Seasonal Rot: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
==
* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'': All of the arcs after the Orange Islands have taken flak for running on longer than necessary, though Johto and Sinnoh take more flak than Hoenn due to [[Arc Fatigue]], whereas Hoenn was shorter in order to make room for Battle Frontier.
** [[Averted Trope|Averted]] so far with Unova, thanks to a much more concise pacing and good character development in-between (barring a big gap between the 3rd and 4th Gyms, which was intended from the start and has beefy material). Time will tell if it lasts however.
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** 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
* 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
* 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
*** Said filler has earned a special hatred among [[Toonami]] fans, as the endless filler killed ratings, and eventually got Toonami canceled.
*** There ''were'' some good arcs among all the drivel, but the fact remains that it was an
▲== Comic Books ==
* ''[[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.
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* Robert Kirkman's run on ''[[Ultimate X-Men]]'' is generally thought of as a bit of a low point for the series.
▲== Film ==
* Prior to the prequel trilogy, most fans viewed ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' as the weakest ''[[Star Wars]]'' film. Although ''Jedi'' is still considered the worst of the original trilogy, it is well-liked, and is easily accepted with the other two as a great film. However, after the prequels were released, ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'' is often cited as the worst ''[[Star Wars]]'' movie, even with the prequel trilogy's mixed reception. That said, there's a small but growing group of fans who now consider ''[[Attack of the Clones]]'' to be the worst, mainly because of the half-baked Anakin/Padme love story, Anakin's general emo-ness in that film in particular, and the percieved stiffness of Hayden Christensen's performance.
* While ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'' is the weakest ''[[Indiana Jones]]'' film critically (although the strongest commercially) there is a heavy debate among fans as to whether it is better or worse than the series' previous worst film ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom|Temple of Doom]]'' (which was the weakest commercially, for whatever that's worth). Fans of ''Doom'' claim that the fourth film was too campy and over-the-top, even by ''[[Indiana Jones]]'' standards, and that too much the series was altered in this film ({{spoiler|having aliens instead of mysticism powering the object, Jones marrying Marion at the end, him having a son}} etc.). However, the equally vocal ''Skull'' fans claim that ''Doom'' was too [[Darker and Edgier|dark and gritty]] compared to the other movies' lighter tone, it had copious amounts of [[Squick]] for no real reason other than to be edgy, and [[Replacement Scrappy|replaced the beloved characters Marion and Sallah with the more despised Willie and Short-Round.]]
* While both ''[[The Matrix|Matrix]]''
* While every sequel to the original ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'' suffered from both [[Franchise Zombie|continuing when the previous installment was meant to be the last]] and a smaller budget than the previous one, the last one, ''Battle of the Planet of the Apes'', is widely considered the absolute nadir.
* While every ''[[Highlander]]'' sequel is viewed as a poor follow-up to the original (at best), ''[[Highlander II the Quickening]]'' currently holds the typical title of worst in the franchise and a shining example of how ''not'' to do a sequel.
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* [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] has a few contested titles, but the most unquestionable ones are ''[[The Man with the Golden Gun]]'' (whose sole saving grace is [[Christopher Lee]]), ''[[Moonraker]]'' (so outlandish that the follow-up. ''[[For Your Eyes Only (film)|For Your Eyes Only]]'', toned it down considerably), and ''[[A View to a Kill]]'' (where Roger Moore realized he was too old for the role). ''[[Die Another Day]]'' sometimes gets lumped there too for the same reason as ''Moonraker''.
▲== Literature ==
* [[Tom Clancy]] himself admitted that he had run out of good candidates for villain nations by the mid-1990s, which resulted in a pair of suicidally outmatched opponents for the United States in ''[[Jack Ryan|Debt of Honor]]'' (Japan fights Round Two...) and ''Executive Orders.''
* The tenth book in Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' series falls under this due to excessive use of [[Padding]] and [[Purple Prose]]. The average rating on Amazon.com is [http://www.amazon.com/Crossroads-Twilight-Wheel-Time-Book/dp/0812571339/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277283385&sr=8-1 1.5 stars]. Most fans see some manner of seasonal rot setting in anywhere between books 4 and 9 already, but it's disputed where it really went downhill. Either way, book 11 was a significant improvement, resolving several plots and paving the way for the final book with, by WoT standards, barely any padding at all. (Though it does focus inordinant attention on [[Author Appeal|bondage situations with the Aes Sedai]] and a lot of dumb moves by characters, even for them).
