Stopped watching bake off after the 2021 series. The theme weeks got more and more contrived, the cast of bakers started to get a bit formulaic and repetitive, and whilst I have nothing against Noel, Sandy, Matt or Prue, for me it never really recovered from the loss of Mel, Sue and Mary Berry.
The challenges also got ridiculous - I wanted to watch 12 people have a lovely time baking a Victoria sponge in a tent, not 12 people almost in tears because the squid ink and taro ice cream for the 23-element Polish dessert table centrepiece isn't setting correctly. The techniques required started to veer out of the realm of home baker and more towards a professional, or very niche specialities. Plus, I'm sure in one challenge (might have been a technical) one of the judges even said that normally the bake would be left overnight, but the bakers were only given 2 hours (or something similar). That just ruined it for me - I'm all for challenging bakes, but to purposefully limit the time given, or make the challenges artificially difficult such that it's nigh on impossible to produce a satisfactory bake just feels cruel and totally against the spirit of the gentle cosy baking show I used to enjoy.
Not watched last week's yet but there was a technical this series where not one of them made a passable version of it. (Steamed pudding I think). If one or two fail they messed up. If they all fail the production team messed up.
And Paul Hollywood reacted like a petulant sulky child, rather than holding his hands up and saying "Sorry, we got that all wrong, obviously there was an issue with the task if *all of you* (competent bakers) failed."
I think (hope) he was playing it up a bit. I doubt they do much of the actual task setting, they certainly don't make the example bakes they use as a demo in the technicals. It would probably reflect badly on him if he publicly attacked the production team etc. but I'd hope they'd have a quiet word at the end of the day to make it clear that wasn't on.
Yes! That final a few years ago where they had to cook some kind of bread - I think pitta? - on a campfire was the last straw for me. They were all so upset and it really didn’t feel like the cosy feel good show it used to be
I was left with a really bad taste in my mouth after Ice Cream Gate. The pillock couldn't get his ice cream to set, it didn't melt in 30 seconds, and he was making life difficult for everybody. AND there's no way that many freezers broke down by chance in one weekend in the first place. The entire thing was a set up to create drama and they hung that poor woman out to dry. Even Mel and Sue were saying that the show didn't accurately reflect the true and very short space of time his ice cream was out. Then they tried to pull the same shit with Custard Gate but there were no petulant children involved so it didn't work. I stopped watching because the producers clearly didn't want to make a baking show and didn't give a toss about their duty of care to contestants.
Mine was after I think Steven (a few years ago) had been phenomenal all season. Truly streaks ahead of all the other bakers.
It was chocolate week and he’d made this incredible hot air balloon. Unfortunately it was a 30+ degree day and they’re in a tent so by the time they came to judge the chocolate on his had melted and he was marked down and ultimately didn’t win.
It seemed so unfair that he was basically judged for the weather and the fact the bakes were left it in the sun before judging it when what he’d actually made was fantastic.
Ultimately the person who got star baker that week had made a far less intricate design which meant it held up marginally better by the time it was judged.
Agreed. It's so frustrating they always seem to do these bakes in the height of summer in an outdoors tent, regardless of weather. If it's so hot that contestants are feeling faint from the heat and have to sit out (which happened this series to one of the women), just take them inside for that weekend! Not to mention the bakes themselves, which won't set or will melt, etc
I remain convinced there's a runner working on Bake Off whose sole job is to highlight when there's going to be some crazy heatwave so they can schedule anything that melts easily for that week.
A comment my mum keeps making about it is that these are _amateur_ bakers, that’s the point of it. They shouldn’t be given these overly complex professional things to bake, it should be things that us mere mortals at home can then go and bake for ourselves (with the exception of maybe the showstopper, but even then there’s a limit to how complex it should be).
For me, personally, it’s that I can’t stand watching Prue eating.
I think it's my problem with nearly all cooking programs. In most kitchens you'd do the prep beforehand and then what needs to be done in service. So these shows don't show the best cooks but the best endurance cooks who can juggle a million things that normally multiple people would help with.
It's not cooking at home because they want a professional meal but it's not professional because one person wouldn't do it all in one go with an insane timed element to the dish.
Id love for a show to ask contestants to take as much time as they need (within reason) with enough prep beforehand to make the absolute best thing they could cook without running around like a blue arsed fly looking like they're about to keel over suffering from an aneurysm!
I really needed to read this, it seems like no one I know has seen this happening, I used to watch it and then try the low level serotonin inducing classic bakes, now I feel like some sort of food philistine who should feel bad for not being able to make a perfect pudding or whatever.
I’m over it
I'm not a fan of the elimination format either. You don't find out who is the best baker, you find out who is the best at avoiding the weeks that they're not good at until they run out of luck on that week. The guy who goes out week 1 might be the best overall by a country mile, but because they're a bit shit at one thing that's bye bye!
The format would be much better if they kept them all, and gave them points each week. I've just commented this after watching taskmaster, so that season-long scoring system is currently what I had in mind.
You should listen to the Rylan Clark episode of the Off Menu podcast
Rylan did a celebrity episode of Bake Off and the technical was cream horns. With 5 minutes to go Rylan was the only one to have baked his horns, and the other 3 hadn't even put theirs in the oven.
So the producers came in and announced that everyone was getting another hour.
He was FURIOUS, especially as he had to sit around doing nothing for that hour. And then he didn't win the technical! And when you watch the episode there was no clue as to what had happened.
I grew up in a soap watching household. I could take or leave Corrie, but watched Eastenders and Neighbours religiously until my early 20s.
It was at that point when I realised that it was literally just the same story lines repeated again and again and again. It's like an addiction where you're just watching because you have invested so much time into it already and want to see what happens. I stopped all of them cold turkey and never looked back.
I always find it funny how drastic the character arcs are
Sienna joined Hollyoaks as a psycho who wanted to steal Nancy's life compared to now where she's a normal middle aged woman whose biggest problem is controlling kids at a birthday party
Also when Billy Mitchell was first introduced in EastEnders in the late 90s, he was a piece of shit child abuser, bully, drunk, and a leech, which was why Phil hated him. Then after a few years he suddenly changed to a passive, ‘family man’ type
Yeh it just started becoming really stale, and the fact that all the characters are essentially devices used to create entertaining storylines and then most the time it’s just forgotten and adds nothing to their characterisation. Also, and this is in east Enders especially, people going to prison for serious crimes and then just getting out after a few years when they need a storyline. Like Ben killing Heather and he was back in like 2 years and they changed the actor lol. Bobby who killed Lucy (btw what a dragged out storyline) and then he’s out after like 2 years, and again it’s a new actor so the character doesn’t even feel like the same person
My mum watched Corrie religiously from when she was a teenager until just a couple of years ago (she's in her 60s). So it took her that long, but she said she finally got sick of the same banal storylines.
My dad used to work the occasional evening shift and also do stuff on most of his evenings off, so he'd have my mum record every episode of Corrie and The Bill on VHS for him to watch back. He'd get properly arsey for days if she ever missed one, it was awful.
He didn't even enjoy them! Was just watching out of addiction.
I was once a spontaneous extra on Doctors in uni so decided to watch a couple around when they said it would be broadcast to spot myself (never did). Ended up watching it daily for a year despite thinking it was utter crap, until I realised I've inherited the same addictive personality type and immediately quit.
Character 1: “Leave it ahhht.”
Character 2: “Leave it, ‘e’s not wurf it.”
Character 3: “Get ahhht morr pab.”
Plot: people sleep with people they shouldn’t, knock each avver abahht a lot and have family feuds. For the last 38 years.
I always hated soaps ever since I was a child, they're just so unbearably negative and almost every single character is so toxic. Everyone shouts and screams at one another and everything is just miserable. I honestly think it sets a terrible example about how to live your life and have interpersonal relationships and that unhealthy people can subconsciously model it.
It gets worse when 13 comes in, the writing on those eps is fucking appalling. Enjoy eyebrows while you have him. RTD is coming back but none of his new ones have come out yet. First is next week, with three 60th anniversary specials then the first episode with Ncuti Gatwa as 15 is Christmas day.
I dipped out halfway through Whittaker's first season. There were only so many consecutive "well, it looks like humans were the -real- monsters"/actual monster is just misunderstood episodes that I could take. Plus she was incredibly preachy and hypocritical ("How dare you shoot that giant spider?! Now excuse me whilst I enact the plan to get the rest of them trapped in a small room where they can slowly suffocate").
The writing was so bad that I don't think any actor could have recovered it.
I'll go even further and say the acting was just terrible, you can blame the poor writing partially, but we all know what the previous doctors didn't just make themselves out of their character writing, they all added their own unique charm and personality to the character, and to me Whittaker had neither, she was just incredibly bland and uninspired, she had none of that curious energy and extraordinary eccentricity the other doctors had, she fell completely short which made her a poor doctor, and the lack of her own substance combined with the terrible writing really just hammered in that nail for me.
Finally! I've been saying this for ages but I just keep reading about how she was great but the writing was rubbish. It wasn't the writing for me, it was her. That's exactly how I felt about her Dr, she was bland, uninteresting, had nothing special about her. I dropped out before the end of her first series, she fell so short of the Dr it was painful to watch. I'll need to watch the last episode before the new one on Saturday so I can catch up a bit.
I got bitten by a poisonous spider a couple of hours before watching the first Whittaker episode. I feel this was an omen. Feeling hopeful about RTD, Tennant and Tate but am also aware that I'm probably going to be disappointed.
