Seasonal Rot: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Six Feet Under]]'': most fans agree that the fourth season is the worst one, and the creators themselves tend to agree. Character-arcs tended to become redundant, out-of-place, irrelevant, or overly gratuitous in their content; it was at that time that the scenarists understood they could not keep using the same characters forever and decided the next season would be the last. Nevertheless it's still top-quality television, but watching it you really do feel the writers were starting to get a bit confused. It's also compensated by the fact both the beginning and the end are top-notch ; the fifth season also did a good job explaining the relevance of more controversial plotlines introduced during season four.

* ''[[Star Trek]]'':

*** Season Seven is the most popular candidate for worst later season. The plots were getting stale and repetitive, the writers had decided to pair [[Strangled by the Red String|Troi and Worf]], and much of the A-team was working on other projects: ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' was well underway, and ''[[Star Trek Generations]]'' was in pre-production.

*** A sizable number of fans, however, would argue that (far from steadily improving), Seasonal Rot set in around Season 4 or 5.

* ''[[The West Wing]]'': Everything post-Aaron Sorkin, but mainly the fifth season.

** Attitudes to series six and seven are generally split pretty evenly down the middle; on one hand the actual West Wing was sidelined, but at the same time the plot tried something new and focused on the presidential election. The main problem with series five was that it tried too hard to top the previous series by introducing too many new constitutional challenges (the 25th amendment invocation, the federal government shut-down etc.).

** While fans differ as to where it began exactly it's generally agreed that the period in between Series 3 and 6 was its peak, with the rot starting depending on personal impression. However the rot became obvious after Rob Grant and Doug Naylor split. With Doug Naylor choosing to revive the series and turn it into a comedy/drama with no studio audience for Series 7 and a new Kochanski and getting the backlash that followed. Despite returning to a pure comedy format and shot in front of an audience for Series 8 the response was similarly poor, due to the jarring change of premise to a prison comedy with the old crew brought back to life as opposed to the more natural progression from series 5 through 7.

* ''[[Sliders]]'': Universally, season three, during which Maggie was introduced, Professor Arturo had a [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|bridge dropped on him]], and Quinn Mallory ceased being the genius he once had been. The debate is how much the show recovered, if at all.

** In the new series, despite the great performances of the cast and the occasional great episode, series 2 (season 28) is considered the least-well written of the first five by the fandom, and certainly overall worse than Eccleston's sole series, due in part to an over reliance in the romance of the Doctor/Rose ship and acting a little on the goofy side even for ''Who'', despite Tennant's Doctor being in some ways darker than Eccleston's.

*** To add to the above example, despite the poor reception of Tennant's first tenure, it is also considered that Tennant's performance as the Doctor was fantastic, as it showed he could handle the revived role that Eccleston had set the bar pretty high for, as it catapulted him to star status and made him the most popular Doctor since Tom Baker, another positive is the finale, which had Daleks vs Cybermen and was a very satisfactory ending that wrapped up all plot points from the first two series.

** General mileage varies, but series 6 has undergone accusations of this. Many fans complained that the constant twists marred the overall story arc, causing odd swerves in tone and character development. Other than that, there are a whole host of reasons as to why certain fans disliked it. Some accused the River Song arc of being a [[Romantic Plot Tumor]]. Some just [[Base Breaker|hated River in general]]. Others thought that the overall story arc was far too convoluted. Others still found the story arc to be too simplistic. Whatever the reason, the general consensus among fans is that the series had some good ideas that were marred by shaky writing.

** [[Broken Base|While general consensus is still being debated]] many fans found Season 17 (the season [[Douglas Adams]] script edited) to be ultimately lackluster. While ''City of Death'' is considered one of the best episodes out there, it doesn't make up the poorly written episodes ''Destiny of the Daleks'' and ''The Horns of Nimon'', the [[Anvilicious]] ''Nightmare of Eden'', or the fact that the entire season was cut short by a poorly timed crew workers strike.

* ''[[Ghost Hunters]]'' has the end of Season 4 or the end of Season 5 being this point for some fans. Even Jason and Grant seem bored while investigating locations. Part of the issue is the similarity of everything from episode to episode as well as the lack of evidence found (especially in relation to shows like ''[[Ghost Adventures]]'' where they seem to capture far more shadow figures and physical apparitions). Another issue is that the show and the TAPS group has seemed to become more [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|popular]] as opposed to the [[One of Us|next door neighbors]] they started out as.

