It’s always a bummer when a show starts off strong, but then suffers a huge drop-off in quality where it’s almost unrecognizable.
The five shows I’ve compiled below were ones that I loved at the beginning, but slowly grew worse over time. Sometimes popularity made them overextend themselves, other times their decline was just inexplicable.
Heroes
Without question, this is probably the show that would cross most people’s minds when asked about a list like this. Heroes season one was a revolution in television and multi-layered storytelling. Things started to get unstable by the end, but the three seasons that followed were complete nonsense compared to what seemed to be a really, really promising show in the beginning.
Prison Break
Prison Break had an inherent problem when the show started. It was built for one season. Either they escaped, or they didn’t. If they didn’t the show would seem to drag, if they did? The show suffered from the problem of “what next?” And suffer it did. After a masterful first season full of Michael’s brilliance and tattoo maps, all that went out the window when the show was popular enough to warrant three more seasons after that. They ran, got put in a NEW prison, and ran some more, and it was in no way anywhere close to the first season in quality.
Glee
Some may argue that Glee has sucked all along, but I think that’s being rather closeminded. Watching the first dozen or so episodes of the show, you found a pretty, peppy, pop-culture phenomenon that wasn’t like anything else on TV. And the music was great! But soon, plotlines grew dull and the music routines felt forced and out of placed. Now that half the cast is in college? The downhill slope only increases.
True Blood
True Blood was the badass vampire show that made Twilight look like well, Twilight. Season one was smart, sexy, bloody and exciting. But as time went on, the universe got so crazy the show ceased to be engaging. Vampires were overshadowed by shapeshifters, werewolves, faeries, witches, hell, even werepanthers, and by the time I stopped watching it was simply too crowded for its own good.
The OC
This one just makes me sad. The OC was SUCH an amazing show in season one, but suffered a slow and steady decline. It wasn’t like the quality dropped instantaneously like in many of these other shows, rather it was a gradual descent that by season four was SO bad it was painful to watch, or believe it was the same show.
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Dude, you are right on target with all five, especially Heros and True Blood.
What’s funny is that I never thought any of them was any good.
Heroes had Hayden Panettiere and Ali Larter, which is enough bad acting to sink any series.
Glee was a boring, annoying exercise in hyping false edginess.
The O.C. was toplined with dead-eyed model-wannabes (and the first proof that Josh Schwartz is a terrible writer/producer).
Prison Break had a bland, boring actor as the lead and a concept that was sure to fizzle over time.
True Blood I never bothered with because it also smelled of hype over quality.
Also, only True Blood had actually good ratings.
Heroes had so-so ratings which quickly became bad, so did Glee (now their ratings are disastrous) and The OC. Prison Break had low ratings throughout.
All had in common that they were hyped as huge hits when they weren’t. True Blood was a relative hit to HBO and did have actually impressive numbers.
@Rena Moretti: I don’t understand. You say that you didn’t think any of them were good – but then went on to admit that you never even bothered to watch True Blood. Which then, how can you give any opinion on it?
The only one of the whole list I’ve ever seen was Heroes. That started out strong, and was fresh and unique. It petered out towards the end.
Petered out.
Peter.
That last bit made me laugh, had to be said.
I actually would have put ROSEANNE on this list..This show was brilliant for years before the horrendous last 2 seasons. I can’t even watch a rerun of this series anymore because of that. Runner up: BEWITCHED
I have to agree with Heroes. I also want to throw in The Event, it’s quality just dived much sooner, like in the second episode, but that pilot was AMAZING. And a list like this can’t be complete with out mentioning Smallville. The first several seasons were great, but sometime around the fifth or sixth season it just started getting really bad – once they left Smallville to be more exact. College and Metropolis kept the show from actually be Smallville. And somehow the producers thought it was okay to continue the show without Lex, what the hell were they thinking? The show lasted several more seasons, so sad.
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