TV shows that ended up DISAPPOINTING you [SPOILERS]

[Captain Smith]

I agree totally about Sauske in Naruto. The endless fixation with that worthless character by Naruto and Sakura was and is nauseating. Give somebody a 45 from an alternate universe and just end him.

[AnakinFlair]

Buffy after season 5, though it did manage a couple good episodes afterward. Season 6 minus the Musical was especially bad.

Angel's last season was a definite decline as well. Though not nearly as sharp a decline as Buffy had imo, and is saved by a great finale.

Sliders, poor, poor, Sliders. Cancelling it might have been kinder than continuing on when they were only down to one member of the original cast.

Some Anime ones.

Bleach started great then went off the rails sometime after the first soul society arc.

Yuyu Hakusho was a favorite of mine until the last arc, where you get the feeling the author wanted to wrap it up as quickly as possible.

Naruto after an ocean of filler and the horrible adventures of Sauske I couldn't bring myself to care when they got back to the good plot.

Angel's 5th season was pretty good to me, save for two things:

1. The network didn't allow Angel to transform into a vampire for some stupid reason (the only two times he did it that season was once in the puppet episode (as the puppet!), and once during the finale.

2. Even after they knew that they weren't getting renewed, they wasted an entire episode on f'ing HARMONY. While I found her somewhat enjoyable as Angel's secretary, I did not want or need an entire episode devoted to her.


Bleach- I watched a lot of that series with a friend, but I lost interest when the show became dominated by that fucking stuffed bear. Horrible.

[Captain Smith]

I agree that Tennant was the best recent Doctor. I'm willing to give the new female a chance to see if there are good plots.

The biggest problems in many current series is extending the plot line endlessly and not having overarching editorial supervision of pure stupidity in plotting.

[David Walton]

I never had high hopes for ARROW and just watched it out of couriosity, so I was surprised when it turned out to be okay. It wasn't the greatest TV show, but it was a nice way to spend the time. Then in season 3 it turned terrible and even though some seasons have been better (5), I've never got back the feeling I used to have for the series. I'll binge it to see how it fits with LEGENDS or FLASH, but it's not a good series anymore.

The Season 2 finale is still one of my favorite hours of television ever. After that, it's hit or miss, mostly because they keep teasing a more confident, heroic and humorous Oliver but never follow through with that promise.

[Basara]

How I Met Your Mother - I can't believe it took me 7-1/2 seasons to figure out that Ted was a douchebag and I completely felt sorry for whichever woman was going to end up with him, but once I did, I couldn't watch anymore. I'm glad I quit when I did once the last episode revealed how right I was about Ted.

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.

Fushugi Yugi, Ranma 1/2, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Inyu Yasha were all anime series that started off amazing, and then things went off the rails quick about halfway through. That's when I realized that the series had caught up to the manga versions and they had to create new stories that had none of the charm of the original creations.

[Conch22]

Angel's 5th season was pretty good to me, save for two things:

1. The network didn't allow Angel to transform into a vampire for some stupid reason (the only two times he did it that season was once in the puppet episode (as the puppet!), and once during the finale.

2. Even after they knew that they weren't getting renewed, they wasted an entire episode on f'ing HARMONY. While I found her somewhat enjoyable as Angel's secretary, I did not want or need an entire episode devoted to her.


Bleach- I watched a lot of that series with a friend, but I lost interest when the show became dominated by that fucking stuffed bear. Horrible.

Been awhile since I watched that season of Angel, but I could've sworn he transformed when he offed Drogyn, in the WW2 episode and in the episode where he and Spike were fighting for the cup of perpetual torment.

[AndrewCrossett]

How I Met Your Mother - I can't believe it took me 7-1/2 seasons to figure out that Ted was a douchebag and I completely felt sorry for whichever woman was going to end up with him, but once I did, I couldn't watch anymore. I'm glad I quit when I did once the last episode revealed how right I was about Ted.

I found the Ted-Robin-Barney triangle intensely annoying, especially since neither one of the men had anything even slightly in common with her.

HIMYM had the single worst ending of any TV show I've ever watched.

[Powerboy]

Angel's 5th season was pretty good to me, save for two things:

1. The network didn't allow Angel to transform into a vampire for some stupid reason (the only two times he did it that season was once in the puppet episode (as the puppet!), and once during the finale.

2. Even after they knew that they weren't getting renewed, they wasted an entire episode on f'ing HARMONY. While I found her somewhat enjoyable as Angel's secretary, I did not want or need an entire episode devoted to her.

I think the problem with Buffy 6-7 was they were just plain bad with the exception of a few individual episodes here and there. In fact, I loved Spike as a character but the whole Buffy/ Spike thing made me feel like I was reading fan fiction that was the actual show.

