Ever stop watching something because it became too something?

[McElroy]

After the Red John case was settled I could only stand a couple of obnoxious filler episodes with Jane apparently being omniscient now.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

A few I forgot about: Entourage, Family Guy, and Warehouse 13.

I actually really enjoyed the first season or two of Entourage, but then it seemed like literally every episode was "Vince's career is over!" at the beginning, and then by the end "Vince has made a comeback!!". Seriously, most big-name actors get 1, MAYBE 2 comebacks in their entire careers, Vince seemed to have one every 2 weeks.

Likewise, the show began to focus more and more on Eric (even though he's dull as paint) and Johnny Drama's antics went from funny to just downright stupid and unbelievable. Also the whole subplot with Turtle dating Jamie-Lynn Sigler was just dumb.

Family Guy just became too liberal for me. I don't mind watching shows where the writers clearly have different political beliefs than I do, but the shows incessant need to keep rubbing it in your face just got annoying after a while. Likewise, it feels out of place to have a show that prides itself on being really dumb try and pretend likes it's really smart as well (South Park does a way better job of this, but even they mess it up on occasion).

I really enjoyed season 1 of Warehouse 13. It was hokey, but it didn't take itself too seriously and was enjoyable. Season 2 seemed to become "let's put Myka in as many skimpy outfits as possible", which, in addition to the fact that it's totally out of character for her, really made the show feel like it was aiming for cheaper and cheaper thrills to keep people watching.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I never went on to watch the second season of Sword Art Online. The end of the first season got too...rapey for me. It wasn't just the last episode with the final showdown, it was everything in the second half of the season. Asuna being sidelined into a helpless maguffin, the tentacle-covered lab assistant avatars groping her when she tries to escape...it was all just so out of place given what the first half of the series set up.

If you don't mind watching things out of order and you didn't mind SAO but didn't like what they did to Asuna in the second half of the first season then I'd suggest looking at episodes 18-24 of the season 2 (the Mother's Rosario arc). The arc largely centres around Asuna and a group of new characters and is significantly better about her character than what they did to her in arc 2 of season 1.

Personally I felt it was much more pleasant to watch given that Asuna is pretty much the strongest character in the series. I found it to be quite a captivating portrayal of her relationship with a girl she meets.


Oh and for something I stopped watching...I actually stopped watching Ergo Proxy not because of any particular point but out of sheer fatigue. I found it very difficult to watch and keep clear in my head what was going on. I'll sit down again eventually and watch it but it was hard work last time I did.

 

[Rudger The Legend]

I stopped watching Hunter X Hunter because it tried to be every shonen anime at once.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I stopped watching Soul Eater NOT because it became too moe for me (I don't like moe anime in general) mainly cos of that stupid scene when the main girl confess to her boss (the bartender of a cafe) that people coming in cos they like his food, she blush, turn around and ran *shrug*.

Well ok the main reason for why I stopped watching it cos it was simply NOT Soul Eater, how did I not take the hint right from the title alone? Intead of seeing some action and soul resonance, I got some girls in maid clothing working in a cafe and the main girl having trouble picking a partner!

Even the only real action we saw was badly animated and anti climatic! Granted I read that there were more action right after I quit but I just didn't cared anymore.

 

[Ygrez]

Stopped watching SWAT Kats at age 8 when I saw "The Giant Bacteria" episode. Traumatized me. Sure people died in other episodes, but in this one:

-A guy gets infected with some formula that eats him from the inside turning him into some kind of blob monster.
-A busload of people get eaten alive by said monster.

Pretty sure there's more, but that's all I remember from it.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I actually stopped buying new issues of the Suske & Wiske (don't know the english names atm, sorry!) comics. The humor and quality became inconsistent the last couple of years.

There are now a few writers instead of just one doing new issues, which is the reason why this comic book series took a nose dive in quality.

I'll gladly keep collecting older issues though.

Shit. Nevermind, saw jsut now it's about shows *facepalm*

 

[rorychief]

I had to stop reading Fables (the comic book series The Wolf Among Us is based on) because it became INSANELY RACIST.

