When did you stop watching a particular show?

Sleepy · 07-12-2018 05:05PM

Rikand wrote: »

I thought chilling adventures of Sabrina was quite good.

I couldn't get past the part where every single male character was either a rapist, a moron, a criminal or a child-like caricature of an evil school principal... Honestly, the school principal in the Captain Underpants my kids used to watch was more 3 dimensional.

Tell me how · 07-12-2018 05:11PM

razorblunt wrote: »

Breaking Bad - Season 2. I just hated the wife, Skylar so, so much.

Sons of Anarchy - the one with the 'RA lads. Just gave up 10 mins into an episode.

Breaking Bad. I watched 44 of the 50 episodes after being told it was brilliant while mostly thinking "How can people think this is as good as The Wire" before realising I was literally wasting my life.

Sons of Anarchy. Watched in to episode 2 before realizing it was just an extended version of the Southpark episode on Harley Davidson motorcylce gangs. That whole shooting 1000 bullets from 20 feet away but no one getting hit was ridiculous.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000 · 07-12-2018 05:35PM

You gave up half way through season 3 of Dexter.

Shame.

Greasy Tool · 07-12-2018 05:37PM

I got rid of the tv yrs ago. Best thing I ever did .

Mike Litoris · 07-12-2018 05:44PM

Breaking Bad too - After everyone and his dog telling me to watch it managed to waste a couple of weekends binging on the first 2 seasons - I gave up early in the third season and wondered wtf everyone was on about! Did nothing for me. Detested all the characters especially the young sidekick douche.

Top Gear when Clarkson et al left. Tried the new line up but it was tragic.

Eastenders- watched since I was a kid when it first aired. Gave up when the Danny Dyer family arrived.

Not really a show but stopped watching F1 this year because of the prospect of only having the terrible Sky coverage live. It had gone stale the last couple of years anyways.

miamee · 07-12-2018 06:06PM

Glad to see all of mine have already been mentioned above

- Lost - gave up on this some time around when they found a bunker on the island (I'm not sure how accurate that is) it was around then that I realised that the writers hadn't a notion where the thing was going and I gave up
- Suits - binge watched on Netflix and every episode is pretty much the same. I didn't so much give up as forget it existed somewhere in season 3, I think.
- Breaking Bad - started off well enough in series one but lost the will to live somewhere around the start of series 2. I was watching with my housemate at the time, both not enjoying it. Someone told us to stick with it as it got much better after series 3. Good luck, who has that kind of time?
- The Expanse - watched this on a recommendation, not normally my kinf od thing. After two episodes, myself and OH gave up.

There are lots of others I never watched to the end because they changed their broadcast time or the broadcast time no longer suited me but I might rewatch those at some point. Those were the days :pac:

miamee · 07-12-2018 06:24PM

Some more that I forgot now that I have read all of the thread

Sons of Anarchy - thankfully I didn't make it to the oidly didly episode, I found myself hiding behind a cushion about once per episode where the violence/gore got a little too much for me so I gave it up

Designated Survivor - I think I watched 2-3 episodes but it didn't grab me.

Orange isn the New Black - I loved this so much when it first started. Yes, Piper is an absolute pain but the other characters more than made up for it. Until the most recent series. I had been pushing myself to watch it in the hopes that it would return to it's former glory but the

riot and killing off Pousse

really put me off and partway through episode one of the last series I realised I couldn't take any more and switched it off.

Peaky Blinders - watched a couple of episodes a few years ago and didn't really get into it. I've re-watched them more recently and enjoying it this time around.

NIMAN · 07-12-2018 06:52PM

miamee wrote: »

- Breaking Bad - started off well enough in series one but lost the will to live somewhere around the start of series 2. I was watching with my housemate at the time, both not enjoying it. Someone told us to stick with it as it got much better after series 3. Good luck, who has that kind of time?

Ha! Totally agree.
Many people told me to stick with it too.

So someone advised you stick with a programme cos it gets better after 33hrs of it so far?:rolleyes:

Rikand · 07-12-2018 07:23PM

^^ FYI, sons of anarchy wasn't an oidly didly episode. It was an oidly didly SEASON!

Wibbs · 07-12-2018 09:47PM

Sleepy wrote: »

Lost in Space

Yes! Forgot about that one S. I liked the look and feel of it at first, very polished, but just lost interest after a few episodes. I'm tempted to have another go, but..