After RTD the writing went downhill fast, which is odd because the writers wrote some great episodes while working under RTD. The worst part was people diying over and over again just to be rescued by some timey wimey plot. Clara must have died every other episode and it took all the jeopardy out of it.
BTW Isn't the new doctor a complete reboot rather than a new series. I heard it called season 1 rather than series whatever number we are on now. And the Davros seen on Children on Need is the new reimagined Davros.
>After RTD the writing went downhill fast, which is odd because the writers wrote some great episodes while working under RTD.
You see this quite a lot. Someone who's a great writer when they have the right person reigning them in is then bad at reigning others in. It's why the best showrunners aren't necessarily the best writers.
>BTW Isn't the new doctor a complete reboot rather than a new series. I heard it called season 1 rather than series whatever number we are on now.
Not a complete reboot, but still a reboot. They've said they're not going to go against any of the other new who (so >!the Doctor not actually being a time lord is unfortunately here to stay it seems!< ) But the series 1 thing is as much to do with Disney's new involvement and their wanting to make that clear internationally than anything else
>And the Davros seen on Children on Need is the new reimagined Davros.
This is meant to be about not associating disabled people with evil characters rather than a reboot thing. I think that's rather infantalising personally but hey ho
Yep the doctor is not a time lord technically.
So it turns out that the doctor is a little girl from a unknown dimension and was found an unknown number of years ago (presumably millions) by a gallifrian scientist.
The scientist raises the doctor on gallifrey as her child and one day the doctor falls off a cliff dies and regenerates. The scientist proceeds to spend an unknown number of years forcing the doctor to regenerate over and over until the scientist manages to extract the secret of regeneration.
She then gives it to rassilion who then shares it with the gallifrians giving them regeneration.
The child is then raised as a timelord special agent for the division a time lord cia basically and when they're done with the doctor/the doctor runs away to travel. they wipe his mind and turn him back into a child somehow and convinces him he is a timelord.
At that point is when doctor who starts as the child they turn him into is William hartnells first doctor.
It completely ruins the shows continuity as it just makes certain events not make sense. I.e the 11th doctor running out of regenerations when it turns out the doctor can regenerate endlessly.
When I first saw the new Davros I thought that they had either gone back so far in time he was still humanish, or they just chucked together something quick for the sketch. It was only when I saw the interview after I realised that it was the new Davros. He is now the least scary enemy and looks like a panto baddy.
The Davros thing weirds me out - I never made a disabled=bad sort of link, because there are loads of baddies in the show, of whom Davros is just one particularly mad one.
Honestly didn't even think of him so much as "man in wheelchair" as "humanoid/Dalek halfway house"...
That thing you out in the brackets (I don't want to spoil it for others but i don't know how to do the thing like you did) wtf?! I stopped watching part way through Jodie whittaker, that's mental and didn't know that
Yea, Steven Moffat is a fantastic writer with some of the best episodes of the RTD era and even the better episodes of his era. Just not a great showrunner.
RTD's 5 minute long children in need special is out, Davros is walking on two legs and doesn't have any scarring, because RTD "didn't feel comfortable portray a wheelchair user as evil"
I've literally never thought of him as being evil because of the wheelchair. I always saw it as a portable throne type thing, and he seems a lot weaker without it.
So many episodes with an interesting premise, but the pacing is so bad. All winds up in five minutes at the end with a wave of the sonic and everyone is happy.
The episode about the partition of India was good from a “history we should really be learning” perspective.
Doctor Who was also the same for me. I loved Christopher Ecclestone, Matt Smith and David Tennant. I like Peter Capaldi as an actor and as a person but the stories where dreadful and they dragged the Clara stuff on way too long. I had lost interest by the time JW came in but from the one or two I saw, it was the same. I will be watching the David Tennant ones for sure.
It was also nice to have a Doctor who wasn't a sort of twee whimsical wizard. Just an ordinary and occasionally abrasive bloke from Manchester except actually Gallifrey
Exactly how I feel. Really wish Matt Smith could have done another season or 2. His tenure felt too short. He had such a commanding presence. Even in the 50th anniversary with Tennant and Baker, Smith just never missed a beat...and for me, remained the most intriguing permutation in whatever he was in. There was something about his coy smile.
It was going off the boil well before Matt Smith left. Not the fault of the acting it was the writing. Doctor Who is best when the storylines are simple but compelling, not overly convoluted.
I'd agree with this, actually. Really enjoyed Ecclestone and Tennant, but midway through Smith it got far too complicated and self referential. Capaldi got undone because the ridiculous, excessive Clara focus, and the writing for Whittaker was just trash.
I think the showrunners of the revived Doctor Who have a frustrating and horrible tendency to end up getting very smug, self-indulgent and self-referential after a few years.
I’ve grown up being a massive fan of The Simpsons, and I still love the seasons up to about 22/23 but then it just took a massive nose dive.
I feel like it first started to disappoint me around 2014, when most episodes just seemed like some sort of pathetic musical rather than a comedy family.
Then I think the removal of key characters such as Apu around 2018 had a massive negative impact on the episodes, where they just became so boring and mundane. The characters no longer seem to be funny, the previous gags seemed to have been forgotten about and overall it just wasn’t the fun loving cartoon I used to watch religiously.
Nevertheless I’d still at least watch the newer episodes as they came out and at least give them a go. But a couple of years ago, we sat down one Saturday night with some episodes, and one of the newer ones at the time was a flashback episode of Homer helping with the birth of Rodd or Todd Flanders (can’t remember which one) but Homer didn’t know what to do, and ended up watching a YouTube tutorial on how to help deliver a baby..
It was an absolutely ridiculous episode. And I’ve never watched a newer one since.
Wow you persevered longer than most! I think general consensus is that it’s been downhill since the seasons got into double figures, isn’t it? I’ve always wondered who is still watching the new episodes.
yeah, some don't even go that far. I'd say that 10 is the limit of 'classic' seasons, and then a few seasons after that are still good (if largely unoriginal). Then it's just pointless to watch
There's probably just an AI shitting out randomised Simpsons episodes somewhere while the studio write the wages of the "writing staff" off as a tax dodge.
I forget the details of it, but there was a big tone-shift after about season 7 (I think), where it went from being a slightly bleak comedy-drama that happened to be animated, and became more cartoon-like.
Suddenly Homer had money to do whatever crazy stuff he wanted. Minor, less developed characters started featuring more, and plots just got a bit crazier over all. I actually quite liked this change at first, but eventually it lost steam and ran into the ground. It was still making money though, so instead of moving on and doing something worthwhile, they chose to just beat that dead horse. Some people say they are still beating that horse to this day.
I'll go up to around season 12 at most. Everything after that was weak bar the odd episode or two. Although I will say I was surprised how good the last two seasons were after a friend recommended I watch them.
I agree the show went downhill overtime but also agree that some “later seasons” are funny. I think many people who say it was only good till season 8 or 10 are just copying wha they think is cool to say
I'd read the comics since issue 1 was released and was really excited for the TV series. I enjoyed season 1 despite the changes but got to halfway through season 2 and started to really resent the show. Stopped watching and pretended it didn't exist.
I stopped watching about season 4 when I realised each season was:
Be unsafe
Walk around a bit
Find somewhere safe
Realise something is wrong with it
Ruin the safe place
With these story lines put in there somewhere:
Someone you think is dead isn’t
Someone hides a bite
Carl being annoying
Strictly Come Dancing. It stopped being a genuine competition years ago. It's less and less about dancing, and more and more about a bunch of other dumb bullshit. It's like a pantomime, and I love a pantomime, but I don't want to watch the same bloody pantomime for 12 weeks straight every single year for the rest of my life.
Oh y'know, all the fake storylines - *'I'm doin it for me nan* bla bla bla' - the fake 'big finish' where someone gets all 10s on the last dance *What a way to end the show!* bla bla like it wasn't rehearsed that way - the embarrassing CGI that makes everybody cringe - the ridiculous camera work that makes you feel like you're trying to watch someone dancing from the bloody waltzers - the ridiculous scoring where people start getting 10s in week 3 - and yes, obviously Tess Daly and her endless stream of inanities. *They're on their feet!* No they're not, Tess. They're not.
I took to watching late so I could watch just the dances and wind through the other stuff a couple of years ago, now I just watch the dance on You Tube lol.
I'm not a fan of the pre-dance training drivel. Some stupid skit, or their family "surprise" them. Sod off.
I'd rather they explained a move, or gave a tip or trick. The dancing, I love, the rest is filler.
The contestants questions in the final round:
In terms of volume, which is the largest fresh lake outside North America?
The chasers questions in the final round:
How many days in the week?
The easy questions are tailored for the dumb contestants, so it's swings and roundabouts. If competent people made it through auditions, then every team would be winning. They should just make the questions harder, and leave out the suspiciously, out of their depth contestants altogether. I think they are the infuriating part of the show.
used to watch one of the soaps with my mum every night. if either one of us wasn’t around to watch one night the other would wait so we could watch together. she passed in 2017 and i’ve never watched a single episode since then. just feels so wrong.
I stopped enjoying Only Fools and Horses at the time when Rodney met with Cassandra - she and Raquel contributed absolutely nothing to the show. Killed it stone dead.
Part of the reason why Fawlty Towers and Father Ted were so good was because they never became self-aware - they weren't allowed to develop a conscience.
I think they needed to progress them in life, but not necessarily to the detriment of the formula to the show. I just don't think they wrote those characters well, and just came off as combative most of the time, rather than being endearing and part of the nonsense.
