# Shows with a great premise but terrible execution **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 27, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272 "2018-03-27T13:15:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/1 "2018-03-27T13:15:19Z")
I was thinking the other day about the short-lived TV show _Century City_. It was basically _LA Law_ but in the future. The premise was fantastic: they would have courtroom dramas about science fiction topics. If I kill my clone is that murder? Is an alien visiting earth entitled to human rights? That sort of thing. Unfortunately, the few episodes that did air were universally cheesy and badly written. The world-building was not taken seriously and the actually interesting scifi conflicts took a back seat to generic lawyer soap-opera crap. It was cancelled after only a few episodes. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/2 "2018-03-27T13:35:55Z")
There was a British TV show, a one-off mini-series, out a few years ago called [The Time Of Your Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_of_Your_Life_(TV_series)), about a woman who wakes up from an 18 year coma, who still has the mindset of a teenager from the 80s but now an adult in the modern world (2007). I thought that would be fascinating to watch her rehabilitate, be excited by the technological advances and adjusting to the new world. Instead they played her as a whiny teen who just wanted to behave like a spoiled brat who had never grown up, and a desperate need to sleep with everybody she met. There was no drama, it was all just salacious soapy bullshit with no realism. So disappointing. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/3 "2018-03-27T13:41:02Z")
I really looked forward to “Counterpart” but, for me, it has gotten boring already. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/4 "2018-03-27T13:50:29Z")
The Kevin Bacon-led “The Following”. I’m a sucker for a disheartened-detective-tracks-a-serial-killer-who-has-ties-to-said-detective story, but this show was so terribly executed that it felt more like a video student’s final project in college than a network TV show. The show was about a cult leader/serial killer guy, and the hook of the show was “anybody could be in the cult!” but it turned out that EVERYONE was in the damn cult. You couldn’t go 30 minutes without someone magically betraying someone else because they were a part of the cult. I finished the first season, but I hate-watched most of it. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/5 "2018-03-27T14:10:39Z")
“Under the Dome” could have been a lot more than it was. Instead of trying to be a decent single season show they had to milk it longer and got insanely stupid and contrived. Of course it didn’t help that the book was subpar as well. “Sleepy Hollow” also went too long, turning into a dull monster of the week show. Could have been a little lighter and focused more on Crane’s adaptation to modern life but ended up as silly as National Treasure. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/6 "2018-03-27T14:35:54Z")
Not long ago, I watched a few clips of _Cop Rock_. That show got mocked a lot, but I thought the premise was pretty interesting. I mean, people will gladly watch a Broadway musical where Founding Fathers sing to each other for two hours, or a movie version of a musical about Jazz-age women murderers, so why not watch an hour-long musical about cops on TV? And some of the songs I listened to were pretty good in a show tunes sort of way. Alas, the choreography was crap, and the general production values were not great. Also, I think (at least as far as I could glean from the little I watched) that they tried to make it a gritty cop show with a few songs, when they probably would have been better off just totally committing to the musical approach – one song after another with just enough spoken dialogue to stitch them together. I imagine cranking out a Broadway-quality musical every week was probably too ambitious. Anyway, maybe Lin Manuel Miranda can do a police-themed musical as his next project. Maybe release it as a Netflix series. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/7 "2018-03-27T14:56:23Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > “Under the Dome” could have been a lot more than it was. Instead of trying to be a decent single season show they had to milk it longer and got insanely stupid and contrived. Of course it didn’t help that the book was subpar as well. > > “Sleepy Hollow” also went too long, turning into a dull monster of the week show. Could have been a little lighter and focused more on Crane’s adaptation to modern life but ended up as silly as National Treasure. > [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > The Kevin Bacon-led “The Following”. > > I’m a sucker for a disheartened-detective-tracks-a-serial-killer-who-has-ties-to-said-detective story, but this show was so terribly executed that it felt more like a video student’s final project in college than a network TV show. > > The show was about a cult leader/serial killer guy, and the hook of the show was “anybody could be in the cult!” but it turned out that EVERYONE was in the damn cult. You couldn’t go 30 minutes without someone magically betraying someone else because they were a part of the cult. > > I finished the first season, but I hate-watched most of it. I agree wholeheartedly with both of these. I watched the first seasons of both but then was done. When watching a series starts to feel like homework, it’s time to let it go. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/8 "2018-03-27T14:59:37Z")
\*Star Trek: Voyager \*never used its divided-crew premise well. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/9 "2018-03-27T15:03:43Z")
_The X-Files_ was promoted as a battle between believers and skeptics, which I interpreted as meaning that the episodes would leave the result ambiguous so that watchers could decide for themselves. In fact, the very first episode definitively showed that the skeptics were wrong. I didn’t watch the second episode. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/10 "2018-03-27T15:18:22Z")
