Seasonal Rot: Difference between revisions

An installment in any [[Long Runner|long running]] series that is widely held to be of notably poorer quality than the other installments. Often tied to the dislike of a specific arc, but can also befall [[Season Fluidity|episodic shows.]] In some cases, a new director takes over and pulls the series in a [[Arc Welding|different direction;]] this can give the impression of Seasonal Rot to those who liked the old way, but may also bring in new viewers who prefer it like this.

 

 

If the Seasonal Rot occurs because of a poorly-conceived major change to the status quo in an attempt to go in a new direction, it's a season-long [[Dork Age]].

** Actually quite some people think that Season 6 is one of the best. It's a return to the arc-based storytellng, has future Chris, and an epic two-parter finale.

* ''[[The Wire]]'''s fifth season. The sideplots of the previous seasons were fascinating and expanded the strong ensemble cast, to the point that they could practically carry the show by themselves when the main cast were absent from an episode. In Season 5, though, the newspaper sideplot feels extremely superflous. Seen as a severe [[Author On Board]] moment on the part of David Simon, it didn't introduce any memorable or compelling new characters, and the whole "serial killer" plot line came across as implausible, getting away from the "true to life" feel of the show. It may also have been sinking under the weight of the sheer number of characters and plot lines of the first four seasons (in fact, the fifth season is saturated with cameos by characters from past seasons, and they don't serve much purpose). Reducing the episode count to 10 (as opposed to the normal 12-13 per season) did not help matters either. It's still good television, but it is an enormous dropoff for arguably one of the best TV dramas ever.

*** Season 5 has taken the show to new lows of ratings and quality. While Seasons 2, 3 and 4 were all roughly similar rated on average, Season 5 with its Seddie arc dropped the average of the other 3 seasons by ''millions'', and the final episode of the Seddie arc, ''iLove You'', was at the time the 2nd lowest rated episode ever.

*** The rot continued into Season 6. It began with ''iApril Fools'', a nonsensical episode with no storyline that rated poorly. An over hyped ''[[One Direction]]'' guest episode rated meh at best, coming short of 4 million viewers (for the show's standards). Only 2.8 million viewers watched ''iOwn A Restaurant'', making it the worst rated episode in the history of the show, and the ''iHalfoween'' episode that came shortly after it only had 2.9 million.

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' had this problem late in the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons days, though it was a different sort of rot than usual. Rather than a drop in quality, it was a drop in usability; too many products came out which were not marketable to a general audience, resulting in declining sales and the eventual death of TSR. When WotC took it over, the quality went up, as did the marketability, but 3rd and 3.5 edition suffered greatly from wanting to advance the game towards where it needed to go, while simultaneously trying to avoid annoying the old fans. This resulted in a system which lacked the charm of the older editions, while simultaneously greatly magnifying the issues of [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]]. It took 4th edition before WotC finally took the steps necessary to truly fix the game, resulting in a great deal of angst from certain players. Those players however, will contend that it is 4th edition which falls to seasonal rot, as while it did balance the game the balance came at a massive reduction in character building options.

* [[Warhammer Fantasy]] had this in 7th edition rules set. Initially everything was fine with the Orcs and Goblins and Empire releases and while people started to cry foul during the High Elves release, the crunch was essentially accepted. Problems started to creep in with the 7th edition Vampire Counts book, which had several absurdly broken abilities and rules, and became an easy go-to army for people who wanted to win tournaments. Then Daemons of Chaos came out and everything went straight to fucking hell. Daemons were, put simply, [[Game Breaker|unstoppable.]] Even the widely accepted 2nd place army (Dark Elves, released soon after) and 3rd place Vampire Counts couldn't begin to compete with them. Every new army book that was released [[This Is Spinal Tap|ramped up their abilities to 11]] to try and compete, but nothing was working and this began to leave older armies increasingly in the dust. Eventually Games Workshop decided 'Fuck it' and after an incredibly underpowered Beastmen release, grabbed the rules set and shook it so hard that 8th edition came out. 8th edition completely revamped a lot of rules, such as how breaking, charging and magic worked, and while far from perfect, at least managed to restore a lot of the balance. Of course a lot of players [[Unpleasable Fanbase|still hate 8th Edition.]]