The other fantasy settings were cool, but the scope and economics of just Westworld alone were already mind-boggling, let alone four or five others. Then when they showed that Shogun World included Mt. Fuji I started to think the landscapes of all the different worlds had to be a simulation.
That arc was brutal. The scene where she’s walking by the side of the road without her shoes ripped me to pieces.
I’ve actually started rewatching Shetland recently. I’m still in the first season, and every time I see Tosh I feel so bad for her knowing what’s going to happen.
I have to admit that I admire your willingness to cop to having saved a F book for over 30 years.
I bought Playboy for the articles. 
I listened to a whole lot of the improv comedy podcast “Hello From the Magic Tavern” while I was working in an office. I’ve been working from home since March and I haven’t bothered revisiting. Because of it’s unscripted nature, plot advancement was negligible and I found I was just laughing less and less.
Same thing with Nick & Nick’s “Get Rich Nick” which started with a good premise (is it possible to get rich by doing gig work/gambling/online betting/dog walking/babysitting etc etc) and then I felt it petered out. Quarantine didn’t help them, of course.
I felt this was about Breeders. I like Martin Freeman and a new hip comedy about raising young children appeals to me cause I’m in that part of life.
But man alive, I think I got through one episode and I wanted to hit both parents with a chair. Raising kids can be difficult, but their behavior and attitude would have me calling social services if I knew them. There was nothing to like about them whatsoever.
Well, sign me up for Dark. We started watching this recently. I thought the first season was brilliant - they absolutely nailed a creepy, fatalistic tone, the story unfolded organically, and the complexity of the story line had me taking notes in anticipation of what came next. It’s pretty crazy the show goes through time travel in five different time periods - and somehow manages all the characters at all points in time effectively. The second season was pretty good, answering questions from the previous season, but as the season wore on, the complex story line began to get… convoluted. Then the season two finale revealed the totally dumb prospect of people coming in from alternate universes. Then it became the Marta and Jonas show, two star-crossed teens who are infatuated with one another and now I guess, the center of the multiverse. So here we are, with five episodes to go, and I honestly don’t know if I want to finish.
I really loved Orphan Black until I lost track of what the motivations were for all those secret organizations.
I was in grad school when a new Star Trek show was coming out. I guess it was on a new network, b/c it wasn’t available on the local cable package. The only way we could watch it was at a local sports bar.
About 30 of us went to the bar and ordered drinks and munchies and watched it. It was ok.
A week later, we went back. And then week after week. The drinks and munchies were still good, but the show was kindof lame.
But it’s STAR TREK!! How could that be bad?? More drinks and munchies at the bar. But the show was still kindof lame. By this time, it was more like 20 of us showing up to watch it. A few of us wondered why it wasn’t shown on any channel we could get on our own, that we had to go to the bar to watch it. But the bar had free hot dogs. By the next show, it was like 10 of us.
The next show, some aliens stole the internal organs of one of the main characters (Neelix?). The captain of the Enterprise (Jinway? Janeway?), instead of avenging the theft of the internal organs, instead spent the entire episode contemplating the right of the aliens to indeed steal her crewmember’s organs. We started throwing our free hotdogs at the screen.
We didn’t go back after that. I guess it was a clue to the wise that the show was only available to watch at the sports bar. I guess they were expecting folks to be too drunk to realize the show was major stupid.
Janeway was the absolute worst.
Huh, I had forgotten that one! The show’s mythology became progressively more top-heavy as conspiracies were piled on top of conspiracies. I never got to the point of hating or abandoning it, but by the final season I was watching it for the acting and didn’t care about the plot anymore.
Meant to mention this one last week, got distracted.
24. This was after a special 2 hour episode (I want to say season 3), which was very well written and tautly paced, the best ep. of the entire season.
But it had to be shoehorned into the overall season continuity and pacing, and, as the ep. ticked down with no real resolution, setting itself up as a mere precursor to the rest of the season, I instantly saw just how much the 24 hour real time conceit acted as a straitjacket that strangled the drama and short-circuited any real suspense.
