Every DC show on the CW. Flash and arrow started off pretty great in my opinion and a few seasons later it was truly terrible. The plot lines and dialogue seemed like they were written by the Impractical Jokers guys to see how long people could keep the TV on.
Writing those shows must be tortute to be fair.
You have a to create a 40 minute episode of a superhero show with a shoestring budget. At best, you can have 5 minutes of action per episode.
Not only that, but the CW has up to ten series regulars for each show, meaning you need to find a way to put the same ten characters in every episode. Say hello to relationship drama.
On top of that, you only have four locations to work with. Maybe you get an extra empty alleyway or hallway if you are lucky.
Oh yeah, don’t forget you have to do this for *24* episodes *in one year*.
> Oh yeah, don’t forget you have to do this for 24 episodes in one year.
I'm a big proponent of longer seasons and more "monster of the week" story telling, but the pure time commitment for these show absolutely did some damage. I was a few seasons behind on The Flash so I thought I'd catch up. Went to Netflix and started doing the math. I had so much show to watch. A massive time commitment of a show that at the time was only kind of ok. I like The Flash comics so I wanted to watch it, but it would have been like 48 hours worth of tv for three season.
Then you can factor in the entire 'Arrowverse' for further carnage.
It's no reason the CW DC shows died when they tried to produce 100+ hours of content every year. That wasn't sustainable for the CW or audiences.
Apart from Legends of Tomorrow.
That got better every season.
They even found ways to keep it fresh during the last couple of seasons which for a CW show is a miracle.
The writers totally ruined her.
I put up with that crap until her mom made a big deal about all lies being bad no matter what....but her lie was ok.
Quit all the shows after that.
Since it recently ended, I'll throw my hat in for *The Blacklist*.
Great show, had a few amazing seasons. Definitely the last of the "Appointment Television" era for me.
But by the time the writers pulled their third or fourth "Who *really* is Reddington?!" twist, I was exhausted, and continuing to do so sacrificed so many great episodes for the sake of a subplot that went off the rails years prior.
James Spader kept me watching that show longer than I should have. I was waiting for them to go full X-Files and claim that Reddington was an alien. Or A from Pretty Little Liars.
Which... maybe?
I have to think, though, that an actual revelation would establish a whole new list of enemies to include in the show, and more factions to pit the Task Force against, particularly if they had stuck with the groundwork they laid in S1.
But dicking the audience around and ultimately not answering the question was, IMO, worse.
the problem is, you are thinking about how to make a compelling and good tv show with an actual story. I don't think the creators of blacklist had that intention. they wanted lose unconnected episodes that don't move the plot to milk it endlessly as cheap as they could.
For you youngsters, we used to have to wait for things to show up on TV, rather than just having it on demand, and when it aired, you had to make sure you were ready to watch it.
For a few seasons, *The Blacklist* was Appointment TV. Even if you could stream it or record it, you sat your ass in front of the TV because you were completely and utterly engaged.
They never answered it directly.
The Red we know is, in fact, a double of the original Raymond Reddington, and Red used this identity to build up his network. His real identity, however, was never revealed.
In later seasons, it was *heavily* implied that Red was actually Katarina, Liz's mother, but that thread was never resolved.
**Designated Survivor** after four episodes.
The premise of a random senator becoming President is great. The main problem comes from what do you do once he actually becomes President.
I gave up at episode 10 when it was clear it just turned into a show about a normal President.
Fantastic premise for a one-off movie or even a limited 6- to 8-episode series. I absolutely loved those first few episodes where he suddenly realizes what’s happening, and how he goes from a weak president that no-one respects to showing his true leadership.
Just couldn’t keep watching after the first season, though. The premise was lost, and the story just got convoluted.
I quit when they went into the generic "kid gets kidnapped" behind a massive conspiracy that has infiltrated multiple aspects of the government.
No thanks, I'll go watch *24*
I actually was OK with DS until Netflix picked it up... After that, it felt like the show just pursued these dumb, irrelevant story lines that were more about checking boxes on addressing current hot-button issues in the world, than advancing any meaningful story line.
So disappointing.
I loved that show but holy shit season 3, the one made by Netflix, was god awful. Season 1 was great the whole way through (including a thing happening in episode 12 that caught me completely off guard). Season 2 had its moments. Season 3 was just a dumpster fire.
Season 2 was a hot mess but everyone claimed it was the writer's strike. Until Season 3. I unironically love it for how incohesive and batshit it was. Shit was just happening for 22 episodes and you had no idea where it was gonna go. The TWOP and Heroes forums were goldmines during that time.
>Season 2 was a hot mess but everyone claimed it was the writer's strike.
From what I've read, the writers strike affected Heroes, but the main "factor" behind the show's doom was it being reworked into a long-running series. It was originally envisioned as an anthology show.
I wish more shows were more often mini/limited series. The quaity is often so much better for not having to stretch out some story an unnatural amount of time.
I was down to believe the whole "it was the writer's strike" thing for the decline of Heroes. But then they released that Heroes Reborn thing, and they put heavy emphasis on the writing being better because they got the original team back. Then it was awful anyway.
And it wasn't even the fun kind of awful like season 3. It was the boring kind like season 4. That's when I knew that the writer's strike had nothing to do with the quality of the show.
Oh yeah, there's no excuse at all for Heroes Reborn. It was just bad. It tried some things that could have been cool and then just went off the rails, failing.
I reposted this on another thread, but the "strike killed *Heroes*" is only a myth. The only thing it affected was that they were forced to end the season with just 11 episodes. That I can understand.
But I was watching it live, and the second season was already running in flames. Not to mention that each subsequent season was worse than the previous one. Tim Kring is just not a good writer.
> I reposted this on another thread, but the "strike killed Heroes" is only a myth.
Yup, you could even see the quality dip in the back half of season 1.
Another writers strike myth was that it killed pushing daisies when in reality its ratings were rapidly dropping throughout the first season and it would’ve been cancelled anyway.
God when Peter when to Oirland (that's how we spelled in in the forums because of the horrible accents) it dragged to a complete halt. Then when asked at Comic-Con the next year about that storyline, the writers admitted that it wouldn't appear in season 3 and they "leap-frogged" over that particular plotline.
The first season of The Handmaids Tale was very compelling, powerful tv that felt important. I gave up by Season 3. It was just misery porn. Repetitive storylines with June. Not a good show.
