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    #26
    There's been a long stream of recent US broadcast dramas that start with a vaguely interesting premise, and maybe an interesting cast, and after (at most) one season, promptly go off the rails into desperately formulaic nonsense that all claims to be working towards some massive big-picture conspiracy. Blindspot, Designated Survivor, Blacklist I've all enjoyed one season of then abandoned in season 2.

    I also abandoned Boardwalk Empire, and Treme, and Homeland, and True Detective, like many others. There's still a chance that I'll finish watching Scandal. It basically got crap after Season 1, but I stuck with it for reasons that I can't explain. And I still have the last two seasons recorded, if only I can find any motivation to watch them.

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      #27
      I never finished my box set of the West Wing. I got stuck in season 6 I think.

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        #28
        Originally posted by Janik View Post
        Oh yes, Sherlock. And in that case I was nearly at the end, before giving up in extreme annoyance. The last episode was so utterly stupid that I turned it off in frustration midway through and have absolutely no interest in finding out how it finished.

        Whilst thinking of Moffat, I also ceased watching the Dr Who reboot somewhere around the start of the Matt Smith period.
        Oh thank goodness. I thought I was the only one who gave up on Sherlock.

        I gave up on Who two or three episodes into the Capaldi era. The one with the robot Robin Hood.

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          #29
          Homeland started well, turned to shit, then got better, and then I stopped getting Showtime so I don't know, but it was never really compelling enough to care. It was just kinda entertaining. Clare Danes is watchable and it had Danny Noonan in it.

          I actually got further than 1 season of Boardwalk, IIRC. But I still couldn't care. If I ever get another TV, I may try to semi-binge it, because the history of the American mob usually interests me. I think part of the problem was that I couldn't remember week to week who was who. It had too many subplots. If each on of those is moving kinda slow, that can be enough to put me - and a lot of other people - off of it.

          Mad Men had the same problem, which is why I gave up on it at first. So later on I caught up on it by watching a lot of it at a time, it worked better. And then by that time I was invested and willing to put up with the week-to-week.

          It may require that one care about the setting, but really each episode was like a short story and the characters were always compelling, I thought.

          I don't recall disliking any of Sherlock and I hope they make more. Then again, I can't recall how it ended, so it couldn't have been that great.

          BTW. Young Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Stephen Spielberg and written by Chris Columbus. I fucking loved that as a kid. Underrated 80s. Check it out.



          The current trend in British and Scandinavian TV that we get over here is the following formula
          A) Beautiful rural setting
          B) Veteran cop who has seen it all and is deeply troubled by something that happened in the past. What that something is will be revealed over the course of the series
          C) Relationship with their estranged wife/husband/kid will be and important subplot that will help to develop the character
          D) Something unspeakable happens in the beautiful rural setting, and only the protagonist has sufficient insight into the darkness of the human psyche to figure out that it's who all the local rubes automatically suspect, but somebody who they all trusted.

          Billy Bob Thorton's character in Goliath is like that too, as is the eponymous character in Bosch the two leads in The Killing. Except those are set in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, and Seattle, respectively, not rural Britain, and the cities are portrayed in such a way that they're exactly the kind of places you'd expect something evil to happen rather than a "tranquility shattered" set-up. But the "world-weary cop trying to maintain a relationship with their kid" is a remarkably powerful trope. Maybe it says something about the lives of TV writers.

          BTW, anyone who decides after a season that a show isn't worth their time is probably right. There are some cases where one can accurately say "Oh, but if you just stick with it, it will be rewarding" and some shows really change and get better after a few seasons - Seinfeld comes to mind* - but in my experience, that's rare. If it didn't grab you after 10-12-22 episodes, it probably never will, and more good shows get worse than vice versa. That's why one of my biggest pet peeves are listicles titled "TV shows you should be watching." Same with albums, etc. How is it that in 2018, that anyone with enough education to be employed as a writer is still trying to insist that there's only one kind of good taste? Life is short. Don't waste time on culture you're not getting much out of.


          When I was a kid, our interest in watching TV as an activity - or anti-activity - was far greater than the amount of worthwhile TV on offer. Now it's the opposite.

          Of course, TV critics don't have to worry about that because it's their job to watch everything, but I'm still amazed by how much they watch. And am even more amazed when a critic - or anyone else - says they've seen a certain episode of something or a film five or six times. I, who have no family and a pretty low wattage job, don't even have time for that.* And I certainly don't have the patience.