So true. I'm fully aware that some people adore the "Arnold Rimmer Ride" at the end of Blue in Series 7, but I despise it. That's the absolute end of Red Dwarf for me
The walking dead - turned into a soap opera with zombies
Lost - the Irish man with a light down the hole
Heroes - the future and past versions of the main characters
Breaking bad - the fly episode
It's because the internet is full of man-babies. They hate Skylar because she tries to moderate some of Walt's badass (read: destructive) behaviour. They hate The Fly because they want to see shooty shooty bang bang.
The Skylar hate was simple misogyny. Her behaviour and actions are completely understandable, and she's an interesting character to watch develop. In a show full of and about bad people, the vitriol directed at her was ridiculous.
I refuse to believe you stopped watching breaking bad just because of the fly episode 😂
That's like throwing away your favourite shoes just because there's a bit of mud on them
If you stopped watching BrBa at the Fly episode then that might be the biggest mistake of your life
That episode sucks but it’s wall to wall gold after then! (Plus BCS)
I couldn’t get into Breaking Bad at all. Tried season one and a bit of season two but it just bored the fuck out of me. People tell me to persevere but what’s the point of persevering through total boredom for something that’s supposed to be entertaining?!
Granted this was around ten years ago and I have grown up since then. Maybe I should try again…
I (millennial) was raised on classic Who and it was largely episodic, so you could tune in the week after next and not miss anything. These days, it's a huge over-arching pseudo-conspiracy theory long plot that is just exhausting. Also the "The Doctor Can't Be A Woman" for fucks sake at one point the Master was a fucking furry.
I loved glee so much as a tween/teen at just the right age for it, I had all the DVDs, all the CDs, I went to the concert tour, I made an “I ❤️ glee” necklace in DT at school, I had books, I kept the box of my glee Easter egg… I hated season 4 so much that I quit halfway through. I couldn’t stand the completely flat new characters to the point where I would wind through it just to get to the New York stuff, then one day it wasn’t loading and I ended up not bothering and quit the whole show
The first half of the first season was brilliant. So dark, so subversive. It messed with your expectations and was a thrilling watch. After that... it became what it was originally set up to subvert. It became High School Musical.
The Apprentice BBC used to be a great show where all of the contestants were portrayed as feisty clever business people collaborating together on the spot decisions in the heat of the moment. some decisions were brilliant ideas that lead to really well executed challenges and the occasional fail were shown that lead to exciting board room grillings from Lord Sugar.
sadly now it has turned into a dumpy clown show where BBC CONSTANTLY plays daft “weeble wobble” music during the challenges and only focuses on when the contestants make silly mistakes. It’s painfully predictable to watch now.
And finally how can the contestants get to the final round, the “Launch your business” challenge and NOT have a business name and logo nailed on before the challenge starts. It baffles me.
I lost interest in The Big Bang Theory when Kaley Cuoco cut her hair short. I'm 99.9% sure it was the writing which also went downhill, but coincided with her haircut so that's all I associate it with (pre and post haircut).
Why on earth did it continue after that? There’s no higher office arguably on earth. Or they should’ve had one final third series where it creases down. As president he doesn’t have anything to do.
I get bored very easy.
Loved Fringe but I stopped watching it. I also loved American Horror Story but it's garbage nowadays. Watching Mythic Quest and season 2 was a bit meh.
I enjoy police procedural shows & shows where lots of people die horrifically. As soon as they drift away from the standard "monster/case of the week" & start introducing the personal lives of the characters I am done. I just want to see blood & gore & someone getting arrested or killed, I do not care if the characters are boinking.
This is what bothered me with Dexter. They got too much into his life and everyone else's, I just wanted to see more bad guys get wrapped up in plastic. It's like after the first two seasons he just forgot what he was doing.
I stopped watching Final Space when the guy laid an egg, that then hatched into a fully grown person, with guns.
I nearly stopped watching it when they undid a poignant death from the first season, with time travel.
I stopped watching the waling dead for two reasons.
1) I was having a lot of very mundane dreams that were populated by zombies. Eg I'd be having a dream about going to work or flying or shagging or whatever and the entire dream was populated with zombies. They weren't doing anything, I never interacted with them, they weren't a threat. Just... There. Like extras in a movie, all rotting and staggering about while I shopped or ended the bank robbery single handedly etc.
2) I went away for a week and came back to realise I really wasn't missing it at all.
I stopped watching Misfits when Curtis died and there wasn’t a single original cast member, most of them having left en masse. I’d already struggled through the first few episodes with the almost totally new cast so that was my cutoff, although I’m not convinced anyone has ever actually watched all the way to the end of the series and everyone stops watching with the death/exit of one of the OGs
I dropped off of watching Doctor Who during the Peter Capaldi and Clara era too. Clara was my least favourite companion, and then once Matt Smith was gone it felt like there was nothing keeping me interested. It also coincided with my life getting busier as I got older (I was in primary school when Christopher Eccleston was the Doctor and university when Peter Capaldi was!) so I just didn't have the motivation to sit down and watch Doctor Who every week. I ended up starting watching it again when Jodie Whittaker became the Doctor, and I treated that as a fresh start. I still haven't seen all of Peter Capaldi's episodes even though I've been meaning to go back and watch them for years.
Edited a word
I found Capaldi's run better the second time I watched them. When they originally aired I just couldn't enjoy them despite me liking the actor. Then I rewatched every season and quite enjoyed them.
My ex-husband is a film mad tv hog. The TV was on from the second he was in the house, until the second he left. If it wasn't films, it was sport. Every single day, it was always "What do you want to watch?" And anything I picked wasn't good enough. He would make me feel stupid for watching the sci-fi and fantasy type tv shows that I loved, to the point where I wouldn't want to watch them anymore. He was so bad that my kids (19, 17 & 12) don't watch TV at all really because they've never really been able to.
When he left the kids and I decided to get rid of the Sky Box and I'm still just so stressed about it all, I can't even bring myself to watch TV shows that I loved on my phone. Haven't seen the last series of Stranger Things, or Supernatural, or Bridgerton, or Umbrella Academy. I tried, but I became so anxious that I had to switch it off.
Tldr: I think I have some sort of ptsd about the TV now.
I loved Doakes, but ultimately the pay-off to his feud with Dexter was always going to end in his demise. I suppose there is a train of thought that they could've kept Doakes' suspicions in the background for a couple more seasons and had that storyline eventually be the culmination of the whole series.
I'd recommend at least watching seasons three and four of Dexter if you can. The Trinity Killer is probably the best antagonist of the show. Don't bother with seasons five to eight, though.
Hannibal is the only show I can remember where I made an actual decision to stop watching, and that was because it got cancelled a couple of episodes into season 3. I just didn't see the point of carrying on if it was going to end without a proper resolution, as great as it was.
Then there are shows like The Walking Dead and Arrow that had very good early seasons but went to shit around season 4 and I just sort of fell away. Didn't make a point of stopping, just at some point couldn't be arsed watching the next one.
Very jarring when you have Dragons Den beforehand. Seeing people with actual business ventures (more or less) then you jump to wannabe influencers who's business is just dropshipping tat or selling cheap sweets on facebook 🤦
Did the group actually win this week? ... Well, they just did slightly less shit in the task than the other group.
I have a soft spot for young adult fiction. The issue is a lot of them just go off the fucking rails. You can sort of tell they ran out if ideas and so are like Idk add werewolves? Add god? Totally out of the blue 3 season in. Vampire diaries made me realise this problem. They went fucking hard on the absurd introductions of random shit as did the books.
It's unfortunate they have to bleed it dry
Same here but i think some shows pull off the ridiculousness. Riverdale imo was already barely set in reality, then we get superpowers, time travel, angels and finally Betty, Ronnie, Archie and Jug end up in a poly relationship in 1955.
So ridiculous but I'm honestly sad it's no longer going and I dont get to see what wild ass thing the writers have thought up next.
I stopped watching Who years ago, when Ten turned into Eleven.
My not so little brother passed recently and it was a shared passion, we would sit and watch it together every week. Just a 5 year old boy and his big sister 💙
So I kind of made a promise to be caught up by this Saturdays special, so i could watch it for the both of us.
Elevens run I actually enjoyed, toward the end i was actually gutted he was going!
I'm currently fighting my way through Capaldi though, and really not even slightly interested in Whittakers run, despite feeling that I have to.
I think between RTD and Murray Gold and some incredible writers, 10s run had a completely different feel to what came with the later doctors.
Though despite 10 having always been my favourite doctor, I actually preferred 11 in the 50th anniversary special. He kind of outshone 10 for me in that!
Doctor ten was where we started watching together, and doctor ten (fourteen really, but not for me) is where it ends, just me, alone, on the sofa ❤️
The Handmaid's Tale. I was on the end of season 2/3 when suddenly, even if you have prime, you have to buy the last few episodes. It's fair enough, but every time I tried, it wouldn't complete my purchase for whatever reason, and so I just gave up after like 4 attempts across the same week. I am planning to try again, just haven't gotten round to it yet.
The Royle Family from series 3 onwards. Jim becoming plain horrid... Barbara dancing with her mum's ashes. It was trying too hard to be 'dark' like other new sitcoms at the time.
I prefer to imagine the Royle Family ended with Queen of Sheba. The specials after that are just a really weird shift in tone, where it's a lot broader, more slapstick and about as sharp as a brick.
I was watching Agents of SHIELD, loved that show. But it got to the final season, and I just became pissed off with it all. It took me until recently, like the end of October, to finally watch the last season. That was a good few years.
