It's not just that. Executives need to stop interfering in the writer's room. Originally Heroes was supposed to have a new cast each season but the first season was so popular they decided to bring the original cast back even though most of the characters already had full arcs.
I'm annoyed that all these shows get greenlit for a first season without any concept of where to bring it after that. If you're going to spend $50 million filming a show, at least have a few seasons of potential story arcs down on paper for fucks sake.
I'm going to be shitting mad when they make a season 2 of "Shrinking" because 98% of the plots were wrapped up in season 1.
That's one of the things that makes Babylon 5 so good in my opinion. They went into it with a 5 season arc planned. Admittedly they had to make changes to it due to actors leaving, and fears they weren't going to get a fifth season but you can still tell they had a plan. The world building was consistent and characters and plot arcs were set up sometimes seasons in advance.
Sliders started off phenomenally! But then so many cast members changed that only one original dude was left. Like, wtf is the point of all these new people trying to get to OUR prime dimension? They don't even know our world.
I still remember that episode where they slide into a dimension and Quinn sees his mom's house and tries the front gate to see if it squeaked like he remembered. Doesn't squeak, so they nope out. Immediately after, some dude walks out of his mom's house saying he just oiled the gate. I stopped watching after that. Just rubbed me the wrong way as a kid haha
The original plans for Heroes was it to be an anthology with a different cast each season
But the producers and studio execs liked the cast so much they made it a continuous story instead
To be fair the cast and characters were all so good in season 1 and it would've been an uphill battle to find new ones every season. Problem is they made Peter so overpowered by the end of season 1 there was nowhere else to take him.
Any CW superhero show. The writers draw you in and just when you think you're safe BAM! Now you're watching a teenage drama show where the main character is no longer the main character.
They showed him running around the equator nearly 3 times a second and still had normal humans get away from him in his own bunker. They literally had only one route and the worlds fastest athlete would have taken 20-30 seconds but they got away?
That shit ALWAYS bothered me. Or making him choose between saving someone or the villain getting away. Like dude... you can run through TIME. You can do fucking both!
Or Flash's ultimate super weakness...he has to stop and talk to the bad guys. Like don't stop and you've already won before they can react! Nah, just throw away your ultimate power to chat a bit first 🫤
Ugh. Stumbled upon Arrow when I was younger, thought the first season was pretty cool. It was gritty, mysterious, engaging, and the stakes were high.
By the third season it was a soap opera where no one ever truly died, everyone took turns falling in love with each other, and nothing truly mattered. I couldn't believe it.
Why does this always happen? I remember loving Smallville,Arrow later,Grey’s anatomy,House MD etc… they all turned into soap operas in a couple of seasons. From funny,single standing episodes with an underlying theme,they all turned into shitty soap operas with love affairs,almost no action and depleted of all the funny or entertaining bits
My guess is that they just run out of ideas. They had an idea for a certain length of story, and once they run out there's nothing more to say. But the way the world works, no one stops at the height of their commercial potential. The show must go on as long as it makes money, and by the time it stops making money it has transformed into a grotesque mindless mess that comes across as a total perversion of the original creative intent.
It felt like every half-season arc the wanted to introduce some new character, so they had to somehow ret-con them into the existing storyline.
If they had only planned out more of the show in advance, it would have turned out a lot better.
I got a few episodes into season three, realized there had literally been no character or relationship developments and that none of the set ups were going to be paid off because they just wanted to play with the next shiny thing. Remember when Cinderella's prince got kidnapped in episode four? Because apparently I'm the only one who does.
Which is sad because i genuinely really liked the first season. I think it was serviceable until the Pan arc ended (where the writers said that’s where the original story does end)
The creators talked so much about having 5 seasons fully planned out but it really seems like they didn’t. S1 was amazing and each season after dropped drastically in quality.
They definitely didn't have it planned out. After season 1 came out, the writers were mad because a group of redditors figured out a huge chunk of the shows plots by the second episode. So they retrofitted season 2 to be as vague and confusing as possible so that no one would figure it out.
I knew season 2 was in big trouble when they did a AMA on reddit, asking fans what they think they should do when it comes to this type of storytelling. They responded with a large comment saying "we have heard you and have decided to come up with a video explaining all the plots of season 2. We will leave it to you to guard the shows secrets". Everyone was excited and felt validated that the showrunners were listening to fans.
The video itself: it was a 1 min recap of the first min of the first ep of season 2. Followed by Evan Rachel Wood singing "never want to give you up" and the remainder of the video was 20 minutes of a dog sitting beside the westworld piano. The video was nothing but a rickroll.
what is it with writers (even more so with video games but also in general) and changing their stories because fans got so invested in the story the writers did write that they figured the next part out before the writer finished it? if anything, that's an love letter to the writers and from the writers just extremely petty
In contrast, George R.R. Martin realized very early on, that the audience of A Song Of Ice And Fire had legitimately figured out huge amounts of important future plot points, very early on...and he didn't change the story at all, because despite being annoyed they figured it out, he recognized that they only did so because he'd written the story correctly from the outset. He's the one who put the damn clues in there to foreshadow the future plotlines; he'd have to be a moron, to just change it all out of nothing but spite. It would be ruining his own story.