* 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}})

** 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).

* ''[[Two and A Half Men]]'' Season 9, oh where to begin? Let's start with Ashton Kutcher's character Walden, he dosen't fit into the show well at all, he's too much like Alan (only rich and even more of a [[Man Child]]) so he's not very interesting and his interactions with other characters feel very akward, it's not so much Kutcher's fault, as he looks like he's really trying, it's the material he's given that's the problem-the writing has taken a sharp drop in quality from the last season, [[Flanderization]] has hit the characters hard: Alan is still a mooch and even more immature, Jake is even dumber and doesn't seem to do much of anything except smoke pot, Rose is more of a bitch (did the writers really have to her kill Charlie off? Couldn't they have just said that he dissapeared in Paris or something like that?) Lindsay is crazier, etc. The entire tone of the show has also changed and not for the better, there's now a much greater emphasis on [[Toilet Humor]] which is more gross then funny (like the episode "Not In My Mouth" which was overloaded with vomit gags) and the character interactions mostly feel unnatural, and with the entire premise of the show changed, it's really tough to care about any of the characters. At this point, unless Sheen somehow returns to the show, it's difficult to see it getting any better.

* After the second series of ''[[Primeval]]'', the reactions to the show have been very mixed. Critics appear to dislike the fourth series the most, with the fans mainly targeting their hate towards 3 and 4.

* Although some may have disliked the Ori arc in later season of [[Stargate SG-1]], it's the sixth season which is generally considered the worst. It's telling that the three episodes of that season which are considered the best are the ones which guest-starred Michael Shanks.

* Most fans would agree that the American version of ''[[The Office]]'' should have ended after Steve Carell left the show and his character moved to Colorado.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Paranoia]]'' started off as a darkly humorous award-winning game with a few awkward mechanics, which was refined into mindless fun in the highly-acclaimed Second Edition. Rot started when publisher West End Games started releasing game modules in interconnected [[Story Arc]]s, especially the Great Crash and subsequent Reboot of [[The Computer Is Your Friend|Friend Computer]]. [[It Gets Worse|Things got worse]] with the release of the "5th" Edition; [[Executive Meddling]] replaced the dark humor with cheap satires of pop culture, while poor artwork, poor production values, and the near-total departure of the original writers doomed the series. After West End Games went bankrupt, the series was resurrected as ''Paranoia XP'', whereupon [[Canon Discontinuity|the (original) writers promptly declared everything from the story arcs onward as CanonDiscontinuity.]]

* [[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.]]

** 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.]]

** Fans also say that seasons 12 and 15 are suffering rot as well, the latter for deliberately [[Character Derailment|derailing]] the characters for a melodramatic two-parter that ultimately went nowhere.

* ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' fans consider Seasons 3 and 4 (or if not that, just Season 3) to be inferior to the first two story-wise (though far superior stylistically). While Season 2 involved and ended with an exploration into the computer's past and the progression of the major romance arcs, the next two seasons shunted that to the side in favor of episodic filler, which was more often than not dedicated to the increasingly-unfunny escapades of the comic relief characters, particularly Jim.

* To some, season two of ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' is this, thought YMMV. Over focus on romantic side plots, less focus on their battles and less action. Thought the ending managed to fix that by revealing [[The Masquerade]], leading to it [[Growing the Beard]] in Season 3.

* Even the most staunch of its fans will admit that so far, season 5 of ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' has been complete and utter garbage. Apparently, it's not enough to deter the execs, who have already ordered a season 6 against the wishes of many people who would rather see that time and effort put towards a second season of ''[[Titan Maximum]]'', the show Seth Green unceremoniously self-cancelled to increase his focus on ''Chicken''.

* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' is still popular, though there are many people who think that the show's quality has been going downhill during Season 3.

** More accurately, the episodes from the middle of the third season just haven't been as good as episodes from the second season and the first half of the third. That said, the show is still quite good - it just seems to have peaked in quality sometime around the [[Big Damn Movie]], ''[[Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension]]''.

[[Category:Seasons]]

[[Category:Audience Reactions]]