TV shows that ended up DISAPPOINTING you [SPOILERS]

[Godzilla2099]

I'll also add Big Bang Theory to the list.

When Bern and Amy were added to the cast, its when the show took a nose dive for me. Neither one of these ladies said anything that made me chuckle. They're just....annoying. And not in the good kind of way.

I enjoyed the show the most when it was four awkward nerds and their hot neighbor. Everybody had hilarious lines. Now its just couples managing their lives

[AndrewCrossett]

I enjoyed the show the most when it was four awkward nerds and their hot neighbor. Everybody had hilarious lines. Now its just couples managing their lives

The exact same trajectory as "Friends," with similar results.

[David Walton]

I feel like BIG BANG THEORY did a great job expanding the cast and mixing things up enough to keep the show interesting. I'm personally amazed as to how consistent the quality has been this many seasons into the show.

[ChrisIII]

A few oldies:


Star Trek season 3-while the first two seasons had a lot of great episodes, season 3 was kind of just a bit weird. While there are some great episodes like The Tholian Web, and the Enterprise inciddent, you've got some really bizzare ones like the Paraside syndrome (Where Kirk gets amnesia and think's he part of a tribal culture) Spock's Brain (Of course) and The Way To Eden (The space hippies one, and oddly enough, an inspiration for Star Trek V!).

Also although it had some standout episodes, season 7 of TNG was probably the weakest since the first two. The evolution episode with the crew turning into monsters, the strange masks one, and of course the one where Dr. Crusher falls in love with a ghost.


CSI I think started to decline around season 7 I think, where they sort of had season-long story arcs (Sara/Grissom, Minature killer etc.) instead of focusing more on isolated cases...plus there started to be more cast turnover. As much as I like Fishburne, his character just didn't seem as interesting and they kind of tried to give him a weird gimmick (Turns out his brain's wired like a killer, sort of ripping off Dexter, and there was some misdirection that he might've been one of the show's big bads).

Land of the Lost season 3 lost Spencer Milligan, replacing him with the uncle, and also kind of screwed around with the show's mythology.

[Martini Sigil]

The Walking dead has gotten unwatchable... the writing is horrid....

Preacher has been a big disappointment...

Sons of Anarchy and Dexter are the most over rated shows ever

[feenix219]

Heroes - Okay, the first season was pretty good because they heavily adapted one of the X-Men's most popular stories and had a pretty terrifying villain. Then they completely forgot what they wrote in the first season and started introducing the most boring characters simply to promote political agendas. It was horrid and I burned my season one box set so I never had to watch this wretched series ever again.

I didn't notice too many political strands in Heroes, until a little bit in Season 4 with the "coming out" of Claire..... it had lots of stupid plotting, but it seemed to be a bit before the agenda era.

Basara wrote: "Heroes - Okay, the first season was pretty good because they heavily adapted one of the X-Men's most popular stories and had a pretty terrifying villain. Then they completely forgot what they wrote in the first season and started introducing the most boring characters simply to promote political agendas. It was horrid and I burned my season one box set so I never had to watch this wretched series ever again."

Okay, that's a bit extreme.

Supposedly, the creator of the show had written the second season or commissioned it all ahead of time because everyone knew there was probably going to be a writer's strike. Unfortunately, he made one error. In an interview, he mentioned that one mistake a lot of shows make is that, because they are episodic, a show introduces characters with a story that is relevant to that character but, as the seasons go on, they've got to keep telling stories about those same characters even when the stories that were truly relevant to those characters are done. Their story has been told. So his plan was to keep a couple of the characters for the second season but otherwise introduce new characters. Then, in the third season, all the first season characters would be gone but keep a couple of the second season characters and otherwise introduce new characters, etc.

Unfortunately, the visceral fan reaction on the Internet amounted to, "Nooooo! I don't want new characters. I want endless, repetitive stories about the characters I already like!" Then the network panicked and ordered him to change the whole storyline of season 2 to include all of the first season characters. So he not only had to throw out all the scripts or at least rewrite them to force all of the original characters into them but now he had to do it with the writer's strike which meant a short season.

Basically, his whole original plan for what the show would be after the first season was forcibly taken away from him by the suits panicking and dictating creative direction and we all know the disaster that turned into.

I thought Arrow was also really good at first but that sort of "darkness" show tends to have a short lifespan for me. I think dragging the whole flashback stuff out for season after season got old. But that's a problem with most shows is that things that were fascinating at first get old yet changing things takes away what was originally interesting about a show. It's a Catch-22. People just lose interest.

There are two separate things going on here..... the anthology show issue, which was discarded way before plotting and scripting happened, and the writers strike issue, which through off all of the events of season two.