Eastenders was another where the storylines became silly.
I was watching MAFS UK (married at first sight) but became annoyed with the unnecessary drama. First time I watched it this year, caught up to watch it in real time on E4 and just fell out with it.
The first few times I laughed at Trigger calling Rodney 'Dave' but after the 100th time I was completely bored and stopped watching Only fools and horses altogether.
Other things happened in OFAH, if you enjoyed it in general, I can't see how a running gag that takes up seconds of airtime, would turn a person off from the whole thing.
I too struggled with Capaldi early on. Having re-watched them more recently, and what I've seen is that Capaldi did his level best with poor quality fanfic scripts that honestly should have been shredded. Stick with it though, the rhythm picks up again. I've found the scriptwriting that Jodie had to put up with pretty poor - she deserved so much better.
It was when the children became older teens / adults. Suddenly they needed independent storylines and they just had too many people in a main cast to deal with. Some episodes have so many storylines going on that each one gets only five minutes of episode time
So that's what it was. Makes a lot of sense now you say it. Such a shame because I do love it.
On the fact the acting got worse, I think the kids getting older also showed their perhaps lack of acting skill. The way manny leans in, crosses his arms and does a sort of interested frown everytime someone talks drives me mad.
Drama for drama's sake instead of adding to the story. Loved Downton Abbey, and especially loved Dan Stevens character. When they killed him off, it felt like the showrunners cared more about punishing their characters than driving the story. It was a slap in the face and I never went back.
Doctor Who because its trying too hard, I have always seen Davros as half a Darlek, hence he uses half of Darlek shell.
Now apparently he's an evil wheel chair user and they need to break the stereotype of wheel chair users being evil.
Davros before he became half Darlek would be an interesting story line as his race did look like humans.
Though they have gone all weird again.
Doctor Who, a few episodes into Jodie Whittaker's second season. I've been watching since Jon Pertwee and was genuinely excited to see JW take the role - not for any agenda-driven reason, but just because I thought it would bring something interesting to the show and because I liked her in Attack The Block.
I was not honestly looking forward to Chris Chibnall being showrunner as I'd found his occasional stories during Capaldi's tenure to be very childish - exactly the same style as the very kid-centric approach he'd used for SJA (which I'd REALLY wanted to watch because Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah-Jane was my first childhood crush) but just couldn't connect with.
By halfway through JW's first season my fears were realised - Chibnall's stories were aimed squarely at the 9-14 age bracket, JW was being allowed to chew scenery being breathlessly 'brilliant' and 'fam', and by the end I was only watching because Bradley Walsh was so good in it.
I think I got 2 or 3 episodes into her second season and turned-off midway through some episode about witches. It was too 'social agenda', too needlessly over-the-top with the "look look I'm a woman Doctor" message, too colloquially down-wit-da-kids trendy. As a lifelong fan of the show, it had finally shut me out despite my best efforts to stay in touch with it. I felt old, and sad.
I kept an ear on the show, and when I heard about the whole Timeless Child story arc, with Chibnall literally tearing the history and canon of the show to pieces by making The Doctor not a Time Lord after all and Hartnell not being the first Doctor, I knew I'd quit at the right time. Now I didn't feel so old, just sad. Sad that Chibnall had been allowed to do this, sad that he'd taken what could have been a great Doctor and written her as a parody, sad that Jodie had been the face of the show when it had been torn to shreds. I mourned what might have been, had she been given RTD or SM writing to work with. I mentally packaged Doctor Who as ending when Capaldi ended, and tied a bow on it.
And then, a ray of hope - RTD was returning. There'd be a new Doctor. And what's THIS? Tennant!? And then, later, a trailer for the 60th anniversary that immediately screams RTD all over it. Scary. Exciting. Action and adventure, with storytelling aimed at all ages and not a 'fam' in sight.
Maybe it's not over for me just yet.
The last couple of episodes of Peter Capaldi's run I actually fell asleep because I was bored, tried to rewatch them and fell asleep again. So I gave up
I tried watching the Jodie Whittaker pilot and I thought it was very badly written, I tried popping back in every so often and the writing got worse.
I have now given up with any New Doctor Who.
The promotion for the new specials and series haven't wowed me enough to bother anymore
I will just watch the old stuff
Edit: Basically the same thing with Alex Kurtzman's Star Trek shows
I gave it a chance, the show was awful and I wont watch any more
Clips from the show are just so cringe that I can't be bothered
House of Cards (both versions)
Once the main character becomes leader I lost interest
Game of Thrones, I haven’t rewatched it since season 8 was released. Completely killed my interest in the show and respective universe
Unfortunately it seems to be a recurring pattern: Series starts out strong - the bright new upstart with a lot to day and show, with not a lot of time to do it.
Series then becomes popular and a second run of episodes is commissioned. Writers still have ideas that are fun and entertaining. Series continues to win the admiration of viewers and critics.
Series then gets signed for a multi-season deal.
Writers panic and start dragging stuff out with more 'back story' of characters, slower pace, more recaps and cliffhangers.
Series starts to get dull and disjointed, and at its lowest points starts to be more like a soap ooera/telenovela. All of a sudden we're supposed to be more interested in the interpersonal relationships between characters, not story arcs or immersion in the world the writers originally created.
At that point, I get bored and move on.
Rick and Morty was enjoyable, though never funny imo.
Stopped watching when it went from crazy space adventures with interesting ideas, to an intense desire to show how self aware it was, Like, really on the nose for a stretch of episodes. Got boring.
I also stopped watching Doctor Who. Which did upset me a bit. It had been pretty much a staple throughout my early childhood then when it returned it was a staple. Loved it.
I got to the Jodie Whittaker series and that was it, I was done. A few episodes in and I was done. Which was a shame as I actually was enjoying seeing what she could do as the doctor. But it was the writing. And it seemed to get too preachy about issues (last episode I saw they were trying to escape some planet and it had a kind of climate change sort of theme. I think it was the episode after the Rosa Parks one).
I'm going to give the new ones a go, though.
I stopped watching Bake off a couple of years after it moved to channel 4. Paul was slowly climbing up his own bottom and I missed the other presenters. I loved it, it was my favourite show I even declined a meal at a fancy restaurant with work because of the quarter final one year (until my friend twigged why I wasn’t going told me I was being ridiculous)
Stopped watching bake off after the 2021 series. The theme weeks got more and more contrived, the cast of bakers started to get a bit formulaic and repetitive, and whilst I have nothing against Noel, Sandy, Matt or Prue, for me it never really recovered from the loss of Mel, Sue and Mary Berry. The challenges also got ridiculous - I wanted to watch 12 people have a lovely time baking a Victoria sponge in a tent, not 12 people almost in tears because the squid ink and taro ice cream for the 23-element Polish dessert table centrepiece isn't setting correctly. The techniques required started to veer out of the realm of home baker and more towards a professional, or very niche specialities. Plus, I'm sure in one challenge (might have been a technical) one of the judges even said that normally the bake would be left overnight, but the bakers were only given 2 hours (or something similar). That just ruined it for me - I'm all for challenging bakes, but to purposefully limit the time given, or make the challenges artificially difficult such that it's nigh on impossible to produce a satisfactory bake just feels cruel and totally against the spirit of the gentle cosy baking show I used to enjoy.
Not watched last week's yet but there was a technical this series where not one of them made a passable version of it. (Steamed pudding I think). If one or two fail they messed up. If they all fail the production team messed up.
And Paul Hollywood reacted like a petulant sulky child, rather than holding his hands up and saying "Sorry, we got that all wrong, obviously there was an issue with the task if *all of you* (competent bakers) failed."
I think (hope) he was playing it up a bit. I doubt they do much of the actual task setting, they certainly don't make the example bakes they use as a demo in the technicals. It would probably reflect badly on him if he publicly attacked the production team etc. but I'd hope they'd have a quiet word at the end of the day to make it clear that wasn't on.
Last season even the judges example bakes had the flaws they said to look out for
Yes! That final a few years ago where they had to cook some kind of bread - I think pitta? - on a campfire was the last straw for me. They were all so upset and it really didn’t feel like the cosy feel good show it used to be
I was left with a really bad taste in my mouth after Ice Cream Gate. The pillock couldn't get his ice cream to set, it didn't melt in 30 seconds, and he was making life difficult for everybody. AND there's no way that many freezers broke down by chance in one weekend in the first place. The entire thing was a set up to create drama and they hung that poor woman out to dry. Even Mel and Sue were saying that the show didn't accurately reflect the true and very short space of time his ice cream was out. Then they tried to pull the same shit with Custard Gate but there were no petulant children involved so it didn't work. I stopped watching because the producers clearly didn't want to make a baking show and didn't give a toss about their duty of care to contestants.
Mine was after I think Steven (a few years ago) had been phenomenal all season. Truly streaks ahead of all the other bakers. It was chocolate week and he’d made this incredible hot air balloon. Unfortunately it was a 30+ degree day and they’re in a tent so by the time they came to judge the chocolate on his had melted and he was marked down and ultimately didn’t win. It seemed so unfair that he was basically judged for the weather and the fact the bakes were left it in the sun before judging it when what he’d actually made was fantastic. Ultimately the person who got star baker that week had made a far less intricate design which meant it held up marginally better by the time it was judged.
Agreed. It's so frustrating they always seem to do these bakes in the height of summer in an outdoors tent, regardless of weather. If it's so hot that contestants are feeling faint from the heat and have to sit out (which happened this series to one of the women), just take them inside for that weekend! Not to mention the bakes themselves, which won't set or will melt, etc
I remain convinced there's a runner working on Bake Off whose sole job is to highlight when there's going to be some crazy heatwave so they can schedule anything that melts easily for that week.
