25 Series That Were Once The Gold Standard On TV Until They Screwed Things Up

I like to pretend that only one season of Westworld exists.

There are a lot of great TV shows out there, but let's be honest — while some of them start off strong, they're not always able to stick the landing.

NBC

Sometimes, you'll be able to grit your teeth and keep watching in the hopes that the storyline will pick up in the next season. But more often than not, you end up hating the very TV show that you praised and raved about to your friends — which is an extremely frustrating experience.

HBO

I'm still bewildered at how Game Of Thrones went from one of the most beloved and talked about TV shows to the complete opposite in its final season.

That's exactly what u/DadIsMadAtMe set out to vent about when they asked the good people of Reddit, "What show did you start and wound up hating so much you didn't finish it?"

Bravo

Judging by the nearly 30k comments on the thread, there was a lot to discuss. So, here are the top-voted responses from Redditors!

Read with caution as this may or may not result in you seeing red after remembering how much one of these TV shows burned you. 

1. The Walking Dead

AMC Entertainment

"The end of the line for me was how they were painfully dragging out the whole Negan saga. I don't remember what season it was, but I just quit in the middle of it."

—u/AlwaysInWrongLane

"That's right when I checked out as well. I was so done with the incredibly repetitive nature of the show at that point. The crew finds a safe place, bad guys attack, find a new safe place, rinse and repeat over and over again."

—u/The_Woodsmann

2. Riverdale

The CW

"I think I lost it when it became fantasy/paranormal/cult horror — and I've heard that it ventures into time travel or something. Even typing this out confuses me so much."

—u/Ekata97

"I do appreciate the fever dream quality Riverdale has to it though. It's honestly at its best when it's veered away from anything resembling coherence and into a surrealist stream of consciousness."

—u/FracturedPrincess

3. Orange Is The New Black

Netflix

"Piper annoyed the fucking shit out of me."

—u/WarthogSilver7988

4. The Flash

The CW

"'I'm Barry Allen, the fastest man alive.' Proceeds to get that line disproven almost every season."

—u/arashisenko

"Honestly, in the beginning, I liked the cheesy power of friendship stuff that was happening because it kinda made sense since Barry was so new to using his powers and stuff. But it's been years and he still needs someone to hold his hand to get through literally everything."

—u/ThatRandomPerson____

5. Westworld

HBO

"Loved the first season, then it started going downhill. I haven't seen the latest season and I don't plan on it."

—u/dragon-rae

"My cousin worked on the set of Westworld. Apparently, the writers for Season 2 were reading fan theories online and tried to write the opposite of what fans were predicting. It didn't go so well." 

—u/BallsAndWalrus

6. The 100

The CW

"I surprisingly made it five seasons in. I almost quit watching part way through Season 1 because even though I really liked some aspects of the show, the characters and drama just pissed me off so much. I decided to keep going, and then I think Episode 5 or 6 got me hooked. It didn't change how much I disliked most of the characters though and that kind of remained a trend throughout the show for me. Clarke, her mum, and Octavia sunk the show IMO. After Season 5, I think I just thought to myself, 'You know, I enjoyed a lot of that, but I think I've seen all I need to see.'"

—u/songsfrombeyond

7. Once Upon A Time

ABC

"I loved this show so much. The first three seasons were really good, but then it just nosedived so quickly. Where they went with Emma didn’t even fucking make sense. They had her making choices she would fucking never do — it was literally the opposite of all her character development up to that point! Ugh, I'm getting mad just thinking about it."

—u/sftktysluttykty

8. Grey's Anatomy

ABC

"I used to watch this show with my wife, I didn't love it, but I tolerated it because I love my wife. Then, there was the musical episode where the entire episode's dialogue is sung by the actors. I told her I just couldn't anymore. She didn't even hold it against me."

—u/elting44

9. American Horror Story

FX

"Every single season of AHS since Freak Show. It always starts out strong and interesting and then usually halfway through, Ryan Murphy consistently shows that he can't finish a story, so I decide to quit. Around Roanoke, I stopped even giving him a chance."

—u/walkingtalkingdread

10. Arrow

The CW

"For five years I was stranded on an island. No wait, I was stranded on an island — and in Hong Kong, and then back to the island before I actually was in New York, but then I was rescued on the island again! The show became an absolute mess!"

