TV Series You Gave The Hell Up On

[Cerina]

Did the original boss ever come back from his 11 year sabbatical? That change was the beginning of the end for me.

No. Cam's still there. And she still sucks. They've mostly narrowed down the rotating interns as well.

 

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit - Don't ask me about this. The show was great, and probably still is. I don't know. Chris Meloni leaving do something to me? Maybe. I can always catch up on Hulu.

 

I nearly bailed in the first couple of seasons after Stabler left. The writing changed and it just all started to really rub me the wrong way. Then they made Special Agent Dana Lewis a killer, and it was just SOO far out of character. Plus, you want me to believe that Benson gets kidnapped by a serial killer and Stabler doesn't return for that??? Nope! But, eventually the new crew has found its stride and the writers figured out wtf they're doing. So I'm back on board.

 

I don't usually give up on shows. More like just lose interest and never catch up. Supernatural finally lost me in the last season or so. I haven't finished last season of Once Upon a Time. The Originals couldn't keep my attention. Still haven't seen the last season (or new season) of Heroes. And I think I haven't picked up the final season of True Blood either.

[Iceman]

Supernatural - I stopped watching about three years ago. I couldn't take the Winchester brothers being angry with one another again.

[Ms. Spam]

K

 

I have stopped watching Gotham. I didn't even make it through the first season.

 

After a billion years of Law & Order SVU I quit this year. The stories are getting rehashed and I don't care for a single character. Not one. It's about shock value and what crazy assed shit we can do to the characters.

 

SHIELD is another one I've left. I think it's the story arcs. If I were to put my finger on it I'd say that none of the arcs really grabbed me.

 

Hawaii 5-0. This year I've made no effort to watch.

 

Doctor Who I've seen all the old BBC ones but I can't get into a single modern age one.

 

I am still sticking with the Simpson's but I'm a few episodes behind.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

K

 

 

After a billion years of Law & Order SVU I quit this year. The stories are getting rehashed and I don't care for a single character. Not one. It's about shock value and what crazy assed **** we can do to the characters.

 

 

Doctor Who I've seen all the old BBC ones but I can't get into a single modern age one.

 

 

Yeah, Law and Order(s). Never cared for the original one with Fred Thompson. I avoided the other spin offs forever, until about 2 years ago, I started catching Criminal Intent and SVU in reruns. Criminal Intent, I like, up until about season 5ish, when they started messing with the cast, and Gorren was every other week.

 

SVU, I am a lot more meh on. I can't stand Ice T, and Belzer's face is just punchable because it looks like it was set on fire and then beat out with a wet chain. But it certainly became unwatchable post-Meloni. THe way they wrote the character out was pretty stupid, even if I know the guy just left the show. It was obvious they were leaving it open for him to return, which he never did.

 

As for Dr. Who, never really been a fan, but I liked the Tom Baker-McCoy era from the 1980s (like is a strong word...watched them because there was nothing on at the time they played, and we didn't have cable much of the time when I was growing up, so you watch what is ON) but never have been able to get into any of the modern incarnations. More power to anyone who does, but its not for me.

[Ms. Spam]

Vincent D'Onfrio had some health issues that caused him to not be able to film as much which lead to the casting changes for Criminal Intent. When he came back you could kind of feel there was less love for the character he played on that show. I'll still watch it every rerun chance I can get though because like the freaky woman I am - loves me some Vincent.

[Poe Dameron]

What's the terms on this? I mean there are probably hundreds of shows that I used to watch that I became progressively less interested in and stopped watching before the finale. I mean, pretty much all of us can all put Sesame Street on this list if that's the criteria. I don't watch The Simpsons anymore, but I can't give you any reason why other than I just didn't make time for it 15 years ago. That's the reason most moderately successful shows get cancelled, not because the audience has rejected the show, but that they just sort of drift off.

 

Then there are the shows I just told myself "this is stupid" and that was it.

 

Heroes: Probably the most common offender. I don't really have to explain.

 

Gotham: Dammit, I like Batman. And, weird as it is to say, the kid they've got playing young Bruce Wayne understands the character better than any of the adult actors who have played him. They found a good Selena and Bullock too so I gave it a chance even if I had some issues and hated the Fish character. But, my God, what is up with the fetish for removing body parts?