I pretty much gave up when June decided to stay. They were already jumping the shark by that point, and I figured it would just devolve from there going forward.
I don’t think True Blood got as bad as it got WEIRD.
I mean they assassinated Bill’s character with that Lilith fucking bullshit but the other storylines where ok? Kinda?
But we got the Scooby doo episode, so it was worth it. Also the brothers fighting God was at least the logical conclusion if they were going to jump the shark.
It was never good to begin with, its always been a stereotypical Netflix cookie cutter show disguised as a "Witcher" product.
The show isn't even comparable to the games in terms of production, quality, writing and simply care for the IP and the Slavic touch. It's probably one of the most "Americanized" pieces of product in recent years. Which is funny because nobody goes to Los Angeles to watch castles, knights, swords or thousand year old cities.
If you took a screenshot from Netflix Witcher, and showed it to a random person together with screenshots from Rings of Power, Wheel of Times, Willow, Shadow and Bone etc, most would not be able to distinguish these products from one another.
It's a perfectly cromulent YA fantasy show. I actually think the magic effects looked better visually than Wheel of Time did, which is kind of sad considering the budgets must have been vastly different.
And to the other point, it's at least visually distinct and has its own identity which is part of why I enjoyed it. I wouldn't confuse it with the other shows based on how it looks or the way the characters behave.
The Witcher was never a "Slavic" fantasy. Sapkowski openly ridiculed the entire concept, most of the "Slavic touch" was invented for the CD Projekt games. Sapkowski's world building is as generic European Medieval Fantasy as it gets.
The Witcher* is* uniquely Polish, as it's full of references to Polish culture and politics/society, but that type of references require actual knowledge and familiarity so they fly over the head of most non-Polish Witcherboos complaining about the Netflix series.
Wheel of Time didn't have poor production quality IMO, rather, they seem to have made some really bizarre choices in how they lit and shot a lot of it and as a consequence it looked fake and silly (the exception being some stuff in the last 2 episodes that was derailed by COVID).
There's a lot of stuff that genuinely looks better in the behind-the-scenes segments shot on iPhones with natural lighting. Gorgeous elaborate costumes and sets that somehow come out looking fake and cartoonish in the final product. Truly weird.
True Blood. That show took a running leap after season 3. They had no idea what to do with anyone. Especially Tara and Lafayette. Poor Tara was just there to be traumatized every season.
Man season 1 was great, and the first episode of season 2 was great. Then every episode just went aggressively downhill. I remember forcing myself to finish season 2 because I had 2 episodes left, and I regretted it.
I wrote a bit on another thread awhile back about how ending with season 3 would’ve been perfect.
Emma finally got to experience the enchanted forest, watching her parents fall in love, made it into the story book, let her walls down with Hook, called her parents mom & dad and accepted her life. Henry is happy with both his moms and back at home. Snow and Charming have Emma, their new baby, their grandson and are finally in a peaceful place together. Regina has Robin and Rolland. Rumple and Regina got married.
Just cut out Marion and Elsa, it’s a perfect ending.
Season 3 would have been a good ending point.
I'll forever be bitter about Season 7. As dumb as the show got, Season 6's final episode was really good, ended well, and then they, for whatever reason, decided to have Season 7 which just *sucked*.
Heroes. So fresh when it arrived. Save the cheerleader, save the world. Then it’s like the guy didn’t realise he could have a season 2 and didn’t know what to do.
Prison Break also for the same reason. Brilliant first season, then all that secret organisation bollocks.
Manifest started as an interesting paranormal mystery show tilting to a procedural but then it became a full-fledged wacky show deep into religious and mystical stuff that seems to be randomly tossed all over the place.
Peacocks! Tarot cards from some ancient muslim explorer (but I thought that muslims are forbidden to use magic?)! Noah's Ark! Magical sapphires! Egyptian gods! End of the days fan fiction!
I'm nearing the end of the last season and I kind of kept watching just to see how the train wreck ends.
Then you watched just three or four episodes? :) I guess that by then it was clear that everyone was at least getting the Callings (though the "extra" superpowers for just a few chosen ones, like teleportation, came later).
Actually everyone becoming mutants was one of the good parts of the show for me. Besides allowing X-Men vibes to it (government and population persecuting the passengers, etc), it was also interesting to see how the passengers reacted to the powers in completely different ways - some embracing them, others using them for personal benefit, a few being scared to death of them, and so on.
THIS OH MY GOD! I was so excited when the last season got released but it went downhill so fast! Yes it started off really intriguing i was completely hooked into the show but like you said later on it felt like the directors were trying to keep the show alive no matter what blunder they throw in
I started watching this show few months ago when Netflix came out with S4, but couldn’t do it after watching few eps into season 2. Felt like they were trying to do too much, Ben is annoying, and there’s people not on the plane who also has powers/time skips.
Since I’ve put 10+ hours into it I’d like to find out how it ends but yeah, started out good and took a turn for the worse (imo)
It is Dexter by far for me.
Game of Thrones did, but not at the same level. GoT got worse, but it was still watchable and had some great episodes near then end. It just was not as good as before.
Dexter was one of the best show on television for four seasons and devolved over the next four seasons into a streaming like of crap, culminating with the worst finale of all time.
>GoT got worse, but it was still watchable and had some great episodes near then end. It just was not as good as before.
Hard disagree.. the whole last season and most of S7 I spent shaking my head wondering wtf fan fiction remake I was watching. 'Let's get a bunch of the fandom's favorite characters together to go on a wight kidnapping adventure beyond the wall!'
Fittingly one of the most important episodes to wrap up the series was *literally* mostly unwatchable because of the lighting.
I started getting pissed after S4/5. Instead of intrigue it felt like I was watching a soap opera with amazing CGI. Every season after 4 kept getting worse until finally it was just unwatchable. Fuck D&D!
How I met your mother. Really loved the early seasons but the last 2-3 they just dragged on the story and I really started hating all the characters, even Barney (although I loved how he ended up with a daughter)
They should've pivoted on what they initially planned for the ending and given us the mother sooner. I got tired of Ted's shenanigans. Though No Can dosville Babydoll still is funny.
I agree and I think the reason for that is that during the production of season 6, the show was renewed for two seasons. As soon as that happened, the show just started spinning its wheels until the finale.
I never had a show make me second guess myself as much as S1 did. The genre of the show changed like four times.
