I agree with Heroes as well. I watched and enjoyed the first season, and then sometime into the second or third season, I’d record it on the DVR and then never get around to watching it. Also, Fringe. I think the producer is the same guy behind Lost, and I remember him swearing up and down in interviews that it wasn’t at all going to be like Lost. And then some comedy show (The Soup, I think) showed how it was exactly like Lost, what with the plane crash at the beginning and the small group working against some massive conspiracy and the main character from some teen drama (Matthew Fox from Party of Five in the case of Lost and Joshua Jackson from Dawson’s Creek in the case of Fringe).
Similarly, I didn’t continue with V when it restarted after the Olympics and stopped watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles before it was canceled. Basically, I’m really leery of getting sucked into a serial drama and having to watch it for the next umpteen years while they drag it out and yet never resolve the underlying mystery. I would much prefer it if they could design a multiple-season series in a way that each season ended neatly.
I was an ER diehard right up until the point that George Clooney left the show. Which is strange, because he wasn’t the main drawing point for me. I think the stories just got too repetetive. I did watch the final episode, and it was not really satisfying, so I’m glad I left off at the point I did.
I also started out on Flashforward. I was very intrigued by the pilot, but by the 3rd ep I was bored. Plus like someone else mentioned, I just can’t devote the time to it and invest in figuring out all the puzzles and plot twists. I did that with Battlestar Galactica and came away burned in the end with the series finale. I wish I could have stopped that show about 5 episodes earlier and I would have a much more positive feeling about it.
Of shows that are still on the air I’ve stopped watching Scrubs, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, CSI, CSI: Miami (I still watch CSI:NY, for now), Heroes, and several fluffified “news” programs. I still watch 60 minutes sometimes, but Nightline, Dateline, 20/20, etc., have been appallingly light on real news in recent years.
The first episode of Firefly. Since it was a good show on Fox, I purposely did not watch it since this meant that it would surely be cancelled and I didn’t want to get attached.
The Apprentice, when it got really stupid after about two seasons. Three, tops.
Biggest Loser after two.
Simpsons a LONG time ago.
ER after a few seasons
Law & Order after Jerry Orbach died.
We watch almost no network TV now, since it all seems like schlock. We’ve stuck with The Office and 30 Rock, although every time I see or hear Tracy Morgan, I want to pitch a brick at the screen.
Battlestar Galactica. I’ve said this before but the end of Season 2 made me not care if I ever saw another episode again.
I do not like rape as drama (most of the time). It can be done well but I felt it was just shoehorned in there.
Third Rock from the Sun. I watched the first three seasons (and own them).
X-Files. I made it all the way to the end of Season 5, which is what I own, and am too lazy to get them from Netflix and stop watching all of my other movies in the interim. Sometime.
I barely made it to the last episode of the first season of Heroes. I couldn’t bear to watch the second.
I watched the first season of Survivor. It was good, it was fun, it was somewhat ground-breaking. I haven’t had the desire to ever check one out again.
I used to watch The Real World when I was a kid and I was soooo into it. I think I liked it because it was a glimpse into how older kids lived. Once I got to be older than some of the cast members, I completely lost interest.
The Office. Loved the Jim/Pam relationship (I had a secret crush on someone I worked with at the time.) But soon I realized Michael was too cartoonishly buffoonish and Rainn Wilson was just way over the top.
The Simpsons. Used to watch and tape every episode. Then I got into South Park. Not that I can’t have two animated series on my must-watch list but The Simpsons just seemed so lame in comparison.
If that’s the season with Alfre Woodard and the kid in the basement, that’s when I stopped too.
I loved Dancing With the Stars but couldn’t trust it after the fraud of the first season, when that ABC soap star got a 10 from the judges even after she stumbled and fell.
Really liked Lost and Heroes. Maybe should have stuck with Lost but I stopped in whatever season it was when it looked like the writers didn’t have a plan.
Sanctuary - the effects were just so bad and the stories were pointless and then they got that new girl on the show and I hated her character… we removed it from our TiVo recording schedule.
