What's the weirdest reason you stopped watching a show?

Cafe Society
61

An obligatory season “big bad” as a crutch for plot tension. It’s basically an admission that character, story, plot, and direction alone are insufficient to hold a viewer. “Weird” (per the OP) in respect that it seems the harder that a series tries to obviously establish tension, the more likely I am to refuse it.

The Mentalist, Red John, go away already
House House’s superior-with-a-grudge-du-jour such as the police investigator, administrator, etc.
Heroes
Lost
Medium
CSI Vegas, though they ran a very long time before caving to the trope.
Once Upon a Time

62

After I graduated from college I took a job in that same smallish town. Most of my friends moved to the bigger cities and my local friends were mostly married and starting families. I had a fairly active social life on weekends but I had fallen into the bad habit during the week of get up, go to work, go home, watch TV, go to bed.

At the time I absolutely loved TV. Thursdays were my favorite for “Must See TV” with Friends as the anchor show. But other nights were great too, and I was always excited when a new episode of Star Trek Voyager was going to be on. I’d actually get a little excited with anticipation of what I was going to watch on TV that night every afternoon as the day drew to an end.

One night I tuned in to watch Voyager and about half way through the episode I realized that I really didn’t like that episode. Not only that, I didn’t really like any of the episodes of Voyager and really didn’t like the series at all. It was the first time I noticed that I was watching TV out of habit rather than enjoyment. The next Thursday I watched my regular sitcoms and the same thought hit me - I just didn’t like the shows as much while I was watching them as I expected to like them when they started. So I stopped watching TV for a couple of weeks.

The following Thursday I was playing poker with some friends and they had NBC on. When Friends was on I felt like I had lost connection to the show, I no longer really liked the characters, and I found that I really was over it. I was so sick and tired of TV in general at that time that I just unplugged it and refused to watch for several months.

Eventually I did come back to TV but my viewing habits were completely different. I’ve never really gotten into sitcoms again. I was done with Science Fiction until BSG came along. And I started to prefer more complex dramas. I started to ignore network TV and pay more attention to the cable channels for the shows I liked. Tastes shift - but mine just seemed to hit all at once back then.

63

This, exactly. My wife and I watched it from the beginning. When the whole alien/human hybrid became a major plot point, we would dissect every episode after it aired…almost to the point of drawing flowcharts on butcher paper taped to the wall. Then it dawned on us…they were just dicking around! Stopped watching it.

64

I don’t like man-to-man kissing.

65

The second one. In fact, I’m pretty sure the last episode I watched was the one where he headed up the effort to retrieve Lizzie’s ring from the drain.

66

I think this counts as the weirdest reason. And yet it’s a likable reason, too. I can totally picture it.

67

Longmire–I realized pretty quickly that they were going to have at least one murder per episode, which is too many murders for a county that size.

For some reason it’s okay in the books.

Revenge–lost interest as soon as I found out there would be a second season. I thought it would be a neat idea but only if everything was resolved in one season. I realize that is not the way network TV works, but still.

68

I was actually OK with that. Anything to get rid of him.

Ok I googled it. Listen very carefully. If you even have a hint of it, *do not google image trypophobia! * I don’t have it and even I was skeeved out by some of those images.

Then don’t go back and watch Murder She Wrote. They are dropping like flies in Cabot Cove. Or any British mystery set in the countryside. I know from watching *Inspector Morse *and Inspector Lewis that Oxfordshire is awash with blood.

Believe me I think about that too.

69

I agree, I love ** delphica **'s reason.

Mine was a long-running soap called * Brookside*. One of the major characters was a lovable rogue, who’d started badly but always meant well. He became my favourite character by a long way. He eventually became a teacher, which he loved and was great at - but he used forged certificates to get the job. I knew he would be found out eventually, although this was a soap, not a drama so it wasn’t constant tension. IIRC it was months or years before it came out and by that point the whole programme had gone to shit anyway. Regardless, I just couldn’t witness his downfall. Spose that’s not so weird.

70

I stopped watching Fringe a few episodes in because it got to, um, Fringe-y. I wanted to like it, I did at first but it IMO, it went off the deep end way too soon. I think I caught a few minutes of an episode about a year ago and it seems they’re still way out there.

71

I was probably the youngest person to turn off and it was the oldest show.

Also it was probably the stupidest reason.

The show was Howdy Doody. I was probably around seven and the reason was because Buffalo Bob told us the show would be moving times. Mind you it wasn’t that they were moving, but that they told us they were moving.

