What show dipped the most in quality? What show started bad/just ok and got great?

pc7

Dexter, even typing that annoys me, was brilliant until season 4, then the worst turn around in a show I can ever remember. It really puts me in a fowler thinking of it, when I see the cover for the show on Netflix it annoys me!! I'm shaking my head in disgust as I type this.

The Shield is one of the best shows I've ever watched, it just got better and better.

Agree with another poster Justified keeps improving.

Sons of anarchy has gone downhill, I've stopped at season 4, is it worth going back too?

Soft Falling Rain

I think the beef some have with Lost is mainly down to the polarising ending, and thus they prefer to downplay the impact of the show.

Say what you want about too many unanswered questions but I think there's very few shows that were better than Lost in terms of character development.

johnire

Started to watch the new series of both Under the Dome and Falling Skies and have given up on both.
The acting in Under the Dome is really poor and the plot is ridiculous. I used to really like Falling Skies but this season I just couldn't get into it.

Paully D

Better:

Breaking Bad - I had heard a lot about how good this show was, but it took me a couple of goes to get past the first season and a half which I found to be quite slow and at times a bit boring. I'm glad I stuck with it, but it's a show that actually gets better and better with each passing season IMO, which is reflected in the Metacritic reviews of 74, 85, 89, 96 and 99 for each season respectively. There's not many shows which that can be said about.

Worse:

Homeland - If they had ended the first season with

Brody blowing everything up

and leaving it at that, it would have gone down as one of the greatest of all-time IMO. The quality now is a shadow of that first season.

Dexter - Season 4 was arguably the best season of TV ever made, but that final season and the ending, man. Awful doesn't even come close. It was as if the creators were bet money that they couldn't destroy everything they had built in 7 years in just 12 episodes. They did.

_Redzer_

I still love futurama, there's still many great episodes that keep me entertained. And comparing it to the utter state the Simpsons is in now, it's still miles and miles better. It's waned a little, sure, but it's still very enjoyable, in my view.

I hope they bring it back again!

secondrowgal

I never got into Dexter because I had just finished watching Six Feet Under and couldn't reconcile the new character with the previous one. Is it worth watching up to Season 4?? Where should I stop?

Shows that started good, got gooder:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can't beat Joss Whedon for good writing! If you watch it a second/third time you can see the nods to later seasons in early episodes really clever. Of course it's just fluff, but entertaining fluff IMO.

Shows that started good but got badder:

Definitely The Simpsons.

ixoy

secondrowgal wrote: »

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can't beat Joss Whedon for good writing!

It got better but then, post season 5, it definitely got worse. So it's both for me!

FunLover18

secondrowgal wrote: »

I never got into Dexter because I had just finished watching Six Feet Under and couldn't reconcile the new character with the previous one. Is it worth watching up to Season 4?? Where should I stop?

Don't go past season 4. You'll be tempted but DON'T DO IT!!

Yogosan

South Park- I am a massive South Park fan, still am. Up until around season ten the show was still consisitently turning out brilliant episodes with such ludicorus plots that only Trey Parker and Matt Stone could wrap up in 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, as with the Simpsons, they started running out of ideas and so they changed their formula to allow them to complete episodes within a week so they could do stories based on up to the minute popular culture (It took literally months of hand crafted animation in the early days).

They still can produce great episodes and the recent recruitment of Bill Hader has freshened up the show, but with such short deadlines they have no time to start over if an episode isn't working out as planned. Every now and then they ditch the popular culture angle and create oldschool off the wall episodes which can still produce truly golden material.

In fairness to Trey and Matt, they created a great show, they have made some hilarious films (After the success of Team America it's a mystery why thay haven't made one since) and have recently made a South Park game which scored a very respectable 85 on Metacritic. Not too shabby for two guys who started out making cartoons out of paper cutouts!

pc7

FunLover18 wrote: »

Don't go past season 4. You'll be tempted but DON'T DO IT!!

This times 20000000000 trillion, you'll be sucked in, going it's been so good, then 5 starts them you keep thinking it'll get better. Then it's IT HAS TOO, then it's wtf are the writers doing??? They must be just doing this so the very end will be amazing! But no, it gets worse and worse and is a sin. Just imagine your own way of finishing off the show after season 4 and you can rest assured it's better than those bast***s did.

