Qi: I loved throughout the Stephen Fry years and was enjoying Tosvigk’s reign until last series there were about 4 stinkers in a row, and it clicked that the stinker to good ratio had been getting steadily higher. I stopped watching regularly, and will now only watch if there are 3 good guests.
Star Trek jumped the shark with Voyager. I liked TNG and loved DS9. Voyager had a good concept, but other than The Doctor and 7 of 9, the characters were dull and forgettable. I tried watching Enterprise, but there were no interesting characters at all, not even the couple that Voyager managed. After I heard something about an alternate timeline involving something happening to Romulus, I gave up on it completely.
I was really excited about Breaking Bad when I finally watched the first episodes some months back (yes, I live under a rock).
Then as soon as I realized that the “gang banger locked in the basement” situation was going to be dragged on and on and… something about those kinds of loose ends in a series annoy me. It seemed a setup to have a villain perpetually popping up whenever the writers were feeling lazy.
Maybe that finished the following week, maybe not–I’ll never know.
For the record, Krazy-8 is killed off in the third episode but you could have checked that yourself if you were interested.
Whilst I wholeheartedly endorse your position on this…17 years ain’t exactly rapid. For either of us.
j
The actual turnaround from “Qi is one of my favourie shows” to “I’ll only watch if If I approve of all the guests” was pretty steep, less than a year, even though the first lasted 16 years.
I dropped it like a hot rock when, after being about 100 pages into the newest book, I recognized a very specific situation, and realized that I had actually already read this book. The narrative had become so confused and the plot so slow moving that I couldn’t even remember what books I read and didn’t read.
A series I’m reading now Red Rising has been kind of fun, in a space dystopian way, but the last book was a mountain of violent imagery, an ever escalating description of butchery, with the plot going from “solar system at war” to “solar system at war”. If the next book ends the series, I may just skim it to see how it ends up.
I stopped watching Farscape after season three. The story was getting more and more nonsensical. I did catch the final episode of season four and it was even more awful.
My wife was watching Lost, so I started watching an episode partway through. When it got to the end, I asked, “Is anything going to resolve or is it just a tease?” She said, “A tease.” I never watched again.
After two seasons of Once Upon a Time, I stopped. I grew tired of them repeating “Magic comes with a price” three times an episode. Later, when it became an excuse for Disney crossovers, I was glad I made the decision.
I grew wary of Gotham after that mess of a season finale in season one. I continued to watch into season two, but that Jokeresque character completely turned me off to it.
Ah - we’re interpreting the OP in two different ways: from start to finish; or period of transition. I go with the former, but if we take the latter then I endorse your position without reservation.
j
I can’t get past the fourth episode (Season 1 of 3) of Counterpart on Amazon Prime. I love the actor (J.K. Simmons) and the plot idea is something right up my alley. The cinematography is nice and dark, just how I like it. But there is just something about this show that won’t hold my attention. It drags inexorably and is littered with predictable story lines. I may try again. But it’s just not happening right now.
Has anyone seen it, and is it worth sticking with?
Michael was the wrong character to focus on. He was just scenery, like the island in Gilligan’s Island. Sort of a human macguffin. I watched Burn Notice solely for the character with personality, Sam Axe.
Yes, it’s worth sticking with. But note that there were only two seasons, not three.
Don’t roll your eyes at me, young man. I just saved you from having your heart broken as it slowly goes down the drain. When Ansen shows up, it is time to bail. If you’re still watching when Patton Oswalt shows up, it’s too late for you.
You might try DS9. It’s got grit. It’s my favorite Trek series precisely because it’s so unsanitary and full of interpersonal conflict. Unfortunately it took the death of Gene Roddenberry to produce a Trek with teeth.
Only two? See… even the producers found it hard to stick with. 
No, the ratings were poor enough that Starz didn’t renew it for a third season. I think in this case, the producers should have put the first season on Netflix before the second season returned to Starz. That might have piqued enough interest to get better ratings. (I think it’s acknowledged that Schitt’s Creek benefited from being on Netflix after the initial airings on the CBC and PopTV.)
True that.
But I think the problem in a lot of these shows is, the convention is that the main character is supposed to be the good guy. At least, it’s been that way since TV began.
But some shows don’t make it clear that the main character is actually the villian. A casual viewer can get sucked in, and not realize they are rooting for the baddie.
Then there are the shows where the show runners themselves don’t realize the main character is actually the baddie. Brenda Leigh Johnson, this post is for you.
I’m not sure which one Burn Notice is.
I think it suffered from deciding the Big Bad had to be Bigger and Badder, ramping up the intensity of how awful things were until the hero was forced to make the “hard” decisions.
I did. Way too much Ferengi, the most ill-conceived entry in the ST pantheon. The series was just too B/W for my liking. And the absurd space battle scenes, you might as well be watching some stupid thing with a talking tree and a raccoon.
I never really got into The Next Generation either, but given that it’s the Trope Namer for Growing the Beard, it doesn’t seem fair to reject the whole series based on the first few episodes.