          *Especially in this day and age where shows are not given time to gather an audience. It's far more likely that something really good will be cancelled - Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Wonderfalls, Firefly, etc, etc. because it doesn't have time to gather an audience than it is that something flawed-but-promising will gradually get off the ground and soar. One of the big advantages of streaming services dumping a whole season at a time is that the creators know they'll at least get a season and won't be dumped after episode 7.

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            #30
            Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
            Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Wonderfalls, Firefly, etc, etc. because it doesn't have time to gather an audience than it is that something flawed-but-promising will gradually get off the ground and soar. One of the big advantages of streaming services dumping a whole season at a time is that the creators know they'll at least get a season and won't be dumped after episode 7.
            Some good shout-outs there. I watched Undeclared and Wonderfalls when they were on, and was disappointed when they were cancelled. Firefly I came to (years) later and loved.

            I also have this thing for shit shows that are based in Florida and get cancelled fast: so far Key West, Maximum Bob and The Finder. CSI Miami is the outlier.

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              #31
              Homeland started well, turned to shit, then got better, and then I stopped getting Showtime so I don't know, but it was never really compelling enough to care. It was just kinda entertaining.

              The past couple of seasons were good. Not quite up to season one, but close (see the 'TV drama in a time of Trump' thread.) Next season is the last.

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                #32
                Somehow I managed to stick with Heroes, Lost and the similarly ludicrous Dexter right to the end, yet I have never watched The Wire, Sopranos or Breaking Bad, and probably never will now, unless I'm laid up with an incapacitating injury for several months.

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                  #33
                  I got about halfway through the last series of How I Met Your Mother before realising I'd been bored stiff of it since the first episode of the first series, and had only kept watching because I'd found myself unable to not do so for some reason. The big 'twist' ending to the whole thing which so many people apparently felt short changed by was, for me, quite clearly what the whole thing had been building towards since the end of the opening episode (to the extent that I was totally nonplussed to see anyone talking about it as a twist or a surprise), and not once in the whole run did I actually laugh. There were quite a lot of moments that made me smile but none which made me laugh, which isn't great for comedy, really.

                  I've not yet bothered with the new series of Arrested Development, but the end of that was the end of the third series, let's be honest. They should have let it lie.

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                    #34
                    The usual bailing point for me is episode 2 of season 2.
                    That point did for Game of Thrones, Six Feet Under, True Detective etc.
                    Otherwise it's around season 1 ep4-ep6 where I jump off. Loads of the shows already featured on this thread were in that pile (Jessica Jones, Homeland, various Sky Atlantic ones.)

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                      #35
                      "Thirteen Reasons Why" - first series was great, traumatic but great.
                      Second series was just traumatic , stopped watching before the end - please Mr Netflix no third series.

                      Flip side to that - I had given up on the second series of the "Handmaid's Tale" - but half way through I got hooked again, and it stopped to be just torture porn to being a good tense, drama again.

                      It's weird that according to surveys the most watched streamed series amongst those dang kids is bloody Friends -

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                        #36
                        I'm not very good at keeping up with the long running dramas, even less so at embarking upon them knowing that there's ninety hours or whatever to wade through. We did manage three seasons of Homeland, but the third was pretty hard going.

                        At the moment it is make or break for The Handmaid's Tale, having seen three episodes of the second series but fallen behind due to holidays and other commitments. The first series was brilliant, as was the first episode of the second, but that almost makes it less appealing to hang around waiting for the returns to diminish.

                        I drifted away from Coronation Street after 25 years committed viewing a decade or so ago. For a while it was reassuring to watch odd episodes after months away and find that nothing had really changed but I haven't done that for a while.

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                          #37
                          Originally posted by Giggler View Post
                          Another vote for Coronation Street unfortunately, but these DVDs still keep me a little bit warm when the programme is mentioned. Some of the writing was just brilliant:

                          https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coronation-...onation+street

                          https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coronation-...onation+street

                          In a similar vein, I loved the first three series of Shameless before it disappeared up its own rectum.
                          Shameless is a very good shout - the first couple of series were great, but that family that took over from the Gallaghers were so unamusingly ghastly, I just couldn't continue.

