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[AoM]

LOST is another show that benefited from heavy serialization in an era of mostly episodic or procedural shows. People say it's better to binge-watch LOST, but I honestly imagine that only makes the show's padding and meandering even more obvious and frustrating. I watched it week-to-week from the very beginning and it was quite enthralling. Listening to podcasts and reading listener theories on forums only drew you in more and more. It definitely had weak episodes and weak seasons, but when the revelations were hitting and you got a big development episode it was pretty great stuff.

I think the worst thing you can say about it was that the show was clearly treading water a lot of times, but even the water-treading episodes weren't as offensively stupid or bad as the time-wasting B-plots of shows like Dexter and 24.

Nope. It's a great show to binge.

The problem is once you start rewatching it and see the numerous issues, mainly around the so-called mysteries.

--

Even though it's not over, The Walking Dead will definitely not be looked upon kindly (it already isn't really). One of those, "Why did we watch past the first season?"

 

[border]

I love the first three seasons but at this point I'm just watching to see it through to the end. It's fun enough but the writing has officially been bad for longer than it has been good.

It shouldn't really be a surprise that the adaptation of the best 3 books in Song of Ice and Fire series resulted in the best 3 seasons of the series. Then the adaptation of the weakest 2 books in the series had less-than-stellar results. And now that they don't have any blueprint to work from, things have kinda fallen off a cliff.

 

[Scarecrow]

Got a lot of flak for not watching a single episode of Friends back when it was on.

This opinion might suck since I didn't even watch the show, but I remember people talking about The Newsroom like it was a brilliant show, but I've seen two scenes on YouTube and it's enough to make me think it's a stupid show that thinks it's really smart.

Just finished Newsroom recently. I can see why a lot of people soured on it, but the seasons were pretty brisk that I had a good time watching.

 

[M.W.]

Lost. Such a stupid ass show.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

Wait, isn't it?

Nope, six episode season eight next year. They chose to do so for budget and production reasons. It does pay off in terms of the latest episode though, and presumably the episodes beyond this too.

edit: also, quitting B5 mid S3 is just before the things they've setup get into gear, so I'd consider giving it a second chance on those ground. That show was always fighting for budget and time though. And the fact that it was 22 episodes, all writing by JMS. To quote Aaron Sorkin on that format with The West Wing (and he had other writers, mind you): "you write with a gun to your head".
I can see the turnoff, two decades later, but for its time, B5 is downright sensational. Also in a less then friendly competition with Deep Space Nine.

 

[Dusktildawn48]

I just feel bad for people that can honestly think breaking bad is a bad show.

 

[Vault Dweller 111]

Breaking Bad

Game of Thrones.

Didn't take long.

 

[Toa TAK]

The people posting Breaking Bad need to share whatever the fuck they're on because that's clearly some good shit.

 

[RedAssedApe]

Well there ya go.

It's a horrendous movie.

The point is, you shouldn't reduce criticism of something popular to "they're just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian."



6 more episodes next year.

don't take it personally if you're posting reasons.

 

[Sheroking]

It shouldn't really be a surprise that the adaptation of the best 3 books in the series resulted in the best 3 seasons of the series. Then the adaptation of the weakest 2 books in the series had less-than-stellar results. And now that they don't have any blueprint to work from, things have kinda fallen off a cliff.

Game of Thrones is almost universally critically acclaimed, coming off two straight Best Drama Emmy wins. It's audience has grown to challenge pre-stream HBO records. The only place you'll find significant and overpowering criticism of the show is among book-readers who are unhappy with direction changes and/or are delusional about some long term plans George Martin always had for the series.

You can say it's "fallen off a cliff", but your view is not well shared by critics or fans.

 

[Glass Shark]

Not saying it was a bad show by any means, but looking back on it, I don't think Breaking Bad was nearly as good as I thought it was at the time. Just got done watching Ozark on Netflix which I feel accomplished as much or more in 10 episodes that Breaking Bad did in its entire run.

 

[PingPongvonLaserstein]

Friends

Right on.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Game of Thrones is almost universally critically acclaimed, coming off two straight Best Drama Emmy wins. It's audience has grown to challenge pre-stream HBO records. The only place you'll find significant and overpowering criticism of the show is among book-readers who are unhappy with direction changes and/or are delusional about some long term plans George Martin always had for the series.

You can say it's "fallen off a cliff", but your view is not well shared by critics or fans.

So what? The Leftovers is the best HBO show since The Wire and nobody fucking watched it.

For the record, I've never read the books and I've been pretty critical of the show over the last few seasons.

 

[border]

Breaking Bad has a fair amount of silly pulp-y elements that its fans like to ignore while heaping effusive praise onto it as if it's this grounded Godfather-like epic. That said, it's clearly not bad or dumb. If you believe Breaking Bad is overrated that's fine.....but I don't think it really qualifies for this discussion.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

What's Happening, the thread.

'you're fat.'

