Worst decision a TV show/movie has made?

[cochrane]

@Jim_s_Son

Here’s an interesting article on the history of the show. When you consider it came from one of the worst ideas ever for a TV show (Garry Marshall said his eight year old son wanted an alien from outer space on “Happy Days”) it did about as well as could be expected.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/mork-and-mindy-was-one-of-the-most-unlikely-miracles-in-1745289352

I particularly like the idea they had a contest on what Mork’s son should be named and they waited for someone to suggest what they had already chosen: Mearth.

I’m so glad that fifth season never carne about. It would have been something like “Mork and Mindy’s Excellent Adventure.”*

*I should have left it the way my phone suggested it - Excrement for Excellent.

[dropzone]

@Morbo

I don’t normally bring Mrs. Morbo into the boards, but I felt like my contributions to threads like these was getting stale, so I asked her opinion.

Her response: “Felicity’s haircut. Someone will know what I mean.”

Oh, HELL yeah!

“Keri, dear, you are a beautiful woman with a spectacular head of hair that is causing us to have straight male viewers. We don’t want that, so 86 the hair.”

[Hermione]

@Jim_s_Son

“Moonlighting” David and Maddy getting horizontal. A memorable episode but all the sexual tension was gone and it left them in a what-do-we-do-now situation not helped when Maddy married a guy she met on a cross country train trip.

Some time ago, I read a book called What Were They Thinking? that revolved around the same question this thread asks (bad decisions made by TV show writers). The book argued that the problem wasn’t so much that Dave and Maddy took the relationship to the next level, but that the writers backpedaled afterwards, trying to “undo” the development to “keep things interesting”, instead of, say, developing the relationship and making them a modern-day Nick and Nora Charles.

[amarinth]

@bump

Is there even an example of a show that lost its major star/stars, and survived on to actually be successful? Seems to me that’s the point when the show starts shambling around like a zombie for another few seasons, before it finally drops dead after a few seasons.

NYPD Blue - it was technically an ensemble, but David Caruso was front & center, with his love interests (Sherry Stringfield and Amy Brenneman) being the other key players. After the first season, the show lost/dropped all three of them and retooled itself into more of an ensemble and got more successful.

[Guest-starring_Id]

@cochrane

I’m so glad that fifth season never came about. It would have been something like “Mork and Mindy’s Excellent Adventure.”

Methinks I’m the only one here who was psychologically devastated by Susan’s (foxy Morgan Fairchild’s) disappearance after season one. She was so…so douchey! <3

The Odd Couple also needed more Dr. Melnitz - yet another first season casualty.

Sorry - I basically stopped watching TV after about, oh, 1980.

[nightshadea]

head of the class … lets get rid of half the hs stereotypes that people liked but we think are dull and add duller and more obnoxious ones (wasn’t it supposedly because of some exchange program story wise ?) for the last year in a half … but have everyone come back for the finale

Although I did like billy connoly more than I did hessman they didn’t give him much to do and wished the show they gave him to make up for it had fared better …

[Superdude]

@Sitnam

Lost - the actress playing Ana Lucia kept getting fucked up and drove in Hawaii, the show had to let her go. The writers decided someone else had to die as well when her character was killed off to give the moment ‘impact’, they chose Hurley’s love interest, sweet Libby. Fuck them. That show was adrift in season 3 and then on, but worse it lacked charming redeeming characters. Lost wasn’t a sitcom, but god damn, did whinny bitching from selfish contemptible survivors get old.

Remember in the first season when everyone just said ‘fuck it, let’s go golfing’? How often did moments of levity like that happen in latter seasons?

While I didn’t watch the show, I had enough of a crush on Cynthia Watros to read that she was fired from the show at the same time and for the same thing as Michelle Rodriguez was.

[zbuzz]

@cochrane

Actually, I liked season four with Mearth. But yeah, replacing Fred and Cora with Remo, Jeanie, and Nelson was forced on the producers by ABC, who wanted to attract a younger demographic to the show and was a resoundingly bad idea. I just wonder why nobody remarked on the resemblance between Mearth and Mindy’s Uncle Dave, who was also played by Jonathan Winters.

That’s okay, no one realized Mork looked like Robin Williams until the episode where he and Mindy meet Robin Williams.

[cochrane]

@zbuzz

That’s okay, no one realized Mork looked like Robin Williams until the episode where he and Mindy meet Robin Williams.

My favorite episode. I have it permanently saved to my DVR. You can tell Williams (as himself) is speaking straight from his heart.

Mindy: You know, maybe if you just learned how to say “no” more often, you’d have a lot more time to yourself.