They made the assumption that with a 9 month hiatus before the show was going to return, that people would lose interest and forget whatever storyline and cliffhanger was going on. Everything that Season two was setting up to be resolved durings its back half, after the virus outbreak, was completely derailed and wrapped up quickly so that Season 3 could start out with a new storyline. THAT was where they didn't plot ahead and had no idea what they were doing..... the original Season Two storyline would have dealt with things like Peter failing and the virus getting out; Parkman and Nathan teaming up to try to save the quarantined town; Hiro realizing that he in fact, behaved very unheroically and celebrating early while everything went to crap; an actual point to Maya and a season resolution with her containing the virus in a heroic redemptive sacrifice. Sylar, meanwhile, would get into a cat and mouse game with Elle, and power up with impenetrable skin and camouflage, instead of retreading rapid cellular regenaration and shapeshifting. The entire series would have ended up differently and Season Two would only have been a step under Season One once the threads had been pulled together.

Things didn't go really off the rails until the incredibly poorly planned first half of Season 3.....

[Osiris-Rex]

I'll also add Big Bang Theory to the list.

When Bern and Amy were added to the cast, its when the show took a nose dive for me. Neither one of these ladies said anything that made me chuckle. They're just....annoying. And not in the good kind of way.

I enjoyed the show the most when it was four awkward nerds and their hot neighbor. Everybody had hilarious lines. Now its just couples managing their lives

I think the show is actually better now that there are more women on it. Some of the skits with Just Penny, Amy, and Bernadette are funnier than the skits involving the guys. Such as when Amy gave Penny
a painting of the two of them. That was a hell of a lot funnier than Sheldon and Kripke playing basketball and Sheldon whining about his new office afterwards.

[Zero Hunter]

I think the show is actually better now that there are more women on it. Some of the skits with Just Penny, Amy, and Bernadette are funnier than the skits involving the guys. Such as when Amy gave Penny
a painting of the two of them. That was a hell of a lot funnier than Sheldon and Kripke playing basketball and Sheldon whining about his new office afterwards.

I have to agree. Those two new character opened up the show to so many other plotlines. I really think that if they not changed things up like they did the show would not be on the air anymore because it was starting to get really stale before they started featuring them and others like Stuart more.

[feenix219]

Abrams wasn't that involved with Lost. It was really more Dindelof's baby.
He only directed the pilot.

I lost interest during the final or penultimate (don't exactly recall) season.
Acually, I think I lost interest a lot sooner than that and just watched it out of habit.

I have greatly enjoyed other Abrams shows like Alias and Fringe.

I've heard rumors that part of why Lost stumbled its landing, is because some of the sci-fi aspects were removed to be used as the focus of Fringe. Shrug.

[feenix219]

I think they had one planned, and that it was a rather good one, but it was supposed to end in season 4, and the show lasts over twice that long.

What was the original ending plan?

I too, made it through Season 5 and the movie, and never went back. Season 5 and the finale with the telepathic kid seemed to be hinting at... something. The ambiguous nature of the early seasons kept you really wondering if it was really aliens, or just the government experimenting on stuff the entire time. It seemed like there could have been a thru-line of super powered people with abilities the government was after / created / cloned and were using the alien element as disinfo / distraction. I decided that I liked the story in my head better, and stopped watching after that.

[thanoswasright]

Start of Lost was so interesting, a lot of mysteries, a lot of secrets and stuff, but ending.... Is there any chance to see remake of the ending?

[Carabas]

What was the original ending plan?

I'm guessing something similar to the events of One Son from halfway season 6 where the Conspiracy is basically defeated once and for all.
And then a new and largely unrelated conspiracy takes starts up.

I too, made it through Season 5 and the movie, and never went back. Season 5 and the finale with the telepathic kid seemed to be hinting at... something. The ambiguous nature of the early seasons kept you really wondering if it was really aliens, or just the government experimenting on stuff the entire time. It seemed like there could have been a thru-line of super powered people with abilities the government was after / created / cloned and were using the alien element as disinfo / distraction. I decided that I liked the story in my head better, and stopped watching after that.

Made it through all of it, but never bothered getting into the revival series as reviews say it focuses on my least favourite aspects of the old show.

The final seasons have a big saving grace though: Robert Patrick was ten times as interesting as Mulder ever was.

[Carabas]

I've heard rumors that part of why Lost stumbled its landing, is because some of the sci-fi aspects were removed to be used as the focus of Fringe. Shrug.

Having watched Fringe, I find that very hard to believe.

[numberthirty]

Having watched Fringe, I find that very hard to believe.

Yep.

You have to keep in mind that anyone who was saying that was trying to make excuses for that show ending the way that it did.

[numberthirty]

I'm guessing something similar to the events of One Son from halfway season 6 where the Conspiracy is basically defeated once and for all.
And then a new and largely unrelated conspiracy takes starts up.

Made it through all of it, but never bothered getting into the revival series as reviews say it focuses on my least favourite aspects of the old show.

The final seasons have a big saving grace though: Robert Patrick was ten times as interesting as Mulder ever was.

I'd counter that Mulder was just as interesting. Just in an incredibly depressing way.