Some TV shows start out really strong, gripping audiences with their premise and great performances. However, keeping that quality up isn’t easy! Sometimes even great shows can lose steam and become nearly unwatchable by the time they mercifully call it quits.
Heroes
Heroes debuted with an amazing first season that finally promised to bring epic, comic book-style storytelling to primetime TV. Sadly, the second season was much more aimless, and the infamous 2007-08 writer’s strike absolutely gutted the show’s momentum and put an end to any salvageable goodwill it may have still had.
Lost
Lost is a divisive show. Some people actually love the ending and the way it developed over time, but, at least when it was airing, people were quite frustrated with the later seasons of the show for always expanding on new mysteries and never giving satisfying answers for the questions it already asked.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons had a bit of a strange arc in this regard. Its first season is very awkward and rough, but from the second season through to around the seventh, it became one of the best TV shows ever made. Sadly, after around the mid- to late-90s, the show’s quality fell off a cliff. It still shambles on in zombie form, a hollow echo of what it once was.
How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother could be remembered as the best sitcom of the 2000s if it didn’t walk back all of Ted Mosby’s character development in the final episode. However, even before that much-hated plot point dropped, the last season really soured fans with the way it dragged out every plot point and kept the characters confined to Barny and Robin’s wedding for much of its runtime.
Game of Thrones
Much has been written about the universally loathed final season of Game of Thrones. After showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss ran out of A Song of Ice and Fire books to adapt following the fifth season of the show, they had to rely on brand-new stories. It seems they ran out of steam for the final season, which is abrupt, nonsensical, and hardly a compelling ending to such an otherwise-great show.
The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead is one of the most famous examples of a show that fans feel went on for too long. Beloved character deaths, convoluted plot points, and repetitive storytelling all converged to tank the show’s overall quality in its final few seasons.
Stranger Things
Stranger Things started as a genuinely compelling horror-mystery show that paid homage to 80s movies like The Lost Boys and The Goonies while still bringing a unique voice to the genre fare. By its third season, though, it completely lost its focus on small town mysteries and expanded to become a story about a few middle schoolers fending off the entire KGB. What happened?
The Office
It’s pretty easy to pinpoint the moment The Office fell off. Steve Carell left the show during its seventh season and the writers very clearly never recovered from his absence. His goofball character was the thematic glue that held the proceedings together, but the writers kept things going to offer closure for the storylines of the other characters in the show like Dwight, Jim, and Pam.
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That 70s Show
In another example of a show’s quality taking a nosedive after the main actor left, Topher Grace’s departure from That 70s Show absolutely annihilated the show’s momentum. Replacement character Randy Pearson simply never felt right alongside the gang. Laura Prepon, Ashton Kutcher, and Mila Kunis all seemed so natural in their roles that Josh Meyers’ wooden, forced performance as Randy just ground the show’s humor to a halt.
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Weeds
Weeds started strong, giving audiences reasons to root for Mary-Louise Parker as a single mom trying to keep her family afloat after her husband dies by selling weed. However, as the show went on, it continued to get darker and more brutal, eventually smothering the cheery undertone that made the first few seasons so charming. By the end, no characters in the series are remotely likable, and the ending feels like a relief.
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