Did you quit watching any series this year?

Cafe Society
1

I used to be an ER fanatic, but somewhere during this season I just stopped watching. The plotlines are lame, the characters blah, all of my favorites have left and or been killed off and even Weaver’s reunion with her long lost mother was “yawn”. This show circled the shark many times but, imo, finally jumped it when Romano was killed by the helicopter (just how many horrible accidents can you realistically have in your life involving both helicopters and a hospital in Chicago?). I’ve stopped watching.

I’ve also stopped watching Malcolm in the Middle but not due as much to a decline in quality as the fact they keep yo-yoing it on the schedule and I always miss it (and now it’s on at 6:30 EST- that’s a gameshow or tabloid-news-program slot, not a quality sitcom slot.)

I also quit watching The Apprentice about halfway through with next to no curiosity as to who will win.

Have you stopped watching any series you used to view regularly this year?

2

I used to be kind of into Smallville. This year, not so much. I don’t even know why, I just kind of stopped watching it.

3

I am ready to quit watching Deadwood, but my husband is still interested in the show, so I’ll tag along for his sake. I liked Deadwood during its first season, but I’ve grown increasingly weary of the plethora of gratuitous obscenities and the scarcity of likeable characters. If it weren’t for Brad Dourif, I would probably put headphones on and listen to music while hubby enjoys Deadwood.

4

I didn’t totally quit watching it yet, but I’m about to give up on Stargate Atlantis. As great a series as Stargate SG-1 has been, Atlantis has failed to deliver much in the way of interesting stories or characters. I say let the Wraith have at 'em and hope that they enjoy the meal. Thankfully, the new Battlestar Galactica turned out to be one of the best science fiction shows ever - if you haven’t seen it, forget anything you knew about the lame original series from the 70’s and check it out.

5

Sadly, I no longer watch The West Wing. God, how I used to look forward to it…

6

Hijacking my own thread, but is it at all related to the Lorne Greene series (as in “Galactica: the Next Generations”) or is it a “reimagining”?

7

I watched the first half of the premiere season (looking for a possible replacement for the quickly sinking Enterprise). Wasn’t impressed. Stopped. And yeah, you’re right, Galactica kicks all manner of television ass. (Sampiro, it retains the loose premise of the original, but otherwise it’s back to the drawing board, and it’s a thousand times better for it. It’s a cross between West Wing and 24 in tone, an intense character-driven drama with some action, that just happens to be set in space.)

On a longer-term front, having watched and enjoyed Monk from the beginning, I stuck with it for three episodes after they switched assistants, and simply couldn’t stomach it any longer. Not primarily for the new character or the loss of Bitty Schram (though I missed her), but because the writing was suddenly much, much worse than it had been before. TiVo pass: canceled!

I’ve also stopped watching Queer Eye. They’ve started repeating advice (which was pretty useful for a while) and relying more on schtick and gimmicks (“let’s make over a father and son! hey, are you having a high school reunion?” etc.). To be strictly accurate, I still record the show, and I look at the first two or three minutes to see what it’s going to be about, but I rarely continue beyond.

8

I’m still limping along with ER, although it’s been demoted to “taped” status rather than “watch it live” status. I used to watch ER and tape Without A Trace, but they’ve switched places in my viewing priority.
I usually watch it Friday afternoon or evening, but sometimes I don’t get around to watching it till Monday morning (I don’t work on Mondays), and that’s fine with me. There’s no sense of “gotta see what happened NOW!” anymore. Certainly not “Must See TV.” Part of me just doesn’t care, but part of me says I’ve stuck it out this long, I need to keep going.

I used to watch Law & Order:SVU faithfully, but I’m sick of the child rape and molestation episodes. If the episode description implies that’s what it’s about, I’ll skip it.

9

Same here- it had a really short half-life and went from 'best thing on TV" to “eh… what else is on” really quick, though I think Carson and Thom will survive the inevitable sinking. I’ve never seen an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Girl and I haven’t had Bravo for the past couple of months- is it still on?

10

They also repeated a whole plotline! The episode where Monk and Sharona went on a plane, and the bad guy used his girlfriend who looked just like his wife to kill said wife, and the whole lookalike thing was how he was planning on getting away with murder - it was repeated this past season. It was the one with with James Brolin as the casino owner. James Brolin used his girlfriend who looked just like his wife to kill his wife - and the fact that the girlfriend looked just like the wife was the way he planned on getting away with the murder. :rolleyes:

11

This year I’ve given up on West Wing, Monk, and Airline (when they started doing all those stupid nothing-to-do-with-the-airport stories). I gave Survivor one last shot, but fortunately it turned into a fun season. I’ve stayed with Apprentice mostly to watch the trainwreck and try to figure out just where Trump would put some of these people if he ended up hiring them (because I don’t think most of them would survive even in his mailroom).