I don't think Angel 5 was objectively bad but it's just that Joss Whedon had a tendency to always want to one up himself in taking everything and every character to new levels of darkness, despair and depression. There's a point where that gets done so many times that people tend to see it not as dramatic but as a predictable formula. In fact, I remember going to a Buffy/ Angel board right after the episode where Wesley and Fred admitted they loved each other and there were already people posting stuff like, "Dammit! Why do they have to kill Fred off? I really like her." And they were right. The next week, they killed her off and turned her into Illyria. But people saw it coming the moment she and Wesley looked like they were actually going to experience any happiness. It was totally predictable.

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.

[Powerboy]

I never had high hopes for ARROW and just watched it out of couriosity, so I was surprised when it turned out to be okay. It wasn't the greatest TV show, but it was a nice way to spend the time. Then in season 3 it turned terrible and even though some seasons have been better (5), I've never got back the feeling I used to have for the series. I'll binge it to see how it fits with LEGENDS or FLASH, but it's not a good series anymore.

Interestingly, season 5 is where it lost me. I actually liked the previous season more. I don't remember enough about season 3 to say much. I do think it had potential.

[Tuck]

In fact, I remember going to a Buffy/ Angel board right after the episode where Wesley and Fred admitted they loved each other and there were already people posting stuff like, "Dammit! Why do they have to kill Fred off? I really like her." And they were right. The next week, they killed her off and turned her into Illyria. But people saw it coming the moment she and Wesley looked like they were actually going to experience any happiness. It was totally predictable.

I recall reading somewhere that Fred was intended to return . . . but then the show was canceled.

Honestly, Cordeilia's death is really the only one that ever bothered me. It felt like addressing the ignominious exit of an original Buffyverse character without really rehabilitating the exit much.

[Powerboy]

I recall reading somewhere that Fred was intended to return . . . but then the show was canceled.

Honestly, Cordeilia's death is really the only one that ever bothered me. It felt like addressing the ignominious exit of an original Buffyverse character without really rehabilitating the exit much.

She was intended to return. This is from a commentary with Joss Whedon. Had there been another season, Wesley would not have died. But he and Illyria started to have feelings for each other. Then he would find that he could bring Fred back but only by killing Illyria. Ultimately, he kills her to bring Fred back but Fred can't accept that he would kill someone to bring her back nor can he still have a relationship with her when just looking at her reminds him of what he did.

[Panic]

I though Buffy was great for three seasons, but after that it got worse and worse (though I thought s7 was better than s6).

Angel seasons 1 and 5 were the good ones for me; the other seasons had their moments, but their long-running plots often became tedious, imo.

[AndrewCrossett]

She was intended to return. This is from a commentary with Joss Whedon. Had there been another season, Wesley would not have died. But he and Illyria started to have feelings for each other. Then he would find that he could bring Fred back but only by killing Illyria. Ultimately, he kills her to bring Fred back but Fred can't accept that he would kill someone to bring her back nor can he still have a relationship with her when just looking at her reminds him of what he did.

In the canon comics,

spoilers:

Fred is back... she and Illyria now share a body. The rebooting of the world's magic at the end of season 9 caused their two personalities to separate once again. Yeah, I know Knox and Dr. Sparrow claimed that Fred's soul had been consumed, but they were full of it. You really expect more truthfulness from evil villains. I don't know what the world is coming to.

end of spoilers

[Powerboy]

I though Buffy was great for three seasons, but after that it got worse and worse (though I thought s7 was better than s6).

Angel seasons 1 and 5 were the good ones for me; the other seasons had their moments, but their long-running plots often became tedious, imo.

Personally, I thought Angel hit it's heights in season 2 and never quite reached those heights again. But I thought seasons 2 and 3 of Buffy were where it hit it's heights. The Nielson's at least confirm that it's the opinion of most with Buffy. Big ratings boost in season 2. Reached it's highest ratings in season 3. In season 4, dropped to below its season 2 and 3 ratings. I think season 5 was an increase it ratings but only to above season 4. Season 6 was a massive drop to below everything but season one. Season 7, it dropped to just about equal to season one in ratings.

In ratings, it went 3 > 2 > 5 > 4 > 6 > 7 > 1

So by the end, it basically had dropped back to what it was in season one and had lost all of the extra audience it had built up through seasons 2 and 3 at it's height of popularity.

[Panic]

I'd definitely agree that seasons 2 & 3 were the highpoint for Buffy - both were excellent. I think in the later seasons the script development time was cut, and I think it showed.

For Angel, I liked the start of season 2, but the whole gang-break-up I found boring, and it didn't recover until the three-parter at the end of the season.