**Jack & Bobby** was the story of a single mom raising two sons, one of whom grows up to become the President of the United States. So you know that when you’re watching the first episode, but you don’t know which brother it is. Like, if the popular jock brother falsely claims those are _his_ drugs in the locker of his nerdy kid brother — well, either that’s the brainy one getting a crucial second chance from the guy he’ll idolize, _or_ it’s why the likable brother eventually dropped out of school and maybe joined the Army to become a war hero. You get it, right? You just saw maybe the most important moment in the life of a President, and _you still don’t know what story it is!_ Think of the possibilities! By the second episode, we’re told which one becomes President. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/11 "2018-03-27T16:56:17Z")
I’m tempted to say “all of them”. Certainly it was the overwhelming problem with television during my childhood-through-teenage years. An interesting premise that made me want to watch how that plays out, then the script writing sucked, most often using the premise just as a wire coathanger onto which to hang a bunch of sitcom crap and (less often) saccharine soap opera drama or repetitive side-story situational suspense. Television does seem to have even more interesting premises in the modern era — much more provocative hooks. And the initial writing, say the first 20 episodes, is massively better than in the old days. But where a series fails it’s still most often a draining away of the execution, the episodic scriptwriting losing its edge and, in particular, failing to develop the long story arc promised by the premise. (See in particular: Lost; Battlestar Galactica; Heroes) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/12 "2018-03-27T17:05:12Z")
[_The Starlost_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starlost), a show with an excellent premise that was raped, murdered and left in the gutter by it’s executioners. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/13 "2018-03-27T17:16:22Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Not long ago, I watched a few clips of _Cop Rock_. That show got mocked a lot, but I thought the premise was pretty interesting. I agree that Cop Rock could have been truly fun. But I just don’t see how a weekly hour-long musical drama could ever be sustainable. But man, what balls to even try something like that! (And yes, some of the songs are catchy.) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/14 "2018-03-27T17:17:39Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > _The X-Files_ was promoted as a battle between believers and skeptics It was? I don’t remember that at all. There’s skeptical characters but IIRC the pitch from the beginning was “here are some G-men investigating weird shit.” _X-Files_ was fantastic, until it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/15 "2018-03-27T17:18:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [_The Starlost_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starlost), a show with an excellent premise that was raped, murdered and left in the gutter by it’s executioners. Be honest; is it worth even one minute of my time? Any redeeming qualities? Pull no punches. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/16 "2018-03-27T17:29:51Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Be honest; is it worth even one minute of my time? Any redeeming qualities? Pull no punches. I liked it, but you have to be very tolerant of low-budget production. If you’re the kind of person who thinks remastering the original _Star Trek_ episodes with modern digital effects is a significant improvement, _Starlost_ is likely not for you. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/17 "2018-03-27T17:32:02Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I agree that Cop Rock could have been truly fun. But I just don’t see how a weekly hour-long musical drama could ever be sustainable. Tell that to Rachel Bloom. I kind of liked the premise of the _Paula Poundstone Show_ – live, ad libbed and unscripted comedy. Alas, Poundstone, while funny, could not maintain it for a full hour, and it was quickly cancelled. _A Year at the Top_ was one of a couple TV shows (I don’t recall the name of the other) with the intriguing idea of people making a deal with the devil to become rock stars. But it never did much with the premise. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/18 "2018-03-27T17:41:26Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I liked it, but you have to be very tolerant of low-budget production. If you’re the kind of person who thinks remastering the original _Star Trek_ episodes with modern digital effects is a significant improvement, _Starlost_ is likely not for you. Thanks for the response. I still watch “Lost in Space” occasionally–'nuff said? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/19 "2018-03-27T17:44:45Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Be honest; is it worth even one minute of my time? Any redeeming qualities? Pull no punches. The original premise, as set forth by Harlan Ellison: > [@](#): > > Foreseeing the destruction of the Earth, humanity builds a multi-generational starship called Earthship Ark, 50 miles (80 km) wide and 200 miles (320 km) long. The ship contains dozens of biospheres, each kilometres across and housing people of different cultures; their goal is to find and seed a new world of a distant star. In 2385, more than one hundred years into the voyage, an unexplained accident occurs, and the ship goes into emergency mode, whereby each biosphere is sealed off from the others. Knowledge of the other civilizations on the ship and the purpose of the flight are lost after 400 years, and each group believes that the world consists of what lies beneath their domed sky. One of the characters discovers the truth about the situation and has to convince the domes to both accept the truth and work together to figure out how to fix the ship before an upcoming disaster happens. Well, the director(after the show was picked up by Canadian television and the budget was cut drastically) decided that each dome would be only 1 mile in diameter…which meant that any scene of the protagonist running and hiding from any one small town would have to ignore the fact that it would only take a few minutes to find someone in that small an area. Also, the “200 mile long ship” got shortened to five or ten miles, easily walkable within a day. There were other factors of course, as in there being a Writer’s Guild strike going on that Ellison honored, leading the director to get amateurs that had never written scripts before to work under the table by lying to them and claiming that it was all authorized by Ellison. All in all, it was a clusterfuck. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272/20 "2018-03-27T19:13:27Z")
On the bright side, it inspired a pretty good novel – _The Starcrossed_ by Ben Bova. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-with-a-great-premise-but-terrible-execution/811272.md?page=2)