 

Sliders: I'm sad about this show. Good cast. Good concept. I was a big early booster for it and was so happy to see it saved for a 2nd season. But things started to fall apart in that short 2nd season, and I just gave up in the 3rd. I didn't even make it to the point where they killed off John Rhys-Davies.

 

The Tonight Show: Jimmy Fallon sucks and I'm still bitter about Conan. Enjoy if you like television built for YouTube bait.

 

Star Trek: Voyager: In hindsight, it's a testament to how much goodwill the franchise had that I got as far as I did. I mean, Seven of Nine doesn't show up until the 4th Season, and I barely remember anything interesting happening before that. Star Trek was arguably at its cultural peak when this show came out. The Next Generation had just ended and Deep Space Nine was just beginning to hit its stride. Eventually, I just couldn't stand watching Janeway anymore. She was just an awful, awful captain. Though Chris Pine's Kirk seems determined to give her a run for her money.

 

The Muppets: Another one that capitalized on my goodwill. Wanted to like, but it just didn't work. What the heck did they do to Fozzie Bear? He's a comedy deadzone. I mean, he's always been a comedy deadzone, that's his joke, but I'm pretty sure it's not an intentional Statler and Waldorf thing this time.

 

The Crazy Ones: Another show that I really wanted to like, but I just didn't. I love both Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar, but it didn't work. Doubly sad that enough people agreed to get the show cancelled, which appears to have hastened Robin Williams' death.

 

Gargoyles: You can so tell that the first two seasons of Gargoyles were made with love. And then The Goliath Chronicles lands on our TVs with a thud.

 

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Okay, I'll be honest, if they ever restarted this show again, I'd give it a look. And The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was an excellent movie. But anyone who has seen Endless Eight has witnessed the most blatant slap in the face of a television audience that there's ever been from a beloved franchise. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, the character re-lived the same day for 8 straight episodes, most of them with almost no difference other than camera angles and wardrobe changes. Weird thing is that the production values on those episodes remained high, so they just poured money down the drain for the sake of a troll that would make Andy Kaufman proud.

 

Batman: The Animated Series: The last season's new character designs were just terrible (outside of the "Where the hell did that come from?" awesome new design for Scarecrow). Couldn't get past the new artwork, the more cartoony storylines, or bringing in a new Robin and stopped watching.

 

Yumeiro Patissiere: Okay, I might well be the only one who ever watched this show about a little girl at a culinary school for pastry chefs learning from a little fairy called a "sweets spirit". Yeah, it was that kind of show, but it was charming as all hell. Then the last episode of the first series hinted that the next one would show the little girl more grown up and with a boyfriend and I was so interested in seeing where they'd go. And there'd be no wait time, it was starting the next week. But man did the new format suck. Everything charming about the first series just went out the window and after having watched the first 52 episodes with great enjoyment, I'd dropped the new series after just 3 episodes.

 

Actually, I can go on for awhile in terms of animated series I dropped. Between seasons there are a ton of shows that went to different production companies, lost their budgets, lost their showrunners, added new characters for the toy companies, etc. Or, in the case of anime, the shows ran out of material from the original creator and fashioned their own terrible endings after a promising first 2/3 of the series.

 

There are just a lot of animated series that started off fun, and then went completely off the rails.

[ShadowDog]

Okay so finally at my computer and able to type out long rants.

 

