My biggest problem with most of the shows listed is they have to outdo themselves and go on for too long.
Season one: Great premise!
Season Two: Same premise, but TWICE the danger!
Season three: I don’t know, robot ninjas or something?
I miss when shows could just grow in the first season or two, and then you’d only get raising stakes two or three times a year (season finale/premier and sweeps). Otherwise they’re just stories.
These days shows have to justify themselves right out of the gate.
These days shows have to justify themselves right out of the gate.
I miss mid-budget live action scifi shows with strong enough episodic elements that I can actually remember individual episodes. These days seemingly every show feels like an 8-12 movie that blurs together.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds is the closest current thing to an exception. Before that The Orville.
Most other scifi that comes out has to be an “event”.
The Orville had that in the first season or so, after that it went heavy into serialization. I dont think I even finished whatever the last season was because of it.
The most infamous example of this is Supernatural where the first few seasons were very episodic and exactly what you described. Then, after season 5 it keep escalating until dudes are fighting off the end of the world for the 6th time lmao
Oh, this is about Riverdale, isn’t it?
Riverdale actually did what I’ve always wished for a boring failure of a show to do, and just completely go nuts.
Oh our boring high school drama show is slumping? How about an organ stealing cult, a superhero, and a guy escaping from the cops in a rocketship!
Hah, yes!
Just finished season 3 of Yellowjackets and White Lotus and I just felt, meh. I’m hopeful for season 4 of both shows but I’ll be living off the honeymoon phase from seasons 1 and 2.
Its more that they have to keep the money train going, than they have to outdo themselves.
Big Bang Theory
Same here. I always felt they were making fun of my fellow nerds and geeks as opposed to celebrating our intelligence and quirkiness. The writers obviously got the humor and nuance but chose to poke fun so that the rest of the world could laugh at it. I mean I understand why but I didn’t really like it for that reason.
I didn’t even think they got the humor right. Watching episodes without the laugh track shoes the jokes are just a group of bullies being bullies to each other.
Laugh tracks always make me feel like I’m being programmed.
I’ve been called “Sheldon” for my autistic traits in a degrading manner. The show plays autism for laughs plenty of times, and also ridicules the “nerds” all the time for no reason. It’s like a bunch of self proclaimed high school “jocks” wrote it
The most infuriating part about it is I know that if I rant about how terrible bbt is, it will only cement me as Sheldon in their minds.
Never got the appeal of these ones. They aren’t bad shows, but they did not do it for me.
Game of Thrones
Lost
Better Call Saul
Peaky Blinders
Breaking Bad
Shit. That’s exactly my list.
- I didn’t even watch GoT long enough to see Emilia Clark in the buff. But, then, I’d read the first two books and absolutely loathed them, and didn’t find the TV series improved the story much.
- I liked the first season of Lost, but the second felt like the writers were like, “oh shit… we got a second season? Shitshitshit…” Like they were just making it up as they went, and the writing and plot was just… bad.
- I didn’t watch BCS because I didn’t like
- Breaking Bad. I mean, I like scenes from BB, but the show itself suffered (for me) from this tendency in the past decade to base entire shows on tense anxiety. Boardwalk Empires was another that used this mechanism, as did
- Peaky Blinders. Great writing. Great acting. But it’s just constant tension, and it’s simply not fun.
It’s like directors got ahold of this one technique and just beat it into every fucking show in the past decade. It’s tired, overused, and you’ll notice it’s a common trait of many of the shows you and agree on. You have to have tension, but I didn’t need every god damned minute to be wondering if someone’s going to get their throat graphically slashed with a straight-edge.
Oh man! You just put to words why I couldn’t stand Breaking Bad, and Boardwalk Empire.
I watched the first simply because a lot of people love it, and I try to watch everything that seems worth seeing. The second I saw some clips from that I really liked, but then I just didn’t stick with the actual show.
In both cases, the series left me on constant edge, in a really bad way.
Now I realize that I kept waiting for the shows to grant me some kind of catharsis, but it just never happened. Or it happened rarely and in ways that quickly gets brushed away as inconsequential.
Y’all are trippin, the gus storyline in Better Call Saul/BB is likely my favorite villain of all time.
Fair enough though, I was scared I was gonna see these shows listed in here and here we are!