*laughs*

'shut up'

*laughs*

 

[theWB27]

Walking Dead is good, dumb fun that probably dabbles too much with being a serious character drama when clearly the writers aren't up to the task. That said, I never understood why people feel it's necessary for TWD to have a predetermined endpoint or goalpost to justify watching. The first season makes it pretty clear that society is fucked and is never going to be rebuilt......so at that point the show is just going to be about surviving an apocalyptic wasteland. It's not like LOST or its successors, where they constantly dangled some satisfying conclusion in front of viewers, only to snatch it away for another season.

Nothing is good for forever. My favorite show for awhile was greys anatomy... have not seen the last season and have no desire to. Feels like rhonda is going to drag it on as long as she can.

 

[Seventy70]

CW superhero shows are terrible and will age even worse. Don't know how anyone bears those.

 

[KAP151]

Def lost. I was so pumped after season 2. God it went to shit so quickly. There was so much potential as well....

 

[J_Viper]

This thread quickly turned into "Popular TV shows I don't like"

 

[HoJu]

Why is a show not being ptotally planned out seen as a criticism
Pretty sure Twin Peaks was done on the fly. Bob was created by accident. If a show is good, it's good. And all questions don't have to be answered.

 

[Sheroking]

So what? The Leftovers is the best HBO show since The Wire and nobody fucking watched it.

Typically when a show stops being good, it's audience drops. Criticism mounts and it becomes a narrative.

LOST, True Blood and Dexter are all over this thread and this was something that happened to all three of them. Lost hemorrhaged like 30% of it's audience over 20 episodes or something like that. Even The Walking Dead has seen declines.

So when Game of Thrones literally has zero negative reviews amongst professional critics and a rapidly increasing viewer-base, it seems kind of faulty to claim it's "fallen of the cliff". Possible your thoughts and feelings are singular, and have less to do with the quality of the production than your own personal tastes or hopes.

 

[theWB27]

This thread quickly turned into "Popular TV shows I don't like"

Obviously... the shows are popular because people watch them. Hence why the most popular show up.

 

[23qwerty]

This thread quickly turned into "Popular TV shows I don't like"

Only took the first response

 

[UncleSporky]

What about Supernatural?

I get the impression that it tricked general audiences into thinking it was about two brothers hunting evil, some X-Files type stuff, but quickly found itself with a very specific fanbase and devolved into into extreme fan service and soap opera tropes.

 

[Sethista]

Heroes. The show got terrible post-season one, but in retrospect even season one was super dicey, and a lot of its appeal was because it was the "good Lost" at a time when Lost was floundering.

This is a scientific fact.
I even remember damon or carlton saying he wished he thought of the concept for heroes. I love lost so it was a bold statement for me.

 

[rtcn63]

Childhood horror anthologies like Are You Afraid of the Dark. They're fun and nostalgic, but heavily filled with plot holes and bad acting.

 

[M.Bluth]

This is revisionist... but walking dead. Once i came to the conclusion that i knew this show would never wrap it up...i dropped it. Made me realize there was no real drama.

That first episode was absolutely brilliant. Everything after was soul crushingly awful.

 

[ZOONAMI]

I wouldn't say it was dumb or bad, but I was really let down by Sons of Anarchy after years of enormous hype by most people I knew. Maybe a bad opinion but it was the first thing that came to mind for me. After Friends.

Yeah these would be mine. Never liked friends and sons of anarchy has always been pure trash but a lot of people love it.

 

[border]

Game of Thrones is almost universally critically acclaimed, coming off two straight Best Drama Emmy wins.

West Wing, LOST, 24, and Sopranos S5/S6 also got Best Drama Emmy wins. Homeland S1 got Best Drama and fell off pretty appreciably. Emmys are often retroactive awards, wherein shows with established consensus and momentum can win even when current-year seasons are weak.

That said, I don't think GOT is a fair to discuss in this category because it's still ongoing. There is no "retrospect" that can really inform people's opinion of it. Maybe its critics really are just whiners that are unhappy that the show took a turn that they didn't want or expect.

 

[emag]

Hey, at least The Expanse seems to be promising in this regard.

The Expanse is based on a series of books, and the showrunners aren’t likely to have to deviate substantially for some years to come (although the show does move some later elements earlier in the series, etc.). BSG was original content and got hit hard by the writer’s strike. The first two and a half or three seasons were great, but the interruption broke the show and pushed the writers into a death march for seasons 4/4.5.

 

[rtcn63]

The only good thing I remember about Sons of Anarchy is that Straylight Run song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMmE85QeTg

 

[tbm24]

Me and my wife have been reliving True Blood this summer. It’s so much fun until after the Witch story line. From Season 1 to there is a lot of fun and a lot to watch. I’m not the biggest fan of Game of Thrones. I’m only up to Season 4, but I wouldn’t rewatch this show on a random whim unlike True Blood.

 

[Vault Dweller 111]

I never watched Smallville. But I see commercials on Hulu and it looks horribly dated and awful.

I'd be curious how Smallville fans feel about how it aged.

 

[Random Human]

This is a scientific fact.
I even remember damon or carlton saying he wished he thought of the concept for heroes. I love lost so it was a bold statement for me.

It was probably Lindelof. IIRC, he got his start in TV working under Tim Kring (Heroes creator) so he was always pretty positive on it, even when people were using it to drag Lost.