Agree. That was a stupid way to deal with the culture shock of the Arabian fables arriving in modern New York. It seemed forced, and even worse, a missed opportunity to reflect on the euro fables own adjustment to the mundy world. Surely there were cautionary tales to tell of euro fables who were unable or unwilling to compromise their nature in order to fit in, and either had to be killed or went out with with a bang. Would have given the euro fables more dept as well to admit they are capable of elitism, hypocrisy and selective memory, or perhaps delusion in believing they have adopted modern ethics by merit, not because they had no choice.

Could have been even more interesting even to introduce the idea that Arabian fables are aware of changes to their nature imposed by europeans and americans interpreting their stories. They had become more powerful with a wider audience, yes. But also developed strange traits they would not have had back when their tales were interpreted solely by arabic muslims. Exploring the idea that as public perception of the middle east moves from arithmetic and multicultural tolerance to religious extremism and mysogyny, the sentient fable individuals change in real time as well.
Once the Arabian Fables learn the extent that human public opinion affects their nature, they could then decide to intervene in real world middle east using their magic and monsters to try and repel foreign occupation and influence in those countries. The belief being that the only way to return to their ideal original forms is to return the middle east to the middle ages as they remember it. The Euro Fables then running damage control to keep the supernatural nature of attacks under cover while the Arabian Fables come to realize they are being exploited by political factions they do not understand and have little if anything in common with ideologically. Could have been handled horribly, but if the writer's going for heavy handed allegory I'd prefer it was interesting and specific to the canon of Fables.

Of course instead we got an author filibuster on the immorality of slavery. I got as far as Sons of Empire myself before losing interest. The Israel Metaphor (actual issue name) was too much to go on.

Edit* I think it was Wolves with the Bigby Israel speech, not Sons of Empire. In my head canon Bigby was always trying to come up with metaphors for the Fables situation using modern politics, and everyone always either just smiled politely or suggested that things were a bit more complicated than that. Bigby, frustrated that his genius similes weren't being appreciated for their awesome accuracy, eventually found someone who had no knowledge of modern politics, and took advantage of the fact to say 'no totally dude, you're like Palestine and I'm like Israel, if you knew what either of those things were you'd totally agree.'
Less stupid than if the writer was being serious.

 

[TravelerSF]

I had to stop reading Fables (the comic book series The Wolf Among Us is based on) because it became INSANELY RACIST.

Spoiler

This happened around the time they were introducing Arabian fables, who cruise to Fabletown with their car full of slavegirls and spend essentially their entire visit looking down on the "infidels". I kid you not, they used that word like it was the freacking comma. The one decent guy was essentially and exception, everyone else was a cartoon stereotype.

Granted, there are a lot of Arabian countries which by western standards aren't really... treating people properly, but you can have morally bankrupt characters and still make them feel human. I mean there's plenty of western Fables in the comics who we're supposed to be rooting for who are just like that. Actually many of the heroes in the story are straight up murderers, yet slavery is apparently something they're absolutely disgusted by. And the western characters originate from medieval Europe or earlier, not exactly the cradle of equality and human rights. So why are they so modernized and the Arabians still live in the past?

There's also the fact that this wasn't an Arabian country. These characters represented every single Arabian person inside the Homelands. So I think the writer should think more carefully about how they choose to represent the entire Arabian civilization .

To try to defend it, they don't really represent arabs, but rather arabian stories, so it's kinda obvious they are stereotypes. The people from the empire are just as much stereotypes of middle ages europe.

And the fables are living for centuries in out world, the morals of today inevitably sink in for them, so they react just as anyone will react today to misogynistic slavers (oh my god I used the word unironically! I'M INFECTED!).

I kinda dig the writer for being so blunt rather than using silk gloves to not dare offend anyone.

Fair enough. And I know they're just representing the Arabian fables, I just explained that really poorly.

It might be arguable just how much the fables are influenced by the mundy society, since they make a pretty big deal out of being isolated and "not going native."

It all depends on how much credit one is willing to give to the writer, how much they think it's intentional and how much is accidental. I understand Willingham has said some controversial stuff before (like he retweeted a tweet asking why news aren't reporting on muslims condemning the Charlie Hebdo incident) and I just feel that even a negative portrayal like this could've been handled in much better and interesting ways.

 

[Zen Bard]

I stopped watching Supernatural because it became too focused on the Heaven/Hell crap.

The show started as sort of a TV version of White Wolf's "World of Darkness" games. Monsters, ghosts and demons are real and people like the Winchesters are all that stand between them and us. It stands to reason that if demons are real, so are angels. So their inclusion into the mythology makes sense.