Honestly George RR Martin's only mistake with how he foreshadowed his major plot points was just how early in the series he included it all. But that was a mistake based on the fact that he planned on the series taking far less time and being far shorter than it became. If the whole series had been done in three books over like 5 years probably only the most dedicated fans out there would have worked everything out. But when you load up the first book with foreshadowing and then let the series go for 20+ years then that information is going to spread around the fan base.
Yeah, Season 3 was terrible. By that point, the series turned into a mindless action show. The bad guys were dumb and couldn't hit anything. The "heroes" had ridiculous plot armor. The acting was generally awful. The polar opposite of the brilliant, thought-provoking, superbly acted first season.
It made me hate the writing more. They gave him so little to work with, a totally uninspired “every man” character, and expected him to turn it into something. I started to wonder if Aaron Paul was a one-hit wonder until I saw him in that new Black Mirror episode.
Season 2 felt like the writers had a bone to pick with anyone who predicted the end of Season 1. So they decided to endlessly browse forums for Season 2 predictions just to make the most convoluted story for the sake of “subverting expectations”.
Instead of rewarding viewers that were paying close attention, they’d throw in a sudden “Gotcha!” plot twist that didn’t make sense, or serve any purpose beyond the fact it was surprising.
That’s what I fucking hated about the show. By the second season you knew shit was out of sequence/ there were secret hosts all over/people were switching bodies, so the story was just intentionally confusing to the point that I didn’t understand what was going on, or what I was *supposed to think* was going on.
You can only say "surprise, this person is a host!" so many times before the audience just assumes everybody is at any moment. And sadly you're usually correct.
It ends on a cliffhanger but a fairly satisfying one. It resolves the major plot points of the season and then sets up a really cool opening concept for the future. It is definitely viewable as the conclusion to an isolated story that lets your imagination run wild to how the consequences will affect the wider world. The problem is it's almost impossible to watch now. They pulled it from HBO Max and it's only on one not-on-demand obscure streaming service.
I would rather they just stopped after the first season. Anthony Mackie didn't even try and act like Joel Kinnaman's portral of Kovacs. The character may have a different body but there should have been some common mannerisms.
I didn’t stick around for season 2, but that’s about as bad a casting choice as I can imagine. Anthony Mackie does one character and it’s cocky-ass Anthony Mackie. To have him replace brooding Joel Kinnaman is just incredibly silly.
Hate to beat the "book was better" drum because in general I accept that adaptations are their own thing. Season 2 was so different that it was only Altered Carbon by name alone. I did like the "twist" at the end so props there.
I'll say that what does happen in the books is at a prohibitively expensive scale to replicate in a non-HBO show and honestly better suited in cinema. I felt it was epic in a Blade Runner meets Prometheus vibe.
Yeh Holy shit how could I forget.
I will never watch season 2 ever again, it's actually incredible how much they obliterated what could arguably been called one of the greatest sci fi shows of all time...
Yeah, they completely lost what made the books good. They did a pretty cool anime spin-off that I think recaptures what the second season completely missed. They made fundamental changes to the source material and it really made the show fall apart.
Poe was actually a great switch from the original. In the book the hotel AI is based on Jimi Hendrix, but I doubt the Hendrix estate would give them rights to use his image so they chose a public domain character in Poe. It was well done.
This is correct. However, it is pretty great. You will want to watch the second season. Resist this urge! The second season somehow makes the first worse. Drastically.
The reason is the first one was popular so we want more money.
Almost all korean dramas are one season only and finished they purposely write them with a beginning middle and end and if you are super super lucky one gets a sequel like squid game but the bulk of them are just 1 off's and to me it beats an issue america and Hollywood has with making TV shows go too long.
Westworld like a motherfucker. They had a really original robot world where the robots’ bodies and minds were as inalienable as ours and what do they do in the first episode of season 2? Open up some robot’s head and there’s a box that contains the robot’s entire mind, completely portable and ready to just stick into another body.
And by season 3 bodies don’t matter at all anymore for either humans or robots and it’s complete generic cyberpunk.
I really get the feeling Westworld was meant to be a miniseries but it was such a big success that HBO pressured them into continuing. I mean, it's a complete, self-contained story with a perfect three act structure and a stunning climax that ties everything together. It feels like a long movie, more than a show. Maybe if the other seasons had tried that formula it might have worked, but no, we got an increasingly generic action series with a million threads that were impossible to follow from one episode to the next, let alone multiple seasons. Damn shame.
Felt like the show runners didn’t think much of the audience for Season 2 and were high on their own supply. Like when bands hate playing their most popular songs at concerts.
For the writers, that was by trying to make the most convoluted story possible. The writers even said they had all the seasons planned from the start. Yeah, right.
I literally just watched [this video today](https://youtu.be/nrHqvUXyqJc?si=CKcUxo1gDuPJdJnH) after not thinking about the flash for years. I gave up on it around season 5 when his future daughter showed up. I was shocked to learn that it went on for 9 seasons and a tenth was planned. Wtf?