Sleepy wrote: »

I couldn't get past the part where every single male character was either a rapist, a moron, a criminal or a child-like caricature of an evil school principal... Honestly, the school principal in the Captain Underpants my kids used to watch was more 3 dimensional.

+1. I had heard reports it was a bit daft in this regard, a bit Right On Tumblr college bloggist and of course with the usual kickback against that, but thought controversial can be good so feck it give it a whirl, but by god it was worse than I expected on that score. Painfully so. Then again the audience it's aimed at is late teens early twenties women(who probably write blogs

)and I'm so not the audience for it, so it is what it is.

Wibbs · 07-12-2018 09:59PM

pixelburp wrote: »

Same with Game of Thrones, walked away after season 3 and the same, cynical trick being played over and over. Both shows an endless loop of nihilism and misery (with that in mind it has been why I've stayed away from the Handmaids Tale; it has always looked like Misery Porn taken to extremes).

Nail. Meet. Head PB. GoT I found OK, but couldn't really get into it overall and I like a load of gore(with nudey bits) in shows. I can see why some thought the acting a bit off. It's good mostly, but very forced, faux medieval and stagey. Which is fine in context TBH.

Very much agree with you re tHT. Misery porn, with a side order of "rape fantasy" stuff going on which I found a tad uncomfortable and not in the way necessarily intended by the writers. It lost a fair bit of the nuance of the book too and Margaret Atwood is not nearly so obvious a hit you over the head storyteller as the TV series writers were. The first season was OK as a story of its own inspired by Atwood, but the lack of depth really hit for me in the second season where they were effectively on their own and writing on blank pages. The acting, direction, cinematography and art direction were very good though. Kudos there.

pixelburp · 07-12-2018 10:44PM

Sleepy wrote: »

The Magicians - can't remember when I stopped, just that I did.

This show doesn't get talked about enough, so feel a bit duty bound to pimp it a little: it ramps up in quality from Season 2 onwards. Never quite shakes some of its flaws (such as a near breakneck speed of burning through story), but like a lot of SciFi, one of those shows with Season 1 growing pains. If you enjoyed what you watched it might be worth going back.

Sleepy wrote: »

The Man In The High Castle - Season Finale of Episode 1 was enough for me. It should have been left as an alternative history instead of adding dimension jumping nonsense into it.

Ditto here: I actually found Season 1 dull as dishwater, but from about Season 2 up til the recently ended Season 3 this has become a pretty gripping show.

Sleepy wrote: »

The Good Wife - some point in Season 5

Fair enough here, I stayed til the end and while there was a late rally, the last episode was pretty terrible as closure goes. However! The follow-up series, The Good Fight has been as good as The Good Wife was in its pomp, definitely worth checking out. The 2 seasons so far have been immensely enjoyable, feeling like a slightly looser, madder, drunker version of the original show (albeit suffering from Annoying Lead Character syndrome).

Sleepy wrote: »

Doctor Who - mid way through Cappaldi's run. Like Wibbs, I loved the actor in the role but can only remember one of his episodes that wasn't dreck.

I've found Jodie Whittaker's run a good palette cleanser, might be worth ducking back in. Dr. Who is one of those shows after-all that can reset itself completely every time the lead actor disappears. There's definitely a narrative gap where the season-spanning arc used to be, with this run more about standalone stories; but some of them have been pretty strong, emotional work. Definitely no out-and-out stinkers.

pixelburp · 07-12-2018 10:56PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Nail. Meet. Head PB. GoT I found OK, but couldn't really get into it overall and I like a load of gore(with nudey bits) in shows. I can see why some thought the acting a bit off. It's good mostly, but very forced, faux medieval and stagey. Which is fine in context TBH.

Very much agree with you re tHT. Misery porn, with a side order of "rape fantasy" stuff going on which I found a tad uncomfortable and not in the way necessarily intended by the writers. It lost a fair bit of the nuance of the book too and Margaret Atwood is not nearly so obvious a hit you over the head storyteller as the TV series writers were. The first season was OK as a story of its own inspired by Atwood, but the lack of depth really hit for me in the second season where they were effectively on their own and writing on blank pages. The acting, direction, cinematography and art direction were very good though. Kudos there.

There's a general nihilism in a lot of the ... ... 'trendier' TV out there that I just find unpalatable in general: GoT, Walking Dead, Westworld, Handmaids Tale, even Rick & Morty; they all have a depressing worldview, the 'prestige' shows in particular revelling in violence without saying anything behind it all. So just nastiness for nastinesses sake. Or in the case of Westworld, mixing violence with narrative withholding and dialogue written in riddles.

