# What in an otherwise decent TV series made it impossible for you to watch? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2019, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023 "2019-08-21T20:48:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/61 "2019-08-23T02:12:00Z")
_Family Guy_ and _South Park_ both whipsawed between brilliant and stupid so much that I gave up. 50% stupid is just too poor a signal-to-noise ratio. > [@silenus](#): > > The ending has made it impossible for me to watch _How I Met Your Mother_ in reruns. I’m so pissed about the ending that they can just fuck off. Easy enough to work around. Just turn the final episode off as soon as the Mother’s last scene ends and declare that the episode ran only 20 minutes instead of 22. > [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > Roseanne made it almost impossible for me to watch “Roseanne”. I found the second season of the second _Roseanne_ (i.e., _The Connors_) pretty good, for exactly that reason. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/62 "2019-08-23T02:21:59Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > My wife and I watched about two seasons of “The Americans” before finally giving up. It was an interesting story but really stretched the limits of credibility. They have two kids, yet both parents are often out at all hours of the night. The kids have no clue what their parents are up to, and neither does the FBI agent who lives across the street. But what finally killed it for me was when the dad married the neighbor’s boss’s secretary. :rolleyes: I watched until the end, and enjoyed it greatly, but by the third murder I realized that making actual spying interesting was well beyond the abilities of the showrunners (unlike Vince Gilligan who brings tension into shots of drying paint), so I was just watching… something… set against a Cold War backdrop. ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Clark\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_K)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/63 "2019-08-23T04:31:08Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#): > > A point about one of the future episodes. > > Due to time-travel shenanigans the dog actually does get to live the rest of his life with Fry in the 21st century God bless you for this! That episode has haunted me for years. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/64 "2019-08-23T04:51:55Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I watched until the end, and enjoyed it greatly, but by the third murder I realized that making actual spying interesting was well beyond the abilities of the showrunners (unlike Vince Gilligan who brings tension into shots of drying paint), so I was just watching… something… set against a Cold War backdrop. It was the occasional murder that made it interesting, since very few spies are tasked with “wet” work. Their job is to gather and transmit information, most of which is the kind you can read in the newspaper anyway. The life of the average spy is really quite dull, as interviews with former agents have shown. Once in the US, their main concern is establishing credit and building equity (while none of what they acquire actually belongs to them). ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Clark\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_K)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/65 "2019-08-23T05:09:25Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I turned on Mindhunter, this Netflix show about the development of serial killer hunting methodologies at the FBI in the 1970s. About 10, 15 minutes into the first episode the following line (paraphrased) occurred: > > “6 months ago, a man took a family hostage in an Austin, Texas subdivision… to make matters worse, the San Antonio Chief of Police {did something stupid which pertains to the show, not this thread}.” He says the shooter had already killed two men in Austin that morning. The hostage situation took place later in the day in San Antonio. Not to pick on you, **John T** , but why are people always so quick to assume the worst in situations like this? Typically, the reaction is not, “Oh, maybe I misheard something” or “Maybe they worded something carelessly.” It’s, “They are utter morons.” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/66 "2019-08-23T05:46:02Z")
¯\_(ツ)\_/¯ ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/67 "2019-08-23T08:47:40Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Easy enough to work around. Just turn the final episode off as soon as the Mother’s last scene ends and declare that the episode ran only 20 minutes instead of 22. It’s much better than that! See my post #59, with a link to the proper ending using the actual actors. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/68 "2019-08-23T09:19:54Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I couldn’t make it through the first episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” When they took that girl’s eye, it was too upsetting. Haven’t gone back to the series since. I read the book in college, so I’m familiar with the story. The whole series was grim but it had purpose and a hint of hope at the end. I made it through and was glad I did. The problem for me came with the announcement of a second series and the clear message that it was grimmer still. I didn’t need that at all and so have politely declined. I may be missing out but I think I know when I’ve reached my limit. I think this is a pretty well established pattern now, take an idea and wring every last ounce out of it, run it until it is clear to all that you’ve exhausted all ideas and are writing just to keep it going rather than telling a coherent story. Westworld was the same. If you can’t tell a story in 10 hours of television then I’m probably going to bow out because you are now into world building and soap-opera,you probably don’t have an end, it’ll finish when the ratings drop rather than when the narrative concludes and my interest will naturally wane, I’ll cut and run thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/69 "2019-08-23T09:35:46Z")
Shows set in locations with all male casts that suddenly throw a female lead in the second season to “shake things up”. I have never watched a show and thought “Now this is great but you know what it really needs? All the male characters to suddenly get unresolved sexual tension plots.” ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/70 "2019-08-23T10:30:49Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > The characters on _Gilligan’s Island_ never grew much either. Yeah, you’d think that if any two shows in TV were destined to provide rich character development it would be those two. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/71 "2019-08-23T11:19:52Z")