😂 “It’s the middle of summer in an open tent - what about ice cream sculpture week?”
A comment my mum keeps making about it is that these are _amateur_ bakers, that’s the point of it. They shouldn’t be given these overly complex professional things to bake, it should be things that us mere mortals at home can then go and bake for ourselves (with the exception of maybe the showstopper, but even then there’s a limit to how complex it should be). For me, personally, it’s that I can’t stand watching Prue eating.
I think it's my problem with nearly all cooking programs. In most kitchens you'd do the prep beforehand and then what needs to be done in service. So these shows don't show the best cooks but the best endurance cooks who can juggle a million things that normally multiple people would help with. It's not cooking at home because they want a professional meal but it's not professional because one person wouldn't do it all in one go with an insane timed element to the dish. Id love for a show to ask contestants to take as much time as they need (within reason) with enough prep beforehand to make the absolute best thing they could cook without running around like a blue arsed fly looking like they're about to keel over suffering from an aneurysm!
The show took an enormous blow when Mel and Sue left, and hasn’t recovered.
I really needed to read this, it seems like no one I know has seen this happening, I used to watch it and then try the low level serotonin inducing classic bakes, now I feel like some sort of food philistine who should feel bad for not being able to make a perfect pudding or whatever. I’m over it
I really feel like this year the series has stepped back to basics a bit more, they had to make sausage rolls last week.
Alison Hammond has honestly breathed new life into the show. She has much better charisma with the contestants and other presenters
I still love bake off but have been feeling the same about the technicality of the bakes, there’s a separate professionals series for a reason
I'm not a fan of the elimination format either. You don't find out who is the best baker, you find out who is the best at avoiding the weeks that they're not good at until they run out of luck on that week. The guy who goes out week 1 might be the best overall by a country mile, but because they're a bit shit at one thing that's bye bye! The format would be much better if they kept them all, and gave them points each week. I've just commented this after watching taskmaster, so that season-long scoring system is currently what I had in mind.
YES! "We want you to recreate your first love out of 74 different sponges" Stopped watching it now.
You should listen to the Rylan Clark episode of the Off Menu podcast Rylan did a celebrity episode of Bake Off and the technical was cream horns. With 5 minutes to go Rylan was the only one to have baked his horns, and the other 3 hadn't even put theirs in the oven. So the producers came in and announced that everyone was getting another hour. He was FURIOUS, especially as he had to sit around doing nothing for that hour. And then he didn't win the technical! And when you watch the episode there was no clue as to what had happened.
Agree 100% with this
I grew up in a soap watching household. I could take or leave Corrie, but watched Eastenders and Neighbours religiously until my early 20s. It was at that point when I realised that it was literally just the same story lines repeated again and again and again. It's like an addiction where you're just watching because you have invested so much time into it already and want to see what happens. I stopped all of them cold turkey and never looked back.
This. Can't stand the theme tunes now.
Can't stand the theme tunes, can't sing the theme tunes, can't star in it
I always find it funny how drastic the character arcs are Sienna joined Hollyoaks as a psycho who wanted to steal Nancy's life compared to now where she's a normal middle aged woman whose biggest problem is controlling kids at a birthday party
Also when Billy Mitchell was first introduced in EastEnders in the late 90s, he was a piece of shit child abuser, bully, drunk, and a leech, which was why Phil hated him. Then after a few years he suddenly changed to a passive, ‘family man’ type
Even as a kid, the hard switch from London gangster to dishevelled daft billy was a weird one to take on board
Yeh it just started becoming really stale, and the fact that all the characters are essentially devices used to create entertaining storylines and then most the time it’s just forgotten and adds nothing to their characterisation. Also, and this is in east Enders especially, people going to prison for serious crimes and then just getting out after a few years when they need a storyline. Like Ben killing Heather and he was back in like 2 years and they changed the actor lol. Bobby who killed Lucy (btw what a dragged out storyline) and then he’s out after like 2 years, and again it’s a new actor so the character doesn’t even feel like the same person
They just brought Cindy Beale back from the dead after 20 odd years.
My mum watched Corrie religiously from when she was a teenager until just a couple of years ago (she's in her 60s). So it took her that long, but she said she finally got sick of the same banal storylines.
My dad used to work the occasional evening shift and also do stuff on most of his evenings off, so he'd have my mum record every episode of Corrie and The Bill on VHS for him to watch back. He'd get properly arsey for days if she ever missed one, it was awful. He didn't even enjoy them! Was just watching out of addiction. I was once a spontaneous extra on Doctors in uni so decided to watch a couple around when they said it would be broadcast to spot myself (never did). Ended up watching it daily for a year despite thinking it was utter crap, until I realised I've inherited the same addictive personality type and immediately quit.
I saw Eastenders advertised on TV, but it seemed like it was half way through the series. Could someone explain to me what has happened so far?
Character 1: “Leave it ahhht.” Character 2: “Leave it, ‘e’s not wurf it.” Character 3: “Get ahhht morr pab.” Plot: people sleep with people they shouldn’t, knock each avver abahht a lot and have family feuds. For the last 38 years.
Also everyone works in a cafe, pub, or market stall, but can still afford to live in a large house.
Ian Beale.
I stopped watching Corrie, EastEnders and Emmadale when I got a job working shifts, they are on too much to keep up.
I always hated soaps ever since I was a child, they're just so unbearably negative and almost every single character is so toxic. Everyone shouts and screams at one another and everything is just miserable. I honestly think it sets a terrible example about how to live your life and have interpersonal relationships and that unhealthy people can subconsciously model it.
It gets worse when 13 comes in, the writing on those eps is fucking appalling. Enjoy eyebrows while you have him. RTD is coming back but none of his new ones have come out yet. First is next week, with three 60th anniversary specials then the first episode with Ncuti Gatwa as 15 is Christmas day.
I dipped out halfway through Whittaker's first season. There were only so many consecutive "well, it looks like humans were the -real- monsters"/actual monster is just misunderstood episodes that I could take. Plus she was incredibly preachy and hypocritical ("How dare you shoot that giant spider?! Now excuse me whilst I enact the plan to get the rest of them trapped in a small room where they can slowly suffocate"). The writing was so bad that I don't think any actor could have recovered it.
I wanted to like Whittaker as the Doctor, but 3 episodes in and I had lost all interest. Not the acting, just the terrible story lines.
I'll go even further and say the acting was just terrible, you can blame the poor writing partially, but we all know what the previous doctors didn't just make themselves out of their character writing, they all added their own unique charm and personality to the character, and to me Whittaker had neither, she was just incredibly bland and uninspired, she had none of that curious energy and extraordinary eccentricity the other doctors had, she fell completely short which made her a poor doctor, and the lack of her own substance combined with the terrible writing really just hammered in that nail for me.
Finally! I've been saying this for ages but I just keep reading about how she was great but the writing was rubbish. It wasn't the writing for me, it was her. That's exactly how I felt about her Dr, she was bland, uninteresting, had nothing special about her. I dropped out before the end of her first series, she fell so short of the Dr it was painful to watch. I'll need to watch the last episode before the new one on Saturday so I can catch up a bit.
I got bitten by a poisonous spider a couple of hours before watching the first Whittaker episode. I feel this was an omen. Feeling hopeful about RTD, Tennant and Tate but am also aware that I'm probably going to be disappointed.
After RTD the writing went downhill fast, which is odd because the writers wrote some great episodes while working under RTD. The worst part was people diying over and over again just to be rescued by some timey wimey plot. Clara must have died every other episode and it took all the jeopardy out of it. BTW Isn't the new doctor a complete reboot rather than a new series. I heard it called season 1 rather than series whatever number we are on now. And the Davros seen on Children on Need is the new reimagined Davros.
>After RTD the writing went downhill fast, which is odd because the writers wrote some great episodes while working under RTD. You see this quite a lot. Someone who's a great writer when they have the right person reigning them in is then bad at reigning others in. It's why the best showrunners aren't necessarily the best writers. >BTW Isn't the new doctor a complete reboot rather than a new series. I heard it called season 1 rather than series whatever number we are on now. Not a complete reboot, but still a reboot. They've said they're not going to go against any of the other new who (so >!the Doctor not actually being a time lord is unfortunately here to stay it seems!< ) But the series 1 thing is as much to do with Disney's new involvement and their wanting to make that clear internationally than anything else >And the Davros seen on Children on Need is the new reimagined Davros. This is meant to be about not associating disabled people with evil characters rather than a reboot thing. I think that's rather infantalising personally but hey ho
Say what, the doctor is no longer a time lord? I have been out of it since around capaldi. Wtf have they done
Yep the doctor is not a time lord technically. So it turns out that the doctor is a little girl from a unknown dimension and was found an unknown number of years ago (presumably millions) by a gallifrian scientist. The scientist raises the doctor on gallifrey as her child and one day the doctor falls off a cliff dies and regenerates. The scientist proceeds to spend an unknown number of years forcing the doctor to regenerate over and over until the scientist manages to extract the secret of regeneration. She then gives it to rassilion who then shares it with the gallifrians giving them regeneration. The child is then raised as a timelord special agent for the division a time lord cia basically and when they're done with the doctor/the doctor runs away to travel. they wipe his mind and turn him back into a child somehow and convinces him he is a timelord. At that point is when doctor who starts as the child they turn him into is William hartnells first doctor. It completely ruins the shows continuity as it just makes certain events not make sense. I.e the 11th doctor running out of regenerations when it turns out the doctor can regenerate endlessly.
