didn't squander it's potential anywhere near as badly as The Sylar Show...I mean, Heroes. Another show ruined because it was such a huge hit. Heroes' great sin was not leaving Sylar dead. His story up until his death was perfect. Then they brought him back because fans liked him. Show runners, don't do something just because the fans think they want it. We are like greedy children who will gorge on our Halloween candy until we throw up. Then we won't want to touch candy again until next Halloween, (or the next day. I have a high tolerance for candy related illness. ;) aka, I love candy too much to quit it, unlike Heroes, which I couldn't take because they kept throwing a Sylar Sour in my sweet Petrelli Brothers Candy. (I might have pushed that metaphor a bit too hard.)

[Vermicious Knid]

I've always thought Heroes biggest problem was that the first season was taken mostly from the classic X-Men story 'Days of Future Past' with parts of Dragonball Z's Future Trunks thrown in. Once they actually had to come up with their own original plot they flailed. The ridiculous 'Oirish' storyline had nothing to do with Sylar.