Biggest Unforced Error By A Series

[SiegePerilous02]

They were working on their own Star Wars trilogy. They ended up abandoning that when Netflix offered them a truckload of money to develop four projects for them.

I thought Disney pulled the plug on that after the response to GoT?

[AnakinFlair]

I disagree. Season 5 went a long way toward recovering Arrow and by season 6 Arrow was as good as ever.

I'll give you season five, which was a return to form. But season 6 was atrocious. It's the one season that I didn't come back to after the midseason break, and instead relied on episode summaries and video clips on youtube to follow along.

You had Caden James as the first half villain, who's only purpose seemed to be to get the FBI into Star City, and to introduce Diaz. Then you had Diaz, who was the most unbelievable villain the show ever produced- and that includes a guy who throws razor-edged playing cards he pulls off of his body and a Cyclops knock-off. He's introduced as a drug dealer, then suddenly takes over the entire city, who's a street fighter that can stand toe-to-toe with a man who was trained by Ra's al-Ghul himself. You have Black Siren, who should have BEEN the big bad instead acting yet again as a lapdog for another man. You have the Civil War BS, where they took characters I grew to like and made them not only instantly unlikable, but had me rooting for them to die. I was amazed they were able to redeem Wild Dog and Dinah in Season 7. And of course, a big one for me was Willa leaving the show, though I completely understood why she wanted to since her character had been wasted since season 3, even after she put on a mask.

For me, Season 6 was the absolute low point of the series, and really the whole season was an unforced error.

I think the breaking point before that was Felicity suddenly getting her legs back and leaving Oliver just for making a decisions about his kid without her (like she had any business being involved).

Then after that we got the ridiculous episode where Oliver fights a robot made of bee nanobots.

Granted, I actually forgot those happened before Laurel got killed. I think for me Neal McDonough is such a charismatic actor, I was able to forgive all of the stupidity (okay, not Felicity getting her legs back. That legit pissed me off) due to his presence. For me, Laurel was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Not an unforced error, but a HUGE missed opportunity would have been to keep Felicity paralyzed for the rest of the show, and thus have a strong, disabled character who is also a hero. Her getting her legs back to me was as bad as Didio making Barbara Batgirl again and healing her spine. Oracle was a much superior character for her, IMO.

[Frontier]

Not an unforced error, but a HUGE missed opportunity would have been to keep Felicity paralyzed for the rest of the show, and thus have a strong, disabled character who is also a hero. Her getting her legs back to me was as bad as Didio making Barbara Batgirl again and healing her spine. Oracle was a much superior character for her, IMO.

I think even Emily Rickards was interested in doing it for longer.

[OrangeRangerPete]

Game of Thrones.

But nope, they burned it all down and salted the earth so nothing can grow again.

I once heard someone say that the final season of Game of Thrones both sprinted, and limped, towards the finale, doing both at the same time, as impossible as that seems.

And that really stuck with me, because, yeah, that's about the size of it.

[kingaliencracker]

Dexter killing off Rita at the conclusion of Season 4. The show never recovered from it.

[caj]

This is probably just me, but The Walking Dead killing off Shane and Lori so early. Sure it was a complete shock to kill off characters who were co-stars of the show, but it left too much of a gap IMO.

I'd also add the move from Georgia to Alexandria was a bad move. It got so dull that I stopped watching.

[TriggerWarning]

The Flash. "Your not the Flash Barry, We are the Flash" - Iris.

This show has had trouble making Iris a likable character from the start as everything has always felt forced to give her a reason to be on Team Flash but it pretty much destroyed any good will fans had toward her.

[TriggerWarning]

This is probably just me, but The Walking Dead killing off Shane and Lori so early. Sure it was a complete shock to kill off characters who were co-stars of the show, but it left too much of a gap IMO.

Don't know if you read the comic but Shane was killed in the comics after about six issues. It would have been the 2nd or 3rd episode if they had followed the comics.

Lori died around the same time as in the comics but differently. She survives childbirth and has Judith but as the Governor is attacking the bullet she takes a shot to the back while carrying newborn Judith which kills both of them. Can't recall if the round went through and got Judith too or Lori just fell on her.

[ChrisIII]

Interesting thing about comics Shane is that it's how Rick learns how the Walker transformation actually works.

In the comic's Tyreese's daughter reanimates but not from any apparent bite. Rick suddenly heads back to Shane's grave and digs him up, and walker Shane emerges, proving Rick's theory.

In the TV show he learned that the Walker reanimation effect happens from any death (apart from severe head trauma) from Jenner.


The change in settings also happens in the comics-The TV series in general kind of follows the broad outlines of the comic arcs but kind of does it's own thing otherwise. For example, Carol and Daryl. Carol dies in the prison arc and doesn't become the warrior she becomes in the TV series. (She's also much more mentally unstable, although TV Carol has had the occasional bouts with that) Sophia also never becomes a Walker and lives until the end.

Daryl never appeared in the comics at all, but of course is a major part of the TV show.

Carl is another example. He also never dies in the comics, (Still gets shot and loses his eye though!), and it's him who has the romance with Lydia. However he doesn't end up with Henry's fate.

[Joker]

I thought Kirkman said one of his regrets was how quickly he killed Shane in the comics.
But, he never thought it was going to last past the next arc, so he did things quickly early on.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I think the biggest unforced error was how Walking Dead aped the comics before lurching back to do their own thing.

The series would have been better served by simply using it as inspiration, IMO

[ChrisIII]

I think that's kind of what Fear does, it's not really bound by any comics. Morgan likewise also died in the comics fairly early and never quite became the "samurai" from the TV show.


Then again the show pretty much became totally different once Morgan took over, especially after a pretty good third season.

[Masterff]

Young Justice:
Killing Wally West
depowering the "sidekicks"
to many characters, to many teams etc.

[Jim Kelly]

Andy Bernard.

A few years back, I binge rewatched all of THE OFFICE, up to when Michael Scott leaves and then I skipped ahead to the series finale. But once Andy Bernard entered the picture, I found it very hard to tolerate him--not just because of how he was at the beginning but how I knew he would be at the end.

Now, with the Office Ladies podcast, I'm watching an episode a week to stay current with them. But now that they're up to the Andy Bernard of it all, I find it hard to watch his scenes. I just want to kick his face in. Everything about him is so annoying. I have to white knuckle it through some episodes. Yet I feel like I have to stick with it for the Office Ladies.

I wish the writers had just got rid of him like they had intended to do when they first wrote him into the show. There are other things that contributed to the downward slide of THE OFFICE, but Andy was the really big sucking hole in the wall that forced the series into a nosedive.