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' runs at a strong pace until crashing
** What makes ''Wizard and Glass'' so painful is the focus of the story. Two stories are happening during the flashback: The War and The Town. One is about the huge shadow-war that is being fought between the armies of the Crimson King and the Gunslingers. This is the one about mythical battles and powerful artifacts being brought to bear against nightmarish demons and mechanical abominations as the world is quickly being brought to the cataclysm that framed the past three books. The other is about Roland's first girlfriend. Guess [[Strangled by the Red String|which gets the book]] and [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome|which gets the chapter.]]
* ''Naked Empire'', the eighth book of the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, is commonly thought to be the weakest part of the series by even people who like it as a whole. Yes, this is the book with ''[[Strawman Political|evil pacifists]]''. Afterward, the series gains back some of its momentum in the three last books.
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* ''Sisterhood'' series by [[Fern Michaels]]: This trope most certainly occurred after the book ''Free Fall''. The author herself said that she was only planning on writing 7 books for the series...at first. Then she decided to write more books. This resulted in 13 more books, and the storyline eventually just dragged on. That, and a number of flaws that had been present in the first 7 books became glaringly obvious, and the final book ''Home Free'' did have an ending that likely left readers feeling that the series ended not with a bang, but a whimper!
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' inspires a [[Broken Base|lot of arguments]] on this topic. It's widely agreed that there was Seasonal Rot but less clear which season it was. Season 6 in particular is a case of [[Love It or Hate It]]; Many revile it for levels of gloom bordering on [[Wangst]], The pathetic-ness of the Trio of as [[Big Bad]], plot elements such as the widely-detested "[[Anvilicious|magic]] [[Drugs Are Bad|addiction]]" arc and an inconsistently written romance between Spike and Buffy. On the other hand, some praise it for the attempts at emotional depth and character development, a change of pace from the relentless [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]], and individually beloved episodes like "Tabula Rasa" and "Once More With Feeling".
** Perhaps lampshaded in this scene:
{{quote|'''Buffy''': Giles, everything's just been so... Xander left Anya at the altar, and Anya's a vengeance demon again... Dawn's a total klepto
''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.
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** [[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.
* Some people felt that ''[[Kyle XY]]'' began to suffer when it became less about Kyle himself (as in Season 1) and more about the evil [[Mega Corp]] that was pursuing him (as in Seasons 2 and 3).
* ''[[The
** The finale was intended to be a set-up for a series of feature films that would finally start resolving the Mytharc, but that ultimately didn't come to pass.
* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'': John Cleese left the show after the third series. Without his rigorous quality control, the fourth season, renamed simply ''Monty Python'', featured way too many half-baked ideas and thin premises stretched well past breaking point, resulting in a horribly uneven batch of episodes.
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* 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
* 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.
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* ''[[Community]]'' looks to be hitting this with season 3, with several episodes poorly handling the characterization and several times up and making previously entertaining characters like Jeff, Annie, Chang, and even Abed completely unlikable, and an increased emphasis on the gimmick episodes which was growing since late in the first season. With creator Dan Harmon leaving as showrunner, possibly because of his real-life feud with cast member Chevy Chase, it looks like the rot may be getting even worse for season four.
▲== Music ==
* [[The Beach Boys]] after ''Pet Sounds'', though their early '70s albums have been [[Vindicated by History]].
* ''[[Dungeons & 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
▲== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
▲* ''[[Dungeons & 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.
* ''[[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.]]
▲== Toys ==
* The 2005 "Toa Hordika" story arc of ''[[Bionicle]]'' tends to come up as the worst year in discussions, at least it's more universally disliked than some other unpopular years, such as 2009 and 2010. Even the writer himself feels it felt tacked on—which it basically was. So much effort was put into designing the 2004 setting (Metru Nui) that the guys at [[LEGO]] wanted to do more with it, even though the story was arleady fully wrapped up in the previous year. Thus along came the second Metru Nui arc, during which the protagonists turned into hideous beasts (whose toys were also quite unspectacular and bland), the story got needlessly dark and confusing, and due to [[Executive Meddling]], the main hero had such a sudden [[Out of Character]]-moment that the writer detests his part of the story to this day. The only good things to have come out of the story were the character Roodaka ([[Fetish Fuel|who quickly became a fan-favorite]]) and the book ''Time Trap'', but only because its plot was completely unrelated to the bigger arc.