12

Good choice of words because that’s what the producers call it - a “reimagining.” They took the original concept and developed an entirely new show that has great characters, great writing, interesting plots, is darker, sexier, and way more involving than it has any right to be. They got rid of the goofy looking robots (Cylons as they’re called) and in one stroke of conceptual brilliance had the Cylons develop into humanoids who look just like real humans; in so doing they both saved a ton of money on special effects, and at the same time set up a way more interesting plot device, one that even brings in the concept of sleeper terrorist cells, as some of the Cylons do not even know that they are Cylons. One of the producers has a major background with Star Trek the Next Generation. If you’re interested, the new version was introduced by way of a four hour miniseries that is now available (inexpensively) on dvd. The current season, now in rerun on the SciFi Channel is season one. This was a totally unexpected pleasure - you don’t normally see quality like this in made for cable shows; I have to actually thank my brother for twisting my arm to initially check it out.

13

I liked to watch the re-runs on USA, but I’ve seen all of them numerous times. So I’m taking a break for a while.

14

Law & Order - I stopped watching about 3 episodes in. I have no need to start up again. (Though, I will watch re-runs… and SVU if I’m there. Taping it is straight out.)

JAG - I know I was the only one left who did watch it. And I did turn in for the finale. But not really watching.

Alias - I’m bored. If I’m home, I’ll have it in the background, but I’m not paying close attention.

Monk - also bored

Scrubs - has an unfortunate time slot. I’d like to watch. But between Amazing Race & House… it’s just not going to happen.

NBC Thursday night - It seems like it’s in reruns all the time. ER is not good. Apprentice was awful. (though I’m still watching). But it’s very odd. I was never in to survivor, so for years, 8-11pm on Thursday was going to be NBC. And now, it’s not.

15

I’m annoyed at myself for not being able to give up on Lost. I’ve decided to quit watching a few times, but I have this childish need to know WTF is the island is about. I don’t care about most of the characters, I have a feeling very few of the stories are going to pay off, I’m irked at ABC for dragging the thing out, yet I still end up watching the friggin’ show. My only solace is that I don’t feel the need to watch it at broadcast time, so at least I can skip the commercials.

16

Smallville - It’s just gotten dumb, and they basically retread the same three plots over and over (how many times have we seen a variation on the “bad person inhabits the bodies of various cast members and wreaks havoc” bit?)

CSI - It’s gone from being a cool police procedural with a focus on solving the case by following the evidence, to “who cares about the case or the evidence, we just want to showcase a new bizarre lifestyle every month.” The murder has become just a MacGuffin. The evidence has become unimportant, cases are now “solved” by someone’s deductive leap from nowhere.

Shows I’m almost ready to give up on, but will give them one more chance:

Joan of Arcadia - It’s gone from a nice, reasonable happy show where at least the audience got to see the good that came from Joan’s actions, to a “nobody gets to be happy” show where most episodes have no point. And now, appparently, next season we get “the nemesis”. Joan doesn’t need a nemesis, she just needs some writers with imagination.

Stargate Atlantis - Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. And did I mention that it’s dumb? The Major is the only worthwhile character, all the rest (especially Dr. Weir!!) need to be sucked dry by the Wraith and replaced. It’s got such potential, though, that’s just being wasted, wasted, wasted!

Everwood - It’s gone from a reasonably pleasant series to just a soap opera with a bigger budget. And is Ephraim the dumbest kid who’s ever lived or what? Hey, I’m going to throw away my entire future, the girlfriend who loves me, my relationship with my father, and everything else, just because I can’t wait another two days to fly off and gaze at the house where my son lives???

Stargate SG-1 - I’ll try it for at least a couple of episodes with the doofus from Farscape, but he’s just not fit to lick the bootprints of Richard Dean Anderson. I just don’t think the remaining three will be able to make up for the loss of O’Neil. The writers have pretty much run out of ideas anyway, they should have cancelled it and let it go out gracefully.

17

If it weren’t for my SO being devoted to it, I’d give up on Lost. If you’re waiting to find out the answer to any major question about the island, the smart money says you’ll be waiting forever. I’m convinced that the writers have no idea, no answers in place, they’re just making up weird stuff to, well, see how weird they can get. Audiences like mysteries, but they also like answers. Shows that keep a little sub-plot mystery continually unsolved (like Magnum and the Robin Masters thing) can keep going, because they’ve got real plots. But a show like Lost where almost the entire show is always about the unsolved big mysteries, it just can’t last, the audience will (like Murcielago) just get fed up after a while.

18

Alias has shown us that J.J. Abrams can indeed suffer from Chris Carter disease, but he hired a bunch of Joss Whedon writers this season and I think they’ll help him with this problem.

I watched Joey about halfway through the season. I still kind of liked it when I dropped, but it was just too much TV and I figured of everything that was the show I could best pick up in reruns if I feel like it.

–Cliffy

19

I stopped watching World Superbike, Supercross and Superbike (AMA) racing, and only make a half-assed effort to catch Moto GP. I only really watch World Rally and Formula One regularly.

Come football season, I think I’ll only watch Pac-10 games in addition to all USC’s games. And maybe when someone is going to put an asskicking on Notre Dame. I’ll tune in for that!

20

Desperate Housewives. I tried to like this show. It had an interesting premise, but it didn’t go anywhere. So no more of that for me.