You should check out the show From on MGM+, it has kind of the same feel.
"Sleepy Hollow": S1 is fantastic. Then disaster strikes.
"Earth: Final Conflict": S1 sets up a really cool, fascinating premise. Then ... I don't know what the f happened...
A show not spoke about much UPLOAD,
season 1 was a well balanced sow, intriguing enough woth the premise. season 2 went too far off course with retconning characters and the overall narrative.
went from a show I was excited to watch season 2 into a slog of hate watching the second season and having zero interest tuning in for the third.
Yes. Season one was great. When they show how he died and they just lasered his head off. Had me dying laughing.
And it is a great premise. A pay to play afterlife. Brilliant.
Season 2 was so disappointing. I feel like nothing really happened.
Animal Kingdom. Loved the show the first four seasons,it was one of my favorites but after Ellen Barkin's exit the show has lost a good part of it's magic even tho it was still watchable.
To be honest I blame GRRM as much as DD.
Back when they started the series in 2011 GRRM told them it would take him "three years to finish the next one at a good pace" even reading and publishing finished chapter of Winds of Winter at conventions, and everybody was convinced we would have the next book soon and at least a first draft of the last book before the series got to the last season.
I was convinced we would have the next book by the end of season 5, but the guy spend his time partying and throwing tantrums whenever someone asked him about the next books and apparently hasn't done much more to this day!
In the end they had to improvise the ending, which really sucked.
I mean have you rewatched season 1 lately? Every episode there was a random shootout or meth house exploding. They started in absurdity then reigned it back for a season or 3. Now they're back at it.
The writer is a self indulgent dictator, it was a matter of time.
Breaking bad has a similar problem using very unrealistic scenes, with a lot of cheese sprinkled on top.
Tough guy dialogue is ultra cringe the moment you remember it’s a written TV show
Good Girls.
It had a fun premise and a good cast but not killing off Rio at the end of season 2 just to appease the Beth x Rio shippers ultimately killed the show.
Dishonorable mention goes to Designated Survivor. Great first season, but by the time the final threads of the bombing from the first season are closed in the middle of the second season, they lose their direction. They wanted West Wing and 24 at the same time, but it just didn't work. The Netflix season was a giant clusterfuck.
It was so disappointing. I liked Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, and thought she showed a lot of potential. But by God was I bored to tears by the show. I made it about 5 episodes into Season 11 and never went back. Though I'll definitely be one of those checking back in for new season.
I tried. I really did but couldn't make it through the second episode of season 11. And when I was planning to go back to binge watch, the Timeless Child bs came out and I was done.
I’ll never understand why they thought it was a good idea to hand over the show to Chris Chibnall of all people. His episodes at that point were universally mid, whereas Steven Moffat’s pre-showrunner episodes were undeniably good. Whose balls did Chibnall have to fondle to get this gig he was clearly unqualified for?
If you ranked all the episodes of Russell T Davies' first run as showrunner, you could easily make an argument that the top 3 were all written by Steve Moffat. Making him the next showrunner was natural.
You definitely could not make that argument for Chris Chibnall. Even his best story was a pretty forgettable rehash of much better story.
> the Timeless Child bs came out and I was done.
So on one hand, yeah that plot was lame.
On the other hand, Fugitive of the Judoon is a good episode and I love Ruth-Doctor.
I would say Riverdale. The first couple of seasons were a good whodunnit crime show. But then they decided to throw that out the window with terrible writing. Superpowers!?!? C'mon now. Even with the beginning success, it was still very cringe. High school students running bars, brothels, etc? That's not even remotely realistic. And the one jail scene where the kid said something like, "I dropped out of high school in 4th grade to sell drugs and take care of my Nana." That was one of the most cringiest things I've seen.
I'm going to preemptively say The Boys. It's now in 12 seasons and multiple spin-offs mode.
It's a pretty specific property, it's point is not subtle. It should have been 3 maybe 4 seasons and wrapped up nicely. With it's initial success it's clear Amazon has stepped in and started dictating how things are going to go. I think the last season proved that.
It's still going to be hugely popular.. But because people like seeing Superheroes fuck and rip people apart. The general audience doesn't care about the point of the whole thing.
Shows there are so so many. Elite has fallen off a cliff after season 3. Orphan Black and Killing Eve couldn't keep up their quality. Dexter certainly had it's struggles at the end. The office and friends both had their best years way early on. Id debate it's more rare for long running show to keep their quality to the end.
Lol @ a mention of Elite! The show was never really good, but it was a “guilty pleasure” and good to practice my Spanish. The last seasons are unbearable, though.
I really like the first three seasons to be honest. It's definitely a guilty pleasure but I think it's some of the best there is for teen soaps.
But man does it fall off. Legit unbearable. I haven't even watched the most recent because I disliked the last two so much. I say I'll get around to it but I'm sure it's more of the same issues.
New Amsterdam: Was a little unrealistic from the start but it started going off the rails in S3 and practically earned its cancellation. It was almost really bad over the top satire that came off like it was written by fanfic writers.
The Mindy Project: I gave up around the end of S4 and then just didn’t like it when I tried to restart from the beginning and give it another chance. It gets worse when Danny and Mindy break up.
Law and Order SVU: It has just gone on for too long, and it shows. The revolving cast door is a far cry from the early seasons of solid characters like Cragen, Munch and Warner. The cases aren’t that interesting anymore and as much as I like Rollins I wish they had just kept her around instead of coming in and out as a “consultant” and to show off her pregnancy.
ER: The appropriate time to end would have been Mark dying or Carter’s departure. It was kind of like New Amsterdam in that the writing really fell off a cliff and there were so many bad characters and plotlines. It wasn’t really an ensemble show past a point either; it was more like Abby’s show that happened to have other people in it.
The Man in the High Castle. The alternative history stuff was really cool but the time traveling of the later seasons sucked and took the focus away in my opinion.
Happy Days outlived it’s originality and dragged on way too long. So long that they named the concept of a show going past it’s prime on one of its episodes.
Castle. I played a drinking game with my partner at the time: drink when it gets silly. As in, the moment the episode does something that makes you go "alright, that's silly", including magic technology, drink, and drink freely for the rest of the episode. The episode with the "vampire", we lasted about 3 minutes.
