39,327
edits
Seasonal Rot: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (delink camelcase) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 17:
* ''Rockman.EXE Stream'', the fourth season of the ''[[Mega Man NT Warrior]]'' anime. Looked down on for turning the [[Mons]] [[Recycled in Space|on the internet]] premise into a Sentai show revolving around an ever-growing team of main characters with the ability to turn their Navis into super suits. The transition started with the previous season, but at least that mixed those segments in with segments that, um, actually focused on Rockman.
** The main villains' (Duo and Slur) status as {{spoiler|[[Villain Sue]] and [[Karma Houdini]]}} was quite annoying.
** Supposedly the whole Cross Fusion business came about as a result of [[Executive Meddling]], as the show's Axess timeslot onward was right before an actual Sentai show, and having resources and budget being shifted around to [[The Movie]], not to mention incorporating said movie into the plot of the TV series itself, was probably responsible for the mostly abysmal art and a story that didn't know what to do with itself. That still doesn't excuse them for ''throwing out the entire purpose of the series'', however.
** If you apply the concept to just the video games, ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 4'' is perhaps the worst in the series. The game had a, shall we say, developable plot about a net-connected Meteor threatening to destroy the Earth. Unfortunately this plot point is kept as a B-plot and about 80% of the game revolve about going from tournament to tournament, helping an adversary with his/her life problems, kick his/her butt, on and on. The meteor plot is solved at the very end of the game, very quickly and leaves little to no impression on the player. It's like a filler game, if that is possible.
** The ''[[Mega Man Star Force]]'' anime had this to a lesser degree in that there was virtually no plot in episodes 31 on until the end of the first season. So it was more like half-seasonal rot. A condition which continued into the second season, with the addition of discarding almost ''every'' aspect of the game it was purportedly based on, up to and including [[The Rival]] becoming the ''polar opposite'' of his game self.
Line 24:
*** The last episode had the most insulting thing of all the anime - the last boss of the first game randomly pops up and it's defeated ''in less than a minute'' with barely any introduction.
*** Beast is widely considered by fans to be a huge improvement over Stream, but the sequel Beast+, the last series of the anime, is unfortunately this, as well as [[Post Script Season]]. While the first series, Axess, Stream, and Beast adapt the main series games, Beast+ attempts to adapt all of the spinoff material, such as Network Transmission and the cell phone games, but it is sloppily done, thanks to poor writing and pacing. The length of each episode was also reduced to ten minutes and the time slot was changed to give it a shared spot with another anime. Worst off, while each of the previous series had endings to their arcs, Beast+ just ends. As the [[Mega Man Star Force|Shooting Star Rockman]] anime was announced that it was going to be released before the game version, obviously they needed to wrap up EXE, but it really couldn't have been done worse.
** The video game series itself is perhaps even more guilty; depending on who you talked to, the "seasonal" rot began either with the fourth or fifth game, but definitely while the series was still on the NES. Only with the latest entry of the series, ''Mega Man 9'', is the series considered to have climbed out (incidentally, it returned to a "retro" 8-bit presentation). The ''[[Mega Man X]]'' series is almost universally regarded as entering seasonal rot after ''X5'', especially because Keiji Inafune has moved on to the ''[[Mega Man Zero]]'' series.
*** It is worth noting that the 8th game in the X series is generally considered playable, or even fun.
*** ''Command Mission'' as well.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'', after a [[Mind Screw]] of a third season (which ''still'' proved to be entertaining and well-written), had the abysmal fourth season, which tried (and failed) to top the [[Mandatory Twist Ending|Mandatory Twist Endings]] of the previous season, and supposedly explain away the loose ends from the first season without actually doing so. The fact that they made the main villain a secondary character's [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] with a [[Instrumentality|ridiculous agenda]] didn't help matters any.
** Season 4's main failing seems to have been the case of it being rushed for the sake of a new series installment, not the fact that it wasn't properly planned-out to begin with. It managed to wrap up things quite nicely in regards to what would happen to the main characters (by making them search for their own paths and identities, without having to rely on Judai at every turn) and the [[Big Bad]]'s ploy was not all that different to the conclusion reached by [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|a well-known show]] who got nowhere near the amount of flak that GX did for the very same plot-point.
** Season 2 is the worst. Transitioning from a (mostly) light-hearted first season into the very dark next two, this season is a weird in-between, poorly balancing an overarching plot of an evil destructive cult, and silly filler duels between kabuki fans and curry lovers.
** The third season of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'' is starting to get this kind of flak; it's already been decried as unnecessary, what with season 2 ending with the original reason for the Five Dragons being resolved, but it's really hit a brick wall when the focus on the new Yliaster leaders and their plans keeps getting usurped by inexplicable and semi-unrelated subplots (among them: an [[Evil Counterpart]] to Jack, an Old West-style romp with our old friend, (former) Dark Signer Kiryu, and the introduction of our new [[Creator's Pet|stealer of the spotlight]] Bruno, though that last one ''does'' at least have some ties to the Three Duelists).
Line 36:
* The second arc of ''[[Death Note]]''.After a [[Time Skip]] Light got two new opponents called Mello and Near, setting up a three-way cat-and-mouse duel. Unfortunately the story falls prey to [[Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy]]. Light comes across as a one-note villain and it's hard to cheer for Near, due to his spoilt ungrateful nature. Mello is interesting but is [[Out of Focus]] half the time, making the Light vs. Near conflict awfully similiar to Light vs. L. The Shinigami appear less and less and there are insane levels of [[Walls of Text]].