You’re still allowed to enjoy them.
How could I after this
Fair point. You probably shouldn’t like or enjoy things that other people subjectively don’t like.
My condolences.
I’m not fond of the perpetual tension. Just awful.
this tendency in the past decade to base entire shows on tense anxiety.
Yup. I call it the “drama of paranoia,” and it’s exhausting after a while. It also gives you a veneer of “prestige” without having to make characters I give a shit about or plots that fit together at all. As a good example of a show that realized this, Mad Men always struggled with a certain early-season plotline until they finally just ripped off the band-aid and said,
spoiler
the “real” Don Draper’s widow handwaves something out with our boy Dick, and literally nobody else gives a shit.
What worked about that show had nothing to do with “ONE BIG SECRET.”
This, plus The Sopranos, The Office, Parks & Rec, IASIP, 30 Rock, etc.
I get that they’re well liked, and they are the source of lots of meme material, but I could never manage to get through a whole episode.
I’ve never been able to make it through an entire episode of Community, for the same reason. It’s memeable, but I just don’t find it funny at all.
I lasted 5 minutes with Peaky Blinders. The loud music drowning out the dialogue did my head in.
Lost was the tv version of clickbait. 3 concurrent story lines rotated from week to week. Every episode a cliffhanger that you had to wait 2 more weeks to resolve into a nothing burger. Even watching that shit on disc or streaming is annoying as fuck. I might have liked what was going on story wise, but I got too annoyed with the format to get past mid season 2.
Yeah. Lost was when I was intrugued by J J abrams style, and then completely turned off by his inability to tell a story or have a plan beyond the halfway point.
And then they involved him in seemingly every major movie franchise ever for the next two decades… and he kept doing the same crap. Lots of flash and dazzle and dramatic moments that ultimately mean nothing because the characters have no story to tell, no real arc, no consistent rules creating a believable universe for the watcher to be sucked in to - any rules can be thrown out the window anytime a dramatic cliche opportunity arises. Yet he still seems very popular.
There is a recut of it, still available via torrent, called Chronologically LOST. It is every scene, but in chronological order, and only once each. Really cool way to see the show and make sense of it.
Lost went on far too long and they backed themselves into a corner by saying that the big secret was what nobody had guessed, but this was right around the Internet getting popular to talk about tv shows, so everything good had already been suggested. If it had been me, I would have just picked the best one and gone with that…
Unfortunately, mid season 2 is where it finally stops having enormous fluff and starts picking up pace. Fair criticisms though
Walking dead. I think I finished the second episode. But I’m not even sure about that one. It was utterly boring
Walking dead is the king of spreading 4 episodes of content across 12 episodes. You could watch the season opener, the 2 episodes that close the first half and start the second if each season, and the finale, and not miss anything of substance.
Wait, is TWD available on the anime filler website?
You’ve seen the best. I stopped somewhere in the middle of S3 because it was so bad. S1 was tolerable but honestly only the pilot was good. Kids watched all of it so I’ve got an idea how it went on; like a bad and cheap soap opera
I watched the first 2 seasons or so. It felt like all the clichés from all the zombie movies put together in a single show, but worse.
The first few episodes were a slog, but it got much better.
I recomment to give it a try. Maybe start straight from season 2.
Rick & Morty. Then the whole szechuan sauce thing happened and I can’t look at any content from that show without cringing. LOOK GUYS IM PICKLE RI-stop please it’s not funny.
The “community” is insufferable, but the show is solid. You might like Solar Opposites. The wall substory is amazing. Really good voice actors, can feel the tension and emotions in the voices
The wall substory is a wild ride
Is there even still any Rick and morty fans left in the wild? After the whole case against one of the voice actors I never see them around too much anymore.
I like Rick and Morty, but I have enough self awareness to know that Rick is not a role model.
Yeah, it’s funny because of how terrible everyone is. I’m laughing because it’s outrageous, not because the characters are going through relatable hijinks.
My kid wanted to watch it together, and I was like, that’s fine as long as you let me tell you that Rick isn’t always right and he’s not the hero.
Justin Roiland wasn’t just the voice actor for Rick, Morty, and various other roles, he was the co-creator, writer, and executive producer of the show alongside Dan Harmon. The whole thing is very much Roiland’s baby, and even after it came out that he’s an abuser and predator and the show fired him it continues to be his celebrated legacy.