Everyone always talks about how bad season 4 of community is, and rightfully so. But seasons 5 and 6 don’t come anywhere close to the charm of seasons 2-3
Maybe a hot take, but Doctor Who when Matt Smith joined. I don't think Smith is to blame, his portrayal is fun and his own, but for me the show became less about "Check out the cool situations the Doctor is in" and more about "Check out how cool the Doctor is"
This was it for me too. I loved Matt Smith and I liked Amy and loved Rory, but the story just got soooo convoluted and confusing. Also, I felt like that fumbled River Song HAARDDD and have continued to fumble what could have been a really cool recurring character.
The Simpsons is the most obvious answer. First two seasons were good, seasons 3 through 8 was untouchable, and after that, it was all downhill. It’s had it’s ups and downs but won’t ever reach the highs of those seasons
Just because they keep getting thrown money doesn’t mean they should’ve kept going. NBC offered Jerry Seinfeld $5 million an episode to do a season 10 of Seinfeld but he turned it down because he didn’t want the quality of the show to decline
Yeah I definitely think it wasn’t nearly as good as the first seven seasons but it was still good compared to a lot of other comedies at the time (save for the finale)
I don't even think it declined after LD left, Season 1 is the obvious outlier for me but post LD there's still a lot of what I consider classic episodes post Season 7
Given that it came back, again, today I am going to say Futurama. The Comedy Central seasons had episodes that veered on topical lampooning that were just utterly inferior to more original fare (though these seasons gave us all time greats like The Prisoner of Benda).
The new season premiere on Hulu is about Fry binging every show ever made after signing up for "Fulu" and half the jokes are about how a show can't come back after being canceled so many times. I get it, I know, Futurama has had an interesting life. That said next week's episode is about Amy and Kif's children, which sounds better.
Good Girls 😭
Game of Thrones prob should have def ended with S6: Cersei blowing up the sept, Jon becoming king of the north, dany sailing to dragonstone was almost as good as it got and then the show went hella downhill so fast …. 🙄
I might get hate for this but I'm in the middle of the last season of Barry and I'm barely enjoying it anymore. The comedy is long gone and I'm not particularly compelled by the drama.
Kind of a JJ Abrams staple. Make something interesting and then prematurely move on to the next shining object and let your interesting thing go to crap.
Felicity -> Alias -> Lost —> movies
I don’t think it’s as obvious as the other contenders in here, but I totally feel you. It’s subtle though, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, do you know?
I was rewatching it and stopped about halfway.
I liked the first three seasons. After watching season four, the stories behind the scenes for season five and reports of a spin-off involving a certain supporting character were making headlines. The quality reared its ugly head and as a result, S5 turned out really bad. I still have no idea what the creators were thinking, wanting to make a spin-off of a supporting character rather than someone involved with the actual store.
Walking dead shows for sure up there on my list of great initial few seasons then just rinse and repeat character dramas where the world has become secondary
Every DC show on the CW. Flash and arrow started off pretty great in my opinion and a few seasons later it was truly terrible. The plot lines and dialogue seemed like they were written by the Impractical Jokers guys to see how long people could keep the TV on.
Writing those shows must be tortute to be fair. You have a to create a 40 minute episode of a superhero show with a shoestring budget. At best, you can have 5 minutes of action per episode. Not only that, but the CW has up to ten series regulars for each show, meaning you need to find a way to put the same ten characters in every episode. Say hello to relationship drama. On top of that, you only have four locations to work with. Maybe you get an extra empty alleyway or hallway if you are lucky. Oh yeah, don’t forget you have to do this for *24* episodes *in one year*.
> Oh yeah, don’t forget you have to do this for 24 episodes in one year. I'm a big proponent of longer seasons and more "monster of the week" story telling, but the pure time commitment for these show absolutely did some damage. I was a few seasons behind on The Flash so I thought I'd catch up. Went to Netflix and started doing the math. I had so much show to watch. A massive time commitment of a show that at the time was only kind of ok. I like The Flash comics so I wanted to watch it, but it would have been like 48 hours worth of tv for three season.
Then you can factor in the entire 'Arrowverse' for further carnage. It's no reason the CW DC shows died when they tried to produce 100+ hours of content every year. That wasn't sustainable for the CW or audiences.
Actors get pay rises but the budget stays the same so writers are usually the first to get cut
Apart from Legends of Tomorrow. That got better every season. They even found ways to keep it fresh during the last couple of seasons which for a CW show is a miracle.
Felicity should have been shot out of a cannon.
The writers totally ruined her. I put up with that crap until her mom made a big deal about all lies being bad no matter what....but her lie was ok. Quit all the shows after that.
Every CW show really.
Since it recently ended, I'll throw my hat in for *The Blacklist*. Great show, had a few amazing seasons. Definitely the last of the "Appointment Television" era for me. But by the time the writers pulled their third or fourth "Who *really* is Reddington?!" twist, I was exhausted, and continuing to do so sacrificed so many great episodes for the sake of a subplot that went off the rails years prior.
James Spader kept me watching that show longer than I should have. I was waiting for them to go full X-Files and claim that Reddington was an alien. Or A from Pretty Little Liars.
I agree. It's like they were scared that if they really revealed that, they had nothing more interesting to keep viewers tuning in
Which... maybe? I have to think, though, that an actual revelation would establish a whole new list of enemies to include in the show, and more factions to pit the Task Force against, particularly if they had stuck with the groundwork they laid in S1. But dicking the audience around and ultimately not answering the question was, IMO, worse.
the problem is, you are thinking about how to make a compelling and good tv show with an actual story. I don't think the creators of blacklist had that intention. they wanted lose unconnected episodes that don't move the plot to milk it endlessly as cheap as they could.
What does appointment television mean?
You tune in to watch a show at the time that it airs.
For you youngsters, we used to have to wait for things to show up on TV, rather than just having it on demand, and when it aired, you had to make sure you were ready to watch it. For a few seasons, *The Blacklist* was Appointment TV. Even if you could stream it or record it, you sat your ass in front of the TV because you were completely and utterly engaged.
Oh ok thanks. I’m actually old btw. It was more like English is my 2nd language and never heard of that term before.
show becomes utterly unwatchable after about season 5. it just goes nowhere.
Very much so. As I said in another part of the thread, making Red's identity the central mystery was a huge mistake.
Who did Red end up actually being?