 

[Tye The Czar]

Big Bang Theory after I realized that it insisted on outdated nerd stereotypes and was lazy with its references for the sake of appealing to non-nerd viewers.

Pretty much 90% of shows produced by A-1. Even their "good" ones like Erased and Your Lie in April have serious cracks if you analyze close enough. It makes more sense, knowing that their output is obscenely fast, at about 3 or more shows per year.

More controversially, I'd say Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. Compared to the masterpiece that was Fate/Zero, It just doesn't hold up well from its 2004 source material.

 

[Bounceounce]

I'm convinced that the people on this forum who label Breaking Bad as this are in actuality just people who can't square away Breaking Bad's action and pulpy/silly elements (which are quality) with what they consider to be "high art".

Breaking Bad is amazing, and Walter White is a behemoth of a character.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

I never watched Lost when it aired, but years later when my flatmate was watching the DVDs I saw some of the episodes and thought it was fucking awful

 

[UncleSporky]

I'm convinced that the people on this forum who label Breaking Bad as this are in actuality just people who can't square away Breaking Bad's action and pulpy/silly elements (which are quality) with what they consider to be "high art".

Breaking Bad is amazing, Walter White is a behemoth of a character.

Like I insinuated earlier, I think those people are playing with the thread title, which is specifically asking for shows that were "Bad."

 

[theWB27]

That first episode was absolutely brilliant. Everything after was soul crushingly awful.

That's the thing...i didn't stop because i wasn't entertained. I stopped because i rotate shows and i only have so much time to give to to so many at once.

Walking dead wasnt good enough to always maintain a spot in that rotation.

 

[Horns]

Lost. I think the ending soured me on it.

 

[roflwaffles]

This thread has no potential to be good.

Cosigned.


Friends is great.

 

[Kayhan]

Typically when a show stops being good, it's audience drops. Criticism mounts and it becomes a narrative.

LOST, True Blood and Dexter are all over this thread and this was something that happened to all three of them. Lost hemorrhaged like 30% of it's audience over 20 episodes or something like that. Even The Walking Dead has seen declines.

So when Game of Thrones literally has zero negative reviews amongst professional critics and a rapidly increasing viewer-base, it seems kind of faulty to claim it's "fallen of the cliff". Possible your thoughts and feelings are singular, and have less to do with the quality of the production than your own personal tastes or hopes.

Good post.

Game of Throne is a landmark television show and will be remembered as such.

Lost, not so much.

 

[karobit]

This opinion might suck since I didn't even watch the show, but I remember people talking about The Newsroom like it was a brilliant show, but I've seen two scenes on YouTube and it's enough to make me think it's a stupid show that thinks it's really smart.

I watched the first two seasons and while I don't completely regret my time watching it, I feel like it would be possible for me to make a compelling case for Studio 60 on Sunset Strip being better than Newsroom.

 

[JoJoShabadoo]

Six Feet Under was boring. It was nothing more than a trite soap opera, just with better acting/writing/production values.

No way. Seasons three, four, and to a lesser extent five were definitely in soap opera territory, but seasons one and two were excellent character studies.

 

[rtcn63]

Six Feet Under was one of those shows that you had to be able to relate to. I couldn't. Didn't go past... didn't finish the first season. I like Sia's Breath Me tho.

 

[kswiston]

It will be fun to go through some of these all time Top 100 TV shows and see how many entries get named here:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/best-tv-shows-ever-top-819499
http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/lists/100-greatest-tv-shows-of-all-time-w439520

Already off to a good start from what I saw.


As for the thread's question, I can get behind Heroes. I was a fan of Season 1, but even that season was story of silly in retrospect. However, it was one of the earlier serial shows of that type on network TV, and had some decent shock moments/cliffhangers. Some of the acting was also flat out terrible.

I can't agree with the Sopranos though. Every season had slower episodes, or episodes that I didn't care for, but it continued to turn out good stuff right until the end.

 

[Kill3r7]

I watched the first two seasons and while I don't completely regret my time watching it, I feel like it would be possible for me to make a compelling case for Studio 60 on Sunset Strip being better than Newsroom.

I don't know about Studio 60 but Sports Night and West Wing were miles better.

 

[Sheroking]

I absolutely agree that there is nothing wrong with being a soap, but there is good soap and bad soap.

Game of Thrones seasons 1-3: Great soap
Seasons 4-6: Bad soap

If you believe any part of Game of Thrones was soap, you never understood what the term "soap" means in this context.

 

[border]

Good post.

Game of Throne is a landmark television show and will be remembered as such.

Lost, not so much.

LOST gets a ton of retroactive hate because the ending sucked. Same story with Battlestar Galactica. Similarly, Game of Thrones will be mostly remembered because of how it ends. So I think it's way too early to say if it will be remembered as a landmark TV show or a disappointment. Plenty of contemporary LOST reviews hailed it as a landmark TV show as well.

 

[LotusHD]

GoT has some issues w/ the teleporting and what not, but somehow I doubt the majority are gonna look back and think it was trash lol...