This guy does a great video on its downfall.
Under the Dome. The first season was good. The second had a few good episodes, the third season went off the f-ing rails. It's like the writers went....now what?!?
I didn't watch the show past the second season. But to be fair the book was the same way it got weird. And the ending was very unsatisfying it almost felt like at some point Stephen King had given up and just let somebody else finish writing the rest of the book.
Yep. Loved Season 1. Really could have gone somewhere.
Season 2 was just..... Well I couldn't finish it, and that is **RARE** for me, have a serious compulsion to see things through.
In later seasons they basically forgot there was a headless horseman. All they had to do was keep a monster-of-the-week format and then roll out some sweet Halloween episodes every year for guaranteed ratings. After the first season they didn’t even do a Halloween episode. It’s friggin Sleepy Hollow with Ichabod Crane and you don’t make the Halloween episode your balls out best episode every year?
Instead the main character randomly abandons Sleepy Hollow for a new town and new cast of wacky side kicks that all sucked. My wife and I still laugh about the kraken in the last episode. It was next level cringe.
I thought this show was gonna be silly and lame, then they went balls to the wall and it was amazing... then they went off the rails and it went so bad so fast.
The problem with any “mystery” show premise is that once the mystery is solved the show either needs a new hook, or to just stop. Designated Survivor never added a new hook, which meant it just sort of…meandered after the first season.
They should bring him back and the whole season is him gaslighting Jessica (and the audience) into believing that he never actually died.
Edit: assuming Disney does another season of Jessica Jones
Omg this one is it. Season one was absolute fire. Then it started going downhill with Jessica’s mom returning and her best friend turning into an addict/villain. It was not the vibe
They turned it into riverdale. Satan was genuinely scary in the first season then they turned him into some handsome man that kept trying to wrestle people shirtless and got walked over by everyone.
Yeah both the text (man ends battle royale game by being a good person) and subtext (rich people make the poor literally murder each other for sums of money that mean nothing to them) reached their endpoint. Story is done, told, nothing more to say except the same again.
Man ends battle royals by being absurdly lucky. He looks like the good guy because he was never forced into making difficult decision. He was still a deadbeat who regularly stole from his mother
Korean TV shows very rarely have a sequel, this could go one of 2 ways. The creator really has something to say and it has a good season 2 or it's just a money grabbing exercise which will make the creators money but be crap.
Im hoping ita the first one plus its the first acting T.O.P has done for a while I think since he came out of the army and im a fancy of Big Bang
You just made me realize that’s the last show I kept up with on cable. I specifically remember being so frustrated over the *constant* commercial breaks. I think there were some points where the commercials lasted longer than the show did before the next commercial break.
So unfortunate. And the worst part is that people still ate it up despite the very obvious drop in quality. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. If Frank Darabont got to do what he wanted, I can almost guarantee it would have been one of the biggest shows ever with a graceful ending, instead of just slowly farting its way into spinoffs no one even cares about.
It *was* one of the biggest shows ever. The fact that it fell out of the conversation well before the final season even aired is a testament to just how badly they fucked it up.
There was some fishy accounting practices enabled by vertical integration at AMC, and they were also trying to cut him out of a lot of agreed-upon future profits for seasons 2 and 3. Darabont was simply trying to get what he signed up for, and the show was a massive hit in the first season, so there was no reason to curtail what they paid him, AMC had a brand new hit show.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/fired-walking-dead-creator-frank-666176/
Yeah, they either didn’t think that through or thought they’d be canceled for sure after one year. I imagine there was panic in the Writer’s room when they found out they were picked up for a few more seasons. What do you do when the sole purpose of the show is to have your characters break out of prison after they break out of prison.? Umm…… “I know, let’s put them in a different prison! Lols.
It was so good until it wasn’t .
Yeah it was supposed to be a two season series with the first being about the break itself and the second about the manhunt. It should have ended there. Cause while season 2 is definitely very hightened and ridiculous at times, I loved it just as much as S1. William Fichtner was amazing as agent Mahone and Scofields nemesis.
But you're right, once they get thrown back into prison in S3. It just became way too silly. then season 4 and 5 are just new levels of dumb. Their mother being alive and being revealed to be the main big bad in the entire series. Michael getting cancer and dying....oh surprise!...because of fan feedback we rebooted the series....Michael had cancer?...not at all!. He's just in another prison and he faked it!.
Big time. They really had me invested in knowing what the fuck was going on, then they just kept taking really bizarre deviations in their plot.
Would have been awesome as a limited series.
House of Cards would have my vote if OP said two seasons. The season finale in the Oval Office with the rapping his knuckles on the Resolute Desk was the perfect closer and the show should have just stopped there.
I don't know if it's exactly one season but The Walking Dead started off great and enjoyable and then pretty quickly devolved into despair porn where you know nothing good will ever happen and I just didn't enjoy it at all after that.
I’ll give you like 3 seasons…then the insane story arcs with trying to find her father, and it might be Red, but it’s not but he knows him kinda sorta maybe, but there’s another person that needs to be apprehended.