Bones: Ran into this series during it's 3rd season so my introduction was binge watching the first two seasons on DVD. Season 1 was fabulous. The boss was funny but charming and endearing even when being an asshole. The mystery of Bones' past with her parents was fascinating. The chemistry between Booth and Bones was excellent. It was an awesome show. Then season by season, creative decision by creative decision, it started to suck. Getting rid of the boss (off screen no less!) and replacing him with a power tripping, salty, unfunny ass hole was strike one. Another thing that wore on me was Booth's investigative prowess consistent ... entirely ... of literally accusing every single person they ran across of the murder and making them explain why it didn't make sense they were the killer. Um ... anybody can ****ing do that. I can do that. Every other TV investigator might accuse one or two people each episode of the crime but would also use logic to rule most of the suspects out before it ever got that far. Not Booth, he'd just accuse EVERY SINGLE PERSON THEY ENCOUNTERED until he was finally right. That really got old by mid season 3. Making a main character their season long big bad was a very interesting idea in theory. So was having a season long big bad. The very episodic series needed longer story arcs and this could have been epic. They just shit the bed in execution. It felt rushed and sloppy and poorly explained, mainly due to zero foreshadowing. Imagine this kind of story arc in the hands of a competent story plotter like Joss Whedon. It would have been the high water mark of the series. Instead it was a wet fart. That wasn't the final straw for me, though. That came the next season with the endless run of tedious interns and the new criminally incompetent therapist character. Nobody with a psychology degree could possibly be that big of a butt monkey. That's when the show truly jumped the shark for me. That character, who's name escapes me, was a big middle finger right to the audience and a poor excuse for misguided comedy relief.

 

fuck Bones and fuck anybody who watches it. Because it actually enrages me that the show has survived so long and I hold anyone keeping the ratings up in abject Driveresque PT lover contempt.

 

So I didn't just quit this show, I aborted it.

[Darth Ender]

The WIre

 

I downloaded the entire first season for a long plane ride and I didn't make it past E7. I wanted to love it, but I didn't like any of the characters and it moved too slow.

[Odine]

I mean. I've bailed on a lot of shows so I'm just gonna do a few from recent memory

 

Californication: first two seasons were kinda cool and funny.. But David Dachoveny's character became more and more douchebaggy and the writing inconsistent around his behaviour that none of it was believable anymore and I began to hate every one of the characters.

 

Jessica Jones: Christ that show was just shit. I get that it was an allegory for rape, and it's good to have female superhero stories with such thematic concerns but everything in that show pissed me off. From the actesses to the writing, to the directing and photography, the sound and the general "feel". It felt like a Party of Five style mellodrama disguised as a hero series. Not to mention she only needed to off the big bad in the third (I think) episode which she had the opportunity to do and she didn't. Also the Villain was a total wet blanket. Boooooring. My girlfriend continued the show without me and lamented the fact afterwards that she gave it her time.

 

Breaking Bad: I loved the first 3 seasons. But it got ridiculous. I gave up not long after they changed the format from opening with a bizzarre shot and flash backing to explain how they got to the opening shot. I thought that was an awesome way to structure a show and it added to the twistedness of meth use. Then it started to become a standard TV drama. I get that it was good... But....It also doesn't help that I used to smoke a lot of methamphetamine when I was in my 20s and a lot of the show didn't ring true to me. The show got a lot right but the stuff it didn't was just way to over-blown for me.

 

True detective season 2: enough said.

 

American Horror Story: I liked it to begin with but... I guess I just got bored. Can't put my finger on it. I just gave up out of boredom.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

The WIre

 

I downloaded the entire first season for a long plane ride and I didn't make it past E7. I wanted to love it, but I didn't like any of the characters and it moved too slow.

I watched that show years after it had wrapped, and finished it all only because I binge-watched it, but I have to agree. Way over rated. I don't understand how it was supposedly such an awesome show. Had I been forced to watch it weekly, instead of binge watching it, I doubt I would have finished the first season.

I mean. I've bailed on a lot of shows so I'm just gonna do a few from recent memory

 

Californication: first two seasons were kinda cool and funny.. But David Dachoveny's character became more and more douchebaggy and the writing inconsistent around his behaviour that none of it was believable anymore and I began to hate every one of the characters.

 

 

American Horror Story: I liked it to begin with but... I guess I just got bored. Can't put my finger on it. I just gave up out of boredom.

Yes! I could not STAND Californication. I saw the first 2 seasons, and couldn't go any further. I did not like a single character on that show.

 

AHS, I have not yet seen past season 3. I liked season 1 and 2, season 3 seemed like someone took the X-men's Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Harry Potter, Anne Rices witch novels, with a dash of teen angst, threw it in a blender, chugged it, then vomited. It was just plain silly. I have been sitting on Season 4, but just can't find the motivation to watch it.