▲== 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]].
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* [[Sabrina Online]] had the "Sabrina creates a [[Mary Sue]] webcomic" arc. It was pretty self-referential and got old pretty fast, but as of june 2012 seems to be over when Sabrina quit the comic after losing interest.
* Fans of ''[[I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC
▲== Web Original ==
▲* Fans of ''[[I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC|I'm a Marvel And Im ADC]]'' have come to anticipate an engaging, dramatic story arc spanning the fall, winter, and spring of every year. However, fall and winter of 2011, and spring of 2012, only brought videos in which the heroes spout some one-liners. None of them exceed two minutes, either. Fans find this especially frustrating because the arc that began in December 2009, "Zero Hour", still doesn't have a proper conclusion.
▲== Western Animation ==
* The fifth season of ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]''. Largely after the writers were given [[Protection From Editors|free rein contentwise]], meaning we got a ton of overtly gross-out storylines with rotting corpses and severed penises, as well as Master Shake murdering a cat.
** 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.
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** 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 series)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' show
** Even fewer fans liked the "Vacation in Europe" side-season, which had terrible animation, had loads of [[They Just Didn't Care
** While we're on ''[[Ninja Turtles]]'', Season 6 is generally considered the weak point of [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 series)|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
* ''[[Drawn Together]]'', the first half of Season 3, when the show became [[Darker and Edgier|too dark]] [[Dude, Not Funny|for its own good.]]
* Season six of ''[[South Park]]'', largely due to the backlash against Parker and Stone retiring Kenny and their plans for Butters being the new [[Butt Monkey]] being changed by Comedy Central and fans [[Rescued from the Scrappy Heap|rescuing Butters from the Scrappy pile]]. Needless to say, ever since that season, Parker and Stone have openly threatened to quit production of the show (to the point that Parker almost bailed entirely midway through season eight).
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*[[SpongeBob SquarePants]] experienced a steady decline in quality between the first and second movie after Stephen Hillenburg resigned as showrunner and was replaced by Paul Tibbet.
** Season 4 is generally considered to be the start of the decline. However, most fans still consider this season to be good. In fact, a few even consider it part of the show's "Golden Age".
** While Season 5 is generally considered to be decent, it has some episodes that didn't go over well with fans, like "Fungus Among Us", "Atlantis SquarePantis" and "Whatever Happened to SpongeBob?"
** Season 6 gets a lot of flak, due to massive flanderization of the main characters, an overuse of gross-out humor ("The Splinter" is a prime example) and is the first season where the bad episodes outnumber the good ones.
** Season 7 is considered to be the peak of the decline, due to having two of the most hated episodes of the series, "A Pal for Gary" and "One Coarse Meal", the writing becoming extremly mean-spirited and having a ton of other episodes that are memorable for the wrong reasons.
** Season 8 gets a lot of flak as well, due to having a lot of weak, forgettable and underwhelming episodes. However, some consider this season to be a slight improvement over Seasons 6 and 7, due to some better writing and a few less bad episodes.
** The decline finally got reverted in Season 9, especially when Stephen Hillenburg returned as showrunner for the second half of the season after the release of the second movie.
* Chris Savino's run of ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' (seasons 3 and 4) and ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' (seasons 5 and 6) were heavily criticized by fans due to the fact that these seasons made [[Executive Meddling|without the original creators]] after the shows were [[Uncancelled]] due to boring plots, ungodly amounts of [[Flanderization]], and a really unfitting art style. Plus, with ''Dexter's Laboratory'', they got rid of the Justice Friends and Dial M for Monkey segments.
* Fans of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' have wildly varying opinions on when the show went downhill. The first 8 seasons are generally considered to be the best, but the following seasons have a [[Broken Base]] among fans.