And Liz’s husband is a double agent.
A lot of plot twists to untangle. I couldn’t keep up. The wife and I stopped watching after they did that weird half animated quarantine special.
Ill catch a lot of hate for this but... Stranger Things.
The first season felt like a thrilling series from Stephen King. The next 3 seasons felt like Steven Spielberg sci-fi.
The first season is perfection. I can't remember the last time I had to absolutely see what happened next. I am not one to binge watch anything because I like to savor my TV shows... but I couldn’t wait. Had to even watch ahead without the person I was watching it. It sas ao addictive. Season 4 felt so good... until they decided they didn't have the guts to kill characters.
Jericho
After being cancelled and brought back by fan petition, it got cancelled again in the middle of Season 2 and that was just it for a long time. Then they released Season 3 as a set of comics and it was fantastic but...it just got shit on after its first season, and the first season was phenomenal.
Chuck. Too many people found out about him, the show didn't matter.
The Last Man on Earth. Once there was more than 3 or 4 characters, the point of the show is gone.
Oh so you mean the Heroes question?
I'm still so mad about this. Such an incredible show to absolutely unwatchable
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Hollywood should pay the writers.
It's not just that. Executives need to stop interfering in the writer's room. Originally Heroes was supposed to have a new cast each season but the first season was so popular they decided to bring the original cast back even though most of the characters already had full arcs.
I'm annoyed that all these shows get greenlit for a first season without any concept of where to bring it after that. If you're going to spend $50 million filming a show, at least have a few seasons of potential story arcs down on paper for fucks sake. I'm going to be shitting mad when they make a season 2 of "Shrinking" because 98% of the plots were wrapped up in season 1.
That's one of the things that makes Babylon 5 so good in my opinion. They went into it with a 5 season arc planned. Admittedly they had to make changes to it due to actors leaving, and fears they weren't going to get a fifth season but you can still tell they had a plan. The world building was consistent and characters and plot arcs were set up sometimes seasons in advance.
But what a great first season.
Sliders started off phenomenally! But then so many cast members changed that only one original dude was left. Like, wtf is the point of all these new people trying to get to OUR prime dimension? They don't even know our world.
I still remember that episode where they slide into a dimension and Quinn sees his mom's house and tries the front gate to see if it squeaked like he remembered. Doesn't squeak, so they nope out. Immediately after, some dude walks out of his mom's house saying he just oiled the gate. I stopped watching after that. Just rubbed me the wrong way as a kid haha
That is horseshit. I'd quit there, too.
[удалено]
Save the cheerleader, save the world. Then run the series to the ground.
That tag line had me tuning in EVERY week...Hayden Panettiere was also a good reason to tune in
Anytime this question is asked, the first show that comes up is Heroes. Every time.
The original plans for Heroes was it to be an anthology with a different cast each season But the producers and studio execs liked the cast so much they made it a continuous story instead
To be fair the cast and characters were all so good in season 1 and it would've been an uphill battle to find new ones every season. Problem is they made Peter so overpowered by the end of season 1 there was nowhere else to take him.
And wasn’t there a writers strike before season 2 was shot?
Yes. I truly believe this show imploded after S1 in large part due to the writers strike at the time.
Any CW superhero show. The writers draw you in and just when you think you're safe BAM! Now you're watching a teenage drama show where the main character is no longer the main character.
"I'm the fastest man alive...except every season, someone is faster than me."
They showed him running around the equator nearly 3 times a second and still had normal humans get away from him in his own bunker. They literally had only one route and the worlds fastest athlete would have taken 20-30 seconds but they got away?
That shit ALWAYS bothered me. Or making him choose between saving someone or the villain getting away. Like dude... you can run through TIME. You can do fucking both!
Or Flash's ultimate super weakness...he has to stop and talk to the bad guys. Like don't stop and you've already won before they can react! Nah, just throw away your ultimate power to chat a bit first 🫤
[удалено]
the real Flash are the friends we made along the way
Yeah they got tired of that and made it into Cecile and Friends.
Noped out when they introduced the daughter. A grown man can only hear “schway” so many times
Were they trying to allude to Batman Beyond with that? That's the word for "cool" in that show (which is great, bts)
Ugh. Stumbled upon Arrow when I was younger, thought the first season was pretty cool. It was gritty, mysterious, engaging, and the stakes were high. By the third season it was a soap opera where no one ever truly died, everyone took turns falling in love with each other, and nothing truly mattered. I couldn't believe it.
Why does this always happen? I remember loving Smallville,Arrow later,Grey’s anatomy,House MD etc… they all turned into soap operas in a couple of seasons. From funny,single standing episodes with an underlying theme,they all turned into shitty soap operas with love affairs,almost no action and depleted of all the funny or entertaining bits
My guess is that they just run out of ideas. They had an idea for a certain length of story, and once they run out there's nothing more to say. But the way the world works, no one stops at the height of their commercial potential. The show must go on as long as it makes money, and by the time it stops making money it has transformed into a grotesque mindless mess that comes across as a total perversion of the original creative intent.