* With ''[[Digimon]]'', general consensus holds that this applies to three specific series:
** ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'': Apart from the bucket of [[Fan Disservice]] that was the [[Distant Finale]], the series seemed to change plots as often as someone changes clothes. This is especially poignant in the small (yet important) Holy Stones arc. These world-shattering sacred rocks were never mentioned until Mummymon casually talked about it in a 10-second conversation. There was little foreshadowing, and once they were all eliminated they never came up again. Additionally, most revelations about [[The Man Behind the Man]] seemed to come out of nowhere, and [[Chiaki Konaka]]'s [[Cosmic Horror Story|Cthulhutastic]] guest-writing episode - originally intended to set up another subplot - went completely unexplained, was almost never referred to again, and comes off as a [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment]]. It generally reeks of a series where they had plenty of ideas, but perhaps had ''too'' many and were very careless and haphazard about how they applied them.
** ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'''s main problem was the Royal Knights mini-arc (episodes 38 - 47, more or less). Almost ten episodes of the same formula ({{spoiler|knights decide to absorb a certain area, kids try to stop them, kids are defeated, all of the kids are shown to be digital except Koichi, next episode}}). Minimal plot advancement, minimal character development, just... endless [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb-stomp]] [[Padding]]. Secondary problems include the near-complete disregarding of the basic concept of the franchise, and the strangely high amount of [[Filler]] (read: complete-waste-of-20-minutes episodes), even before the Royal Knights arc, which is particularly unusual in that ''Digimon'' is historically (and has since continued being, save the below example) pretty good at avoiding filler or at least giving it tangential relevance.
** ''[[Digimon Xros Wars:
* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'''s fourth season, ''Sailor Moon SuperS'', is usually regarded as one of the weakest of the series even though it has some of the best animation. In addition to leaving out the highly popular [[Fan Nickname|Outer Senshi]] introduced in the previous series, it consisted of mostly comedic filler episodes and deviated from the manga's corresponding and dramatic "Dream" arc. It also didn't help that a series titled ''Sailor Moon'' spent much more time on ChibiUsa than on its main heroine. The final season, ''Stars'', wasn't much better and by this point the series ratings had plunged, though by the end of Stars they recovered. Fans are generally at least a little warmer to the season than ''SuperS'', though it mostly depends on how much they like the gender-bending Sailor Starlights (which is a mix of hating new characters, and [[Unfortunate Implications|hating transgender individuals.]]) It also left out vast chunks of the manga compared to previous series, and many, many manga characters did not appear at all in the ''Stars'' anime.
** Many people also felt the ''Stars'' manga was the weakest arc, however, due to the fact that the first five chapters of the arc just kill off the main Sailor Senshi save for Sailor Moon without them even putting up a fight, there's [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] who show up for one chapter and die, and the ending actually makes very little sense and raises more questions than it answers. The biggest sin is how it quickly disposes of Mamoru within a single chapter, after the last chapter of the Dream arc had implied that he was going to be ''extremely'' important. He's killed without even getting a chance to fight back by Galaxia not one chapter later.
* In ''[[Bleach]]'', many fans are critical of developments past the start of the last Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra fight, citing a one-sided battle that turns a complete 180 after {{spoiler|Ichigo dies and is returned in an upgraded version of his hollow form}} and the revelation that Yammy {{spoiler|is Espada 0}} and {{spoiler|the deaths of the top three Espada}}.
** Most fans cited the Bount Arc as the weakest part of the anime, and the worst of three major filler arcs, due to factors like length, poor characterization and borrowing from the Chapter Black saga of [[Yu Yu Hakusho]]. Then a fourth major filler arc came along called the Invasion Arc, and that now seems to be the most reviled part of the anime, particularly because the arc rewrites canon history setting that has a major impact on the backgrounds of a couple of canon characters, the complete character degredation of canon main characters (for example, ''both'' Rukia and Orihime spend several episodes as background characters that get either no lines at all or one or two out-of-character comments), and the creation of three main filler characters that have become central to [[Thirty-Sue Pileup]] accusations with power levels that ''even outstrip'' the canon superweights [[Invincible Villain|Aizen]], [[Game Breaker|Yamamoto]] and [[Invincible Hero|Ichigo]] himself.
** Many people also dropped it at the beginning of the Espada arc because it signaled the start of yet another [[Rescue Arc]].
** For many fans, the X-Cution Arc that follows the Espada Arc managed to counteract a lot of the seasonal rot from the lengthy and poorly written Espada Arc. A [[Time Skip]] and a complete restart with a whole new set of characters with new powers and a new agenda for the old characters to cope with breathes new life into the series. Some feel it's the saving of a series that was expected to end with Aizen's defeat; for others, it's damn annoying that the characters who were just built up over several years were completely wasted in the denouement.
*** By the time the anime reached the Fullbringer arc, it became more and more obvious that both the animators and the voice actors were putting less and less effort into it, ultimately culminating in the anime being unceremoniously swept aside to make room for [[Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth|a Naruto spinoff]].
* If things can be divided by [[Story Arc|story arcs]] for this, ''[[Otogi Zoshi]]'' noticeably suffers in its second arc. The pacing is poor compared to the first, the artwork (generally quite nice to look at for the first half) has a considerable quality drop, plot points don't link as clearly to the conclusion, and much of it slips into predictable mystery of the week stuff. If the page for ''Otogi Zoshi'' itself is to be believed, [[Executive Meddling]] in the form of a tight schedule, tight budget, and the presence of 14 directors is very likely to blame.