Williams: Maybe that’s the last thing that I want.

He was very talented, but also very tortured.

[Reluctant_A]

@Tangent

Two from Chuck:

First - the Intersect 2.0, which was introduced at the very end of season 2.

I know many *Chuck *fans will disagree, but I think it was a big mistake to have the Intersect give Chuck instant kung fu (and other physical) skills. It really kind of undermined the whole concept of the show. Initially, Chuck was just a tech geek who couldn’t fight but was smart and a creative problem-solver. The Intersect 1.0 only gave him flashes of information, and the ability to make connections and predictions based on such information. Chuck used his head to find solutions, while Sarah and Casey were the muscle.

But with the Intersect 2.0, Chuck basically became superpowered. He started beating the bad guys with his fists and feet instead of his smarts. Sarah’s badass physical skills were now superfluous, and Casey was very much marginalized. The fun team dynamic was gone because Chuck was pretty much the whole team now.

It remained a fun show and I enjoyed it to the end, but I think it would have been much better if they hadn’t turned Chuck into Neo.

I agree, with a caveat: the Intersect 2.0 could have been interesting if they’d simply left out the physical abilities, and if it had continued to be something he couldn’t control.

Second - Sarah’s memory loss at the end of the series

It was just such a tonally wrong way to end the series. The show was always–and especially in later seasons–just goofy, silly, fun. It should have ended with Chuck and Sarah dashing off together on a new adventure. Instead, we end on a down note. With reason for optimism, granted, but still not a fun ending.

This quote needs a 'like" function. Whenever I re-watch the series, I always stop after “Kept Man,” because it causes me heartache to watch remaining episodes. The only way that the memory loss story could have worked for me is if they could have worked it out that they had unequivocally restored Sarah’s memory before the finale, and they would have likely needed a full season in order to pull that off. I needed to see at least one final adventure with the OG3 (Chuck/Sarah/Casey) at full strength before the show took a bow. The memory loss story left me feeling cheated.

[Sitnam]

@velomont

The introduction of Priya in Big Bang Theory. All of the characters are annoying, but in a very funny, comedic way, but Priya had a toxicity that made every episode with her unwatchable.

I agree, she sucked the funny out of just about every scene she was in. You have Leonard, you don’t ever need two straight men. However, the episode where she debates the Roommate Agreement was hilarious.

[Annie-Xmas]

@kunilou

Eight Is Enough survived loss of their original wives

Diana Hyland, the original Joan Bradford, was only in four episodes of the show.

Continuing Laverne without Shirley

[sciurophobic]

Deciding Sam never Leaped home.

[CaptMurdock]

McHale’s Navy: moving the entire cast, including Captain Binghamton, and the PT boat, from the Pacific Theater…to Italy.

:smack:

[cochrane]

@CaptMurdock

McHale’s Navy: moving the entire cast, including Captain Binghamton, and the PT boat, from the Pacific Theater…to Italy.

:smack:

And Fuji, the Japanese POW, stowing away aboard the PT-73.

[terentii]

@cochrane

And Fuji, the Japanese POW, stowing away aboard the PT-73.

On YouTube, there’s a walk-through of a WWII PT boat docked at some museum somewhere. There is literally NO PLACE you could stow away on a boat that small, and certainly NOT for the amount of time it would have taken to sail from the South Pacific to the Mediterranean!

[Spoons]

@velomont

The introduction of Priya in Big Bang Theory. All of the characters are annoying, but in a very funny, comedic way, but Priya had a toxicity that made every episode with her unwatchable.

Outside of her deconstructing of the Roommate Agreement, Priya was awful. If I can see via the channel guide that Priya is on tonight’s TBBT rerun–I’ll find something else to watch.

[Find_Friends]

@Just_Asking_Questions

ST:The Motion Sickness…

Or Star Trek: The Motionless Picture (Not my original parodied title.)

[ivylass]

Terry Farrell deciding to bail on DS9 was sad.

Trying to replace her with Nicole de Boer was worse. Just have the symbiont die and be done with it.

[Richard_John_Marcej]

@CaptMurdock

McHale’s Navy: moving the entire cast, including Captain Binghamton, and the PT boat, from the Pacific Theater…to Italy.

:smack:

Not to excuse the producers of “McHale’s Navy” but I recall reading an article that said that there was some question whether the show would return for a fourth season and while they were deciding much of the show’s Pacific sets were destroyed so when they were renewed they decided to use the existing Italy based sets on the lot and moved the entire show to Voltafiore.
It didn’t help. It was finally cancelled after that season.