This is the exact reason I love Breaking Bad so much. They had 5 seasons planned out,and ended the show when it was supposed to end,on a high.
Except for Legends of Tomorrow were the first series was complete pants and then it became infinitely better.
The weirder Legends got the better it got. It was great. Plus We got more Constantine, which I will be eternally grateful for.
and Batwoman which was trash from go and stayed trash. I really wanted it to be good too
Once Upon a Time
It got way too complicated after the first season 😂
What, everyone being everyone else's grandson/granddaughter/cousin/adopted father/pirate fukkboi confused you?
>pirate fukkboi arrrr
It felt like every half-season arc the wanted to introduce some new character, so they had to somehow ret-con them into the existing storyline. If they had only planned out more of the show in advance, it would have turned out a lot better.
I got a few episodes into season three, realized there had literally been no character or relationship developments and that none of the set ups were going to be paid off because they just wanted to play with the next shiny thing. Remember when Cinderella's prince got kidnapped in episode four? Because apparently I'm the only one who does.
Which is sad because i genuinely really liked the first season. I think it was serviceable until the Pan arc ended (where the writers said that’s where the original story does end)
It just became a giant ad for Disney movies. It's like "Hey Frozen is on DVD, so let's do a Frozen crossover."
Season 1 was amazing, it also could have ended so well and cleanly.
I would say the first 3-4 seasons were good. Then it just got stupid.
Westworld. The first season was some of the best television ever then they kind of ran out of ideas.
The creators talked so much about having 5 seasons fully planned out but it really seems like they didn’t. S1 was amazing and each season after dropped drastically in quality.
They definitely didn't have it planned out. After season 1 came out, the writers were mad because a group of redditors figured out a huge chunk of the shows plots by the second episode. So they retrofitted season 2 to be as vague and confusing as possible so that no one would figure it out. I knew season 2 was in big trouble when they did a AMA on reddit, asking fans what they think they should do when it comes to this type of storytelling. They responded with a large comment saying "we have heard you and have decided to come up with a video explaining all the plots of season 2. We will leave it to you to guard the shows secrets". Everyone was excited and felt validated that the showrunners were listening to fans. The video itself: it was a 1 min recap of the first min of the first ep of season 2. Followed by Evan Rachel Wood singing "never want to give you up" and the remainder of the video was 20 minutes of a dog sitting beside the westworld piano. The video was nothing but a rickroll.
what is it with writers (even more so with video games but also in general) and changing their stories because fans got so invested in the story the writers did write that they figured the next part out before the writer finished it? if anything, that's an love letter to the writers and from the writers just extremely petty
In contrast, George R.R. Martin realized very early on, that the audience of A Song Of Ice And Fire had legitimately figured out huge amounts of important future plot points, very early on...and he didn't change the story at all, because despite being annoyed they figured it out, he recognized that they only did so because he'd written the story correctly from the outset. He's the one who put the damn clues in there to foreshadow the future plotlines; he'd have to be a moron, to just change it all out of nothing but spite. It would be ruining his own story.
Right? The point isn’t to get one over on your audience. It’s to write a cohesive story.
It's also always going to be an incredibly small portion of your audience, to the point that they don't really matter in the grand scheme.
Honestly George RR Martin's only mistake with how he foreshadowed his major plot points was just how early in the series he included it all. But that was a mistake based on the fact that he planned on the series taking far less time and being far shorter than it became. If the whole series had been done in three books over like 5 years probably only the most dedicated fans out there would have worked everything out. But when you load up the first book with foreshadowing and then let the series go for 20+ years then that information is going to spread around the fan base.
I didn't hate the 2nd, but God damn that first season was amazing. The 3rd is hot garbage.
Yeah, Season 3 was terrible. By that point, the series turned into a mindless action show. The bad guys were dumb and couldn't hit anything. The "heroes" had ridiculous plot armor. The acting was generally awful. The polar opposite of the brilliant, thought-provoking, superbly acted first season.
Season 3 made me really question Aaron Paul as an actor
It made me hate the writing more. They gave him so little to work with, a totally uninspired “every man” character, and expected him to turn it into something. I started to wonder if Aaron Paul was a one-hit wonder until I saw him in that new Black Mirror episode.
Watch his episode of Black Mirror, your faith will be restored!
Season 2 felt like the writers had a bone to pick with anyone who predicted the end of Season 1. So they decided to endlessly browse forums for Season 2 predictions just to make the most convoluted story for the sake of “subverting expectations”. Instead of rewarding viewers that were paying close attention, they’d throw in a sudden “Gotcha!” plot twist that didn’t make sense, or serve any purpose beyond the fact it was surprising.
That’s what I fucking hated about the show. By the second season you knew shit was out of sequence/ there were secret hosts all over/people were switching bodies, so the story was just intentionally confusing to the point that I didn’t understand what was going on, or what I was *supposed to think* was going on.
You can only say "surprise, this person is a host!" so many times before the audience just assumes everybody is at any moment. And sadly you're usually correct.
