The fact that Heroes is coming back, made me think of this. Sonya’s hilarious AV Club reviews of Hostages and The Following helped me stay away from both shows. But what’s the worst TV Series you’ve seen so far?
For me
Heroes
Knight Rider reboot (I heard KITT turned into a Transformer near the end of the Season)
Charlies Angels reboot (How the hell could they fuck that up?)
Birds of Prey: Utterly nonsensical Smallville copy that never really went anywhere. Most boring comic book adaptation in history.
The Big Bang Theory: Extremely popular, yes. But it’s derivative and pandering crap with horribly annoying characters who wouldn’t know character development if it hit them on the heads.
Other than those I tend to avoid crap shows. I usually wait to see the reactions to particular programs before deciding to jump in.
AI don’t normally watch TV, because I’m too cheap to pay for a converter box and have enough things competing for my time as it is. But I caught half an hour of something called Mike & Molly when I was getting my car fixed and the shop waiting room had a TV that you couldn’t turn off or change the channel on and turned up too loud for me to completely tune out. It was like having a greasy, beer-bellied man in a grungy wifebeater hold me down and fart on my soul. I don’t go to that shop anymore.
Heroes was so fucking incompetent it was unreal. Every interesting idea it had was lifted from 40 year old stories.
I thought Flashforward was pretty unbearable as well. Although Joseph Fiennes hamming it up was fun “Because I was LOOOOOOAAAADED OKAAYYYY!?”
Also Under The Dome, Invasion, The Event. All those shows that tried to ape Lost but forgot to include a single likeable character.
The worst back in the day was Poochinski and Cop Rock.
The worst I’ve seen in recent years was the last few seasons of True Blood. But even when its bad the show is decently entertaining, so this could be a reflection of how I am careful to avoid the truly crap TV shows.
The Event. Another’s of NBC’s attempts to create another “Event Series”.
Incomprehensible Flashbacks and Flashforwards. Something about Aliens that they never fully explained.
ASmash deserves to be in the discussion solely for trying to convince us Katherine McPhee could possibly compete with Megan Hilty for the role of Marilyn Monroe. There are plenty of other reasons, but when the core of your show is a rivalry more one-sided than Germany vs. Poland, you’re doomed.
i still would like to know who in hell approved Shasta.
I actually watched it because it had Jake Busey in full crazy mode, but still, how it even made it to the air perplexes me.
I doubt we’ll ever see the likes of this ever again. FABIO, everyone!
Ugh. This past weekend I got into a conversation with some friends about our favorite shows and they were amazed and confounded how someone could not enjoy Big Bang Theory. I also used the term “pandering” in part of my reasoning for disliking it and they just looked at me like I was crazy.
AWhile on a businesses trip a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon “90 Day Fiancée.” If reality programming had a nadir, I think we may have found it.
“Yeah, we have zero chemistry, and she’s clearly only marrying me for citizenship, but damn if I didn’t rack up a butt-load of frequent flier miles going to Uzbekistan and back!”
I don’t think reality television should count. I absolutely loathe it, but even its defenders would probably agree that 99% of it is crap. Besides, you don’t get the kind of mind-blowing awfulness you get with a fictional scripted show when it’s really awful.
Obviously I don’t make a habit of watching bad stuff, so it’s hard to remember some of the really bad offerings that have come and gone over the years. I do remember, growing up in the mid-90s, there was an explosion of syndicated SF and fantasy shows inspired first by Star Trek: TNG and then by Xena and its ilk, and I remember some of them being pretty hilariously bad, but I can’t remember any names. I seem to remember catching an episode of that Highlander series once, and ye gods, was it awful.
Not a series, but can we talk about their descendants, the Halmi/Hallmark literary adaptation miniseries of the late-90s? They started with Gulliver’s Travels with Ted Danson, which was actually pretty good, but there were some hilariously bad ones that followed. I remember a version of Noah’s Ark with, I think, Jon Voight, which was just jaw-droppingly awful based on what I saw, and deviated hilariously from the bible story–if I recall, Noah gets attacked by pirates at one point. Yes, pirates in the story of Noah. Their version of The Odyssey was pretty appalling, too, if I recall.
99% of all sit coms.
I have this vague memory of ABC (or NBC, who knows?) being really proud of “getting” Armand Assante to play Odysseus. And getting funny feelings down below from Vanessa Williams as Calypso.
A[quote name=“gobblox” url=“/community/t/150269/the-worst-tv-series-youve-seen#post_3675107”]
Ugh. This past weekend I got into a conversation with some friends about our favorite shows and they were amazed and confounded how someone could not enjoy Big Bang Theory. I also used the term “pandering” in part of my reasoning for disliking it and they just looked at me like I was crazy.
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Speaking of pandering, my last roommate had a regrettable habit of watching Two Broke Girls with the volume turned up. I think the laugh track was actually programmed to go off every time Kat Dennings said the words “penis” or “vagina.”
As for the worst series I’ve personally seen, it’s a toss up among any pseudodocumentary about the Bible on any channel that used to be devoted to education, but now focuses on reality shows. I’m absolutely perplexed by the shit that passes for scholarship on prime time TV. Clearly the producers know there’s an audience for discussion about the bible, so why not teach them something? How many Americans know what the Babylonian Captivity was? Its role as the backdrop for much of the Old Testament and the likely period when even more of the text was actually written? Its role in the split between the Jews and the Samaritans, and as the source of the animosity toward Syria shown by the author of Isaiah? Its role in forming the context for the Gospel story of Christ, and the meaning of the word “messiah” as First Century Jews understood it? Is there not enough time to fill on the airwaves for a show about that? Fuck all that learning, though, let’s talk about aliens. Fuck you!
I think the worst one in recent memory is Dads. It has a respectable cast but it’s absolutely dreadful otherwise.
This is why Aronofsky’s film will tank.
Also, no Armand Assante.
Goes without saying, really.
AHardly qualifies as a show considering it was cancelled after one episode, but the Brian Bosworth show ‘Lawless’ comes to mind. Basically a shitty 90’s action hero premise with Glenn Plummer as the fawning black sidekick. In fact, the only thing I remember about it is Plummer talking about how awesome Bosworth’s character was.