* Want to know a good way to introduce Seasonal Rot? [[The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya|Make eight versions of essentially the same episode with the only differences being the characters outfits and the numbers mentioned in the exposition in a fourteen episode season.]] Especially when [[Adaptation Decay|the original novel didn't do this]], they simply told the story once, period. Like anyone sane and non-[[Troll|trolling]] would do.
* The filler arcs of ''[[Naruto]]'' very often have fans pulling the [[Ruined FOREVER]] alarm.
** In particular, the massive block of over 100 filler episodes that made up the space between Naruto and [[Time Skip|Naruto:Shippuden]] is not well regarded. Besides the unGodly length of time, the episodes themselves simply tended to be lower quality or have [[Idiot Plot|Idiot Plots.]]
*** Said filler has earned a special hatred among [[Toonami]] fans, as the endless filler killed ratings, and eventually got Toonami canceled.
Line 55:
== Comics ==
* ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' comics were consistently popular and well-received for over 30 years until the Clone Saga of 1994-1996. The storyline initially featured decent sales figures, but by the end, not so much. The negativity was largely because the Clone Saga '''[[Ending Fatigue|JUST. WOULDN'T. END.]]''' After it was all over, the newer storylines were seen as an improvement, but the harm was done with sales still in deep trouble. [[Executive Meddling]] led to those storylines being cancelled, two of the four titles being outright cancelled, the remaining two being rebooted and a deeply unpopular era overseen by Howard Mackie and [[John Bryne]].
** And yet again With ''One More Day''/''Brand New Day'', which has the wider rot problem of the sales of the franchise pretty much going straight into the toilet, even with Marvel cancelling all satellite Spider-Man books and upping Amazing Spider-Man to three times a month publication.
*** Marvel's currently hyping Amazing Spider-Man #647 as "the end of Brand New Day," but in truth they are simply changing the release schedule to twice a month in order to try desperately to stop the bleeding as sales have pretty much hit new all-time lows due to the unpopular new direction.
**** Although one must take this info with a grain of salt. Even though this troper is no fan of OMD or even the follow up BND and Big Time, even he will admit that ASM has been doing pretty well in the rankings. The book is always in the top 10 or top 20, and it does get favorable reviews from time to time. So, the sales of the book are hardly going into the toilet.
* While the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-books]] have had their share of up and down periods, it could be said that the former flagship title Uncanny X-Men experienced a decline in quality starting with 1998's "Hunt for Xavier" arc, from which it did not recover fully until the end of Chris Claremont's third run on the title in 2007, when Ed Brubaker took over the book.
** Another common view is that the franchise became a directionless mire of unresolved storylines, inconsistent characterization, tangled family trees, alternate universes and angst shortly after the end of Claremont's first run. 1998 did indeed mark the beginning of a severe creative decline that exacerbated these issues and alienated both dedicated and new readers. Either Joss Whedon or Grant Morrison is said to have heralded a brief return to the quality and relevance of the mutants' heyday.
** There was also a more recent period of rot that just ended in 2011, though fans are divided on when it ''started''. Some place the beginning as far back as 2005 and ''[[House of M]]'', the aftermath of which left mutants a [[Dying Race]] and the "struggle for survival" aspect of the comic being played up repeatedly and [[Anvilicious|Anviliciously]]. Others are more generous and say the rot didn't kick in until 2009, with [[Matt Fraction]]'s run (often considered the second-worst in the book's history) and the "Utopia" storyline. Thankfully, things seem to be getting back on track; the return of the Xavier Institute, gone since 2008, has been particularly praised.
* Depending on who you ask, the seasonal rot for the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series started either after issue 50 (the appropriately-titled "Endgame" arc), or after the Bem/Xorda arc . Exactly how long the Seasonal Rot lasted (or indeed, if it ever did end) also depends on who you ask.
* This seems to be happening with the "second season" of ''[[Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane]]'', since the writer ''and'' the artist both left and [[The Other Darrin|they subsequently hired new people]]. The writing and art style shift is... jarring, to say the least.
Line 91:
* ''The Shelters of Stone'', book five in Jean M Auel's ''[[Earth's Children]]'' series. Boring repeats of the same kind of issues the characters have faced in the past, Ayla and Jondalar become Mary Sue characters 100%, no real drama or storyline to carry through the book, retconning... Basically a boring read about two Mary Sue characters who have the same discussions with people as they've had for two books already. The fact that it was published more than a decade after book four might have had something to do with Auel losing her style.
** ''The Land of the Painted Caves'', last installment of the series, manages to be even worse than ''Shelters''.
*** Specifically, ''Land of the Painted Caves'' had the same conversations repeated almost word for word about six times throughout the novel -- every time Ayla met someone new, the same conversation went on about how she acquired Wolf. ''Plains of Passage'', with the whole story being one long journey and a six page sex scene every five pages, got pretty boring, too.
* In James Patterson's ''[[Maximum Ride]]'', the first three books (Subtitled ''The Angel Experiment'', ''School's Out Forever'', and ''Saving The World And Other Extreme Sports'') Were all well, engaging action-y novels, if increasingly showing the fact that the author doesn't so much [[Xanatos Roulette|have a plan]] as more that he's [[Kudzu Plot|making it all up]] [[Indy Ploy|as he goes along]]. The fourth book (''The Final Warning'') is a 200-something page [[Author Filibuster]] on [[Green Aesop|why global warming is bad.]]
** Books five and six (''[[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming|Max]]'' and ''[[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming|Fang]]'') aren't any better, descending into the [[Romantic Plot Tumor|teen relationship wangstfest that would not die.]]
