I’m a TV masochist, I will watch even to the bitter end no matter how bad it gets. But the last season of True Blood was so excrutiatingly terrible, it was a chore. It was an almost. But I had to see it through, even though it was just awful.
I had no problem at all bailing on American Idol years ago. I had inordinately enjoyed it during its heyday, and inordinately loathed it the minute Jennifer Lopez’ fat ass took a seat. (I grew exceedingly weary of AI before that, really, and hardly bothered to tune in even out of curiosity.) But that was the clincher.
Last Man on Earth: Dude is too much of an asshole to be funny. House of Cards: To me, Frank’s quest to be President was the whole point of the show. Once he got there, I stopped caring.
Through hard knocks, I’ve learned to not even start any season-based series from the US until all the seasons have been released and the series comes to a definite conclusion. I never understood how a network can just cancel a show leaving its audience hanging. Don’t the people in charge feel even the slightest obligation to the audience?
I bailed on Castle. I didn’t want to. I had such fond memories and I like Nathan Fillion, but dammit, the writers bailed on US. They forgot why we liked the show in the first place. Millionaire playboy writer solving crimes for fun and annoying uptight cop eye-candy. It got too serious and stopped being fun. Same with the Mentalist.
I bailed on Blacklist. Loved James Spader, hated everyone else.
I bailed on Gotham. Just wasn’t that interesting.
I bailed on Forever. They have an interesting premise and don’t seem to know what to do with it.
I bailed on Burn Notice. Again, the writers seemed to lean more toward entertaining themselves than us. Spy with special skills helping out, reluctantly, poor folks in need. THAT was interesting. (loved the voiceover). I didn’t care about him getting back into the Spy game.
I bailed on Sons of Anarchy. Most incompetent street gang EVER. How many times can Jax say ‘I’ll never let that happen’ and not get laughed at. Every time he said it, that very thing happened.
Bailed on the last 4 episodes of Breaking Bad. I cheated and read the synopsis of them on Wikipedia, and didn’t have the heart to finish.
Bailed on Mad Men when I saw the change to late-60s styles in clothes, hair…lived through that abomination once…can’t do it again.
After about 5 episodes I bailed out without looking back on Mr. Selfridge. That Jeremy Piven and his SNL Jon Lovitz ACTING drove me up the wall. I wanted to like that show, because PBS turned me on to Foyle’s War, but I could not bear Mr. Selfridge.
Another TV masochist here, so when I do drop them it’s a pretty big deal. But I drop shows for two reasons: “Missed a season and never picked up” and “drop it like a bad habit”
If I had the time/energy I would pick these shows up again, but for whatever reason I missed an episode or three and never recovered:
Once Upon a Time and Grimm. I lost these as I was moving, missed the DVR date and never picked them up. Once I heard got weird, but Grimm I heard got good again, it’s number one on my list
The Mentalist. This is for a stupid reason but a reason nonetheless. I watched it with a girlfriend, then she left me, so I was too depressed to watch it. I left at a really kickass time too, so I’m all for picking it back up (maybe once it’s done a Netflix or a Hulu will get everything and I’ll marathon it).
Ones I dropped:
Louie and Wilfred: Wilfred was just painfully unfunny and stupid, and Louie got a bit too preachy for me. I love being preached at in shows actually (I love me some Aaron Sorkin) but I disagree with A LOT of Louie CKs views, so it just made me uncomfortable. Also he’s SUCH as sadsack in that show I just got sad
The Following: The first season was such a shitshow and the second wasn’t much better, I gave up halfway through.
Weeds… I watched the season that ended with a big forest fire and didn’t care enough to go back after that.
I have a tendency to lose interest in sitcoms almost overnight. Like, I love the hell out of them until one day they just don’t seem funny anymore.
Examples; Raising Hope
My Name Is Earl
Modern Family
I bailed on Deadwood because the dialogue wore me out.
I bailed on Carnivale after season 1 because I knew it got cancelled and I wasn’t that into it anyway.
Once Upon a Time - stopped after the first season, a few eps into the 2nd. Did nothing for me anymore.
Sleepy Hollow - watched the first season, was happy to watch the second, got bored 3 or 4 episodes in. Gave up when there were 6 or so unwatched episodes on the DVR
Covert Affairs - was a fan from season 1 … got to this season and couldn’t be bothered to continue. It was the same nonsense over and over and over again
Walking Dead - was watching on Netflix. Got really done with it about 1/2 way through season 3. Get why some people like it, but it became very repetitive for me and just stopped watching.
“24” - watched the first couple of seasons and thought they were pretty good. Gave up after that.
“The Amazing Race” - my wife introduced me to this a few years ago (when I was last in school). Intrigued at first, I later because quite disillusioned by it. Gave up on it after one season.
I might have more on my list but, honestly, I don’t watch T.V. all that much.
I stopped watching Criminal Minds because I got sick of the way they started always giving the unsub away before the opening credits. That plus how creepy and disgusting it got–I’m not sure why the episode with the German tourist who went around lobotomizing people and putting little cameras in their eyeballs so he could watch them stagger around like zombies on a live feed after the fact was the one that did it, given all the other plots they’ve had, but that was the exact point where I said “No more.”
I quit CSI for a similar reason after the baby fetish episode.
I gave up on Hawaii Five-0 after it became really obvious that the writers were just throwing crap against the wall to see what would stick, had no cohesive plan in mind, and wrote the plot for the special effects rather than the other way around. The season 1 magic wasn’t coming back. Done.
My other favorite CBS formulaic crime dramas, Numb3rs, CSI: NY, and CSI: Miami got cancelled before I could give up on them. No, I do not have good taste in TV shows. Now that Top Gear is kaput, the only TV show left that I follow regularly is NCIS.
Same here, and I’ll also add that I get disappointed by shows that take place in an amazing, fantastic setting but they have to be stingy with the amazing and fantastic bits for budgetary reasons.
I’ve given up on Game of Thrones because of the aforementioned feeling of budget constraints, plus I’ve already read the books so most of the talky bits are repeating stuff I already know.
Sleepy Hollow. The first season had a good mix of monster-of-the-week and back story but then the backstory took over and it was dumb. Plus they never showed naked Icky again.
Scorpion because it’s dumb. I thought it would be fun dumb but no, just dumb.