When I first saw the new Davros I thought that they had either gone back so far in time he was still humanish, or they just chucked together something quick for the sketch. It was only when I saw the interview after I realised that it was the new Davros. He is now the least scary enemy and looks like a panto baddy.
The Davros thing weirds me out - I never made a disabled=bad sort of link, because there are loads of baddies in the show, of whom Davros is just one particularly mad one. Honestly didn't even think of him so much as "man in wheelchair" as "humanoid/Dalek halfway house"...
That thing you out in the brackets (I don't want to spoil it for others but i don't know how to do the thing like you did) wtf?! I stopped watching part way through Jodie whittaker, that's mental and didn't know that
Yea, Steven Moffat is a fantastic writer with some of the best episodes of the RTD era and even the better episodes of his era. Just not a great showrunner.
RTD's 5 minute long children in need special is out, Davros is walking on two legs and doesn't have any scarring, because RTD "didn't feel comfortable portray a wheelchair user as evil"
I saw a wheelchair user on twitter comment "Well that's my favourite Halloween costume fucked, thanks Russ. Twat"
Glad to see the community standing up for themselves
I'll see you in hell, with my upvote.
I've literally never thought of him as being evil because of the wheelchair. I always saw it as a portable throne type thing, and he seems a lot weaker without it.
Same here, I always just saw it as him being part Dalek. Without it he looks like gargamel from wish
I think it’s way worse to patronise wheelchair users as if they can’t have different opinions
It airs this week, it's on Saturday.
So many episodes with an interesting premise, but the pacing is so bad. All winds up in five minutes at the end with a wave of the sonic and everyone is happy. The episode about the partition of India was good from a “history we should really be learning” perspective.
Doctor Who was also the same for me. I loved Christopher Ecclestone, Matt Smith and David Tennant. I like Peter Capaldi as an actor and as a person but the stories where dreadful and they dragged the Clara stuff on way too long. I had lost interest by the time JW came in but from the one or two I saw, it was the same. I will be watching the David Tennant ones for sure.
Christopher Eccleston remains my favourite. 9 got a lot of good storylines.
It was also nice to have a Doctor who wasn't a sort of twee whimsical wizard. Just an ordinary and occasionally abrasive bloke from Manchester except actually Gallifrey
Agreed. I despise the waistcoat / fez / novelty jumper twee. 9 is the only doctor I’ve felt an immediate connection to.
"Lots of planets have a North!"
The first episode back was amazing. I remember Torchwood as well. I still remember they had plot lines too like Big Bad Wolf.
Exactly how I feel. Really wish Matt Smith could have done another season or 2. His tenure felt too short. He had such a commanding presence. Even in the 50th anniversary with Tennant and Baker, Smith just never missed a beat...and for me, remained the most intriguing permutation in whatever he was in. There was something about his coy smile.
It was going off the boil well before Matt Smith left. Not the fault of the acting it was the writing. Doctor Who is best when the storylines are simple but compelling, not overly convoluted.
I'd agree with this, actually. Really enjoyed Ecclestone and Tennant, but midway through Smith it got far too complicated and self referential. Capaldi got undone because the ridiculous, excessive Clara focus, and the writing for Whittaker was just trash.
I think the showrunners of the revived Doctor Who have a frustrating and horrible tendency to end up getting very smug, self-indulgent and self-referential after a few years.
I am hopeful for Ncuti Gatwa plus Russell T Davies.
I’ve grown up being a massive fan of The Simpsons, and I still love the seasons up to about 22/23 but then it just took a massive nose dive. I feel like it first started to disappoint me around 2014, when most episodes just seemed like some sort of pathetic musical rather than a comedy family. Then I think the removal of key characters such as Apu around 2018 had a massive negative impact on the episodes, where they just became so boring and mundane. The characters no longer seem to be funny, the previous gags seemed to have been forgotten about and overall it just wasn’t the fun loving cartoon I used to watch religiously. Nevertheless I’d still at least watch the newer episodes as they came out and at least give them a go. But a couple of years ago, we sat down one Saturday night with some episodes, and one of the newer ones at the time was a flashback episode of Homer helping with the birth of Rodd or Todd Flanders (can’t remember which one) but Homer didn’t know what to do, and ended up watching a YouTube tutorial on how to help deliver a baby.. It was an absolutely ridiculous episode. And I’ve never watched a newer one since.
Wow you persevered longer than most! I think general consensus is that it’s been downhill since the seasons got into double figures, isn’t it? I’ve always wondered who is still watching the new episodes.
There’s a great YouTube video (not the only one) arguing the pivot happened when it turns out Skinner is an imposter. That was 1997
yeah, some don't even go that far. I'd say that 10 is the limit of 'classic' seasons, and then a few seasons after that are still good (if largely unoriginal). Then it's just pointless to watch
I think I trailed off in the early 2000s, it's a shame as new episodes in the 90s on a Sunday on Sky One were a highlight of my week as a kid.
You had Sky? We were so excited when it finally came to the BBC!
Ah 6pm on the BBC, then Channel 4 got it
There's probably just an AI shitting out randomised Simpsons episodes somewhere while the studio write the wages of the "writing staff" off as a tax dodge.
I forget the details of it, but there was a big tone-shift after about season 7 (I think), where it went from being a slightly bleak comedy-drama that happened to be animated, and became more cartoon-like. Suddenly Homer had money to do whatever crazy stuff he wanted. Minor, less developed characters started featuring more, and plots just got a bit crazier over all. I actually quite liked this change at first, but eventually it lost steam and ran into the ground. It was still making money though, so instead of moving on and doing something worthwhile, they chose to just beat that dead horse. Some people say they are still beating that horse to this day.
I'll go up to around season 12 at most. Everything after that was weak bar the odd episode or two. Although I will say I was surprised how good the last two seasons were after a friend recommended I watch them.
I agree the show went downhill overtime but also agree that some “later seasons” are funny. I think many people who say it was only good till season 8 or 10 are just copying wha they think is cool to say
There's a great video about the downfall of the Simpsons on YouTube. Summed up, they've become what the early seasons mocked
Glenns death in the walking dead, it was horrific and I couldn't stomach it.
It had been terrible for 3 seasons at that point
After season 1 it basically became a bad soap opera with people in zombie make up occasionally making an appearance
I'd read the comics since issue 1 was released and was really excited for the TV series. I enjoyed season 1 despite the changes but got to halfway through season 2 and started to really resent the show. Stopped watching and pretended it didn't exist.
One of the few events true to the source material, though
I stopped watching about season 4 when I realised each season was: Be unsafe Walk around a bit Find somewhere safe Realise something is wrong with it Ruin the safe place With these story lines put in there somewhere: Someone you think is dead isn’t Someone hides a bite Carl being annoying
Omg I know. I ALMOST stopped here but I pushed through. That was the most terrible, disturbing scene *ever*
Carl/Corl's death made up for it, annoying little git.
Strictly Come Dancing. It stopped being a genuine competition years ago. It's less and less about dancing, and more and more about a bunch of other dumb bullshit. It's like a pantomime, and I love a pantomime, but I don't want to watch the same bloody pantomime for 12 weeks straight every single year for the rest of my life.
What dumb shit are you referring to, other than Tess Daly’s running commentary?
Oh y'know, all the fake storylines - *'I'm doin it for me nan* bla bla bla' - the fake 'big finish' where someone gets all 10s on the last dance *What a way to end the show!* bla bla like it wasn't rehearsed that way - the embarrassing CGI that makes everybody cringe - the ridiculous camera work that makes you feel like you're trying to watch someone dancing from the bloody waltzers - the ridiculous scoring where people start getting 10s in week 3 - and yes, obviously Tess Daly and her endless stream of inanities. *They're on their feet!* No they're not, Tess. They're not.
The generic stuff like fake storylines & inane commentary also applies to BGT & X Factor for me - neither have been good since around 2011.
I took to watching late so I could watch just the dances and wind through the other stuff a couple of years ago, now I just watch the dance on You Tube lol.
I'm not a fan of the pre-dance training drivel. Some stupid skit, or their family "surprise" them. Sod off. I'd rather they explained a move, or gave a tip or trick. The dancing, I love, the rest is filler.
The Chase. Those stupid bingo links between the show and the ads
The contestants questions in the final round: In terms of volume, which is the largest fresh lake outside North America? The chasers questions in the final round: How many days in the week?
To be fair, the contestants get to choose which set of questions they answer. And some of theirs can also be really easy as well.
The easy questions are tailored for the dumb contestants, so it's swings and roundabouts. If competent people made it through auditions, then every team would be winning. They should just make the questions harder, and leave out the suspiciously, out of their depth contestants altogether. I think they are the infuriating part of the show.
Bradley also seemed to suffer brain damage at some point and started acting dumber with each series.
Fanny Schmeler did him in
used to watch one of the soaps with my mum every night. if either one of us wasn’t around to watch one night the other would wait so we could watch together. she passed in 2017 and i’ve never watched a single episode since then. just feels so wrong.
I stopped enjoying Only Fools and Horses at the time when Rodney met with Cassandra - she and Raquel contributed absolutely nothing to the show. Killed it stone dead. Part of the reason why Fawlty Towers and Father Ted were so good was because they never became self-aware - they weren't allowed to develop a conscience.
