Having all daytime tv everywhere (okay four channels, US only, possibly only a few channels at a time) delayed for months (okay possibly three at the most but it was summer for cripes sake) for the Watergate Trials in 1973. I thought they would never end.
I’ll watch them with a more nuanced eye, but so far I haven’t noticed any strong shift toward camp. It was “Super Secret Cypher Snatch” today; only the third episode of the final season, so there’s still time. (Although they haven’t been showing them in strict order, either.)
Scully always being just outside the room when the freaky shit happened - week after week! It was almost as bad as Three’s Company’s plots, based on not just a misunderstanding, but on your best friends being willing to believe the absolute worst about you on the flimsiest evidence (“I asked Chrissy to break a $20 and she gave me four five dollar bills - obviously, she’s a crack whore.”).
Good one. We almost gave up on the show (which I love) after that season. Especially since the whole theme of the show is logic and scientific detection. Happily they seem to have kicked out whoever was responsible for those plots since later seasons dropped this theme.
We’ve been catching up on Castle, (not up to the present yet) and all the roadblocks they threw into the way of Castle and Beckett hooking up were getting a bit annoying. As is the over the top giant conspiracy thread, which I assume has finally been resolved.
Same with MAN FROM UNCLE. They tried to reverse it in the last season but it was too late.
I forgot about the point in *The X-Files *where Mulder supposedly blew his brains out but – surprise! – didn’t. I’d been fairly die-hard but pretty much quit watching from that point on. From what I read of the finale, which I’ve never seen, I didn’t miss much. I don’t like shows that progress more or less linearly to jerk me around…if you’re running out of ideas, just say so.
Another minor annoyance (this is going back a ways) is how Dan Curtis and his successors with Kolchak: The Night Stalker show had such a hard time getting away from the exact same formula of the first film:* Something weird happens…Kolchak investigates…Kolchak finds more weirdness…Vincenzo won’t believe him…cops want to bury it…Kolchak risks his neck to deal with the menace himself…Kolchak prevails.* Those of you who’ve seen the second movie and the TV show that followed know what I mean.
Also. It was always a minor bug how later generations of Star Trek (TV and movies, TWOK and novels not included) made so little if any references to some of the cool persons and things of TOS…like, the Planet Killer. Always baffled me that they’d ditch that storyline and instead do one about Wesley Crusher going through puberty (or whatever). Then I read that a lot of those properties were/are owned by the authors, so the later producers did not want to pay extra to use those authors’ work. Don’t know how true that is, but it’d make sense.
I grew up in Hawaii, and they used to ship new episodes of tv shows by the slowest fucking boat on the planet. Iirc, it was 6 months behind. This was especially annoying for “holiday” episodes and when commercials said “on the next episode…”
Not showing Benny Hill before 9pm.
The reverse racism on The Jeffersons whenever the interracial couple from upstairs came in.
The 50 year old animations on Sesame Street that they still use today, and canceling the Electric Company.
Those PSA’s on Saturday mornings that interrupted the cartoons. They made like 3 and would sometimes play the same ones on consecutive weeks.
Ha! We wish! It will never be resolved. And just in case the “Beckett’s mother-murdering Senator conspiracy” plot eventually peters out, they have the “always three steps ahead supervillian with a personal grudge against the heroes” plot (3XK) to take up the slack.
Fortunately, they keep those episodes to a minimum. I fully expect 3XK to “complicate” The Wedding, though.
I remember when for some reason Mrs. Peel went undercover as a client of a matchmaking service. When they asked her what she was looking for in a potential match, she replied “Stamina”.
That’s true. For example, Tom Paris from Voyager was originally supposed to have been Nick Locarno from the TNG episode “The First Duty.” The producers intended to bring Locarno to Voyager and have Robert McNeill Duncan reprise his character from that episode. However, they would have had to pay royalties to Ronald Moore and Naren Shanker, the writers of “The First Duty,” for every episode in which Locarno appeared, which would have been prohibitively expensive for what was intended to be a main character. So, the producers of Voyager cast Duncan as a new character, Tom Paris, but still gave him many of the characteristics of Nick Locarno.
On the same note, Buck Rogers in the 25 Century was pure Glenn Larson cheese. The first year of it was really pretty cool, spaces discos and all. The second year they put him in space in a Star Trek rip off and although getting Hawk was kind of cool, nothing else was.
That explains so much, and not just about Star Trek. I have seen quite a few “non-sequel sequels” and wondered why they writers changed what was obviously supposed to be the same character. I didn’t know you have to pay character royalties, too.
The fustercluck that was anything after the first season finale of Heroes.
I remember reading in a screenwriting book about a writer who created a new character for a series (I think he was freelance but worked regularly enough on the show that he was keyed into what the show was doing long-term). Everyone was really excited about this new character and had big plans for him–one of the staff writers convinced the showrunner to let her use the character in a tag scene at the end of an unrelated episode earlier in the season. So this other writer got the official credit for “creating” the character and the royalty checks.
WARNING: Many spoilers ahead, especially for Torchwood, so beware . . .