Lol I really am bitter over it!

darkdubh

squonk wrote: »

Glenroe! Slow first season but ramped up with the Fidelma thing half way through and then the epic Biddy tractor crash in the last season!

Have to point to the Simpsons myself as the most Good to bad really.

Covert Affairs has to get a mention as an OK show early on. It was cutesy and interesting but we'd all have gotten very bored by now if they hadn't decided to retool the show as a hard core spy saga. It's unmissable now.

And don't forget the season ending cliffhanger that had Dinny falling off a ladder.

darkdubh

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The only critique anyone has of season five is that it seemed far fetched. The acting, writing and directing was brilliant throughout. Most people were not really interested in the critique of Print Journalism which is understandable as a lot will find it boring however it was excellently done and wonderfully developed. The other seasons were just as far fetched.

For me and a lot of people it was just the rather silly sub plot where Mcnulty was faking evidence in the serial killer case.It just diden't make any sense.

pickarooney

pc7 wrote: »

This times 20000000000 trillion, you'll be sucked in, going it's been so good, then 5 starts them you keep thinking it'll get better. Then it's IT HAS TOO, then it's wtf are the writers doing??? They must be just doing this so the very end will be amazing! But no, it gets worse and worse and is a sin. Just imagine your own way of finishing off the show after season 4 and you can rest assured it's better than those bast***s did.

Lol I really am bitter over it!

Bizarrely I want to watch it more than ever now. Still, that's 100 hours of my life I'd have to invest.

G_R

darkdubh wrote: »

squonk wrote:

Glenroe! Slow first season but ramped up with the Fidelma thing half way through and then the epic Biddy tractor crash in the last season!

And don't forget the season ending cliffhanger that had Dinny falling off a ladder.

Ah lads come on, spoilers, ffs.

CastorTroy

Grand_Rajnah wrote: »

Ah lads come on, spoilers, ffs.

To be fair, he didn't say what happened after falling off the ladder. Maybe he fell off the bottom rung and was grand

Penn

Yogosan wrote: »

In fairness to Trey and Matt, they created a great show, they have made some hilarious films (After the success of Team America it's a mystery why thay haven't made one since)

They were working on The Book of Mormon, their Broadway Musical. Insanely well-reviewed.

I don't think South Park has really dipped in quality at all tbh. Still makes me laugh more than current Family Guy and Simpsons combined. If anything I think it's gotten better.

As for The Wire Season 5, it probably is my least favourite season, but my appreciation for it has grown after re-watching it a few times.

As for shows which dipped the most in quality, definitely Heroes and Homeland. Such a disappointment from both shows, where they had great ideas for one season and then couldn't live up to their own hype after that.

Whatsisname

FunLover18 wrote: »

Don't go past season 4. You'll be tempted but DON'T DO IT!!

All my own opinion but...
Season 5 was poor. Season 6 I really really liked, it was so dark. Season 7 had some sorta potential going on. Season 8 made me wanna rip my face off.

Its still my favourite show regardless, I can't help it, I love Dexter too much

duploelabs

smilerf wrote: »

Hannibal started off real slow. half way on season one was better
Season 2 was just incredible from start to finish

Every time I get someone in to this program they fall off mid-way in to the first season, it's take all my conviction to get them to stick with it.

The Unit started off ok but then went to absolute drivel.

Modern Family's first two seasons were very good, but then takes a major dip in season three

FunLover18

Whatsisname wrote: »

All my own opinion but...
Season 5 was poor. Season 6 I really really liked, it was so dark. Season 7 had some sorta potential going on. Season 8 made me wanna rip my face off.

Its still my favourite show regardless, I can't help it, I love Dexter too much

5 was just so flat after the 4 finale. 6 was very dark, I enjoyed it and hoped it might be on the up again. I'd completely forgotten the baddie in 7, and 8 is just awful.