—u/puslespillbrikke

11. Suits

USA Network

"How they managed to put together nine seasons of the same shit over and over I'll never understand because I quit in the middle of Season 3."

—u/mikeyb1

"It dawned on me that all it really was was people strutting in and out of each others' offices having brief heated exchanges."

—u/elizabethjacques

12. The Handmaid's Tale

Hulu

"Season 1 started out so strong, but as the seasons go on the story refuses to move forward. It's just an endless cycle of failed escapes. Or when characters finally have the chance to escape they either change their mind or go back inside. It's like the writers were too afraid to shake up the status quo. After a few seasons, I just gave up."
—u/starfoxconfessor

"Half of Season 3 was seemingly just closeups of Elizabeth Moss seething."
—u/tenskiduff

13. Under The Dome

CBS

"To this day, I still don't understand how badly they fumbled the bag on this one. The story is so simple, so straightforward, and so embraceable. It's [Stephen] King playing to his folkiest and the terror is so graspable. And yet somehow, the show decided to bring alien eggs into the picture?!"

—u/addisonavenue

14. 13 Reasons Why

Netflix

"I'm not gonna lie, when this show dropped I binged all of Season 1 in secrecy because I was so embarrassed that I was hooked. After the end of that season, I was satisfied. I was not into whatever school shooter plot they were setting up for the rest, so I just called it quits after Season 1 and feel zero need to ever return."

—u/keystonelocal

15. Shameless

Showtime

"Shameless turned into an over-the-top soap opera in the later seasons. I still haven't finished the last six episodes and probably never will."
—u/Top_Drummer6507

16. Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina

Netflix

"I really liked the first season, barely made it through the second season, and refuse to watch the third."

—u/kuromikw8

17. Weeds

Showtime

"The first couple of seasons were great. Then, they decided to make all the characters completely unlikable."

—u/HelicopterWonderful9

18. The Witcher

Netflix

"I loved Season 1 (even though it has a little bit of bullshit), but in Season 2 the bullshittery was so off the charts that I lost faith in the series."

—u/Snakey_Panda

19. How To Get Away With Murder

ABC

"I loved the first season, tolerated the second and powered through the third. When I sat down to start the fourth, I realised I hated every single character and wanted them all to die, so I turned it off."

—u/sarahsuebob

20. The Simpsons

Fox

"The Simpsons was my favorite show for years. It just kept going though and it’s not funny anymore. I do like to watch the first episode when they get Santa's Little Helper around Christmas and I have a DVD with some early Treehouse of Horror episodes I watch around Halloween."

—u/ATXKLIPHURD

21. Dexter

Showtime

"Trinity killer season was peak TV, but then Debs finding out about things and somehow allowing it to continue just felt weird. I stopped watching not long after that. Tried rewatching it all more recently and got to the exact same point before giving up for a second time!"

—u/jacquetpotato

22. This Is Us

Showtime

"This show was like a never-ending drama sledge hammer to my head. It never ended. I only made it though the first two seasons."

—u/SausageKingOfKansas

23. Designated Survivor

Netflix

"The first season was incredible, the second season was fine, and after that it was awful. It became something so different than when it began that the show was unrecognisable, so I stopped watching within a few episodes of when it became a generic Washington DC-based show."

—u/Sss00099

24. Heroes

NBC

"Their first mistake was not standing by the original concept of new season, new cast, new plot.

Their second mistake was the writer's strike.

So much is brought up and dropped after Season 1 and it feels like something that belongs in the Snyderverse."

—u/sketchysketchist

25. And lastly, The Umbrella Academy

Netflix

"The first season was fire and the second season is when I started hating Allison and stopped paying attention. I gave Season 3 a chance, realised how abysmally terrible Allison’s character still is, half-assed my way through the rest of the season and only really paid attention to the important parts.

The only saving grace for Season 2 and 3 is Aiden Gallagher, who does an overly incredible job at portraying Number Five."

—u/CaptianOfCows

Some Reddit responses have been edited for clarity and/or length.

What other TV shows did you fall in love with at the start, only to end up hating? Let us know in the comments!