Lots of q's today, everyone.
After a lovely chat with our Course Assistant, Laura, I wanted to shoot you guys the above question. We all have shows that we loved but had to stop watching after a certain moment, whether it be a character's death the prolonging of a central plot point (such as the 10 season long Ross and Rachel back-and-forth in Friends), or perhaps a tonal shift in the show that made you forget why you loved it in the first place. For Laura, one of her "I just had to stop watching it" shows was Glee because she found that it got too preachy, especially after a certain "Don't Text and Drive" episode.
One show that comes to mind for me is Boardwalk Empire. I LOVED this show when it first came out. I thought it was well-written, acted, set-up. But, midway into Season 3, I had to call it quits. The original intrigues that the writers had delicately set up were resolved too early or simply fell off the wagon. My favorite character was killed in Season 2. My next favorite character was killed in Season 3. The story and character developments just weren't there anymore. Plus, there's some weird romantic intrigue that shouldn't have even taken place between two characters. With each subsequent episode I watched, up until my breaking point, I just became more and more frustrated. I dreaded keeping up with it, so I decided it was probably for the best that I stop.
Just on a Steve Buscemi train here, whenever I re-watch The Sopranos, my least favorite season to re-watch is Season 5, wherein Steve Buscemi serves as a "inject excitement into a plateauing series" character addition whose existence and character arc doesn't serve the story of the series at all.
So, in the comments, I implore you to vent your TV frustrations!
This is such a great question! I had the same problem as Laura with Glee, which is why I stopped watching. I also stopped House of Cards after season 2 because I found the show less compelling after Frank managed to become president. His increasing belligerence became less interesting and the politics of the show just feel really strange. Though, I may start watching again just to see Robin Wright as POTUS, especially given how Spacey was fired and the current political landscape seems just as absurd as the show.
ReplyDeleteAnother show was Bones, which I followed for years but then became very dissatisfied once Bones and Booth finally got together (also she was a terrible anthropologist...).
RETWEET on House of Cards. I think I watched Season 3, but couldn't remember any detail of it because it just wasn't captivating to me anymore. I think a lot of Netflix shows, in my view, tend to fizz out after 2-3 seasons but are around because of the hype.
ReplyDeleteI once wrote a, like, 20 page paper about Battlestar Galactica when 10 pages had been assigned. At the time of writing, I thought I was dealing with questions of, like, world-historical import. I later realized that the whole thing had essentially just been an attempt to explain precisely how and why the series jumped the shark (and to finally come up with the equivocal conclusion: but maybe it *didn't* even jump the shark?!).
ReplyDeleteI'm really into Star Wars, and "Star Wars Rebels" is one of the only shows I watch week-to-week. I had watched "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" since 2008 and was upset, but open, when Darth Maul's brother appeared on the series in Season 3 in 2011, but turned it off when Maul himself appeared at the end of Season 4 in 2012 and remained the antagonist through season 6 (the final season). In both narrative and media-release timeline, Maul had died 10 years prior by being cut in half and having fallen down an energy reactor shaft. Sure, he was a fan favorite, and for many, the best part of the sequels, but it stretched believability for me, and I stopped watching.
ReplyDeleteMaul again returns in what is an otherwise excellent tv show, Star Wars Rebels, at the end of season 2 and remains a fixture though season 3 until (once again!) Obi-Wan kills him by stabbing him through the chest. I picked this show up again in Season 4 after Maul had died, and it remains a quality show.
I'm super late on this post, but one show that immediately came to mind was the Netflix series Bloodline, which I believe lasted for three seasons. I remember finding the first season enjoyable, even though it took itself so seriously and was overly melodramatic. Then season two came around, which basically acted as a 13 episode epilogue. They obviously regretted killing off Ben Mendlesohn's character (the only truly interesting part of the show), so they kept him on in season two in a starring role to appear in far too many flashbacks scenes. It was almost completely unwatchable. They focused on layering a more complex backstory for season one's events, since the present in the show was a dead end. I don't know how they managed to make a third season. It seems like the show was meant to be a miniseries, leaving them with absolutely nowhere to go with it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I would call it a "favourite" show, but I was watching Penny Dreadful a few weeks ago & enjoying the overblown melodrama of it, until in season 3 we learn that all the angst of Josh Hartnett's character, an American who is also (spoiler, if you care) a werewolf, is caused by the fact that he spent time in the army running around killing Indians. But don't worry! He's been adopted by an Apache father! And in fact the Apaches have a prophecy about him being the saviour of the world! So, you know, he'll make up for it. For a show that had many chances to critique colonialism and imperialism, or at least not gloss over the realities of Victorian life, it handled them poorly. (http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2016/06/penny-dreadful-and-race.html)
ReplyDeleteOne show that I absolutely loved was Torchwood. Until, in 2009, some BBC budget cuts meant the show went from a planned 13 episodes to a 5-episode limited run that showed over the course of a week in the middle of summer. (How is that a good programming decision?) Not only was I cheated out of a longer, more drawn-out run of more episodes (a sin I might have been able to forgive), but they fridged my favourite queer character, so after that, I was out.
I would actually have to second Dan's post and say "Glee" was a show that I absolutely LOVED but ended up no longer watching! Specifically I stopped watching after the episode "The Spanish Teacher" that guest stared Ricky Martin. I was really turned off by how they handled Latinx culture and really problematized the concept of the 'American Dream' by making Ricky Martin's Characters dream to be a model for toothpaste or a tooth model of just something just really dumb. I honestly kinda blocked the episode out of my head because it was so ridiculous so I don't remember the plot that much from that episode but I was really troubled by how they reduced Latinx culture to just costume and stereotype and doing musical numbers that week that were really reduced to caricature. Even though one of the very few latina characters on the show said something by the end of the episode (Naya Rivera's character who herself is Puerto Rican, African American, and German) I kinda felt like the damage was done, and further complicated by Ricky Martin's character accomplishing his 'Dream.' I was also turned off by the episode where they did the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" adaptation, but that didn't influence me as much as the "Spanish Teacher" episode did. Otherwise, I haven't really been motivated to discontinue watching a show because of disagreements with content of anything like that. Mostly I just stop watching certain show because I get too busy to keep up and then I Just end up really behind.
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