Line 104:
''Giles starts to laugh'' }}
* ''[[Angel]]'', much like Buffy, is subject to a lot of argument over this. Many fans found Season 4 to be extremely hard-going, thanks to a Bait-and-Switch Villain, a hefty portion of [[Squick]], and the continually annoying [[Wangst]] of Connor. Summed up nicely by Gunn's description of the season thus-far as "a supernatural soap-opera." Nearly everyone agrees that Season 4 was a nadir, but opinion is divided on whether the show improved when Season 5 came around.
* ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'''s fandom generally agrees that either Season 3 or Season 4 suffered from this; Depending on the side of the arguement you take, Season Four suffered for being unable to pass the high standards set by Season Three, (Gabrielle's pacifism phase is often cited as the primary downfall of the season), or Season Three's "Rift" arc (which lead to the critically acclaimed [[Musical Episode]] "The Bitter Suite") being disliked by certain fans.
* If and how much this happened to ''[[The Red Green Show]]'' over its fifteen season run is debatable, but writer and star Steve Smith was aware of this happening, which is why he chose to end the show on its 300th episode.
* ''[[Double the Fist]]'' was originally displayed as a reality TV show where the main characters antics towards an episodic goal were reported on by Steve. Series Two, while good in its own right, got a lot of hate for instead choosing to have a complex plot sprawling the entire season.
Line 141:
*** And the Season 8 finale, 'Doomsday', was derided. And Season 9 is also turning into a [[Base Breaker]], with its bigger Recurring Character cast and desire to use more canonical characters.
* ''[[Lost]]'' has had this, although the matter is debatable. What's known for sure is that season 2 ''[[Ironic Name|lost]]'' many viewers because of an overly large [[Kudzu Plot]]. The first six episodes of season 3 (the "pod") were widely panned and turned off a lot of fans (who would then go on to miss episode 7, "Not in Portland," considered one of the show's finest, and the nearly unbroken line of incredible episodes that followed it). Fortunately, now that the series' end got scheduled to the sixth and final season years in advance, seasons 4 and 5 have started expanding the context of the story and tying together some of the various loose ends.
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'': The fans near universally hated ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'' (season 5), due to it being a serious story at odds with the tongue-in-cheek ''[[Gekisou Sentai Carranger|Carranger]]'' footage, not to mention Justin as [[The Scrappy]]. The [[Crisis Crossover]] season ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'' picked up the slack and won everyone back over.
** Well, people have mellowed out a little in regards to ''Turbo'' both due to it improving midway through as well as the fact that, despite its flaws, it did lead directly into one of the most popular seasons of the series. Nowadays ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'' seems to most occupy the designation of "worst season" among the fanbase.
* The last couple seasons (starting point depends on the viewer) of ''[[MacGyver]]'' aren't viewed as favorably as the first couple seasons due to the [[Genre Shift]] of the show. By the last season, it was practically little more than a soapbox for the major issues the writers viewed as important. Most of the elements that made the show successful toned down or phased out in favor of [[Anvilicious]] issue-of-the-week episodes.
Line 147:
** Series three is also a good pick. Few shows can survive the loss of their three most developed characters without taking a nosedive, and series 3 demonstrated why; Brian and Kurt were great background characters, but in no way were they capable of leading a series, and as a result the writing took massive drop in quality.
* ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'': Despite the stereotype, this series' first season had fairly good balance of drama and farce, but the subsequent seasons lost it with Season 2 becoming primarily ridiculous while Season 3 was both embarrassingly cheap and ridiculous.
** To elaborate: The first season, even when being an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the Superhero genre, was more of a [[Deconstructive Parody]] where [[Anyone Can Die]], the villains were [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] and the [[Big-Budget Beef-Up]] could afford [[Visual Effects of Awesome]] that were seen in [[Batman: The Movie]]. The second season exaggerates the parody and becomes an [[Indecisive Parody]], the villains suffered [[Flanderization]], [[Everybody Lives]] and the budget is lower, giving place to [[Bottle Episode|Bottle Episodes]] that break the rule of [[Show, Don't Tell]], there were [[Special Effects Failure|bad special effects]] and [[Stock Footage Failure|Stock Footage Failures]]. The third season was the worst: the [[Flanderization]] is at its fullest, creating a [[Stealth Parody]] or a [[Parody Failure]], there were almost [[No Budget]], an episode with [[Invisible Monsters|Invisible Villains]] and not even the inclusion of Batgirl as [[Ms. Fanservice]] could save the ratings.
* The Los Angeles season of ''[[The Apprentice (TV series)|The Apprentice]]''. It would have probably been fine if the location was the ''only'' thing that changed, but in the face of steadily declining ratings, the show added a number of gimmicks. Viewers saw former viceroys Carolyn and George replaced by Trump's children (Granted, Carolyn had quit the show to focus on her own career and George had pretty much become [[The Ghost]] in the previous season due to his other work, but the replacement choices stunk of nepotism to many viewers.) The show's focus shifting toward boardroom and interpersonal drama at the expense of the task (which generally got no more than ''ten minutes'' of screentime per episode), the week's losers having to live in tents, the winning Project Manager staying PM until a loss, said PM getting to sit in on boardroom elimination discussions, an entire team getting immunity for a week and as a result the losing team being split into two groups that had to compete against each other, and the final challenge pitting two teams of two instead of just two finalists. This resulted in a winner that ''never served as Project Manager''. This led to poor ratings and a near-cancellation — Three "celebrity" editions and dropping the aforementioned gimmicks seem to have kept the show afloat for now; the tenth season returned to regular folks, but ratings were even more dismal than the L.A. season, so the eleventh season will feature another batch of celebrities.