Tell me how · 07-12-2018 11:02PM

pixelburp wrote: »

There's a general nihilism in a lot of the ... ... 'trendier' TV out there that I just find unpalatable in general: GoT, Walking Dead, Westworld, Handmaids Tale, even Rick & Morty; they all have a depressing worldview, the 'prestige' shows in particular revelling in violence without saying anything behind it all. So just nastiness for nastinesses sake. Or in the case of Westworld, mixing violence with narrative withholding and dialogue written in riddles.

The violence in GOT was always tailored to communicate a message. It was rarely (if ever) just violence for the sake of it. It always was nuanced to display the actual frantic nature of the environment or the personality/emotion of those committing the violence.

And this was, I think, always in tune with the scene and the story. The dialog which accompanied the violence was always on point which shows how well produced the show was in this respect. It's been 7 seasons so I'm sure there are some elements which weaken my argument but by and large I think it was very well done and not just gratuitous for the sake of it.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 07-12-2018 11:43PM

wadacrack wrote: »

She was a cancer in that show. I gave up on breaking bad midway through s5. Felt the show got a little out of control tbh

I liked Skyler as a character. I don’t need my TV characters to be likeable. Just watchable. I liked that they made his wife difficult and a lot of my favourite scenes from the show involve her.

But I agree that the back half of season 5 is not great, Ozymandias excepted. Too many new characters I didn’t care about. Hubs and I were not keen on the finale. Too neat, too much tying up of loose ends. It felt like a box-ticking exercise. And that was a shame, as Gilligan was an absolute master for taking the opposite of the obvious route throughout the show’s run. I'd have been more impressed if they’d left some of those loose ends unresolved. We both felt that Gilligan had spent too much time listening to what fans wanted.

And why was it necessary to show Walt getting one over on Gretchen and Elliot? Wasn’t it implied heavily at various times during the show that he had screwed himself when it came to Grey Matter and other career opportunities because of his own rampant ego? I didn’t get the angle that we were supposed to dislike Gretchen and Elliot. They did show them in a TV interview downplaying their connection to Walt after it all came out but, honestly, could you blame them?

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 08-12-2018 12:02AM

Sleepy wrote: »

An easier list to be fair!

We've completed, or are still watching to this point of what's been aired to date:
Utopia
The West Wing
Band of Brothers (a perfect case in point as to why single season shows work best)
Love / Hate (Irish angle kept us interested)
The Wire
Game of Thrones
Black Mirror
Stranger Things (though Season 2 wasn't a patch on Season 1)
The Handmaid's Tale
Breaking Bad
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (reckon it'll run out of material fast)
The Crown
The Durrells
Mad Men
Altered Carbon
The Deuce
The Expanse
Travellers
Deadwood
Legion
The Alienist
Cobra Kai
The First
The Shannara Chronicles
The End of the F***ing World
The Inbetweeners
Star Trek: Enterprise
Entourage
Rome

Not always. I would give my left tit for there to be a second series of Freaks and Geeks. It was just hitting its stride and then cancellation. Such a great show. My sister and I watched it at the time. I was 16. I rewatched it with trepidation a few years ago and had nothing to fear. In fact, I enjoyed it more from an adult perspective. But the cast are too old to do the second series now. I actually yearn for the never-made second series. They even had rough drafts done. Stupid fücking Dawson’s Creek gets eleventy series and Freaks and Geeks is taken off the air. :mad: It annoys me that it’s most linked with Judd Apatow though. It was Paul Feig’s baby through and through.

Anyone who hasn’t seen Freaks and Geeks - WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 08-12-2018 12:11AM

Sleepy wrote: »

I couldn't get past the part where every single male character was either a rapist, a moron, a criminal or a child-like caricature of an evil school principal... Honestly, the school principal in the Captain Underpants my kids used to watch was more 3 dimensional.

That’s a shame. I was going to watch it because Kiernan Shipka was involved (loved her in Mad Men) but not sure now.

Wibbs · 08-12-2018 12:53AM

pixelburp wrote: »

There's a general nihilism in a lot of the ... ... 'trendier' TV out there that I just find unpalatable in general: GoT, Walking Dead, Westworld, Handmaids Tale, even Rick & Morty; they all have a depressing worldview, the 'prestige' shows in particular revelling in violence without saying anything behind it all. So just nastiness for nastinesses sake. Or in the case of Westworld, mixing violence with narrative withholding and dialogue written in riddles.

