Heroes - It just got silly - stories were more and more preposterous. The circus story are was the final straw.
Under the Dome - It just got silly - stopped making sense.
Scorpion - It just got silly - solutions just became more and more contrived.
Once Upon a Time - Should have ended at season 6. Had no interest in the new characters
Two and a Half Men - After Charlie left Aston's first season was still funny enough but bringing in Charlie's long lost daughter, she was just too annoying.
All American - It was just the same thing over and over.
I quite all the comic shows during season three of the Flash. After seeing Evil Speedster Number 3 with no other type of arc villain between any of them I decided it was never going to try anything new - and that led me to realize that Arrow was always going to slip back into "Oliver can't ever learn to stop keeping secrets" and Agents of SHIELD was going to never have anything other than contrived melodrama between Fitz and Simmons.
Dark does not mean deep.
I recently watched Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 for the first time on Blu-Ray and really liked it. Much improved over Season 1.
The comment that Season 3 on embraces its goofiness kind of worries me. I usually hate it when dramas try to be funny. Sitcom beats within dramas seems to be the norm in Hollywood for the longest time, and it never works for me. It feels forced and artificial. It's my least favorite thing about the Marvel movies and the Flash TV series. Hope I'm not in store for more of that once I start Legends S3.
I gave up on the simpsons years ago, when I realized all the plots seemed to be the same, and I couldn’t get through more than half an episode, before turning it off because I didn’t like where the story was going.
As far as shield, I couldn’t make it through season one with it’s hydra plot line, and the fact that I didn’t care about half the team. I’d pop in and out in seasons 2 and four, but it got to the point where I didn’t even care about coulson anymore.
Last edited by protege; 04-13-2020 at 07:08 PM.
I'm also watching Voyager right now and, like you, I gave up on it twice, once on its original run and once on Netflix. I started back on Netflix and found I was in the fifth season when I left off so I'm trying to finish it.
Generally, episodes that are heavy on the Doctor or Tuvok are the ones I like. Seven is interesting when you get past the attempt to sell her on looks and see that she's an interesting character. I've liked the ones about the Doctor developing feelings for Seven, the flashbacks episode to Janeway's ancestor (which was really a Voyager episode in name only) and the one about the Doctor getting possessed by an AI missile. Often, it's the actor's performance that makes it work. For instance, in the angry exchange between the possessed Doctor and Harry, Picardo is really making it work, holding nothing back and Garret Wang just cannot seem to match his performance no matter how much he tries.
Power with Girl is better.
I don't recall exactly what was going on in season 3 but the most recent season I watched on Netflix was primarily comedy which was frankly a welcome relief and made it the most enjoyable of the DC shows for me instead of the slogging soap opera melodrama that seemed to be all that Arrow had left. But that's just me and there was a time when the stuff I liked most was the most serious stuff. There were times Legends was almost breaking the fourth wall such as remarking that it must be time for the annual crossover and they'll pass this time.
Power with Girl is better.
I have many shows that I simply drifted away from that may have nothing to do with quality or if someone left.
Cheers: Ok, I said "may not" but the only show I actually stopped watching because someone left was when Shelly Long left Cheers taking Diane with her. I would tune in later from time to time and I admit that I liked Rebecca and that Kirsty Alley is a gifted comedian but I was no longer that interested. I tuned into the finale just to see Diane again despite the fact that I no longer cared really, they get you psyched again, but just when you get your hopes up and think Sam and Diane have a possible future together they have that plane scene for realism. As the show said... Sam can "do better." I guess? I threw up my hands again.
Moonlighting: When it was the beginning of the end of the Maddy/David sexual tension/hate that tried to graduate to something else when it became just a big PSA that this is bad. I liked the other characters but they should not have taken the show over as much as they did.
Northern Exposure: Basically the same reasons others have stated.
The Simpsons: Around season 7/8 when homer was spinning around on the floor very other scene going "wooo-wooo-wooo-wooo!" and Nelson was going "Hah-hah!" as well too much no matter how improbable. The characters just started to wink way too much at you and its apparently gotten even more so when tuning in occasionally what its still doing there.
Seinfeld: When it became a show about something and the characters became just really awful, nasty, beings instead of people trying to muddle through lifes situations. Even later George made early George look like a well-adjusted person. I don't even have to like the characters I'm being entertained by but it just was too much.