** With the UK incarnation of the show, the second season is generally agreed as the worst, with the very competent candidates in the previous series replaced by a bunch of complete morons (with the obvious exception of Ruth Badger). Depending on who you ask, the third season was either when things got back on track, or the year when the show went all icky and "mainstream" on viewers.
Line 160:
** Season 4 and Season 5, with their considerable retooling of the [[Myth Arc]], heavy use of Christian mythology, and larger cast, are looked upon more favorably by newer fans, and generally less so by older ones. This turned out in favor of the newer fans, as Season 4 boosted the show's sagging ratings enough to ensure there would be a Season 5.
** And now Season 6, with its "return to form" approach, may have pleased some older fans with its drastically pared-down cast and concentration on the Winchester brothers' newest trust issues, but [[It's the Same, Now It Sucks|turned off newer fans]]. The ratings ''aspire'' to be Season 3. To a good number of the fanbase, the meta episode "The French Mistake", where the Winchesters somehow stumble into the actual set of the show, proved that the writers were clutching at straws after abruptly abandoning the soulless-Sam plotline. It didn't help that the episode was right after a [[Mood Whiplash|far too peppy]] "monster of the week" plot (not dissimilar to those that permeated earlier, less angsty seasons) and the introduction of a new, somewhat derivative [[Big Bad]]...after ''more than half the season'' was over.
** While season 6 had its flaws, and definitely suffered the loss of the original show runners, season 7 has had ''Supernatural'' showing its age badly. Concurrent with Castiel's abrupt death, the Leviathans were pretty much pulled out of the show's continuity's ass, don't bring anything new to the table, and their plotline is going nowhere fast, resulting in a lot of filler episodes instead, since the writers apparently can't think of anything to do with them other than using their leader as a source of rather juvenile political [[Take That|TakeThats]]. The other monsters are barely menacing, {{spoiler|Bobby dies}}, Crowley makes a scant few appearances before vanishing from the story, and the Dean/Sam drama has gotten so overplayed that half of the dialogue is about how overplayed it is. At this point, the chemistry between the show's leads is about all it has left.
** Season 7 was boring largely because of [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot]] with Castiel and Crowley and instead substituted the Leviathans, who are seen as the most boring villains in the show's run: [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|the abrupt dropping of the very-promising-sounding Cosmic New Order at the beginning of the season (Castiel was going to be the new God, while Crowley was already the king of Hell),]] was disappointing. This storyline (just imagine the awesomeness of Sam and Dean being caught up in a cold war between Cas and Crowley while desperately trying to get Cas to return to sanity) had the fans pumped and excited, and one really wonders just what the hell the writers were thinking when they threw it out. Castiel {{spoiler|was killed off}}, and Crowley just [[Brother Chuck|vanished from the plot with absolutely no explanation, and hasn't been seen or mentioned since, despite having been an important character.]] And who takes their place? The Leviathans, who were a complete [[Ass Pull]], and remained extremely vague in their abilities for several episodes. The writers themselves apparently couldn't figure out what to do with them, so they had them disappear for long stretches of time while still trying to make them out to be this huge threat...except that their goals were completely undefined, resulting in a sense that [[Vagueness Is Coming]]. Eventually they had an episode where their leader becomes a [[Strawman Political]] [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] so they could do a poorly-written [[Take That]] on conservatives and libertarians (which only served to offend some of the fanbase). Then the Leviathans ''disappeared AGAIN'' for an even longer stretch of episodes. They weren't doing very much onscreen, but Sam and Dean's dialogue constantly exhorted the audience to remember that [[Vagueness Is Coming]]. The fandom also was deprived of {{spoiler|Bobby and the Impala}} for most of the season, resulting in further dissatisfaction towards an already-boring season. Really, the introduction of [[Plucky Comic Relief]] character Garth may have been the season's only decent contribution.
* The last two seasons of ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'' [[Retool|changed so much]] that the show was nearly unrecognizable.
* Season 8 of ''[[The Amazing Race]]'' was a "Family Edition" which was utter crap, and even the production team later said that [[It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time]] but turned out badly. The intra-team drama invariably became parents yelling at kids, having children restricted international travel, teams of 4 also restricted international travel (as the show already requires a huge travel budget with teams of 2), the challenges had to be watered down for the families, and so on. The entirety of the race ended up taking place in North and Central America, and viewers watched families turning seemingly [[Dysfunctional Family|dysfunctional]] while being challenged to [[Sarcasm Mode|such difficult tasks like pitching a tent in exotic Pennsylvania]]. Its main shining moment was the injection of [[Unfortunate Implications]] [[Narm]] of an African-American family having the surname of "Black" (leading to such captions as "Black Family: Last Place" with narration to match). Thankfully, season 9 returned to the original format.
** And now Season 15, which had a whiny, mediocre cast full of pseudo-celebrities running on a subpar course. It did not help either that three teams essentially quit the race when they came up against something too difficult (which included, of all things, going down a waterslide and unscrambling the name Franz).
* ''[[SeaQuest DSV|Sea Quest DSV]]'' stopped playing to its strengths in Season 2; the writers introduced a lot of weird sci-fi elements that were out of place on a submarine show. The Season 3 [[Retool]] did a lot to fix this, but it came too late to avert cancellation.
* Although still popular, ''[[Seinfeld]]'' in seasons 8 and 9 was notably different from the former ones. This is because the showrunner [[Larry David]] left the show after season 7, leaving Jerry Seinfeld as the new Executive Producer. With the remaining writing staff left to its own devices, these seasons featured faster-paced, "wackier" episodes with many references to previous episodes, and attempts at running gags. Characters also slightly de-evolved, especially George, and Kramer's stunts became ever increasing. Still, the series continued to enjoy ratings success and a tenth season was proposed, until Seinfeld declined.