Nail. Meet. Head. Part Deux PB. I very much agree with you. And like I say I dig a bit of violence at times. If it drives the story forward. Otherwise it is just nihilism and porn with it.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

That’s a shame. I was going to watch it because Kiernan Shipka was involved (loved her in Mad Men) but not sure now.

ODB I'd say, give it a go. At least watch two episodes to give you an idea. May as well. You might like it, or not.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 08-12-2018 01:18AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Nail. Meet. Head. Part Deux PB. I very much agree with you. And like I say I dig a bit of violence at times. If it drives the story forward. Otherwise it is just nihilism and porn with it.

ODB I'd say, give it a go. At least watch two episodes to give you an idea. May as well. You might like it, or not.

Might do.

I think no show producers lucked out as much as the Mad Men makers did when they cast Shipka as Sally Draper. She was only a kid after all and she grew up to become one of the best actors on a show bursting with talent (Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser et al). I honestly think that the character of Sally Draper wouldn’t have become so important in the latter seasons or so developed if a lesser actress had been cast.

I notice that nobody on this thread has listed Mad Men as a show they gave up on. That gladdens my heart. Though it did finish at the right time. The back half of the last season begins to lose the magic a bit.

The Late Late Show · 08-12-2018 02:37AM

pixelburp wrote: »

There's a general nihilism in a lot of the ... ... 'trendier' TV out there that I just find unpalatable in general: GoT, Walking Dead, Westworld, Handmaids Tale, even Rick & Morty; they all have a depressing worldview, the 'prestige' shows in particular revelling in violence without saying anything behind it all. So just nastiness for nastinesses sake. Or in the case of Westworld, mixing violence with narrative withholding and dialogue written in riddles.

A lot of these shows are about depressing worldviews and are unafraid to show them. They are violent but also share a message. Same with Love/Hate and Breaking Bad. Unafraid to show their world and that's how drama should be. Otherwise, it is tame and sanitised. The Handmaid's Tale answered all them questions about how the Mad Max world came into being and Mad Max Fury Road shows the whole connection between Gilead and why their war against Iran/Russia lead to the Wasteland.

CastorTroy · 08-12-2018 09:54AM

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I notice that nobody on this thread has listed Mad Men as a show they gave up on. That gladdens my heart. Though it did finish at the right time. The back half of the last season begins to lose the magic a bit.

Sorry to disappoint, but I lasted one season. Would've stopped sooner but since I heard so many good things about it, I was giving it a chance assuming something must happen later in the season. But stayed boring the whole time

Wibbs · 08-12-2018 11:48AM

The Late Late Show wrote: »

The Handmaid's Tale answered all them questions about how the Mad Max world came into being and Mad Max Fury Road shows the whole connection between Gilead and why their war against Iran/Russia lead to the Wasteland.

What the...

:D:D

razorblunt · 08-12-2018 02:07PM

lawred2 wrote: »

you gave up on Peaky Blinders?

for shame

I can see it happening though, I'll catch the next season as the wife watches it but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.
It's become very formulaic, introduce new baby, have him get the better of the Blinders, only for them to regroup and get the last laugh. Oh yeah, through in another yolk for him to get up on.

They even went down the

ah, that guy wasn't really dead at all

route. The Aunt and sister are great characters though.

walshb · 08-12-2018 05:57PM

Stopped watching GOT after season 4..utter repetitive sh1t...

So ridiculously overrated. Violence and violence and rape and rape just to shock...

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 08-12-2018 06:49PM

CastorTroy wrote: »

Sorry to disappoint, but I lasted one season. Would've stopped sooner but since I heard so many good things about it, I was giving it a chance assuming something must happen later in the season. But stayed boring the whole time

Lots of things happened in the first series though. Different strokes though, it just wasn’t for you, I guess.

So, a show I gave up on - Better Call Saul. I watched a fair amount of the first series, really, really tried to give it a go. I’ve caught bits of every series of it since because hubs watches it but I’m never really watching it. It’s routinely called one of the best shows ever and many reviews of it are calling it better than Breaking Bad. I just can’t fathom it.