But for the love of God (pun intended), enough already! The more they mine the angel/demon conflict the more boring it gets.

 

[FalloutJack]

What, you mean like...boring? Yeah, happens to everyone. What about it?

 

[happyninja42]

I stopped watching the following:

Bleach: Around season 2 I think, when they went to the Soul Society to rescue what's her name who was being put on trial. That's when it simply became a power up fighting anime, instead of an interesting story of the spiritual police, who guard the living from the dead.

Highlander: The Series: When

Spoiler

Duncan killed Richie, after that, the show turned to absolute shit.

Lost: Around the end of Season 1, because I just lost interest.

The diet coke drama of Arrow during the First/Second season put me off watching it. Apparently it's gotten over that but I've yet to have the motivation to pick it up again.

Oh my god yes, this. The finale of...season 2 I think? Had so many cliche things to it, it drove me nuts.

 

[Gypsyssilver]

I gave up reading the "Sword of Truth" novels sometime late in high school. After a while, it stopped feeling like a fantastical adventure and more like a thinly veiled rant against socialism.

I stopped reading that series after a while as well.

I really liked books 1 - 3. The series really seemed like it had potential. Book 4 was a bit off, but still readable. After that... not so much.

And what was with the constant AmnesiaPlot!

Sometimes she had amnesia. Sometimes he had amnesia. Sometimes they both had amnesia at the same time. Or someone else had amnesia.

Seriously, wtf!?

 

[Gypsyssilver]

I stopped watching dexter because it became too repetitive

I stopped watching SAO because it became way too... Lots of things, too devoid, downright murderous, of any actual narritive weight. Too much "bad anime fluff", that is to say, too many of the elements that you generally find in bad anime (E.G. the awkward, rapey, half-sex stuff), and that's a shame, because it all started off very strong, a familiar story, but with enough potential to be it's own thing and be good.

I stopped watching bleach after orihime got captured, because they literally JUST did the "female character gets captured and taken to an unfamiliar dimension we've heard of but never been too and the heroes go to save her while drama among the warriors of the realm ensues and the true power of the kidnapped girl is attempted to be extracted by the evil mastermind who kidnapped her" thing. I mean i can deal with a BIT of repetition, but i mean shit, they literally copy-pasted the plot they just did and ran it again. Talk about lazy.

Holy crap. You're totally right about Bleach.

I never even realized (as I'd kinda stopped paying attention by then). I was continuing to watch it - but more out of apathy than anything else.

It never occurred to me that the Orihime kidnapping thing was pretty much exactly the same as the Rukia kidnapping thing. It seems so obvious now.

Talk about lazy writing.

 

[Kameburger]

I gave up on Cowboy Bebop because it was too disjointed. I like my plots to actually have, well, a plot. I was more than half way into the show and I still had no idea what they were trying to do or achieve. To me, it was an entire series comprised of filler episodes with no continuity other than characters returning. Utterly disappointing.

Shhh. People love that show. You can't speak ill of it.

Truth be told, I found it over rated myself. Like you said, it felt like 99% of the show was filler. Yes, there were some great episodes, but even some of the character's abilities felt inconsistent. I swear some episodes Spike was the biggest bad ass of all and in others he was a joke.

I'm certainly not going to jump on you for not liking a show as much as I did, Although I kind of like Cowboy Bebop more as a kind of collection of short stories rather then one long running story, kind of like Sherlock Holmes. I certainly had times where I could avoid it, but some of those short stories had a lot of fun moments that made the show for me.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Gantz because it just got too gritty killy, and junk, but to be fair it was pretty much intended to be that.

Sword Art Online. Season 2 just ... creepy guy perving over a comatose woman, and fucking up a relationship in the process? No thanks. I don't know if it stayed that way, but I couldn't watch it enough to find out. Was proly an arc. ew.

That's about it, really.

 

[Twintix]

In middle school, I stopped watching Ray William Johnson videos when I realised that his "jokes" consist of making variations of the same "Women and kitchens" or "Your slutty mom/alcoholic dad" jokes that he's done since the dawn of goddamn time.

He became too repetitive. And that was the opinion of a dumb 14-year old, mind you.

(Shame. I actually quite liked the music he made as Your Favorite Martian. I still find myself humming "Orphan Tears" and "The Stereotype Song" every now and then)