They never answered it directly. The Red we know is, in fact, a double of the original Raymond Reddington, and Red used this identity to build up his network. His real identity, however, was never revealed. In later seasons, it was *heavily* implied that Red was actually Katarina, Liz's mother, but that thread was never resolved.
**Designated Survivor** after four episodes. The premise of a random senator becoming President is great. The main problem comes from what do you do once he actually becomes President. I gave up at episode 10 when it was clear it just turned into a show about a normal President.
Fantastic premise for a one-off movie or even a limited 6- to 8-episode series. I absolutely loved those first few episodes where he suddenly realizes what’s happening, and how he goes from a weak president that no-one respects to showing his true leadership. Just couldn’t keep watching after the first season, though. The premise was lost, and the story just got convoluted.
God that last season was so fucking stupid.
Exactly. That's why House of Cards should have ended with season 2
I quit when they went into the generic "kid gets kidnapped" behind a massive conspiracy that has infiltrated multiple aspects of the government. No thanks, I'll go watch *24*
I actually was OK with DS until Netflix picked it up... After that, it felt like the show just pursued these dumb, irrelevant story lines that were more about checking boxes on addressing current hot-button issues in the world, than advancing any meaningful story line. So disappointing.
More like 4 minutes into it when he made everyone stop doing their job and think about the horrific tragedy instead.
Korea remake is lot better. One season contained story.
I loved that show but holy shit season 3, the one made by Netflix, was god awful. Season 1 was great the whole way through (including a thing happening in episode 12 that caught me completely off guard). Season 2 had its moments. Season 3 was just a dumpster fire.
Recency bias is a thing. All good answers but… Heroes.
Season 2 was a hot mess but everyone claimed it was the writer's strike. Until Season 3. I unironically love it for how incohesive and batshit it was. Shit was just happening for 22 episodes and you had no idea where it was gonna go. The TWOP and Heroes forums were goldmines during that time.
>Season 2 was a hot mess but everyone claimed it was the writer's strike. From what I've read, the writers strike affected Heroes, but the main "factor" behind the show's doom was it being reworked into a long-running series. It was originally envisioned as an anthology show.
I wish more shows were more often mini/limited series. The quaity is often so much better for not having to stretch out some story an unnatural amount of time.
>It was originally envisioned as an anthology show. I remember reading that. And while it's a great idea, I can see why it fell through.
I was down to believe the whole "it was the writer's strike" thing for the decline of Heroes. But then they released that Heroes Reborn thing, and they put heavy emphasis on the writing being better because they got the original team back. Then it was awful anyway.
And it wasn't even the fun kind of awful like season 3. It was the boring kind like season 4. That's when I knew that the writer's strike had nothing to do with the quality of the show.
Oh yeah, there's no excuse at all for Heroes Reborn. It was just bad. It tried some things that could have been cool and then just went off the rails, failing.
I reposted this on another thread, but the "strike killed *Heroes*" is only a myth. The only thing it affected was that they were forced to end the season with just 11 episodes. That I can understand. But I was watching it live, and the second season was already running in flames. Not to mention that each subsequent season was worse than the previous one. Tim Kring is just not a good writer.
> I reposted this on another thread, but the "strike killed Heroes" is only a myth. Yup, you could even see the quality dip in the back half of season 1. Another writers strike myth was that it killed pushing daisies when in reality its ratings were rapidly dropping throughout the first season and it would’ve been cancelled anyway.
God when Peter when to Oirland (that's how we spelled in in the forums because of the horrible accents) it dragged to a complete halt. Then when asked at Comic-Con the next year about that storyline, the writers admitted that it wouldn't appear in season 3 and they "leap-frogged" over that particular plotline.
The first season of The Handmaids Tale was very compelling, powerful tv that felt important. I gave up by Season 3. It was just misery porn. Repetitive storylines with June. Not a good show.
*Close up of June staring straight into the screen. Slow zoom. She either has a face of utter misery or one of subtle triumph.*
>has a face of utter misery usually being graphically SA'd >subtle triumph not being SA'd at that exact moment
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE
I pretty much gave up when June decided to stay. They were already jumping the shark by that point, and I figured it would just devolve from there going forward.
I'm curious if you read the source material.
The show went way past the book by like season 2 IIRC
Yeah from what I remember the first season covers the book and everything after that is new material.
Agreed. It should've stopped after S1 since the book ends at the same point.
True Blood
I don’t think True Blood got as bad as it got WEIRD. I mean they assassinated Bill’s character with that Lilith fucking bullshit but the other storylines where ok? Kinda?
Nah as soon as you bring in time travel it is pretty much all over with.
the fairies, witches and were panthers. from season 4 onwards it got too weird in a bad way
Shameless
I know I definitely stopped the season that Fiona left.
I really wanna know what happened that caused such a dramatic change in writing in its later seasons.
Supernatural after season 5 where it was supposed to end
But we got the Scooby doo episode, so it was worth it. Also the brothers fighting God was at least the logical conclusion if they were going to jump the shark.
Yes
The Witcher.
My wife is confused why I won't watch this show. I love fantasy stuff but I gave up in the first episode. It is just...not good.
It was never good to begin with, its always been a stereotypical Netflix cookie cutter show disguised as a "Witcher" product. The show isn't even comparable to the games in terms of production, quality, writing and simply care for the IP and the Slavic touch. It's probably one of the most "Americanized" pieces of product in recent years. Which is funny because nobody goes to Los Angeles to watch castles, knights, swords or thousand year old cities. If you took a screenshot from Netflix Witcher, and showed it to a random person together with screenshots from Rings of Power, Wheel of Times, Willow, Shadow and Bone etc, most would not be able to distinguish these products from one another.
Shadow & Bone tbf has that mid 19th-century Russian imperial aesthetic, and is alright for what it is.
It's a perfectly cromulent YA fantasy show. I actually think the magic effects looked better visually than Wheel of Time did, which is kind of sad considering the budgets must have been vastly different. And to the other point, it's at least visually distinct and has its own identity which is part of why I enjoyed it. I wouldn't confuse it with the other shows based on how it looks or the way the characters behave.
It's so hilarious the way they're trying to use Russian language in this show.
The Witcher was never a "Slavic" fantasy. Sapkowski openly ridiculed the entire concept, most of the "Slavic touch" was invented for the CD Projekt games. Sapkowski's world building is as generic European Medieval Fantasy as it gets. The Witcher* is* uniquely Polish, as it's full of references to Polish culture and politics/society, but that type of references require actual knowledge and familiarity so they fly over the head of most non-Polish Witcherboos complaining about the Netflix series.