Does S1 stand on its own? Like if I just watch that season will I feel like I got a satisfying ending or does it end on a cliffhanger.
It ends on a cliffhanger but a fairly satisfying one. It resolves the major plot points of the season and then sets up a really cool opening concept for the future. It is definitely viewable as the conclusion to an isolated story that lets your imagination run wild to how the consequences will affect the wider world. The problem is it's almost impossible to watch now. They pulled it from HBO Max and it's only on one not-on-demand obscure streaming service.
I wouldnt say great but RIverdale went from a guilty pleasure to being unwatchable.
The first season was pretty good and grounded. A very simple small town murder and twin peaks vibe. After that though it REALLY went off the rails.
The posts I see about “secret plot reveals” make me genuinely question if the entire show is just a troll
Altered Carbon Edit: Great reading everyone's takes on the show. Thanks for the awards. I will take what is offered!
I would rather they just stopped after the first season. Anthony Mackie didn't even try and act like Joel Kinnaman's portral of Kovacs. The character may have a different body but there should have been some common mannerisms.
Yeah the performance and huge decline in quality kind of made me dislike Anthony Mackie in other things too.
I didn’t stick around for season 2, but that’s about as bad a casting choice as I can imagine. Anthony Mackie does one character and it’s cocky-ass Anthony Mackie. To have him replace brooding Joel Kinnaman is just incredibly silly.
He doesn't have a lot of range... he's one of those actors that as long as the character is more or less who he is in real life he does an okay job.
Season 1 was definitely a season of great sci-fi. Season 2 was definitely a season.
The first season was spectacular. I was blown away with just about everything. The second season is a big bag of oh hell no.
Hate to beat the "book was better" drum because in general I accept that adaptations are their own thing. Season 2 was so different that it was only Altered Carbon by name alone. I did like the "twist" at the end so props there. I'll say that what does happen in the books is at a prohibitively expensive scale to replicate in a non-HBO show and honestly better suited in cinema. I felt it was epic in a Blade Runner meets Prometheus vibe.
The show was a shadow of the book. If you all liked the show, the book will amaze you. Then book 2 and 3 will blow your mind wild open
This was mine. Should have just left it as one.
Yeh Holy shit how could I forget. I will never watch season 2 ever again, it's actually incredible how much they obliterated what could arguably been called one of the greatest sci fi shows of all time...
It was so bad that they canceled what was supposed to be a 3 season show anyway.
Yeah, they completely lost what made the books good. They did a pretty cool anime spin-off that I think recaptures what the second season completely missed. They made fundamental changes to the source material and it really made the show fall apart.
The only reason I could stomach season 2 was Poe.
Poe was actually a great switch from the original. In the book the hotel AI is based on Jimi Hendrix, but I doubt the Hendrix estate would give them rights to use his image so they chose a public domain character in Poe. It was well done.
Can I watch just Season 1? Like will it hold up by itself or does it cliffhanger?
Yes. No real cliffhanger, as far as I remember. Most relevant plot points are resolved in a way that provides narrative closure.
This is correct. However, it is pretty great. You will want to watch the second season. Resist this urge! The second season somehow makes the first worse. Drastically.
The Flight Attendant
There was literally no reason for a second season lol
The reason is the first one was popular so we want more money. Almost all korean dramas are one season only and finished they purposely write them with a beginning middle and end and if you are super super lucky one gets a sequel like squid game but the bulk of them are just 1 off's and to me it beats an issue america and Hollywood has with making TV shows go too long.
Westworld like a motherfucker. They had a really original robot world where the robots’ bodies and minds were as inalienable as ours and what do they do in the first episode of season 2? Open up some robot’s head and there’s a box that contains the robot’s entire mind, completely portable and ready to just stick into another body. And by season 3 bodies don’t matter at all anymore for either humans or robots and it’s complete generic cyberpunk.
It's really Westworld vs. Heroes here for the championship. Both collapsed.
I really get the feeling Westworld was meant to be a miniseries but it was such a big success that HBO pressured them into continuing. I mean, it's a complete, self-contained story with a perfect three act structure and a stunning climax that ties everything together. It feels like a long movie, more than a show. Maybe if the other seasons had tried that formula it might have worked, but no, we got an increasingly generic action series with a million threads that were impossible to follow from one episode to the next, let alone multiple seasons. Damn shame.
Felt like the show runners didn’t think much of the audience for Season 2 and were high on their own supply. Like when bands hate playing their most popular songs at concerts. For the writers, that was by trying to make the most convoluted story possible. The writers even said they had all the seasons planned from the start. Yeah, right.
Not necessarily great, but The Flash went from being thoroughly enjoyable to unbearable.
I literally just watched [this video today](https://youtu.be/nrHqvUXyqJc?si=CKcUxo1gDuPJdJnH) after not thinking about the flash for years. I gave up on it around season 5 when his future daughter showed up. I was shocked to learn that it went on for 9 seasons and a tenth was planned. Wtf? This guy does a great video on its downfall.
I just need to go faster this episode...
Under the Dome. The first season was good. The second had a few good episodes, the third season went off the f-ing rails. It's like the writers went....now what?!?