Fuck that guy and his stupid show.
Roiland is a co-creator, but it is very obvious that Dan Harmon took over the show for the better.
Hell, the takeover happened while Roiland was still voicing Rick, so it isn’t like something important was lost after Roiland was fired.
deleted by creator
There’s a few shows where the fan base have made it so insufferable that I don’t want to even watch the show . But Rick and Morty are King in this category, the worst fans
I initially found that show a bit interesting, but I found myself feeling more and more cringey about what the show was churning out. I outgrew the whole thing just as the sauce thing was happening
It later became well known what an actual piece of shit Justin Roiland is, and I felt pretty glad not to have been stuck in that fandom still feeling like his work was of any importance to me.
Don’t even get me started about the SA scene(s?), especially the grape-man. I try not to judge people too harshly by their choice of mindless entertainment, but if you found that funny, or at least continue to find it funny, I don’t think I can take you seriously.
Really triggered my partners PTSD too, so I wasn’t surprised at all when the Rolland stuff came to light.
Friends
How I met your mother
Big Bang Theory
Bazinga.
The Walking Dead. Felt more like the Talking Dead, the pacing was far too slow for me and it didn’t seem like much was happening.
Funny, the Talking Dead was a show that aired after that night’s episode every week back in the day. It was actually a highlight for me; they’d have the actors and effects artists in to discuss behind the scenes stuff. It was very fun watching Greg Nicotero talk shop
Yellowstone. With shows like The Sopranos or Sons of Anarchy you know the characters are evil, but you can connect just enough for it to be compelling.
In Yellowstone it feels like they want you to see the characters as the heros, when they are mass-murdering, slave-owning oligarchs. They buy cops and politicians to gain power, but get bent on revenge if other powers don’t “play by the rules”. I didn’t last too long, but everyone else seems to love it.
I watched it for a while, but it just got stupider and stupider with every season. It’s a very American show, and it feels like conservative pandering much of the time (even though the show runner isn’t a conservative from what I hear).
it most catering to conservative circle jerking.
It’s a soap opera and if you treat it for what it is It’s quite fun! People who never watched soap set expectations too high and expected real plot and depth of a real TV show which it never set out to do.
The Umbrella Academy: in the first couple of episodes like nothing happens and everyone is very sad.
You dodged a bullet. It just keeps getting worse until the final season which is the absolute worst
Yeah, last season was so boring and unsatisfying.
There were so many ways that show could have gone which would have been good.
You forgot…“stupid”
Like what the fuck was up with that Lila and five arc. Like seriously …what the fuck.
I liked up to the end of the season with the time travel where they all jumped to different times a few years apart. Think it was season 2. After that, i just didn’t feel the show was coherent or interesting.
Such a shame too. The premise looked really interesting at first.
Breaking Bad. Just lost interest half way through.
Same. Walt is an unlikeable person making bad decisions. I grave up after season 1.
I made it one episode. Extremely well done show about a tragically terrible flaw of American society that frustrates me daily. Didn’t need a reminder of how terrible things are.
You know what might help you power through?
Will it make my teeth fall out?
I was gonna suggest a little coffee, but yes if your caffeine is contained in a sugary soda it definitely has the potential to rot your teeth.
I gave up on it once, and then continued at a later date. I felt that the mid seasons were a bit of a grind, but the last season goes up to 11 with an extremely satisfying ending.
Most of the popular ones. Especially Game of Thrones. As soon as the incestuous couple threw the little boy off the tower, I was outta there. I’m so tired of shows about horrible people doing horrible things.
!So that kid end up basically being the bad guy. Pretty much everyone would have been better off if he died!<
I completely understand and it took me three tries to get through the first few episodes… and then the biggest shock is that you end up partly understanding and feel these horrible people. At times, you may even root for some of them. It’s definitely taxing for most of us but that’s what makes it a great show.
Jaime was a great story, till they done him shitty in the end
Grimdark stuff is just so infantile. It’s not “realistic and gritty” to have every single character cuss a thousand times per episode and be constantly in and out of clothes
The Mandalorian
Noped out after season 1. They revealed his face during a filler episode, during a boring scene, instead of waiting an episode or two longer for the real gut punch reveal at the end of the last episode.