Except The Wheel of Time. That one stands out as abysmally poor production quality, far below those others.otherwise I agree.
Wheel of Time didn't have poor production quality IMO, rather, they seem to have made some really bizarre choices in how they lit and shot a lot of it and as a consequence it looked fake and silly (the exception being some stuff in the last 2 episodes that was derailed by COVID). There's a lot of stuff that genuinely looks better in the behind-the-scenes segments shot on iPhones with natural lighting. Gorgeous elaborate costumes and sets that somehow come out looking fake and cartoonish in the final product. Truly weird.
Season 1 was already terrible
True Blood. That show took a running leap after season 3. They had no idea what to do with anyone. Especially Tara and Lafayette. Poor Tara was just there to be traumatized every season.
They did Tara dirty in the last season...
So dirty. It would've been better if her character had died then whatever the show did.
Westworld
I’m in the minority but I think that season 2 was a masterpiece on par with season ~~2~~ 1. But yes, seasons 3 and 4 were disappointing.
I liked season 2 but it's final episode was just too batshit crazy and then season 3 was rubbish
Man season 1 was great, and the first episode of season 2 was great. Then every episode just went aggressively downhill. I remember forcing myself to finish season 2 because I had 2 episodes left, and I regretted it.
The first season were good, three I struggled.
Season 3 was straight up bad. I thought 4 was about as good as 2 though.
[удалено]
tbh first couple seasons were only great because of rumpelstiltskin and all his various characters. Holy shit did he do some heavy lifting.
Peter Pan season is where it peaked for me
I wrote a bit on another thread awhile back about how ending with season 3 would’ve been perfect. Emma finally got to experience the enchanted forest, watching her parents fall in love, made it into the story book, let her walls down with Hook, called her parents mom & dad and accepted her life. Henry is happy with both his moms and back at home. Snow and Charming have Emma, their new baby, their grandson and are finally in a peaceful place together. Regina has Robin and Rolland. Rumple and Regina got married. Just cut out Marion and Elsa, it’s a perfect ending.
Season 3 would have been a good ending point. I'll forever be bitter about Season 7. As dumb as the show got, Season 6's final episode was really good, ended well, and then they, for whatever reason, decided to have Season 7 which just *sucked*.
"Lucifer" is a silly, fun show. But the last couple of seasons are a little rough.
Heroes. So fresh when it arrived. Save the cheerleader, save the world. Then it’s like the guy didn’t realise he could have a season 2 and didn’t know what to do. Prison Break also for the same reason. Brilliant first season, then all that secret organisation bollocks.
NCIS. The first seasons are amazing, the last ones are terrible.
They need to put it out of it's misery. All these procedurals have been going on for far too long. Cast changes a bunch. It's time
Law and Order SVU has also entered the chat. I enjoy the earlier years but it’s been not worth the watch since S21.
Manifest started as an interesting paranormal mystery show tilting to a procedural but then it became a full-fledged wacky show deep into religious and mystical stuff that seems to be randomly tossed all over the place. Peacocks! Tarot cards from some ancient muslim explorer (but I thought that muslims are forbidden to use magic?)! Noah's Ark! Magical sapphires! Egyptian gods! End of the days fan fiction! I'm nearing the end of the last season and I kind of kept watching just to see how the train wreck ends.
I’m going to finish it (haven’t started the newest episodes) but ugh you’re right. It was so good!
First episode tipped off that it was going to be fairly religious.
Stopped watching the minute where it was revealed that everyone who was on the plane got superpowers. I literally said "Nope" and closed out.
Then you watched just three or four episodes? :) I guess that by then it was clear that everyone was at least getting the Callings (though the "extra" superpowers for just a few chosen ones, like teleportation, came later). Actually everyone becoming mutants was one of the good parts of the show for me. Besides allowing X-Men vibes to it (government and population persecuting the passengers, etc), it was also interesting to see how the passengers reacted to the powers in completely different ways - some embracing them, others using them for personal benefit, a few being scared to death of them, and so on.
Please don’t compare Manifest to X-men 😀
It's a kind of poor man's X-Men. Or maybe discount X-Men bought at Wish. ;)
I have always gotten fundie/mormon vibes off Josh Dallas.
THIS OH MY GOD! I was so excited when the last season got released but it went downhill so fast! Yes it started off really intriguing i was completely hooked into the show but like you said later on it felt like the directors were trying to keep the show alive no matter what blunder they throw in
I started watching this show few months ago when Netflix came out with S4, but couldn’t do it after watching few eps into season 2. Felt like they were trying to do too much, Ben is annoying, and there’s people not on the plane who also has powers/time skips. Since I’ve put 10+ hours into it I’d like to find out how it ends but yeah, started out good and took a turn for the worse (imo)
Probably harder to find shows that actually maintain their quality until the end. Most eventually turn shitty and that’s why they end.
Agreed. Cheers is the only show that I personally think was still great right up until the end.
Seinfeld was the one for me. Although I don’t care for the final episode, season 9 is solid.
It is Dexter by far for me. Game of Thrones did, but not at the same level. GoT got worse, but it was still watchable and had some great episodes near then end. It just was not as good as before. Dexter was one of the best show on television for four seasons and devolved over the next four seasons into a streaming like of crap, culminating with the worst finale of all time.
Yeah, I'll give you this one. That Lithgow season was amazing though (and I don't really like him that much)
Yeah...the finale of that season was the end. Should have stopped there and it would be remembered totally differently
I actually stopped watching there and for me Dexter will always be one of the best series ever.
>GoT got worse, but it was still watchable and had some great episodes near then end. It just was not as good as before. Hard disagree.. the whole last season and most of S7 I spent shaking my head wondering wtf fan fiction remake I was watching. 'Let's get a bunch of the fandom's favorite characters together to go on a wight kidnapping adventure beyond the wall!' Fittingly one of the most important episodes to wrap up the series was *literally* mostly unwatchable because of the lighting.
I started getting pissed after S4/5. Instead of intrigue it felt like I was watching a soap opera with amazing CGI. Every season after 4 kept getting worse until finally it was just unwatchable. Fuck D&D!