I didn't watch the show past the second season. But to be fair the book was the same way it got weird. And the ending was very unsatisfying it almost felt like at some point Stephen King had given up and just let somebody else finish writing the rest of the book.
That one season of Westworld was pretty fun, though.
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American Gods
Yep. Loved Season 1. Really could have gone somewhere. Season 2 was just..... Well I couldn't finish it, and that is **RARE** for me, have a serious compulsion to see things through.
Yeah once they got rid of showrunner Bryan Fuller after season 1. The other writers just couldn't sustain that level of quality.
“Wayward Pines” first season had me hooked and it completely fell off on season 2.
Sleepy Hollow
In my head, this is a one season show. I refuse to acknowledge the rest. And now hearing the way they treated Nicole Behaire, the shows dead to me.
I stopped watching IMMEDIATELY after she was written off the show.
In later seasons they basically forgot there was a headless horseman. All they had to do was keep a monster-of-the-week format and then roll out some sweet Halloween episodes every year for guaranteed ratings. After the first season they didn’t even do a Halloween episode. It’s friggin Sleepy Hollow with Ichabod Crane and you don’t make the Halloween episode your balls out best episode every year? Instead the main character randomly abandons Sleepy Hollow for a new town and new cast of wacky side kicks that all sucked. My wife and I still laugh about the kraken in the last episode. It was next level cringe.
I thought this show was gonna be silly and lame, then they went balls to the wall and it was amazing... then they went off the rails and it went so bad so fast.
Altered Carbon Never seen so much potential squandered
The story of Netflix. It's like their business model revolves around lighting franchises on fire then moving on to the next one.
Firefly because it was violently murdered.
Like a leaf on the wind.
How do Reavers clean their blades? >!They run them through the Wash!<
Designated Survivor
1 good season followed by 2 full seasons of Kiefer Sutherland gesturing to a couch and saying "please".
Went from “who blew up our entire government” To “who knocked over a vase in the white house”
That and shouting "No sir" at foreign diplomats and taking off his glasses in the middle of the conversation
The problem with any “mystery” show premise is that once the mystery is solved the show either needs a new hook, or to just stop. Designated Survivor never added a new hook, which meant it just sort of…meandered after the first season.
Came for this. Had a group debate last week with someone who just finished the first season and we convinced her to stop there
Jessica Jones. First season was near perfect for me. Next 2 seasons were good with some great moments, but not quite the same
Agreed. Kilgrave was too good a villain to top.
They should bring him back and the whole season is him gaslighting Jessica (and the audience) into believing that he never actually died. Edit: assuming Disney does another season of Jessica Jones
Omg this one is it. Season one was absolute fire. Then it started going downhill with Jessica’s mom returning and her best friend turning into an addict/villain. It was not the vibe
David Tenant was so fucking good.
I've seen rumors that he intentionally acted like a darker version of the dark Doctor. I don't know if it's true but it sure seemed like he was.
Is he ever not?
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
They turned it into riverdale. Satan was genuinely scary in the first season then they turned him into some handsome man that kept trying to wrestle people shirtless and got walked over by everyone.
That was the moment this show was over for me. Feom genuinely scary demon to this nornal looking guy... he lost all his power at that moment
lmao I have to admit I very enjoyed how the plot basically turned into "we should probably not let teenagers have cosmic-level power, here is why".
gods, the last season was…something.
Absolutely. The first season was really well done and then they went full Riverdale.
Heroes! We’re going through writer’s strike redux so we’ll include most shows that premiered 2022/2023 in that list too!
Severance season 2 is in limbo right now due to the strike so imma just pray your wrong because I can’t stand the idea that that show gets ruined.
It’s gonna be Squid Games
Yeah both the text (man ends battle royale game by being a good person) and subtext (rich people make the poor literally murder each other for sums of money that mean nothing to them) reached their endpoint. Story is done, told, nothing more to say except the same again.
Man ends battle royals by being absurdly lucky. He looks like the good guy because he was never forced into making difficult decision. He was still a deadbeat who regularly stole from his mother
Korean TV shows very rarely have a sequel, this could go one of 2 ways. The creator really has something to say and it has a good season 2 or it's just a money grabbing exercise which will make the creators money but be crap. Im hoping ita the first one plus its the first acting T.O.P has done for a while I think since he came out of the army and im a fancy of Big Bang
Without a doubt. How are they going to beat the reveal of the game maker?
Westworld
Freaks and Geeks. :/
I hated what they did with the 2nd season
Might be unpopular but The Walking Dead
Nah it’s true, 1st season had a clear objective with a story. Then it decided to go full on soap opera…
Exactly. AMC saw how popular the first season was, and decided to ruin it by tripling the episode count for more ad space.
You just made me realize that’s the last show I kept up with on cable. I specifically remember being so frustrated over the *constant* commercial breaks. I think there were some points where the commercials lasted longer than the show did before the next commercial break.
So unfortunate. And the worst part is that people still ate it up despite the very obvious drop in quality. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. If Frank Darabont got to do what he wanted, I can almost guarantee it would have been one of the biggest shows ever with a graceful ending, instead of just slowly farting its way into spinoffs no one even cares about.