On the British quiz show Eggheads one of the Eggheads is incredibly annoying. The worst thing is, she thinks she can sing, and she can’t. Every time a song comes up as an answer the host, Jeremy Vine, encourages her to sing it and I scramble for the mute button. I liked Voyager but can’t watch any episodes with Neelix in. He’s so cloyingly sentimental, and he’s supposed to be nice, but actually he’s sort of racist, constantly trying to get Tuvok to be less Vulcan - and calling him Mr Vulcan, as if there was nothing to him but his species. There was another show I can’t even remember the name of now, but one of the characters wore glasses, and the actor playing him obviously didn’t, because he had no idea how glasses work. He was always taking them off when talking to someone, then putting them back, then off, then on… Not the way someone with reading glasses does, but illogically. It got to the point where if it seemed like he was going to say something important, I knew that would mean he was going to take his glasses off. Really distracting. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/72 "2019-08-23T12:01:55Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > There was another show I can’t even remember the name of now, but one of the characters wore glasses, and the actor playing him obviously didn’t, because he had no idea how glasses work. He was always taking them off when talking to someone, then putting them back, then off, then on… Not the way someone with reading glasses does, but illogically. It got to the point where if it seemed like he was going to say something important, I knew that would mean he was going to take his glasses off. Really distracting. Was it that CSI show with David Caruso and his sunglasses? Because he was always whipping those things on and off. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/73 "2019-08-23T12:26:25Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Was it that CSI show with David Caruso and his sunglasses? Because he was always whipping those things on and off. No, these were clear lenses. But it does happen quite a lot. Naturally, TV Tropes has a name for it. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GlassesPull](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GlassesPull) Czarcasm - I remember that show too (so it lived up to its name in one way at least) and had the same issues with it. She mentally recorded things that the human brain tends not to notice at all, let alone be able to remember. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/74 "2019-08-23T14:13:28Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > On the British quiz show Eggheads one of the Eggheads is incredibly annoying. Apart from the silly questions, it’s the giant faces which put me off Eggheads. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/75 "2019-08-23T16:13:23Z")
> [@MadTheSwine](#): > > King of the Hill…because of Bobby. Peggy is the one I don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/76 "2019-08-23T16:13:26Z")
Laugh tracks tend to throw me out of a show now, though they didn’t back in the day before TV comedy had a lot of other options. Hosts that are too smarmy and full of themselves will kill a talk show for me even if I like the guests and format, for example I couldn’t stand Politically Incorrect because of Bill Maher’s personality way before some of his positions became a turn off. For reality shows I tend to like the first season or two where things really are pretty unscripted, then lose interest when they start either going to a formula or resorting to obviously made up stuff. Like I enjoyed shows like Storage Wars and Pawn Stars early on but they quickly moved from ‘believably odd finds’ to ‘it’s really obvious the show planted that’. And I liked the entire UK run of Kitchen Nightmares but got tired of the US series really fast because pretty much every episode has a formula with ‘owner gets teary-eyed about financial problems’ ‘someone important fights Gordon but comes around in the end’ and ‘one member of the staff cynically explains all of the problems’. (This last one doesn’t quite fit the OP but it’s close enough that I think it’s relevant here) ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/77 "2019-08-23T16:26:59Z")
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually enjoyed _Home Improvement_. Except for that asinine grunt Tim Allen would make, the “all men are primitive apes” crap. God, how I hated that. ---
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/78 "2019-08-23T16:30:04Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > I could hardly believe Hugh Laurie got his own show on American tv but House reveled in too much medical grossness for me to watch. It wasn’t so much the medical grossness that bugged me. Rather it was the sheer legal impossibility of House’s antics. In anything resembling real world consequences, he would have been fired, lost his medical license, sued into oblivion and beyond and probably arrested on day one. I really can’t watch any episode of M_A_S\*H with Henry Blake in it. There’s just nothing funny or interesting in him. At best, he’s a prop about which good thing happen. ---
**Author:** ![Snake\_Plissken\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Snake\_Plissken\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snake_Plissken_1)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/79 "2019-08-23T16:52:40Z")
Ok, so I’m way behind the curve on ‘Breaking Bad’. I binged watched a season and a half last week on vacation… I had to quit. The pregnant wife is soooo annoying. Couldn’t stand her. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023/80 "2019-08-23T18:19:44Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Shows set in locations with all male casts that suddenly throw a female lead in the second season to “shake things up”. > > I have never watched a show and thought “Now this is great but you know what it really needs? All the male characters to suddenly get unresolved sexual tension plots.” _ **Tour of Duty** _ and _ **Crime Story** _ come immediately to mind. _ **The A-Team** _ had the good sense to get rid of both its featured females by the thirteenth episode. (It was still a pretty dumb show, though.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-an-otherwise-decent-tv-series-made-it-impossible-for-you-to-watch/839023.md?page=5)