** Some pinpoint Season 9 and/or Season 10 as when the show went downhill, due to Mike Scully taking over as showrunner and the infamous episode "The Principal and the Pauper". However, others still consider Seasons 9 and 10 to be part of the show's "Golden Age".
** Most fans can agree that Season 11<ref>
** Season 13 is considered to be somewhat of an improvement by some, due to Al Jean replacing Mike Scully as showrunner. However, this is still a debatable topic, as some consider Season 13 and the following seasons to be worse than Seasons 11 and 12.
** A number of fans feel that the show hit a new low when it transitioned to HD in the second half of Season 20, due to a downgrade in humor and a large amount of weak and forgettable episodes. However, Season 32 has shown some improvement, due to funnier and more clever writing, more well-received episodes and even containing some references to the earlier seasons.
* While ''[[Futurama]]'' is consistently good, it has an in-universe example in the form of ''Everybody Loves [[The Hypnotoad|Hypnotoad]]'', which has been going downhill since season three.<ref>according to someone immune to the mind control which is its main draw, anyway</ref>
** Fans of ''[[Show Within a Show|All My Circuits]]'' are also split about Bender's run as Calculon's son. Younger viewers loved his [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|glamorizing views on smoking and burglary]] while parents despised him as an [[Moral Guardians|antisocial rolemodel]].
** ''Futurama'' itself is considered by many to be going through this in seasons five and six, ever since it resumed airing new episodes on [[Comedy Central]].
* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' fans generally consider Season 3 to be this, since they changed the [[Big Bad]] from the awesomely creepy Slade, who was Robin's archrival but still had personal beef with the rest of the Titans, to Brother Blood, who started off perfectly menacing but spiralled into [[Villain Decay]] quickly, and had limited interaction with any of the Titans besides Cyborg, and having a weak story that only got two episodes and a two-part finale worth of exposure.
** And, to a lesser extent, Season 5, probably due to it coming directly after the extremely well-received Season 4. It's still generally accepted, though, mainly due to its awesome [[Grand Finale]] (the two-part final battle, ''not'' the [[Broken Base|controversial]] actual last episode.)
* Many fans of ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' feel that the series underwent seasonal rot after Season 7, the last season of the classic era, due to the loss of Britt Allcroft and other original crew members and HIT Entertainment outbuying the series.
** Seasons 8-11 get some flak from fans, due to some inconsistencies, plot holes, continuity errors and some bad episodes, like the infamous "Edward Strikes Out". However, these seasons aren't necessarily considered bad and do have a handful of supporters.
** Season 12 gets a lot of flak, mainly due to Sharon Miller taking over as head writer and the poorly done mix of CGI animation with a live-action model set. This season tends to have a [[Broken Base]] among fans. Some consider it to be on par with Seasons 8-11, while others consider it to be as bad as Seasons 13-16.
** Seasons 13-16 are a major low point for the series, due to a massive downgrade in writing and episode plots, massive flanderization of several characters, loads of bad episodes, like the infamous "Wonky Whistle" and the introduction of infamous characters
** Thankfully, the rot got reverted during Seasons 17-21 and the series returned to its former glory of the classic era when Andrew Brenner replaced Sharon Miller as head writer.
** Sadly, the rot relapsed during Seasons 22-24 (AKA "Big World! Big Adventures!") when a lot of changes were introduced to the series that didn't go over well with fans, like removing Edward and Henry from the Steam Team, the introduction of two new female characters Nia and Rebecca after complaints that the series was not
** The trailer of the upcoming reboot, ''[[Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go!]]'' has received severe backlash from fans, due to the transition from CGI to 2D animation, change in characters, abadoning the series' original continuity, replacing realistic physics with cartoon physics, and completely dumbing down the series for very young audiences.
* 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''.▼
▲*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.
* During the third and fourth seasons of ''[[KaBlam!]]'', the production company for ''Sniz & Fondue'' went bankrupt and more one-shot shorts were produced, with mixed to negative receptions among the fandom, though the remaining regular shorts were claimed to be even better that season.▼
▲*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''.
▲*During the third and fourth seasons of ''[[KaBlam!]]'', the production company for ''Sniz & Fondue'' went bankrupt and more one-shot shorts were produced, with mixed to negative receptions among the fandom, though the remaining regular shorts were claimed to be even better that season.
*''[[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]]''.
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