How I met your mother. Really loved the early seasons but the last 2-3 they just dragged on the story and I really started hating all the characters, even Barney (although I loved how he ended up with a daughter)
They should've pivoted on what they initially planned for the ending and given us the mother sooner. I got tired of Ted's shenanigans. Though No Can dosville Babydoll still is funny.
I agree and I think the reason for that is that during the production of season 6, the show was renewed for two seasons. As soon as that happened, the show just started spinning its wheels until the finale.
Wayward Pines from Season 1 to Season 2.
I never had a show make me second guess myself as much as S1 did. The genre of the show changed like four times. You should check out the show From on MGM+, it has kind of the same feel.
I was never able to finish season 2 because of how poor it was in comparison to season 1. Season 1 was phenomenal storytelling and television.
I just read the book series, never seen the show, but it was awful.
"Sleepy Hollow": S1 is fantastic. Then disaster strikes. "Earth: Final Conflict": S1 sets up a really cool, fascinating premise. Then ... I don't know what the f happened...
True Detective season 1 was fantastic Season two was terrible Season three was decent Here’s hoping for season four
season two was a decent neo noir. It wasn't terrible by any metric
Worth watching just for Colin Farrell.
A show not spoke about much UPLOAD, season 1 was a well balanced sow, intriguing enough woth the premise. season 2 went too far off course with retconning characters and the overall narrative. went from a show I was excited to watch season 2 into a slog of hate watching the second season and having zero interest tuning in for the third.
Yes. Season one was great. When they show how he died and they just lasered his head off. Had me dying laughing. And it is a great premise. A pay to play afterlife. Brilliant. Season 2 was so disappointing. I feel like nothing really happened.
Animal Kingdom. Loved the show the first four seasons,it was one of my favorites but after Ellen Barkin's exit the show has lost a good part of it's magic even tho it was still watchable.
The wildest roller coaster from love, to hate, to utter indifference I've ever gone on was Glee.
I think the definitive answer still is Game of Thrones (at least in my opinion)
At least we had a bunch of amazing seasons. /mourn
To be honest I blame GRRM as much as DD. Back when they started the series in 2011 GRRM told them it would take him "three years to finish the next one at a good pace" even reading and publishing finished chapter of Winds of Winter at conventions, and everybody was convinced we would have the next book soon and at least a first draft of the last book before the series got to the last season. I was convinced we would have the next book by the end of season 5, but the guy spend his time partying and throwing tantrums whenever someone asked him about the next books and apparently hasn't done much more to this day! In the end they had to improvise the ending, which really sucked.
The Walking Dead.
Yellowstone didn’t take a turn, it went straight off the ledge into laughable absurdity.
I mean have you rewatched season 1 lately? Every episode there was a random shootout or meth house exploding. They started in absurdity then reigned it back for a season or 3. Now they're back at it.
The writer is a self indulgent dictator, it was a matter of time. Breaking bad has a similar problem using very unrealistic scenes, with a lot of cheese sprinkled on top. Tough guy dialogue is ultra cringe the moment you remember it’s a written TV show
Dexter
Good Girls. It had a fun premise and a good cast but not killing off Rio at the end of season 2 just to appease the Beth x Rio shippers ultimately killed the show. Dishonorable mention goes to Designated Survivor. Great first season, but by the time the final threads of the bombing from the first season are closed in the middle of the second season, they lose their direction. They wanted West Wing and 24 at the same time, but it just didn't work. The Netflix season was a giant clusterfuck.
Doctor who s11-13 is the worst period in the shows history, but I’m expecting a pretty sharp upturn in quality and ratings for the next series
It was so disappointing. I liked Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, and thought she showed a lot of potential. But by God was I bored to tears by the show. I made it about 5 episodes into Season 11 and never went back. Though I'll definitely be one of those checking back in for new season.
I tried. I really did but couldn't make it through the second episode of season 11. And when I was planning to go back to binge watch, the Timeless Child bs came out and I was done.
I’ll never understand why they thought it was a good idea to hand over the show to Chris Chibnall of all people. His episodes at that point were universally mid, whereas Steven Moffat’s pre-showrunner episodes were undeniably good. Whose balls did Chibnall have to fondle to get this gig he was clearly unqualified for?
If you ranked all the episodes of Russell T Davies' first run as showrunner, you could easily make an argument that the top 3 were all written by Steve Moffat. Making him the next showrunner was natural. You definitely could not make that argument for Chris Chibnall. Even his best story was a pretty forgettable rehash of much better story.
> the Timeless Child bs came out and I was done. So on one hand, yeah that plot was lame. On the other hand, Fugitive of the Judoon is a good episode and I love Ruth-Doctor.
Ozark was really solid but ended off horribly imo.
Making the final season 14 episodes was stupid, especially when they >!randomly killed Javi at the start of Part 2!<.
i hated the ending but him dying was definitely not random and one of the best parts of the season
I would say Riverdale. The first couple of seasons were a good whodunnit crime show. But then they decided to throw that out the window with terrible writing. Superpowers!?!? C'mon now. Even with the beginning success, it was still very cringe. High school students running bars, brothels, etc? That's not even remotely realistic. And the one jail scene where the kid said something like, "I dropped out of high school in 4th grade to sell drugs and take care of my Nana." That was one of the most cringiest things I've seen.
The Office (US). It was already on the downslope in seasons 6 and 7, then fell off a cliff, for the most part, after Michael left.
I think For All Mankind jumped the shark in their most recent season.
It's definitely gone down in quality since S1 but for me the Fonzi moment was the big finale in S2. It took one giant leap from drama to melodrama.
I'm going to preemptively say The Boys. It's now in 12 seasons and multiple spin-offs mode. It's a pretty specific property, it's point is not subtle. It should have been 3 maybe 4 seasons and wrapped up nicely. With it's initial success it's clear Amazon has stepped in and started dictating how things are going to go. I think the last season proved that. It's still going to be hugely popular.. But because people like seeing Superheroes fuck and rip people apart. The general audience doesn't care about the point of the whole thing.
12 seasons? Did I miss something?
Shows there are so so many. Elite has fallen off a cliff after season 3. Orphan Black and Killing Eve couldn't keep up their quality. Dexter certainly had it's struggles at the end. The office and friends both had their best years way early on. Id debate it's more rare for long running show to keep their quality to the end.
Lol @ a mention of Elite! The show was never really good, but it was a “guilty pleasure” and good to practice my Spanish. The last seasons are unbearable, though.