[Odine]

The Wire's success comes from it's realism. It was (and probably still is) the most accurate depiction of police work/politics and drug crime ever. Sure it's slow and a little boring, but so is reality. And the payoff is at the end of a season. So it benefits by binge-watching. It didn't do well when it was on air, and most of it's success comes from DVD sales. But it was a benchmark show as it set a new standard for what television drama could be.

[ShadowDog]

The fact that reality is slowly paced and boring is WHY we turn to TV. We can do that by ourselves, we don't need TV for that.

 

It took me a LOT longer to bail on Californication. I quit a couple episode into the final season. But I totally get people quitting before that.

[Odine]

Yeah I get what you're saying, but the reason the Wire has been lauded is because of that attention to detail and realism. It hadn't been done before. Despite the pacing being boring at times. That level of writing hadn't been done on TV before. It was almost literary.

 

That some people turn to TV for escapism and therefore didn't enjoy it is beside the point. I totally get your POV though. I'm merely explaining the reason for it's success and place as a benchmark show. That people aren't into it and gave up on it is not a surprise to me.

[ShadowDog]

Now that you mention it I bet the Wire inspired that slow realistic approach Breaking Bad took the first couple seasons.

[Odine]

Yeah, more than likely.

 

And now that format is everywhere. Ableit the pacing may have changed i.e sped up in recent years.

[Jacen123]

The WIre

 

I downloaded the entire first season for a long plane ride and I didn't make it past E7. I wanted to love it, but I didn't like any of the characters and it moved too slow.

When I watched it, the first season was tough for me to get through, too, especially those first many episodes. From what I remember, it was around the end of the season where it started catching my attention more, so you may have stopped just a bit short on it. Of course, it may also still have not done it for you. Ultimately, the first season set up a lot of situations and characters whose arcs really got going in subsequent seasons. Season 2 was also alright, but seasons 3 and 4 were the high points of the series.

 

For me, it was also interesting (and heartbreaking) since, even though I didn't spend much time in the city, itself, I grew up in one of the suburbs of Baltimore, so it maybe captivated me even more due to its setting.

 

As for shows that I can remember giving up on:

 

1. Heroes: I stopped watching at the beginning of the original show's final season. The show was awful and I had too many other things to do.

 

2. Smallville: I think it was around Season 5 that I stopped watching. At that point, it seemed like it was stuck in a holding pattern with a bunch of characters that had outstayed their welcome. I heard it got better afterwards. It's a show I've thought about going back to finish, but, again, I have too many other things to do.

 

3. Family Guy: I enjoyed its original run and the first season or two after it came back, but everything about it just got incredibly lazy. It didn't help that Macfarlane started showing up everywhere incredibly smugly. The final straw was the ROTJ "parody," which was so awful that the only thing it did right was mentioning how awful it was in the title crawl.

 

Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any other shows that I have completely abandoned. There are some I haven't finished watching, like Dexter, which I know got terrible, but just fell behind on with watching since I didn't get Showtime, but picked up the DVDs cheap to finish. Homeland also falls into that category, though I haven't heard about it sinking to the basement like Dexter did. I just fell behind and pan on coming back to it if/when I have time to do so.

 

I don't regularly watch the Simpsons or South Park anymore, but those don't have so much to do with the shows, themselves, as much as me just being too busy. Compare that to Family Guy, which I avoid. I will still watch these two shows if I'm sitting at the tv with nothing else particularly going on.

[Odine]

funnily enough, season 19 (the last one) of South Park was really really good. Its the first season (i think) which episodes have continuity, in that the story arc is the entire season and characters remember everything that happened the previous episode... much like a series. So they went to town with it.

[Chris Oakley]

Revolution sounded like a great premise at first, but once I checked out the promos for the series pilot I was like "(Bleep) that noise" and decided against watching the show....which ultimately turned out to be the right call.

[ShadowDog]

Yeah it was a really dumb show

[Jacen123]

Revolution sounded like a great premise at first, but once I checked out the promos for the series pilot I was like "(Bleep) that noise" and decided against watching the show....which ultimately turned out to be the right call.