                          Viz Corrie - you certainly don't need to feel embarrassed about those box sets - it was indeed really well-written back then, with plenty of amusing characters and daft sub-plots. I stopped at the end of April just gone with the regular series, having been a viewer since Ernest Bishop's assassination in 1978.

                          Now that I'm 'out' I can barely believe that I've committed so much of my life to it, but what-the-hey...

                          Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                          I never finished my box set of the West Wing. I got stuck in season 6 I think.
                          I still have a borrowed shedload of those that have been sitting next to my TV for the past couple of years - I really 'will' one of these days. (Besides, I need to return them to a friend - who has since moved to Malmesbury.)

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                            #38
                            Originally posted by Third rate Leszno View Post
                            Somehow I managed to stick with Heroes, Lost and the similarly ludicrous Dexter right to the end, yet I have never watched The Wire, Sopranos or Breaking Bad, and probably never will now, unless I'm laid up with an incapacitating injury for several months.
                            Wow. Is 'Cut The Crap' the only Clash album you ever bought?

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                              #39
                              Originally posted by Sam View Post
                              I got about halfway through the last series of How I Met Your Mother before realising I'd been bored stiff of it since the first episode of the first series, and had only kept watching because I'd found myself unable to not do so for some reason. The big 'twist' ending to the whole thing which so many people apparently felt short changed by was, for me, quite clearly what the whole thing had been building towards since the end of the opening episode (to the extent that I was totally nonplussed to see anyone talking about it as a twist or a surprise), and not once in the whole run did I actually laugh. There were quite a lot of moments that made me smile but none which made me laugh, which isn't great for comedy, really.

                              I've not yet bothered with the new series of Arrested Development, but the end of that was the end of the third series, let's be honest. They should have let it lie.
                              I found HIMYM really funny for the most part, though it didn't get really good until season two or three. But of course, I'm more-or-less the precise target audience.
                              The ending wasn't good - not so much how the characters ended up, but how they crammed in so much into literally the last five minutes of a 10 year series.

                              I couldn't get into this most recent season of Arrested Development either. It feels over.


                              Shameless is a very good shout - the first couple of series were great, but that family that took over from the Gallaghers were so unamusingly ghastly, I just couldn't continue.
                              Are you talking about the UK version or the US one? I watched the first four or five seasons of the US one but abandoned it (That should have been on my list above) because it just wasn't going anywhere, as far as I can tell, and was so grim.

                              At the moment it is make or break for The Handmaid's Tale, having seen three episodes of the second series but fallen behind due to holidays and other commitments. The first series was brilliant, as was the first episode of the second, but that almost makes it less appealing to hang around waiting for the returns to diminish.
                              Same. I don't know if I made it to the end of the first season.
                              Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 21-08-2018, 15:08.

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                                #40
                                People generally seem to like the second season of The Handmaid's Tale, but I've mostly found it annoying, albeit well acted. I kind of wish I'd stopped at the end of season one and I have no intention of watching season three.

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                                  #41
                                  The Handmaid's tale needs to give use a better sense of where it's going and what the overarching mission is. Otherwise it goes from 'compelling' to 'just a soap'.

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                    I never finished my box set of the West Wing. I got stuck in season 6 I think.
                                    Same here. My main issue is that Mrs Bored got fed up of it so it makes it difficult to watch. We both are just embarking on the final furlong of The Sopranos after I bailed halfway through the last series previously and Mrs B earlier so we started rewatching - thankfully as it is awesome and probably mankind's greatest cultural achievement (I am not joking there).

                                    I gave up on The Simpsons years ago when the Channel 4 ones just seemed to repeat the same "Treehouse of Horror" episode over and over. I gave up on Eastenders when it went to five days a week - we were watching the Sunday omnibus and 2 and a half hours of it just seemed like a waste of time. I stopped watching Home & Away when my son went back to school and I went to Uni and we only recently stopped watching Neighbours to actually watch some boxsets.

                                    Gave up on the second series of 24 after dragging myself through the concluding parts of the first series (again, Mrs B had sensibly had enough) and then thought "Oh, no, what have they got themselves into now" especially as the daughter now seemed to be working with the father incomprehensibly. Gave up on "Orange is the New Black" for no real reason really and may go back to it. Gave up on second series of Homeland after the ridiculous "texting from the Whit House" scene but I missed the first series so am not sure I had invested that much in it.