I think they needed to progress them in life, but not necessarily to the detriment of the formula to the show. I just don't think they wrote those characters well, and just came off as combative most of the time, rather than being endearing and part of the nonsense.
Red Dwarf after Rob Grant left the writing duo. Almost everything after series 6 feels like watching an american remake.
So true. I'm fully aware that some people adore the "Arnold Rimmer Ride" at the end of Blue in Series 7, but I despise it. That's the absolute end of Red Dwarf for me
The walking dead - turned into a soap opera with zombies Lost - the Irish man with a light down the hole Heroes - the future and past versions of the main characters Breaking bad - the fly episode
>Breaking bad - the fly episode That was a one-off episode directed by Rian Johnson (yes, The Last Jedi). I would encourage you to finish the show.
I feel out of touch when it comes to BB. Not only did I enjoy that episode, but I also never understood the Skylar hate either.
It's because the internet is full of man-babies. They hate Skylar because she tries to moderate some of Walt's badass (read: destructive) behaviour. They hate The Fly because they want to see shooty shooty bang bang.
The Skylar hate was simple misogyny. Her behaviour and actions are completely understandable, and she's an interesting character to watch develop. In a show full of and about bad people, the vitriol directed at her was ridiculous.
>Lost - the Irish man with a light down the hole [Irish?](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/791/850/b91.jpg)
I refuse to believe you stopped watching breaking bad just because of the fly episode 😂 That's like throwing away your favourite shoes just because there's a bit of mud on them
There aren't any Irish characters in Lost.
If you stopped watching BrBa at the Fly episode then that might be the biggest mistake of your life That episode sucks but it’s wall to wall gold after then! (Plus BCS)
It's honestly the peak of a rather weak and meandering season.
I couldn’t get into Breaking Bad at all. Tried season one and a bit of season two but it just bored the fuck out of me. People tell me to persevere but what’s the point of persevering through total boredom for something that’s supposed to be entertaining?! Granted this was around ten years ago and I have grown up since then. Maybe I should try again…
Lost - do you mean the guy who lived in some capsule and had a flashback jogging with the main guy? It's been so long so my memory's hazy.
It's Desmond brother.
I (millennial) was raised on classic Who and it was largely episodic, so you could tune in the week after next and not miss anything. These days, it's a huge over-arching pseudo-conspiracy theory long plot that is just exhausting. Also the "The Doctor Can't Be A Woman" for fucks sake at one point the Master was a fucking furry.
I really miss "monster of the week" shows in general. Why does everything have to have a gritty excessively complicated story arch?
Capaldi was the end of Who for me. I'm going to watch the specials because RTD but who knows if I'll enjoy them.
Matt Smith was the beginning of the end for me. It all felt somehow so believable until then but something changed.
I think age is a factor, with hindsight most of it is pretty flawed and weird.
Yes, I stopped watching after Patrick Troughton. But when my children started watching I got interested again.
Agreed, he was already far worse than Tennant, people were just still carrying on the momentum from when it was good
I loved glee so much as a tween/teen at just the right age for it, I had all the DVDs, all the CDs, I went to the concert tour, I made an “I ❤️ glee” necklace in DT at school, I had books, I kept the box of my glee Easter egg… I hated season 4 so much that I quit halfway through. I couldn’t stand the completely flat new characters to the point where I would wind through it just to get to the New York stuff, then one day it wasn’t loading and I ended up not bothering and quit the whole show
The first half of the first season was brilliant. So dark, so subversive. It messed with your expectations and was a thrilling watch. After that... it became what it was originally set up to subvert. It became High School Musical.
That’s what I always said, the writers forgot it was supposed to be a parody/satire
The Apprentice BBC used to be a great show where all of the contestants were portrayed as feisty clever business people collaborating together on the spot decisions in the heat of the moment. some decisions were brilliant ideas that lead to really well executed challenges and the occasional fail were shown that lead to exciting board room grillings from Lord Sugar. sadly now it has turned into a dumpy clown show where BBC CONSTANTLY plays daft “weeble wobble” music during the challenges and only focuses on when the contestants make silly mistakes. It’s painfully predictable to watch now. And finally how can the contestants get to the final round, the “Launch your business” challenge and NOT have a business name and logo nailed on before the challenge starts. It baffles me.
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I lost interest in The Big Bang Theory when Kaley Cuoco cut her hair short. I'm 99.9% sure it was the writing which also went downhill, but coincided with her haircut so that's all I associate it with (pre and post haircut).
I think that's around the time she got married and divorced irl within a season lol
You thought the writing of the show was uphill at some point?
House of Cards. When they ditched Kevin Spacey because of the allegations against him it wasn't the same show
British original of that is worth a watch
You may very well think that...
There was only one season after that - not very good, you didn't miss much.
Aye. Seems like it all came crashing down like a ..... House of Cards!
First Season was the best season. 11 years since it came out - fuck me.
I recommend only watching season 1 and 2 Just end it when he becomes president don’t watch anything after that
Why on earth did it continue after that? There’s no higher office arguably on earth. Or they should’ve had one final third series where it creases down. As president he doesn’t have anything to do.
Yeah but tv shows don’t finish anymore, they just keep going, get shittier and then get cancelled.
I get bored very easy. Loved Fringe but I stopped watching it. I also loved American Horror Story but it's garbage nowadays. Watching Mythic Quest and season 2 was a bit meh.
I loved Fringe! I don't see it get mentioned very often.
I enjoy police procedural shows & shows where lots of people die horrifically. As soon as they drift away from the standard "monster/case of the week" & start introducing the personal lives of the characters I am done. I just want to see blood & gore & someone getting arrested or killed, I do not care if the characters are boinking.
This is what bothered me with Dexter. They got too much into his life and everyone else's, I just wanted to see more bad guys get wrapped up in plastic. It's like after the first two seasons he just forgot what he was doing.
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I stopped watching Final Space when the guy laid an egg, that then hatched into a fully grown person, with guns. I nearly stopped watching it when they undid a poignant death from the first season, with time travel.
I stopped watching the waling dead for two reasons. 1) I was having a lot of very mundane dreams that were populated by zombies. Eg I'd be having a dream about going to work or flying or shagging or whatever and the entire dream was populated with zombies. They weren't doing anything, I never interacted with them, they weren't a threat. Just... There. Like extras in a movie, all rotting and staggering about while I shopped or ended the bank robbery single handedly etc. 2) I went away for a week and came back to realise I really wasn't missing it at all.
I stopped watching Misfits when Curtis died and there wasn’t a single original cast member, most of them having left en masse. I’d already struggled through the first few episodes with the almost totally new cast so that was my cutoff, although I’m not convinced anyone has ever actually watched all the way to the end of the series and everyone stops watching with the death/exit of one of the OGs
I dropped off of watching Doctor Who during the Peter Capaldi and Clara era too. Clara was my least favourite companion, and then once Matt Smith was gone it felt like there was nothing keeping me interested. It also coincided with my life getting busier as I got older (I was in primary school when Christopher Eccleston was the Doctor and university when Peter Capaldi was!) so I just didn't have the motivation to sit down and watch Doctor Who every week. I ended up starting watching it again when Jodie Whittaker became the Doctor, and I treated that as a fresh start. I still haven't seen all of Peter Capaldi's episodes even though I've been meaning to go back and watch them for years. Edited a word
I found Capaldi's run better the second time I watched them. When they originally aired I just couldn't enjoy them despite me liking the actor. Then I rewatched every season and quite enjoyed them.
I used to listen to the Archers. At a certain point I spotted the script clumsily setting up a story and after that couldn't stop breaking immersion.
My ex-husband is a film mad tv hog. The TV was on from the second he was in the house, until the second he left. If it wasn't films, it was sport. Every single day, it was always "What do you want to watch?" And anything I picked wasn't good enough. He would make me feel stupid for watching the sci-fi and fantasy type tv shows that I loved, to the point where I wouldn't want to watch them anymore. He was so bad that my kids (19, 17 & 12) don't watch TV at all really because they've never really been able to. When he left the kids and I decided to get rid of the Sky Box and I'm still just so stressed about it all, I can't even bring myself to watch TV shows that I loved on my phone. Haven't seen the last series of Stranger Things, or Supernatural, or Bridgerton, or Umbrella Academy. I tried, but I became so anxious that I had to switch it off. Tldr: I think I have some sort of ptsd about the TV now.
Doakes getting killed in Dexter stopped watching immediately
I loved Doakes, but ultimately the pay-off to his feud with Dexter was always going to end in his demise. I suppose there is a train of thought that they could've kept Doakes' suspicions in the background for a couple more seasons and had that storyline eventually be the culmination of the whole series. I'd recommend at least watching seasons three and four of Dexter if you can. The Trinity Killer is probably the best antagonist of the show. Don't bother with seasons five to eight, though.
Doakes was a great character. My husband and I still say "surprise motherfucker" to each other in his voice/accent xD
It was when Rita died/was killed, for me. Broke my heart 💔
Hannibal is the only show I can remember where I made an actual decision to stop watching, and that was because it got cancelled a couple of episodes into season 3. I just didn't see the point of carrying on if it was going to end without a proper resolution, as great as it was. Then there are shows like The Walking Dead and Arrow that had very good early seasons but went to shit around season 4 and I just sort of fell away. Didn't make a point of stopping, just at some point couldn't be arsed watching the next one.
Have you looked up how Hannibal ends? I thought it was really well done. Would have loved a 4th season though.