I forgot about that! I watched the first season and wanted nothing to do with the second. To the list it goes!

[Pong Messiah]

 

The WIre

 

I downloaded the entire first season for a long plane ride and I didn't make it past E7. I wanted to love it, but I didn't like any of the characters and it moved too slow.

I watched that show years after it had wrapped, and finished it all only because I binge-watched it, but I have to agree. Way over rated. I don't understand how it was supposedly such an awesome show. Had I been forced to watch it weekly, instead of binge watching it, I doubt I would have finished the first season.

 

Wow. I agree season 1 is a slow burn, so I can understanding Ender turning it off if it wasn't his thing, but damn...

 

For my money, seasons 1 and 3 are excellent, season 2 is very good, season 5 is good (but easily the weakest), while season 4 is -- no hyperbole intended -- probably the best single season of television I've ever seen. Depressing... heartbreaking, even, but just so well done. And I can't stand most child actors, btw.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

Well, to me, The Wire was just another cop show, with an R rating. It wasn't bad, just way, way over rated to me. I thought the Shield was far better, so make of that what you will. But I am sure there are a lot of people who would say the same thing I said the Wire, about the shield, too.

[Dark Wader]

 

When I watched it, the first season was tough for me to get through, too, especially those first many episodes. From what I remember, it was around the end of the season where it started catching my attention more, so you may have stopped just a bit short on it. Of course, it may also still have not done it for you. Ultimately, the first season set up a lot of situations and characters whose arcs really got going in subsequent seasons. Season 2 was also alright, but seasons 3 and 4 were the high points of the series.

 

 

100%. At first watching the first season almost felt like a chore. But once it did grip me, I was in for the long haul. No other shows reward me on a re-watch as much as this show does. I have a hard time between choosing between this or The Sopranos for the absolute best TV can offer. But I can also see why people aren't into it, and that's fair enough. If you can look at the show as less another cop show, and more about Baltimore then it might help with the initial slog of episodes.

 

For those who have watched it, highly recommend reading David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. A lot of cameos from real life detectives in the book who are in the Wire. (Haven't read the Corner but I've heard that is just as crucial)

[Stevil]

Only show I ever gave up on was Heroes. I didn't bother with the new one.

 

I was a staunch supporter and defender of Heroes in the thread. But I finally got sick of the whining and stopped watching myself, as I couldn't watch and not read. And then shortly after I found myself agreeing with most of the whining on reflection.

[NumberSix]

This list could go on for days, but I'll settle for these:

Simpsons: only took 20-odd seasons to break away from something that used to mean a lot. And I mean a LOT.

 

The Killing: after season 1 angried up the blood

 

Smallville: an episode or two after Lionel Luther died and Green Arrow turned miserable, leaving not much else to like by that point.

 

Portlandia: Netflix'd the first three episodes, realized I'd be better off YouTubing the highlights.

 

Heroes: the pilot was like WAY too many real-world-superpowers comics I'd already read.

 

Gotham: a few episodes into season 2 when it began to feel like TV-14 torture-porn.

 

Agents of SHIELD: Skipped nearly all of season 3. Watching SHIELD fight nothing BUT Hydra and SHIELD got tedious and inconsequential, not to mention baldly desperate to convince everyone they love the Inhumans...by using/creating the most boring Inhumans in Marvel history.

 

Big Bang Theory: The pilot told me exactly everything I needed to know, and angried up the blood.

 

Hawaii Five-0: Prettiest use of 1080p HD scenery on TV, but I got super annoyed during season 2 when a nice character who brought a balance to the cast turned out to be EEEEEVIL. Also, they added Masi Oka from Heroes bringing a Big Bang Theory vibe. To a cop drama.

 

Enterprise: Watched out of Trek obligation till partway through season 3 when the episodes we were taping began to stack up unwatched to the point that we added "watch Enterprise" to our "chores" list. We had to stop and rethink that.

 

Millennium: Season 3 changed the premise and cast from top to bottom and mismatched Our Hero with an FBI job and partner who connected with him on precisely zero levels. Bailed after two episodes.