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”.
I miss mid-budget live action scifi shows with strong enough episodic elements that I can actually remember individual episodes
Kamen Rider.
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
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.
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!
Its more that they have to keep the money train going, than they have to outdo themselves.
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 have watched any of those except the first couple of Breaking Bad. It was too real for me so I just couldnt.
I lasted 5 minutes with Peaky Blinders. The loud music drowning out the dialogue did my head in.
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.
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.
Walking dead. I think I finished the second episode. But I’m not even sure about that one. It was utterly boring
Friends.
Seems like everyone likes this show but I dont think I ever watched a full episode.
My humor is more like Scrubs, Seinfeld, IT Crowd.
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.
He is conservative, he’s even been on Joe Rogan’s podcast
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 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.
I gave up in the first episode when a pair of cops drew their firearms, and the one said to the other “safeties off”. And the other cop just brushes the slide release because he was holding a Glock, which famously does not have a safety. I just couldn’t take it seriously after that.
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
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.
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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.
The Umbrella Academy: in the first couple of series like nothing happens and everyone is very sad.
Friends
How I met your mother
Big Bang Theory
The trilogy of “wtf is wrong with those people”
Bazinga.
Breaking Bad. Just lost interest half way through.
Game of Thrones. To me it just came across as torture porn. Just a series of awful things happening to people from one scene to the next. The schtick about different kingdoms and families vying for the throne or whatever was just the backdrop and context to rape, abuse and murder, which was the star of the show.
I love fantasy but that show didn’t do it for me in the slightest. Not interested in checking out any of that guy’s books either.
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.
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.
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
!So that kid end up basically being the bad guy. Pretty much everyone would have been better off if he died!<
Reddit-style spoilers don’t work on Lemmy. Spoilers are done with
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Wait. Brandon? Hmmm…
Huh. I never thought about it like that. I’m not sure that would have been the case though. The starks would have lost their shit a lot faster had he died. I can’t remember exactly, but it was one of the brothers or the mom that was like “nahhhh he didn’t fall” and then went up the tower and figured it out.
And then, had he died, nobody could’ve stopped her. Even Ned would’ve rained hell, esp with Robert there. The only reason nothing immediately happened was BECAUSE he didn’t die. And then, he wasn’t the bad guy because he basically ended up being the/a good guy for the rest of the show.
Wanna talk about misdirected hate, Jeezzz.
What about “the guy who was cucking the king by fucking his twin sister/the queen and when his secret got discovered tried to murder an innocent kid/royal to cover it up with no thoughts of the consequences”? Eh? Can’t that guy be the bad guy?
So you going to overlook the Bran, once he got access to his powers proceeded to messed with the brains of people. Hodor for one. The ‘mad king’ for the other. Of that we were shown.
Or how Bran does jack shit in the big fight, despite being able to.
And then it’s made king because… He had the most interesting story…
Countless people died because that little shit manipulated time and events to gain power.
I thought Bran fucking up Hodor was a huge mistake though. And how did he mess with the brain of the mad King? I don’t remember that at all.
Maybe I’ll have to rewatch it all because I don’t remember anything about him manipulating time. I kind of remember him being able to see, but then certain people having a sixth sense sort of where they could notice him?
Are you going off the books or just the show?
Just the show, since it was Game of Thrones. Figure book readers would go by the actual name.
There’s a short scene when he’s messing about in the past were he pops over to the King, and if I remember correctly, that’s when the King goes mad. Shouldnt be long after the Hodor scene. It’s been a few years. But I distinctly remember being like ‘wait, it was his fault!? That little shit!’
I looked it up and saw some of that idea being called fan theories, backed up by “if he could warg-affect hodor, and that was breaking some warg laws, then he was repeatedly breaking them and could obviously time travel” which got fan theoried into him being the source of the mad King AND Bran is actually the night king.
Honestly, I just attribute a lot of that to bad directing near the end of the show. It was already falling off for a long time by then, and it was unclear and you had to kind of presume what was happening off screen and what capabilities were.
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