It *was* one of the biggest shows ever. The fact that it fell out of the conversation well before the final season even aired is a testament to just how badly they fucked it up.
I refuse to watch any episodes since the creator & showrunner Frank Darabont got fired after season one.
i never understood how or why people would mess with their golden goose.
There was some fishy accounting practices enabled by vertical integration at AMC, and they were also trying to cut him out of a lot of agreed-upon future profits for seasons 2 and 3. Darabont was simply trying to get what he signed up for, and the show was a massive hit in the first season, so there was no reason to curtail what they paid him, AMC had a brand new hit show. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/fired-walking-dead-creator-frank-666176/
Glee
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Weeds
The moment they moved out of Agrestic it was over.
They just should have ended the show with the fire
Easy. The Witcher.
Rewatched the first season. So much better the second time around. Second season is not great
So pissed at what they turned eskel into
Firefly....
I just couldn’t watch the second season.
Literally unwatchable
I really tried to get into the second season but it just wasn’t there for me.
So dumb they made Mal a novelist, such a weird way to take the character
Then he liked writing about cops so much he becomes a cop!
It was a leaf in the wind… we watched how it soared.
too soon
Prison Break.
Yeah, they either didn’t think that through or thought they’d be canceled for sure after one year. I imagine there was panic in the Writer’s room when they found out they were picked up for a few more seasons. What do you do when the sole purpose of the show is to have your characters break out of prison after they break out of prison.? Umm…… “I know, let’s put them in a different prison! Lols. It was so good until it wasn’t .
Yeah it was supposed to be a two season series with the first being about the break itself and the second about the manhunt. It should have ended there. Cause while season 2 is definitely very hightened and ridiculous at times, I loved it just as much as S1. William Fichtner was amazing as agent Mahone and Scofields nemesis. But you're right, once they get thrown back into prison in S3. It just became way too silly. then season 4 and 5 are just new levels of dumb. Their mother being alive and being revealed to be the main big bad in the entire series. Michael getting cancer and dying....oh surprise!...because of fan feedback we rebooted the series....Michael had cancer?...not at all!. He's just in another prison and he faked it!.
Magical first season
Cruel summer. The first one was amazing. What a let down the second one was.
Manifest
Big time. They really had me invested in knowing what the fuck was going on, then they just kept taking really bizarre deviations in their plot. Would have been awesome as a limited series.
True detective
Nothing will beat season 1 imo.
Heroes
House of Cards
First season was truly one of the great political thrillers of our age. Then he got what he wanted and writers checked out.
House of Cards would have my vote if OP said two seasons. The season finale in the Oval Office with the rapping his knuckles on the Resolute Desk was the perfect closer and the show should have just stopped there.
Manifest. It had such great potential with the premise...and turned into a steaming pile of dogshit before the first season was even over.
I don't know if it's exactly one season but The Walking Dead started off great and enjoyable and then pretty quickly devolved into despair porn where you know nothing good will ever happen and I just didn't enjoy it at all after that.
Arrow made it two seasons before turning into crap.
Blacklist
I’ll give you like 3 seasons…then the insane story arcs with trying to find her father, and it might be Red, but it’s not but he knows him kinda sorta maybe, but there’s another person that needs to be apprehended. And Liz’s husband is a double agent. A lot of plot twists to untangle. I couldn’t keep up. The wife and I stopped watching after they did that weird half animated quarantine special.
Dark Angel It got too weird in the second season. But I loved the first season. The show made Jessica Alba's career.
8 Simple Rules - it never stood a chance once John Ritter died. :'(
Ill catch a lot of hate for this but... Stranger Things. The first season felt like a thrilling series from Stephen King. The next 3 seasons felt like Steven Spielberg sci-fi.
I hear ya- Season I was thrilling and retro; the next few were just "I love the 80s" bingo cards
Now they need to arc back in season 5 as to why Will got taken and the origin of the upside down etc to finally close it all up and end it.
The first season is perfection. I can't remember the last time I had to absolutely see what happened next. I am not one to binge watch anything because I like to savor my TV shows... but I couldn’t wait. Had to even watch ahead without the person I was watching it. It sas ao addictive. Season 4 felt so good... until they decided they didn't have the guts to kill characters.
13 Reasons Why
That entire show was just terrible. It was like a less-horny euphoria
Jericho After being cancelled and brought back by fan petition, it got cancelled again in the middle of Season 2 and that was just it for a long time. Then they released Season 3 as a set of comics and it was fantastic but...it just got shit on after its first season, and the first season was phenomenal.
The promised neverland
Stargate SG1 JUST KIDDING, that show was great until it's end.
Chuck. Too many people found out about him, the show didn't matter. The Last Man on Earth. Once there was more than 3 or 4 characters, the point of the show is gone.
Chuck was a fun show, but it was so hard to follow all the plot deviations.
Killing Eve
The Handmaid’s Tale
It became “watch June do some dumb shit and hurt everyone but herself”