One thing that irks me is that a frequent charge against people who don’t like Better Call Saul in comment sections and on fora is that there isn’t enough violence in it for us and that we have short attention spans so can’t deal with slow-burning shows. Basically saying that we’re meat-heads. For me, both those charges couldn’t be more wrong. I tolerate violence in shows because many times, it’s very necessary, but I don’t love it. When rewatching Breaking Bad, sometimes I skip over the violent bits because I know what happens and can’t stomach watching the violence again. And the beauty of Breaking Bad is that it waxes and wanes in intensity and the parts where it wanes in intensity are often as compelling as the intense, showy bits. That changing up of the pace is skillful and compelling. And Mad Men has slow-pacing and it also compelled me right from the beginning. Slow-burning pace isn’t a problem for me if I like the show.

I’m not going to get into why I don’t like Better Call Saul because people who love it are *really* passionate about it and I’m too lazy right now to take them on.

I will say two things though:

- I don’t think Bob Odenkirk has the acting chops to be the main character on a show. He was great in BB because his role wasn’t huge and didn’t require much range. I think BCS shows that he struggles when asked to give a wide range of emotions. I just don’t believe him half the time.

- my husband likes BCS but nowhere near the level that he loved BB. He could barely wait for the next episode of BB whereas now he often forgets that the new episode of BCS is up on Netflix.

quickbeam · 08-12-2018 07:12PM

Me too for Mad Men. Lasted until Season 4. There wasn't a single character I could like or root for.

Some others I gave up on:

Red Dwarf - watched until Kochanski (sp?) came in to it. Then gave up (a shame, a comedy that was peerless in its prime).
The Simpsons - not sure when I stopped, but did just drift away and haven't watched it in years.
Desperate Housewives - decent first series, boring second series, didn't go back after that.
Ugly Betty - dipped in and out a bit, but eventually gave up.
Californication - only lasted two episodes or so.
Hung - ditto, maybe I got as far as four episodes on that one.
The Event - a Lost wannabe, pretty dire, gave it ten episodes
The Borigias - a Rome wannabe, saw only the first few episodes
Homeland - watched up to the first season after Brody was hung then gave up.
American Horror Story - first episode only, then nope.
Revenge - saw first season and then realised I just didn't care
Vikings - up to season 2, I think
Under the Dome - season 1 (recently read the book, and it's excellent and nothing like the series)
Colony - like Josh Holloway since Lost, but he wasn't enough for me to stick with beyond the first series, the story felt like it was going nowhere.
Outcast - just didn't grab me.

I actually have a "list" on my IMDB account that lists shows I quit, so that's where I got the above from.

I've stuck with The Walking Dead, currently watching the current series, though may give up at the mid-season break.
I've stuck with The Big Bang Theory too, it's not great, but it's not the worst either and can pass an easy half hour from time to time.

The Late Late Show · 08-12-2018 07:25PM

Wibbs wrote: »

What the... :D:D

Watch the bloody start of Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior. No need for the bullying, Mr. 2 warrior tribes go to war over oil. Any guess who they'd be and where it would be!

This thread is about TV series we have stopped watching/are still watching and is NOT about posters bullying and belittling other posters. Cop on. Enough of that cr@p in the world, Mr.

Agricola · 08-12-2018 07:37PM

Walking Dead for me too. Loved season 1 and followed it up until 2015 or 2016 but just couldn't be bothered anymore. So much filler, it had absolutely no artistic merit imo and the plot was being written to drag out the show for financial purposes and nothing else. It was so blatant.

ixoy · 08-12-2018 08:39PM

I also stopped after the first season of 'The Walking Dead' because it just seemed like a poor soap opera, with occasional zombie action. Seems like I was right! The Telltale games are much better (and I enjoy the comics too).

'The Big Bang Theory' - Dropped it around the fifth season or so when I realised I was getting far more irritated than I was amused.

'Revenge' - When she needed more than an already dragged out season for her revenge.

'The Affair' - A 1-series show at best surely.

'Homeland' - What could have been an excellent mini-series seemed to look to drag on. Dropped out at the start of its third season.

'Californication' - Watched about half the season. I could not relate to anything I saw in the show.

'Under the Dome' - Stopped in the second season. I had found the first season amusingly bad but it just got boringly poor afterwards.

'Prison Break' - Again, one season would have done this premise. Instead they keep breaking in and out the whole time. Got fed up during third season. The actors at least went on to do some great roles in 'Legends of Tomorrow', particularly Dominic Purcell.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 08-12-2018 11:06PM

^^^^

The premise of Prison Break seemed so gimmicky to me so I never watched it. And yeah, it seems like an idea that didn’t really have legs.

When did you stop watching a particular show?

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