Never watched another ep.
I also like others upthread quickly gave up on the Walking Dead, mainly when it became clear that any possibility of a cure being pursued/searched for was going to be quietly dropped.
24 is a good example. I have watched it all but not for enjoyment. It was too cookie-cutter in the later seasons. There was always a mole working for CTU. There was always some bad guy who would compromise Jack Bauer and force him to work against his team until he could explain that they were holding his family/nuclear briefcase/cell phone charger hostage. Totally formulaic show with zero rewatch value. Having said that, I’d still watch anything further set in the 24-verse and I watched Quibi’s The Fugitive remake (starring Kiefer Sutherland) because it was basically 24 with swearing.
Homeland was similar. By the end I was watching it for snark value. It is actually kind of hilarious how terrible Saul’s tradecraft is for an old school spy. I also got tired of Carrie losing her sanity every season (although this was mercifully skipped in the last season even though she was quite crazy at the end of the preceding season). I used to describe Homeland as “24 but realistic” but that only applies to the first season. The rest of it is a violent soap opera set at the CIA.
The modern reboot of Hawaii 5-0 was another show that I watched mostly for the purposes of snarking on. 5-0 represents the absolute worst a police force could possibly be and they never, ever faced consequences for it other than convoluted plots involving old enemies coming back to haunt them. “Means and immunity” was just a crutch so that they could shoot bad guys instead of arresting them.
Preacher was a hard show to get through. First of all, it is absurdly gory. Second, the plot meanders a lot and there are a couple of seasons where the main characters basically tread water all season long. I liked most of the actors in it but it was a slog getting to the end.
The Blacklist is another one on my shows to snark at list. The plot is absurdly convoluted and the characters are not especially endearing. But there are mysteries that were set up in season 1 that have to be paid off by the end and I need to know what kind of absurdity they come up with.
The Marvel-Netflix shows all started strong and all sucked by the end. They are very cookie-cutter as well. I think the only one that actually ended on a decent note was Iron Fist season 2, which introduced a surprise right at the end of the last episode that I would have loved to learn more about.
Speaking of Marvel, I suffered through all of Inhumans. That show can be summed up in a single scene: the Inhumans (mutants who live on the moon) come into conflict with marijuana growers in the woods. In the inevitable fight a giant pile of cheeba gets lit on fire. But this is a Disney product therefore no one is standing downwind of it. There could have been some comedy gold here and they didn’t even try.
How about Weeds? Was anyone able to watch more than a season of that without wandering off to get a snack and not coming back?
I am exactly the same. Episode 5 was the grotesque one with bodies inside bodies, right? Creeped me right out and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.
It started out so well, and opened my eyes to things I had no idea about, plus a good fantasy element threaded through it, and then it just got weirder, and more uneven, and my favourite character was killed off, and I just realised it was annoying me more than it was entertaining me. Life’s too short for that. Byee, Lovecraft Country.
I only know of Weeds because that was one of the only things on NetFlix streaming back when it debuted so EVERYONE I know wound up watching it.
Yeah, but to be fair, the risk of wandering off to get a snack while watching Weeds was baked into the premise.
I see what you did there. 
The thing about this was that the first twelve hours always led to a completely different resolution that just set up the second half of the season. I’ve always assumed this was because they couldn’t be certain the show would be picked up again for the second twelve hours.
They also left a lot of loose ends hanging that were simply forgotten in the second half. Like the guard who was executed by the bad guys during a staged prison break. Who the hell is held responsible for shit like that? Bauer? Chapelle? The CTU as a whole?
You’re smarter than I am. I made through the first episode of the second season of Discovery. With Picard it was about halfway through the second episode when I gave up.
Do you think that your opinion of Discovery made it easier to give up on Picard so quickly? I know it made a difference to me.