Like most kids I BELIEVED in Bob, Howdy, Clarabelle and the whole gang (I was in love with Princess Winterfall Summerspring). I tuned in one morning and before the show an announcer came on and announced that as of the next show, the program would not be on at the regular time they would be on fewer times a month and they then gave the time and day. I could handle this so I mentally started rearranging my life so I could continue to watch it regularly. Then the program began and about 3/4 of the way through the show Bob and Howdy start discussing some problem in Doodyville. Seemingly off the cuff, they came up with the idea of shifting the time schedule to exactly what the announcer said before the show. It came to me–They were lying to me. They weren’t just coming up with the idea. THEY WERE LYING!!!

I never watched the show again.

72

By that point in the show, yeah. After his first helicopter incident, he went from being a really cool sarcastic side character who I loved seeing, to a mopey depressive jerk who dragged the whole show down. That whole season was just a big pile of suck.

Yeah, I learned my lesson on that a long time ago. I also never click any links in threads about it.

73

I give up immediately on any show that begins with a narrator saying, “Previously on…” and proceeds to show a 1 minute summation of all the important scenes in the past episodes.

This says to me: watching the all the previous episodes is a prerequisite to understanding the new episode. So I give up immediately because there is no way I have seen all the past episodes and I will have no idea what the hell is going on when I watch the new episode.

74

I stopped watching Unforgettable because of … the sun. I tried to tune in one evening, only to discover that CBS wasn’t broadcasting properly. I got audio, but no video. The person I reached at the cable company said that the sun was disrupting their satellites or whatever. When it dawned on me that missing that one episode did not annoy me the way that missing an episode of a show I was really into should have, I gave up on it altogether. If it proves successful enough for syndication, I might give it another shot. I hear it got retooled quite a bit.

75

I watched Bar Rescue, which is a tavern version of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, only much better because the host actually tried to give advice to the bar owners (as opposed to just tweaking the menu and giving the restaurant a $25,000 renovation) and the owners weren’t all complete mental cases.

I had to stop watching it because the host’s googly eyes wierded me out something fierce.

76

I watched it at first, but it got to where I HATED the first 10 minutes when the hapless person had to die so they would need a funeral. For a while I just tuned in 10 minutes after the hour so I’d miss that part, then the show just got weird, so I gave up on it.

Wasn’t it Princess Summerfall Winterspring? Or am I thinking of another princes?

77

I stopped watching South Park because…Comedy Central censored South Park.

Let me elaborate: It was the 200th episode (a two-parter), a couple of years ago. Featuring Mohammed as a character, like Jesus already is on the show. Well, specifically, a giant “[CENSORED]” black box hovering over where the (perfectly nice fellow) Mohammed appeared onscreen, which was put in by the SP producers, intentionally, as a plot point—the villains of the episode were trying, among other things, to steal Mohammed’s “power” of being censored so that they themselves could never be mocked or criticized.

Well, before the second part aired, Comedy Central got scared—mostly because, IIRC, of a veiled semi-threat from an beer hall “Islamist” group in New York, which was about ten guys strong—and bleeped all the instances of the name “Mohammed” when spoken in dialogue. Okay, that would piss me off enough. But at least I know what they’re saying.

But apparently, they also bleeped a short little speech by Kyle at the end about free speech and not giving in to fear, that didn’t even mention Mohammed.

And they wouldn’t allow the release of the uncensored episodes online, or on DVD.

Bam. That did it. I haven’t watched Comedy Central since. 'Missed the Futurama revival on that point, too.

'Thing is, I don’t avoid watching South Park, at least online, where Parker and Stone stream the episodes themselves, but…well, I’ve just been busy the last few years, and playing on my computer wasn’t always convenient, so I’ve kinda let it slip. :smack:

78

When you are seven and in mad, passionate love with a television Indian princess…names, are mere trivialities.

79

I think I watched the finale of ER, but before that, I stopped watching when one season ended with a huge cliffhanger. IIRC, every major character was in some kind of crisis, and I think one of them was even about to crash her car.

I stopped watching Rescue Me in the season where every female character was hopping into the sack with Denis Leary. Excuse me? All those hunks at the fire station and Leary’s getting all the action? Nuh uh.

Tried an episode of Boardwalk Empire and turned it off during a really banal conversation a man and woman were having at a nightclub. I can understand banal in real life, but presumably the actors had a script, written by someone getting big bucks. That conversation should have been worth listening to.

80

It seems that a lot of these come down to, “I didn’t like the show anymore.”

Does anyone else think it says something about our society that not watching a show because you don’t like it is considered a “weird reason” for not watching it?