                                    One that is slightly different is that, when Cardiff City got promoted to the EPL, I stopped watching all top level football including "Match Of The Day", "MOTD2" and "Football Focus". To be honest, it was becoming merely a Saturday and Sunday "one more beer after Mrs B has gone to bed" habit anyway - especially as the narrative of the week' football was being pretty much lost with so many midweek games on different days (hence why FF was useful but unsatisfactory). I have never gone back and never missed it. I am not being arch about it - I just haven't got time for it. I think that I had a certain feeling that everything seemed the same, season in and season out (I missed the Leicester story, obviously, which disproved that) and it was just too much hassle keeping up with everything. Bit like Eastenders, really.

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                                      #43
                                      Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                      Otherwise it goes from 'compelling' to 'just a soap'.
                                      'Just a soap' is a reasonable charge to level at most perennial series. If viewers and producers weren't mutually invested in the idea of a golden age of long form television we'd probably hear it more often.

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                                        #44
                                        Another shout for Mad Men. Unlikeable dickheads in suits get drunk and act like dickheads. Who's arsed?

                                        Shameless was, as said up there somewhere, very good at first. Season 1 and 2, and to an extent 3. It was a show that showed people on council estates could be sharp, funny, clever. It was comic, yeah, but it wasn't two dimensional. Until all the good characters left (and good actors, Maxine Peake, James McAvoy, Anne-Marie Duff were and are all ace) and then it became a load of shallow piss. Can't be arsed with it.

                                        It's rare I stop watching something though. I'm incredibly stubborn and persevered with Homeland even though I was sitting there thinking WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS AND WHY AM I WATCHING IT? I'll defo watch the last season an all, because I'm an idiot.

                                        I don't really watch TV, but I will sit and watch four or five episodes of something quite easily. I dusted off Game of Thrones, which I had no intention of ever watching, in about a week.

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                                          #45
                                          Watched season one of Designated Survivor. A couple of dud episodes but was actually pretty cool. Very start of season 2 was also cool. After it turned into the worst show I ever saw. It's like everybody on the writing team went on strike or something.

                                          Others have mentioned The Simpsons. Probably the best example for this thread. Went from being the best thing on TV to the worst. It's been finished since around 1998/99 but they decided to stamp out another 20 seasons anyway. Don't think I have watched a single episode since about 2000. I don't want to ruin the memory of its heyday brilliance...
                                          Last edited by anton pulisov; 23-08-2018, 12:33.

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                                            #46
                                            Put me down for Game of Thrones. Watched the first series, gave up. Too relentless. My dear wife still watches it, which is odd, because I am the fantasy/sci fi nut and she prefers straight fiction or "from the point of the women" historical stuff.

                                            Sherlock - my extended rant against that fuck awful Moriarty is elsewhere, but I gave up towards the end as well.

                                            Anyone who gave up on Capaldi Who, at least watch Hell Bent, but on no accounts watch the next episode, because it's absolute garbage.

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                                              #47
                                              I gave up on Dr Who somewhere early in the Peter Davidson era.

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                                                #48
                                                Others have mentioned The Simpsons. Probably the best example for this thread. Went from being the best thing on TV to the worst. It's been finished since around 1998/99 but they decided to stamp out another 20 seasons anyway. Don't think I have watched a single episode since about 2000. I don't want to ruin the memory of its heyday brilliance...
                                                It's not *the worst* by any stretch, but it's nowhere near as good as it was in the first ten seasons.

                                                I have given-up and then un-given-up Game of Thrones a few times, but it keeps pulling me back in with the dragons. So now I'm prepared to see it to the end. Not planning to read the books, mind.


                                                Another shout for Mad Men. Unlikeable dickheads in suits get drunk and act like dickheads. Who's arsed?
                                                It's not about them. It's about Peggy, Joan, and Sally... and, you know, SOCIETY, man...AMERICA's DARK SOUL, man!
                                                Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 23-08-2018, 23:40.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Absolutely. It's the very best kind of historical fiction, stunningly accurate yet never clichéd. It underlines emphatically how similar yet how different we are from our parents and grandparents. Still the apex of long-form TV drama for me.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Sharp Objects. Too slow--couldn't get interested in it.

                                                    Also, Orange Is The New Black. I think it lost the plot after the second series.

                                                    ETA:
                                                    American Horror Story (after the Freak Show season)
                                                    True Detective (after the first season)

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