** Also, the first and second seasons of ''Seinfeld'' (mind you -- these two made about 15 episodes total) were very bland, slow and generically sitcom-y. The only thing that saved it from being cancelled was the opinion of a few execs that the scripts were funny, if not good, and that the characters showed promise. The [[Growing the Beard]] episode is accepted as season 2's "The Chinese Restaurant," where the characters do nothing but stand around in a restaurant waiting for a table for 23 minutes (in [[Real Time]], no less), a move unprecedented in TV history.
* Season 2 of ''[[Veronica Mars]]'': Not merely content to have an underwhelming [[Red Herring]]-laden season-spanning mystery, it dragged several of Season 1's plot elements down with it (most notably {{spoiler|[[Retcon|Ret Conning]] the resolution to Veronica's rape storyline}}). Not to mention having {{spoiler|Aaron Echols' hamfisted [[Karma Houdini]]-turned-[[Karmic Death]].}} Season 3 went downhill even further with the overall story arc [[Executive Meddling|reduced to several mini-arcs]] and the [[Flanderization]] of important characters. To this day, there's a [[Broken Base]] regarding seasons 2 and 3- those who liked 2 tended to hate 3, while those who hated 3 tended to like 2.
* While still probably the best adaptations out there, [[The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes]] and [[The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes]], the sixth and seventh series from the Granada ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' adaptations were marked by increasing (sometimes [[Justified Trope|justified]], othertimes... just weird) deviations from the Canon. This was mostly due to Jeremy Brett's worsening health, and the planned filming of the entire Canon was cut short by [[Author Existence Failure|Actor Existence Failure]].
* Season Five of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]''. Plot points that were never brought up again, Wilson and Cuddy acting like bigger asses than ''House was'', an overemphasis on [[Strangled by the Red String|Foreteen]] and giving Foreman all the big plotlines, Chase and Cameron being very rarely seen, the medicine [[Did Not Do the Research|being even worse than before]], House turning pathetic and rather stupid and Kutner's {{spoiler|dumbass suicide}} made this season even worse than [[Deus Angst Machina|Season Three]] in the fans' eyes.
** Season Six isn't exactly liked either. Removing almost all of the character traits from House that ''made him a compelling character in the first place'' is a prime example of doing it wrong.
** Season seven...dull. House and Cuddy's relationship, dull. [[Creator's Pet|The prodigy chick]]? Dull. For longtime fans, if season five or six didn't deter you, seven definitely will.
* ''[[Sanford and Son]]'' subverted this earlier in its run with Fred being [[Put on a Bus]] a few times because of Redd Foxx's contract disputes. However, the supporting characters were strong ([[Loads and Loads of Characters|and plentiful]]) enough to hold up the show along side Lamont. One stretch of episodes even had [[Cloudcuckoolander|Grady]] functioning as the second main character and it actually worked! Then real seasonal rot kicked in the final two seasons that had an increased focus on [[As Himself]] guest stars (who inexplicably showed up at the junk yard), a [[Vacation Episode]] to Hawaii and a bizarre episode that featured Fred entering a [[Celebrity Paradox|Redd Foxx look alike contest]] that were all very out of character for the show. On top of that, Foxx and costar Demond Wilson were both engaged in contract battles with the network that hurt their work on camera and ultimately caused both to leave the show thus ending it. The less said about the [[After Show]] ''The Sanford Arms'' (sans Foxx and Wilson) and the [[Revival]] ''[[Sanford]]'' (sans Wilson) that NBC tried to cash in with, the better.
* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'', while generaly considered to be [[Too Good to Last]], had a weaker story arc involving Charlize Theron. Acknowledged by the creators in the episode "SOBs":
Line 184:
* ''[[Friday Night Lights]]'': Season 2, which bafflingly changed gears from the first season's subtle, understated, and authentic portrait of small-town life to Landry murdering a rapist and hiding the body, Matt having a sexy affair with his grandmother's live-in caretaker, and Tim Riggins running afoul of Dillon's dangerous local meth dealer. Many fans feared that the show had [[Jump the Shark|Jumped the Shark]] only for it to return for a brilliant third season once again in the best spirit of the shows original intentions and with even less filler than the already-brilliant first season. Some have called the ongoing season 4 the best yet.
* Oh, ''[[Twin Peaks]]''. The first season and the beginning of the second were a cultural phenomenon, considered by critics to be some of the best television ever created. Then, creator [[David Lynch]] succumbed to [[Executive Meddling]] and revealed Laura Palmer's killer, who until that had been the major driving force of the plot, and in so doing left the show directionless. To make things worse, Lynch suffered some serious [[Artist Disillusionment]] after this and left the show, leaving it in the hands of writers who ''really'' didn't know what to do with it. The episodes post-Lynch were pure filler, and ratings plummeted, leading to its cancellation at the end of the second season. Luckily, there was a brief upswing in quality once the replacement writers got their game together, and Lynch came back to direct the (awesome) series finale.
* ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]''. There was still time to save it even ''after'' the horror of the season two finale (in which {{spoiler|Marian was killed off}}), but a number of contributing factors ensured that the third season not only earned the hatred of the fans, but the cancellation of the show. This included the new writers who apparently didn't bother to watch the previous two seasons, the [[Aborted Arc|dropping of long-term storylines]] from the show, the complete lack of mention of Will Scarlett and Djaq (who were abandoned in the Holy Land), the reimagining of <s>Friar</s> Tuck as a [[Magical Negro]], the introduction of the [[Jerk Sue|horrid Kate]] as a love interest for Robin, the reduction of the outlaws into bit-parts (whose only job was to babysit [[The Load|Kate]] and [[Creator's Pet|talk about how great she was]]) the abandonment of the "rob from the rich/give to the poor" premise, the painful introduction of Guy and Robin's [[Long Lost Sibling|half-brother]] in an attempt to set up Robin Hood as a [[Legacy Character]] for a proposed Season Four, and finally, the mass cast exodus of all but two of the original cast members (who were disposed of in some of the [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|worst deaths conceivable]]), who certainly weren't shy in voicing their displeasure at the direction the show had taken.
* ''[[Chef]]'' ran three series in the early 90's. The first two are sharp, witty, and a wonderful vehicle for [[Lenny Henry]]. The third series... it's almost impossible to believe it is the same show.
* The fourth season of ''[[Due South]]''. Several problems contributed to this: the season premiere (Doctor Longball) is not nearly as memorable or exciting as the others from seasons past, the episodes go back to the well of "unmentioned friend/colleague from Fraser/Stanley's past is in need of help," there are no real guest stars or memorable episodes (until the finale), and there's an increasing reliance on Fraser's spiritual conversations with his dead father. The loss of Paul Haggis as a contributor also meant that a lot of the imagery, themes and quotable lines that were prevalent in the first two seasons also disappeared. Luckily, the series slightly rebounded with the excellent 2-part finale, "Call of the Wild."
Line 210:
* Whether ''[[Chuck]]'' decreased in quality in between seasons 2 and 3 is up for debate. On the other hand, season 4 is regarded as a large step down by both fans and critics. This may have largely been due to the fact that both seasons started out with thirteen episode orders and a sense that the show's perpetually low ratings would force it into cancellation, thus necessitating the writers to write episode 13 of each year as a potential series finale. But then, the show would inevitably get an extension from that original order due to its ratings being "good enough" amid the endless ratings bloodbath at NBC, thereby forcing the writers to somehow extend a season arc that had already (and in season four in particular, hastily) been wrapped. Season four in particular was rough on this, given that it was extended ELEVEN EPISODES from that original thirteen episode order, forcing the writers to do several standalones (albeit ones that were received rather well by the fanbase) between the end of the Alexei Volkoff arc and the beginning of the Vivian Volkoff arc. Vivian's arc in particular suffered from poorer character development than Alexei, and the perception that Lauren Cohan wasn't enjoying herself in the role as much as Timothy Dalton was. This latter point got to the extent that both Dalton and Ray Wise had no problems at all upstaging Cohan onscreen despite Vivian supposedly being the driving force of the second-half arc (until the focus whiplashed back to Alexei after it was revealed that {{spoiler|his entire persona was a creation of an old version of the Intersect that had gone haywire and submerged his original persona, Hartley Winterbottom}})
** The mass writer exodus during and after season three (Matt Miller and Zev Borow went to ''[[Human Target]]'', Scott Rosenbaum to the ''[[V]]'' remake, Alison Adler to ''[[No Ordinary Family]]'' and Phil Klemmer to ''[[Undercovers]]'') certainly didn't help, given that all of these departures were veterans of the original staff, who had helped shape the show in a very particular way up to that point.
** Season 5's plot seemed to be about how nothing that had happened in the series (FULCRUM, The Ring, Shaw, etc.) was a coincidence and that Chuck was being manipulated from the start. But then it turned out that Decker was just {{spoiler|working for Shaw}} and any implication of some [[Myth Arc]] disappeared. Then the season meandered before introducing the rather unsatisfying Nicholas Quinn in the last few episodes. Also, a lot of people didn't like that {{spoiler|Morgan}} became the Intersect because it was said numerous times that Chuck is special and is the only one who could handle it. His brief stint as the Intersect at the beginning of the season was also debatably pointless.
* The last two seasons of ''[[3-2-1 Contact]]''. They [[Rearrange the Song|rearranged the opening theme]] [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|to the chagrin of many]], used many recycled segments from the first two seasons, relied more on individual hosts rather than a team, and the Bloodhound Gang was absent (except for a few repeats).
* Many fans would agree that ''[[Glee]]'', a once promising show, showed a steep decline in its second season with characters constantly changing motives and personalities, character development going backwards, plots coming out of nowhere, and the show becoming the preachy [[Public Service Announcement]] it used to mock.
Line 226:
** After this [[CBS]] decided to [[Retool]] the show as ''[[Archie Bunker's Place]]'' which limped on for 97 more episodes that saw the series shift from [[Dom Com]] to [[Work Com]], the death of {{spoiler|Edith}} and Archie growing into a kinder, less ignorant person with an ethnically diverse social circle which effectively killed his effectiveness as an [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist]].
* Season 5 of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', which came packed full of [[Flanderization]], terrible handling of a romance plotline, piling on the [[Denser and Wackier]] for an already Dense and Wacky series, far fewer of the show's signature [[Flash Forward|Flash Forwards]] or [[Flash Back|Flash Backs]], and a focus on random hijinks repetitively lampooning the characters' personalities instead of the first four seasons' emphasis on Future!Ted needing to explain a lot of seemingly-random hijinks in order for the crucial elements of [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|the main plot]] to make any sense. After Barney and Robin's breakup, the characters had basically no development whatsoever for the rest of the season, which basically crippled the show's ever-present character-driven momentum. However, it never actually jumped the shark by doing anything criminally stupid, so the writers could make do with what they had by using season 6 to undo most of season 5's damage and introduce lasting change to the characters (especially Marshall and Lily's attempts to conceive), and giving season 7 a very focused, plot-driven direction with a great deal of foreshadowing, the "bride" mystery, and the Barney/Robin [[Will They or Won't They?]] arc.