I don't think I have to mention why/when with Murphy Brown and Rosanne, for those who've watched the shows. Well, I hope not because I'm getting tired and I'm cutting off there.
Sitcoms aren't something I can get really passionate about anyway so breaking away from these shows were relatively easy unlike sci-fi or drama.
DOOL: You just start to fall in love with John and Isabella and Bo and Carley who replaced loved characters Hope and Marlena just to have them leave almost as soon as they declare their feelings. Next thing you know its Bo with some woman Billy and J&J seem to forget why they fell in love with each other right after they wed. So... the actor who portrayed one half was unceremoniously fired but that relationship was already dead. I just had to say goodbye too. DOOL is really bad though now with old characters returning, or who have stayed and this is not the acting I remember from these people and its not just my young eyes that didn't notice it since looking at old clips on YT its still there. WTF happened? Granted, the writings pretty bad. Lol. I liken it to comics now - way too many deaths and resurrections and craziness for me to handle. The only person who can seem to still act worth a damn is the aformentioned fired who returnrd but all the newer characters just seem so bland too with even worse acting. I actually outright laughed at the other long running soap The Bold and the Beautiful when some woman fell off the balcony switching through the channels.
The X-Files: When Mulder was written out mostly, and they introduced Dogget but I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I tried. The show went all over the place and I had no idea what they were trying to do. So I decided it just was no longer worth my time.
Last edited by From The Shadows; 04-13-2020 at 09:50 PM.
Here is an example of how it embraces goofiness:
Early in season 4 they travel back in time to Woodstock to try and find a mystical monster who is killing people. Turns out its a crazed unicorn, with all kinds of rainbow effects, that is goring people with its horn. All the hippies keep dying because they see a rainbow unicorn and go aaaaaaawwwww . . . . .followed by death screams. At one point the unicorn bites off the nipple of a supporting male comedic relief character on the show. It becomes a running joke that he's missing a nipple so later in the season he cuts a deal with dark magic to get his nipple back only now the nipple has mind control powers and enslaves everyone. It is a bizarre as it sounds yet is comic gold the way its played out.
Season 3 also ends in amazing fashion because its so ridiculous yet awesome at the same time as its the payoff to a season long running joke.
I used to love Stargate but at some point it really started to become kind a parody of itself. And i mean a real parody, like comedy parody, the show started to make fun of itself more and more to the point of being more space balls than stargate.
It's not easy to pinpoint a singular moment when it started cause there always have been humor and they never took themselves too seriously but damn...
I admit I kept watching it after Long left, but I never enjoyed it as much. The quality definitely went down and the bar turned into a frat house. I agree that KA was a great comedian and ran with what they gave her, but it just wasn't as good. I too was disappointed with the finale. While I didn't want or expect Sam and Diane to get married, I did want it to leave with the possibility that they would find their way back to each other some time down the road.
It would've been great if John Hill had sold Melville's to Diane with her thinking that Boston was her muse for writing. That way, she'd be one flight up from Sam, driving him crazy on a daily basis.
I started watching Cheers when it went into syndication, so I guess it was after Season 5 wrapped and Shelly already left. I'm pretty sure I never watched Shelly on NBC.
When Kirstie joined, I began watching the new episodes on NBC, and I have to say that she was really rough in her first few episodes. Not good at all. Didn't really have a handle on her character. She played it way too seriously -- basically trying to be another Shelly Long & trying to put Sam in his place, but without Shelly's comedic chops to make that funny.
But once the writers allowed her character to be more over-the-top neurotic, Kirstie did find her way on the show. Her naturally squeaky voice and fast talking fit the new, neurotic Rebecca and her character took off. At least, she was bearable to watch by then. But it did take a while for her and the writers to figure out how to make Rebecca fit in the show. I've recently watched Season 6 (on DVD) for the first time since it originally aired, and my feelings now are the same as then, but binge watching allows one to move past Kirstie's growing pains faster.
She was never as good as Shelly Long who was just a superior actress all around, and unfortunately, Long's departure also hurt Ted Danson's character who became more one-dimensional without her to play off of. The show was still funny in Seasons 6-11 because the writers smartly gave the other characters more to do which allowed the Sam-Diane vacuum to be filled somewhat. It wasn't as good as the best stuff from the first 5 seasons, but Cheers was always an enjoyable watch.