The way that they killed off almost all of the cool characters in Torchwood, with the exception of Gwen and Capt Jack. I mean, seriously? That level of mass slaughter should only be done if you’re planning on ending the series, which they didn’t, so we basically started all the characterization from scratch in Miracle Day. And then at the end of Miracle Day, they almost killed off the whole team again, but in the extraordinarily tense climax, one survived. And you know, I would have been happy with one new character not dying. That would have been fine. Then, in the last few minutes - at the freaking FUNERAL, which is basically the definition of a denouement, the last member of the “new” team GOT SHOT. So now we’re down to Gwen and the Capt again. Thanks, Moffat. Not saying it wasn’t, y’know, one of the most involved, nail-biting moments I’ve ever had with a show, but seriously.
Oh, one more: the cop show Whitechapel (again, mucho spoilers, and I highly recommend this series). Basically, the main character had crippling OCD - and not in a half joking, lighthearted, silver lining way like with Monk, but in a depressing, sympathetic way that really showcased the way he was socially ostracized and just buried himself in work to avoid his inner pain. Anyway, throughout the series he has numerous failed romantic relationships, until, at the very end, he meets the perfect girl (who’s also a psychologist, so, hey, bonus). Through the last episode, Perfect Girl is in constant danger from Murdering Psychopath - and she is also one of the most likable, human female characters I’ve seen in modern TV. Serious yet kind, realistic, she’s not the kind of generic female character you read about on TV Tropes. I’m known by my family and friends to basically have an aversion to all mushiness and romance in fiction, but the whole plot made even me go “aww”. Point is, she miraculously survives the whole last episode, and then in the last few minutes, is killed by - wait for it - THE KILLER’S ELDERLY MOTHER.
Last rant, I promise, and it’ll be short: the whole evolution of the Doctor in Doctor Who from a distracted genius into a mushy, romantic love interest, especially in the last season, combined with the terrible plot writing. Again, looking at you, Mr. Moffat . . .
I was fascinated with Nowhere Man, the 1995 UPN series about a man whose identity is abruptly erased (friends and relatives claim they don’t know him, his credit cards don’t work, etc.). As the series progressed, contradictions piled up left and right and it became increasingly obvious that the writers were making it up as they went along. The final episode was, of course, an unresolved cliffhanger. Went through this again with another short-lived show, Push, Nevada. Since then, I have scrupulously avoided these self-consciously obtuse, clue-laden shows.
When I was growing up in Houston, Texas in the 1960s, the local stations routinely replaced network programming with anything they thought would get better ratings (usually reruns of things like Bonanza and Big Valley). Crappy scifi programming like Irwin Allen shows generally got bumped, and this enraged my younger self.
I must have been about 4 1/2 when the 1976 Montreal Olympic games were held. Was not happy that my morning sessions of Sesame Street were not on. 
Babylon 5 was a prime example here, it started out being shown on one channel for the first season (out of order, naturally) but changed the time and day it was on almost on a weekly basis. The second season was on a completely different channel but was mostly on at the same time and day (11:30pm Wednesday) unless it was bumped by a repeat of a sports game. We did get all 5 seasons but I’m really suprised that happened.
The same treatment was given to Space: Above & Beyond**, Farscape and Seaquest DSV. it really sucked being a sci-fi fan in Australia back then.
** Which is another annoyance - they are either fighter pilots or special ops troops, not both. If you need ground pounders write them into the episode like they did in B5’s Gropos
Actually, I liked (and still enjoy as I own the entire series and the two pilot films) Kolchak’s “Monster of the Week” theme and Vincenzo’s skepticism. The series certainly handled it better than The X-Files did 20 years later with Dana “ I Don’t Believe” Scully. It was also better than the 2005 Kolchak partial birth abortion that they tried to foist off on the public (Gabrielle Union’s lovely face and figure aside)
Anyway….
[ol]
[li]I REALLY hated the Jerry Lewis telethons when I was a kid - I grew up in a ciy with only four TV stations and Jerry Lewis’ would ruin the last weekend of the summer with his terrible show. While now I appreciate the need for it, I didn’t then.[/li][li]The way that television wastes good actors pisses me off - Blair Brown, Jamie Sheridan,Robert Urich,Tim Reid are all good actors who for one reason or another were never able to land on television series which were on very long. Jamie Sheridan came the closest with his five seasons on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but then they wasted him there.[/li][li]**Great shows that got canceled before they could go anywhere **- Hot L Baltimore, Chicago Story, Spenser for Hire, Frank’s Place, Alphas… the list is almost endless. Ray Romano and Tim Allen get more seasons than they ever deserve and yet good shows get the shaft. WTF???[/li][li]Network television airing truncated Hollywood films - If you have to heavily edit it or create entirely new story lines because you think that audience is too stupid to understand the plot (looking at you Two Minute Warning) why bother showing it??[/li][li]Reality television - This has always sucked and it just never gets better. From ***That’s Incredible! **to whatever abomination A&E is foisting off on the viewing public this season, reality TV munches ass and always will.[/li][li]Network news beating the life out of a story - From the endless and mostly useless coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis until today’s “Where that Malaysian plane now?” network news takes an interesting tale and quickly sucks the life from it. At this point I just don’t CARE if they ever find the fcking airplane. I really don’t.[/li][/ol]
“Yeah, and there are scratches on her pocket watch, too.”
You notice that even though Chrissie and Janet were both adult women (and not related) they slept in the same bedroom. Yet nobody ever accused them of being lesbians. Which would be my thoughts today when two women are sleeping in the single bedroom of an apartment.
Upon reflection the Ropers seem like even bigger dicks than they were, not only because the would only allow Jack to stay if he pretended to be gay (SPOILER;) ) but also because they rented a one bedroom apartment to three people.