The Deb in love with Dexter was just so cringe and her finding about him was handled badly. It's based on a series of books and …

BOOK SPOILERS

She finds out at the end of the first one and is really blasé about it

IvaBigWun

Regarding Hannibal, I went the opposite way. Loved the first season but the second had too many nods to the books and those of us who hadnt read them were left going "eh? "

Dont think Im in for the third season next year

pc7

FunLover18 wrote: »

BOOK SPOILERS

She finds out at the end of the first one and is really blasé about it

Are the books worth reading? Does the ending differ much to the show?

Zubeneschamali

Here is a brilliant graphing tool based on Imdb ratings per episode. If you know the show, you can identify the top and bottom episodes on sight!

http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0773262

GerB40

Okay I'll go with a classic, Only Fools & Horses. At the beginning it was fairly inconsistent. Some episodes like "When one door closes" (catching the butterfly), "Who's a pretty boy?", (the canary one) and "Trotters watch" (minding Boycies dog) are fairly poor with pointless story lines, flat jokes and below par writing. (I just realised the animal connection. Hmm, interesting...)

Mind you the early episodes did have Grandad who had some absolute dynamite lines but despite him, and a few classic episodes, the first couple of seasons felt a bit disjointed.

Fast forward to when John Sullivan started to write long story arcs for the characters and we were blessed with some of the best sitcom television ever. Del boy and Rodneys search for love sparked it all off. Uncle Alberts constant reminiscing about the war becomes more and more unbelievable to the point that he would have us believe he has been everywhere on the planet and fought every battle 'during the war'. Even Boycies attempts to father an heir provide some great laughs.
This climaxes in the three part Christmas special in 1996, specifically the episode "Time on our hands". I won't say what happens but if you haven't seen it watch it, if you have seen it, triffic innit? These episodes mark, in my opinion, a high point in comedy writing that is next to impossible to replicate. 24 million people watched it after all..

Fast forward again to the specials that were made after "Time on our hands" (which was meant to be the last episode) and we have the same inconsistency as the earliest episodes. Even though there are some great moments like the part in France, there are some truly baffling story lines (Gary??).

TL;DR Only Fools & Horses starts off okay, the middle is outstanding and the end is okay.

Whatsisname

pc7 wrote: »

Are the books worth reading? Does the ending differ much to the show?

From what I heard, not really. The first is in line with the first tv series but after that its completely different as far as I know.

Think I read somewhere that Astor and Cody have a dark passenger and Dexter trains them....bit ridiculous

FunLover18

pc7 wrote: »

Are the books worth reading? Does the ending differ much to the show?

I've only read 3 but they're not as serious as the series, quite tongue in cheek in tone.

Whatsisname wrote: »

From what I heard, not really. The first is in line with the first tv series but after that its completely different as far as I know.

Think I read somewhere that Astor and Cody have a dark passenger and Dexter trains them....bit ridiculous

The first one is very similar to the first series except

Dexter trades LaGuerta's life for Deb's … I think

. I'm trying to remind myself of the others, they're clearly not as memorable as the series but I did enjoy them as I read them. They're also pretty short and easy to get through

Waitsian

den87 wrote: »

Good to Bad- Hell on Wheels.

So at what point do you think is starts getting bad? I'm up to episode 6 in Season 3 and I'm loving it.

GerB40

I want to reply to a comment that'll contain spoilers but I forget how to spoiler a comment. Could one of you kind souls please remind me how to do it?

FunLover18

GerB40 wrote: »

I want to reply to a comment that'll contain spoilers but I forget how to spoiler a comment. Could one of you kind souls please remind me how to do it?

[ SPOILER ] [ /SPOILER ]

without the spaces. If you go advanced there's also an option to do it in the top right

GerB40

FunLover18 wrote: »

[ SPOILER ] [ /SPOILER ]

without the spaces. If you go advanced there's also an option to do it in the top right

Nice one FunLover

GerB40

FunLover18 wrote: »

I've only read 3 but they're not as serious as the series, quite tongue in cheek in tone.



The first one is very similar to the first series except

Dexter trades LaGuerta's life for Deb's … I think

. I'm trying to remind myself of the others, they're clearly not as memorable as the series but I did enjoy them as I read them. They're also pretty short and easy to get through

Are you saying

Dexter kills LaGuearta to save Deb? How would that happen??

. That must've been a massive deviation from the written source.