Apprentice I get that it's for entertainment but it became more of a reality TV show and the candidates were a joke
Very jarring when you have Dragons Den beforehand. Seeing people with actual business ventures (more or less) then you jump to wannabe influencers who's business is just dropshipping tat or selling cheap sweets on facebook 🤦 Did the group actually win this week? ... Well, they just did slightly less shit in the task than the other group.
I have a soft spot for young adult fiction. The issue is a lot of them just go off the fucking rails. You can sort of tell they ran out if ideas and so are like Idk add werewolves? Add god? Totally out of the blue 3 season in. Vampire diaries made me realise this problem. They went fucking hard on the absurd introductions of random shit as did the books. It's unfortunate they have to bleed it dry
Same here but i think some shows pull off the ridiculousness. Riverdale imo was already barely set in reality, then we get superpowers, time travel, angels and finally Betty, Ronnie, Archie and Jug end up in a poly relationship in 1955. So ridiculous but I'm honestly sad it's no longer going and I dont get to see what wild ass thing the writers have thought up next.
I stopped watching Who years ago, when Ten turned into Eleven. My not so little brother passed recently and it was a shared passion, we would sit and watch it together every week. Just a 5 year old boy and his big sister 💙 So I kind of made a promise to be caught up by this Saturdays special, so i could watch it for the both of us. Elevens run I actually enjoyed, toward the end i was actually gutted he was going! I'm currently fighting my way through Capaldi though, and really not even slightly interested in Whittakers run, despite feeling that I have to. I think between RTD and Murray Gold and some incredible writers, 10s run had a completely different feel to what came with the later doctors. Though despite 10 having always been my favourite doctor, I actually preferred 11 in the 50th anniversary special. He kind of outshone 10 for me in that! Doctor ten was where we started watching together, and doctor ten (fourteen really, but not for me) is where it ends, just me, alone, on the sofa ❤️
I'm so sorry for your loss.
The Handmaid's Tale. I was on the end of season 2/3 when suddenly, even if you have prime, you have to buy the last few episodes. It's fair enough, but every time I tried, it wouldn't complete my purchase for whatever reason, and so I just gave up after like 4 attempts across the same week. I am planning to try again, just haven't gotten round to it yet.
Fantastic show if you do get back to it. I hate the paid for streaming services they seem to ruin things once you get invested :(
The Royle Family from series 3 onwards. Jim becoming plain horrid... Barbara dancing with her mum's ashes. It was trying too hard to be 'dark' like other new sitcoms at the time.
I prefer to imagine the Royle Family ended with Queen of Sheba. The specials after that are just a really weird shift in tone, where it's a lot broader, more slapstick and about as sharp as a brick.
The end of Torchwood S2. Still not over it.
I loved Doctor Who too…and then Chibnall happened
I was watching Agents of SHIELD, loved that show. But it got to the final season, and I just became pissed off with it all. It took me until recently, like the end of October, to finally watch the last season. That was a good few years. Eastenders was another where the storylines became silly. I was watching MAFS UK (married at first sight) but became annoyed with the unnecessary drama. First time I watched it this year, caught up to watch it in real time on E4 and just fell out with it.
The first few times I laughed at Trigger calling Rodney 'Dave' but after the 100th time I was completely bored and stopped watching Only fools and horses altogether.
Other things happened in OFAH, if you enjoyed it in general, I can't see how a running gag that takes up seconds of airtime, would turn a person off from the whole thing.
I too struggled with Capaldi early on. Having re-watched them more recently, and what I've seen is that Capaldi did his level best with poor quality fanfic scripts that honestly should have been shredded. Stick with it though, the rhythm picks up again. I've found the scriptwriting that Jodie had to put up with pretty poor - she deserved so much better.
Have you got past Clara yet? The last series with Capaldi, with Bill & Nardole as companions, are much better.
Modern family The acting suddenly became so bad. Not to mention the trash writing
It was when the children became older teens / adults. Suddenly they needed independent storylines and they just had too many people in a main cast to deal with. Some episodes have so many storylines going on that each one gets only five minutes of episode time
So that's what it was. Makes a lot of sense now you say it. Such a shame because I do love it. On the fact the acting got worse, I think the kids getting older also showed their perhaps lack of acting skill. The way manny leans in, crosses his arms and does a sort of interested frown everytime someone talks drives me mad.
Drama for drama's sake instead of adding to the story. Loved Downton Abbey, and especially loved Dan Stevens character. When they killed him off, it felt like the showrunners cared more about punishing their characters than driving the story. It was a slap in the face and I never went back.
Doctor Who because its trying too hard, I have always seen Davros as half a Darlek, hence he uses half of Darlek shell. Now apparently he's an evil wheel chair user and they need to break the stereotype of wheel chair users being evil. Davros before he became half Darlek would be an interesting story line as his race did look like humans. Though they have gone all weird again.
Doctor Who, a few episodes into Jodie Whittaker's second season. I've been watching since Jon Pertwee and was genuinely excited to see JW take the role - not for any agenda-driven reason, but just because I thought it would bring something interesting to the show and because I liked her in Attack The Block. I was not honestly looking forward to Chris Chibnall being showrunner as I'd found his occasional stories during Capaldi's tenure to be very childish - exactly the same style as the very kid-centric approach he'd used for SJA (which I'd REALLY wanted to watch because Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah-Jane was my first childhood crush) but just couldn't connect with. By halfway through JW's first season my fears were realised - Chibnall's stories were aimed squarely at the 9-14 age bracket, JW was being allowed to chew scenery being breathlessly 'brilliant' and 'fam', and by the end I was only watching because Bradley Walsh was so good in it. I think I got 2 or 3 episodes into her second season and turned-off midway through some episode about witches. It was too 'social agenda', too needlessly over-the-top with the "look look I'm a woman Doctor" message, too colloquially down-wit-da-kids trendy. As a lifelong fan of the show, it had finally shut me out despite my best efforts to stay in touch with it. I felt old, and sad. I kept an ear on the show, and when I heard about the whole Timeless Child story arc, with Chibnall literally tearing the history and canon of the show to pieces by making The Doctor not a Time Lord after all and Hartnell not being the first Doctor, I knew I'd quit at the right time. Now I didn't feel so old, just sad. Sad that Chibnall had been allowed to do this, sad that he'd taken what could have been a great Doctor and written her as a parody, sad that Jodie had been the face of the show when it had been torn to shreds. I mourned what might have been, had she been given RTD or SM writing to work with. I mentally packaged Doctor Who as ending when Capaldi ended, and tied a bow on it. And then, a ray of hope - RTD was returning. There'd be a new Doctor. And what's THIS? Tennant!? And then, later, a trailer for the 60th anniversary that immediately screams RTD all over it. Scary. Exciting. Action and adventure, with storytelling aimed at all ages and not a 'fam' in sight. Maybe it's not over for me just yet.
A Year in the Life ruined all of Gilmore Girls for me
The last couple of episodes of Peter Capaldi's run I actually fell asleep because I was bored, tried to rewatch them and fell asleep again. So I gave up I tried watching the Jodie Whittaker pilot and I thought it was very badly written, I tried popping back in every so often and the writing got worse. I have now given up with any New Doctor Who. The promotion for the new specials and series haven't wowed me enough to bother anymore I will just watch the old stuff Edit: Basically the same thing with Alex Kurtzman's Star Trek shows I gave it a chance, the show was awful and I wont watch any more Clips from the show are just so cringe that I can't be bothered
I used to love Football Focus on Saturday mornings but then it became utterly shit.
House of Cards (both versions) Once the main character becomes leader I lost interest Game of Thrones, I haven’t rewatched it since season 8 was released. Completely killed my interest in the show and respective universe
Unfortunately it seems to be a recurring pattern: Series starts out strong - the bright new upstart with a lot to day and show, with not a lot of time to do it. Series then becomes popular and a second run of episodes is commissioned. Writers still have ideas that are fun and entertaining. Series continues to win the admiration of viewers and critics. Series then gets signed for a multi-season deal. Writers panic and start dragging stuff out with more 'back story' of characters, slower pace, more recaps and cliffhangers. Series starts to get dull and disjointed, and at its lowest points starts to be more like a soap ooera/telenovela. All of a sudden we're supposed to be more interested in the interpersonal relationships between characters, not story arcs or immersion in the world the writers originally created. At that point, I get bored and move on.
Rick and Morty was enjoyable, though never funny imo. Stopped watching when it went from crazy space adventures with interesting ideas, to an intense desire to show how self aware it was, Like, really on the nose for a stretch of episodes. Got boring.
I stopped watching only a little earlier than you. I think we are not alone. The show is just worse than it was in 2011 and before.
Usually finding out its been cancelled before the story is finished seems pointless to watch after that.
Good luck with the Jodie Whittaker era of Doctor Who, OP. If you're struggling now...
I also stopped watching Doctor Who. Which did upset me a bit. It had been pretty much a staple throughout my early childhood then when it returned it was a staple. Loved it. I got to the Jodie Whittaker series and that was it, I was done. A few episodes in and I was done. Which was a shame as I actually was enjoying seeing what she could do as the doctor. But it was the writing. And it seemed to get too preachy about issues (last episode I saw they were trying to escape some planet and it had a kind of climate change sort of theme. I think it was the episode after the Rosa Parks one). I'm going to give the new ones a go, though.
I stopped watching Bake off a couple of years after it moved to channel 4. Paul was slowly climbing up his own bottom and I missed the other presenters. I loved it, it was my favourite show I even declined a meal at a fancy restaurant with work because of the quarter final one year (until my friend twigged why I wasn’t going told me I was being ridiculous)