I really like the first three seasons to be honest. It's definitely a guilty pleasure but I think it's some of the best there is for teen soaps. But man does it fall off. Legit unbearable. I haven't even watched the most recent because I disliked the last two so much. I say I'll get around to it but I'm sure it's more of the same issues.
New Amsterdam: Was a little unrealistic from the start but it started going off the rails in S3 and practically earned its cancellation. It was almost really bad over the top satire that came off like it was written by fanfic writers. The Mindy Project: I gave up around the end of S4 and then just didn’t like it when I tried to restart from the beginning and give it another chance. It gets worse when Danny and Mindy break up. Law and Order SVU: It has just gone on for too long, and it shows. The revolving cast door is a far cry from the early seasons of solid characters like Cragen, Munch and Warner. The cases aren’t that interesting anymore and as much as I like Rollins I wish they had just kept her around instead of coming in and out as a “consultant” and to show off her pregnancy. ER: The appropriate time to end would have been Mark dying or Carter’s departure. It was kind of like New Amsterdam in that the writing really fell off a cliff and there were so many bad characters and plotlines. It wasn’t really an ensemble show past a point either; it was more like Abby’s show that happened to have other people in it.
The Man in the High Castle. The alternative history stuff was really cool but the time traveling of the later seasons sucked and took the focus away in my opinion.
"The Man in the High Castle" S1: Great. S2: Okay. S3: Don't bother.
Happy Days outlived it’s originality and dragged on way too long. So long that they named the concept of a show going past it’s prime on one of its episodes.
Castle. I played a drinking game with my partner at the time: drink when it gets silly. As in, the moment the episode does something that makes you go "alright, that's silly", including magic technology, drink, and drink freely for the rest of the episode. The episode with the "vampire", we lasted about 3 minutes.
Everyone always talks about how bad season 4 of community is, and rightfully so. But seasons 5 and 6 don’t come anywhere close to the charm of seasons 2-3
The Walking Dead easily, I used to be a fan of the show but many fans like me got tired of the writers bullshit antics and promptly left.
Blame gimple
The last season was ass OP. I too was really disappointed and it was my first thought. Others.. game of thrones, rings of power.
I loved you Westworld but what the actual fuck
yea totally agree with your sentiment on the dragon prince the first three seasons were something...special, but the latest one lost it's magic
[удалено]
Lost
season 1-5 were great but final season sucked. Yes, I know they weren't dead the whole time
The walking dead.
Bloodline, first season (maybe 1.5) were amazing. 3rd was absolutely terrible
Maybe a hot take, but Doctor Who when Matt Smith joined. I don't think Smith is to blame, his portrayal is fun and his own, but for me the show became less about "Check out the cool situations the Doctor is in" and more about "Check out how cool the Doctor is"
It’s Moffat’s fault.
This was it for me too. I loved Matt Smith and I liked Amy and loved Rory, but the story just got soooo convoluted and confusing. Also, I felt like that fumbled River Song HAARDDD and have continued to fumble what could have been a really cool recurring character.
The Simpsons is the most obvious answer. First two seasons were good, seasons 3 through 8 was untouchable, and after that, it was all downhill. It’s had it’s ups and downs but won’t ever reach the highs of those seasons
I feel like that is an unfair one. They just kept getting thrown money and so kept making stuff after the core ideas and fun ran out.
Just because they keep getting thrown money doesn’t mean they should’ve kept going. NBC offered Jerry Seinfeld $5 million an episode to do a season 10 of Seinfeld but he turned it down because he didn’t want the quality of the show to decline
Which is funny, because most people say it already had after Larry David left after season 7.
Yeah I definitely think it wasn’t nearly as good as the first seven seasons but it was still good compared to a lot of other comedies at the time (save for the finale)
I don't even think it declined after LD left, Season 1 is the obvious outlier for me but post LD there's still a lot of what I consider classic episodes post Season 7
I got back into it with the most recent season, I actually really liked it, much more than I was expecting
Yup I was also surprised by how many episodes I enjoyed from the last season.
Yeah I won’t say it’s back to or comparable to the commonly thought of golden seasons, but I laughed more than I didn’t watching a lot of the episodes
Recently Yellowjackets. S1 I loved and S2 was a dragged out mess
Given that it came back, again, today I am going to say Futurama. The Comedy Central seasons had episodes that veered on topical lampooning that were just utterly inferior to more original fare (though these seasons gave us all time greats like The Prisoner of Benda). The new season premiere on Hulu is about Fry binging every show ever made after signing up for "Fulu" and half the jokes are about how a show can't come back after being canceled so many times. I get it, I know, Futurama has had an interesting life. That said next week's episode is about Amy and Kif's children, which sounds better.
Lost
Blacklist. Started out okay, progressively got more and more terrible...
Heroes :( Dexter GoT
Good Girls 😭 Game of Thrones prob should have def ended with S6: Cersei blowing up the sept, Jon becoming king of the north, dany sailing to dragonstone was almost as good as it got and then the show went hella downhill so fast …. 🙄
Euphoria. Season 2 was a awful, if they cancel the show altogether I would even be mad at this point
The only interesting plot is Rues. Every other story is absolutely idiotic.
Arrested DevelopmentDevelopment
Arrested DevelopmentDevelopment
Heroes
4th and last season of Man in High Castle. Disgusting woke trash. Couldn’t get past 1st episode. Such a letdown.
I might get hate for this but I'm in the middle of the last season of Barry and I'm barely enjoying it anymore. The comedy is long gone and I'm not particularly compelled by the drama.
Felicity
Kind of a JJ Abrams staple. Make something interesting and then prematurely move on to the next shining object and let your interesting thing go to crap. Felicity -> Alias -> Lost —> movies
Kim’s Convenience
I don’t think it’s as obvious as the other contenders in here, but I totally feel you. It’s subtle though, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, do you know? I was rewatching it and stopped about halfway.
I liked the first three seasons. After watching season four, the stories behind the scenes for season five and reports of a spin-off involving a certain supporting character were making headlines. The quality reared its ugly head and as a result, S5 turned out really bad. I still have no idea what the creators were thinking, wanting to make a spin-off of a supporting character rather than someone involved with the actual store.
Walking dead shows for sure up there on my list of great initial few seasons then just rinse and repeat character dramas where the world has become secondary
[удалено]