Yeah, Prison Break was Teh Awesome at first. It’s the only TV show in existence that has the honor of literally making my heard pound while I was watching it. Seriously. (Also, I developed quite the crush on Wentwood Miller.) But that got pretty dragged out, and we both finally quit. Now Mr. Horseshoe can’t make fun of me being all ga-ga the entire time we’re watching!
Another one is House. Loved it at first, but then they started concocting all these weird side plots and the whole thing fell apart for me. Wouldn’t mind re-watching the episode where his clinic duty includes a kid with an iPod up his butt, though. ("… and the fact that you haven’t sat down this entire time tells me where the problem is …")
Mr. Horseshoe and I got totally sucked into The O.C. for a while, whiny-ass theme song notwithstanding. It was pure mindless fun… at first…
A lot of these shows mentioned I’ve given up on as well.
Heroes – I really liked how it started out but it just got silly on me. I didn’t actively stop watching it, it just became too difficult to continue in its 7:00 timeslot, so I don’t bother.
Grey’s Anatomy – My wife and I started watching this together, but by the time the civil war reinactor got a bomb stuck in his gut an Bomb Squad McCutey got blowed up, I was done with the show. It seemed like the stories just got too silly and all the sex seemed like they were interbreeding or something. Like that hospital is the only place in the entire Pacific Northwest where those people could find someone to hook up with.
Medium – Another good premise, but I got tired of what seemed like the same thing over and over: Allison dreams, Allison’s husband is skeptial, the DA and the cop investigate but find nothing, Allison has another dream, still they can’t find anything, then she has a last dream that clarifys everything and they catch the killer. And they’re all about killers, too. How many violent murders are in Arizona, anyway?
BSG – I’ve watched it up to Season 4 but haven’t seen the 4.5 eps yet. At some point I will to complete the series, but I’m sure it will annoy me from what I’ve read about it here and other places.
The Family Guy – I thought it was pretty funny when it first came out, but when it returned to Fox, I couldn’t stand it.
American Idol. Watched it for a couple of seasons, but it just got to be the same old thing over and over. Even my crush on Simon couldn’t make me come back.
CSI. Love the show, still watch it sometimes when I catch it on, but after William Peterson left I just couldn’t get into it as much as I used to.
CSI: Miami. It’s just stupid. I tried for awhile, but…it’s just stupid.
What Not To Wear. I liked this for quite awhile, but it got too formulaic (or rather, I got tired of the formula). Also, I got tired of them taking perfectly nice tomboy women and trying to tart them up in dresses and pointy heels, as if liking to wear nice pants and casual clothes was a crime. It seemed like it got less like “Let’s try to help you dress better in your own style” and more like “Let’s make you another cookie cutter clone of the style we think everybody should have.”
Trading Spaces. This was years ago, but I used to watch it every week. Same deal as WNTW, though–just got tired of the formula.
Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Venture Bros.
I didn’t stop watching these shows because I stopped enjoying them though. I stopped watching them because they come on at a weird time of day (11 at night) and despite being awake at that time, I usually will have completely forgotten that they’re on, remembering only the next day.
Heroes, after the second season. They kept adding more and more characters, and not spending any time on any of the ones they’d already established. I stopped watching when I really didn’t care what happend to any of them anymore.
Lost, for similar reasons though I think I made it through the third season. So much stuff happening that I stopped caring about it, partially because I started thinking maybe none of it was every going resolve at all.
I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I used to love this show. I could probably be one of the contestants on it. I completely agree with this description, though. It really started to bother me when the style-challenged contestant HATED the clothes they were suggesting and instead of trying something different, they would get all, “We’re the experts and you are style challenged so your opinion means nothing.” Then they would be all shocked when the contestant didn’t have fun shopping. Who would have fun shopping for clothes they don’t like?
Dollhouse is another show I gave up on. I watched the first season and a couple of episodes of the second, but then they just sat on the DVR until the SO gave me a hard time and I just deleted them. I heard it got better, but at that point I was already gone.