It was stupid. It killed what would have been one of the best face reveals in cinema history. I had no patience for the show after that. Almost didn’t bother finishing the rest of the season. I don’t really care what their reasons were. Contractual. Whatever. Don’t care.
Walking dead. Only season one was good
I couldn’t make it past the first episode, i thought it was a corny tv version of dawn of the dead with no balls. I saw bits of it as my wife was watching but it only got worse and cheesier
You mean people with little to no firearm experience firing from moving vehicle windows getting headshots was too realistic?
Game of Thrones - I’m not good with seeing sexual violence and it felt like it was happening every five minutes.
My Dress up Darling - I understand why people would like it, but I don’t understand why it was so huge. But I’m getting old.
Beastars - my friend and I watched it in one day and it just didn’t do anything for us. I found most of the characters kind of a annoying.
My Hero Academia - I mean this in the best way possible, but I could see myself loving this if I was a kid.
Mushoku Tensi - I know people love this one. I watched the entire first season and I found the protagonist so revolting. I didn’t care that he was a cute kid now and gets better and what have you, I thought he was gross.
Friends - I could never get it. I found it boring and unfunny.
Stranger Things - I actually really enjoyed the first season, but I got tired of the kids as they got older. It felt like it was shifting into a teen drama and I found myself skipping through it before I let it go.
YOU - Weird guy stalks a girl. Glad someone enjoys it, but I got tired of it real quick.
It makes me happy to see others shit on Friends.
When it first aired, my mom was a fan and it would regularly be on in the living room, which was the crossroads of my childhood house - you had to go through it to get anywhere else. Which meant that Friends was impossible to ignore. Walking by, the highest praise I could conjure was, “Wow, that laugh track is doing a lot of heavy lifting.”
At the time of its popularity, I never heard anyone else dislike it. When the show ended, I felt alone in not being sad about it. Since then, I can’t tell if people look back on it with nostalgia or if they are truly still amused by the bland, low-fruit, celebration of stupidity that makes up most of that show’s humor.
The theme song was good though.
Friends was created in a different time for media.
Part of it fulfilled the parasocial relationships we see in modern social media. People developed real relationships with these fake characters.
Second is that most television had to have broader comedy because they had larger audience. Over 10% of America watched Friends regularly. I can’t think of any show nowadays that even approaches that.
Definitely agree on Stranger Things. Season 1 was actually really good, but they kept ramping everything up in later seasons and it lost all of what made S1 good.
I tried watching My Hero Academia with a friend and it was rough. Basically every trope that made me burn out on anime was dialed up to 11. My friend tried to explain that it was satirizing those tropes, but I couldn’t handle it.
My Hero Academia
I really enjoyed this, but one day I kind of just stopped watching. I think I get bored with anime shows that are set up to go on and on with endless hundred episode arcs.
Stranger Things
The first season really felt like something the creators had been developing for years as a creative idea. The ending with a sandwich left for Eleven was just the right amount of ambiguous to end off the story. The second season felt like a rushed idea pumped out when offered more money where the creators just leaned into full 80s nostalgia by copying ALIENS rather than forging something 80s inspired but unique like the first season.
Friends
I don’t get it either. It’s just vapid interpersonal dynamics comedy. I’ve watched a little and it has the wide and low appeal, it never did anything interesting.
I was sort of with you on My Hero Academia as I’m currently watching it for the first time. Parts of it were good and it was enjoyable for the most part watching it as an adult. Dragon Ball Z doesn’t hold up as well but I still love it as I grew up with that.
However, just yesterday I finished s03e11 “One For All”. And holy shit was that a gut-wrenching and emotional episode about the legendary hero “All Might”. Seeing this Superman like hero being broken and exposed while the whole world watches was incredible. I won’t say anymore, but it was incredibly moving how that episode turned out. Cemented it as an incredible anime for me so far. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of it, and hopefully I will still enjoy it. But boy did it take a long time of watching and filler episodes to get to this point.
Mushoku Tensi - yeah agree on having a lot of trouble seeing past the perviness of the main character, and the narration is really annoying. I did like the depiction of combat though, rather unique for anime.