* ''The Restaurant'', season 3. Clearly made on a tighter budget than the previous seasons, but what really did for it was the poor quality of the contestants and the favouritism shown toward eventual winners JJ and James.
* ''[[Happy Days]]'' is thought to have gone completely downhill in seasons 8-11 after Ron Howard left with the show's seventh season and the focus shifted firmly to Fonzie's antics and is said to have gotten worse as it dragged on with the introduction of [[The Scrappy|Chachi]], Ted McGinley and a slew of other unliked characters.
** However, the [[Trope Namer|trope naming]] [[Jump the Shark|shark jump]] occurred in the show's fifth season and a slew of other episodes with ridiculous or [[Narm|narmy]] plots popped up around this time. As such, some believe of the show's 11 seasons only about 4 and a half are actually worth watching.
* For fans of ''[[Laverne and Shirley]]'' the show went downhill when the main characters [[Retool|moved to California]] after the 5th season. Even those who still liked the show after the move were put off when the final season took the series to [[Franchise Zombie]] levels by featuring Laverne... without Shirley.
* With ''[[Dexter]]'', this is generally held to have set in around season 5. Season 1 and 2 are held in very high esteem, while season 3 just divided the fans a bit. Season 4 received perhaps the most acclaim from both fans and critics of any season thus far, especially for John Lithgow's performance. Season 5 however gets a lot of flak on account of the [[The Scrappy|Lumen character]], the weak resolution of many of its plotlines, and overall dissapointment at the entire season finale. Season 6 is now also largely considered this, due to poor pacing and writing problems and severe character derailment. Sometimes within the span of two episodes, such as with Quinn and Travis.
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' is getting this accusation as of season 4.
* ''[[The Price Is Right]]'' twice fell prey to seasonal rot. Seasons 18 and 37 are generally regarded as the weakest seasons on the show, for various reasons. Bob on some episodes looked lost and likely was bored. There were other issues with Season 18, though, YMMV. Season 37, however, was worse. It added a lot of oddball showcases, the pricing games' difficulty spiked, pricing games [[Put on a Bus|vanished without a trace]], and a couple infamous special guest appearances. (One of which likely led that episode to be put on the ''DO NOT RERUN'' list).
Line 265:
== Web Comics ==
* [[Xkcd]] in recent years has come to this according to many fans.
** The "One Two" (aka the "Primitive Cultures develop Sesame Street") and "Anatomy Text" strips are considered the major points of contention, as the first is considered the point where Randall's (somewhat hypocritical) contempt for non "hard science" majors became overbearing, and the Anatomy strip is just considered [[Squick|offensive in general]].
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' lost a lot of its readers during the massive plotline known as "Oceans Unmoving," mainly because the plot's only relevance to the series was showing what happened to BunBun after Holiday Wars. It took what should have been a a very short, sweet explanation and turned into into a one year plotline that constantly stopped the action because it had to cram in as much exposition as possible about the cosmology. For many people, the comic never recovered from it. Others like to just [[Fanon Discontinuity|pretend it never happened]].
Line 283:
** Season 3 is the beginning of the show being less consistently good, and Season 4 is when the plots, on average, became much more visceral and dark.
* ''[[Winx Club]]'', Seasons 3 and 4:
** Season 3 is generally hated for [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|wasting many good plots]], like the Stella vs Chimera feud, Layla/Aisha's arranged marriage, and the possibility of seeing the girls' home worlds (we only saw a Solaria and a bit of Linphea). There's also Valtor's massive [[Badass Decay]].
** Season 4, like season 3, also started really strong, but then they started to introduce many subplots that [[Merchandise-Driven|were obviously for merchandise purposes and had nothing to do with the main plot]]. The consequence of this was that they had to rush the last part of the season in order to clear all the loose ends, resulting in the weakest season finale.
* The final three seasons of the original ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' show (Seasons 8, 9, and 10, also known as the "Red Sky Seasons"), which [[Retool|Retooled]] the show, [[Put on a Bus|removed many characters]], [[Replacement Scrappy|replaced the main villains]], and generally tried ''way'' too hard to be [[Darker and Edgier]].
** Even fewer fans liked the "Vacation in Europe" side-season, which had terrible animation, had loads of [[They Just Didn't Care]] when it came to European culture and history, and barely fit in with the series' continuity.
** While we're on ''[[Ninja Turtles]]'', Season 6 is generally considered the weak point of the 2003 series, due to being much [[Lighter and Softer]] than previous seasons, sending the Turtles to the future for no apparent reason, introducing a [[Scrappy]] supporting cast member in the form of April and Casey's [[Child Prodigy]] great-grandson, and, oh yeah, the fact that, on the order of the [[Executive Meddling|toy company executives]], the writers were forced to ''skip directly from Season 4 to Season 6'' due to the executives feeling Season 5 [[Merchandise-Driven|wouldn't sell toys as well]]. This was particularly painful because Season 5 contained ''the resolution of the show's [[Myth Arc]]''. And once Season 5 did finally come out to much acclaim, the executives' orders seemed even more nonsensical; wouldn't characters like the Acolytes, the true forms of the Foot Mystics and Ninja Tribunal, [[Big Bad|the Tengu]] and his demonic minions, and {{spoiler|the Turtles' dragon forms}} have made great toys?
* ''[[Drawn Together]]'', the first half of Season 3, when the show became [[Darker and Edgier|too dark]] [[Dude, Not Funny|for its own good.]]
| |||