From awesome to crap in one move

[Hawk of Battle]

I'm throwing my vote in for Heroes too.

Though the other thing that you have to remember about season 2 was that it was the writers strike season, and the writers strike fucked a lot of TV shows. Quite honestly, I would have been happy if Heroes had been a one off series. The way the first season ended was epic.

In my mind, Heroes IS a 1 season show. I could almost forgive the 2nd season due the strike, but then I remember that Peter left his girlfriend in a nightmare future which he then averted and any hope for redemption vanishes instantly.


I also kinda wish Prison Break had ended on season 2 like was originally planned. Not that I didn't enjoy the hell out of the whole series (mainly because I loved seeing how they could put in about 3 cliffhangers per episode), but the overall plot did suffer massively for it, with season 3 being a meandering mess.

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

heroes...WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE TO SWITCH POWERS ALLL THE TIME!!!

 

[pilouuuu]

- Heroes: the first season was perfect. The series could have ended here and be totally satisfactory and it would still be remembered as some of the best things ever on TV

- Prison Break: after the escape it stops making much sense

- Lost: a very good first season was followed by a second one with new unlikeable characters and filler episodes

 

[Vicarious Reality]

Not one move really, but Lost kinda went to crap near the end of the second season, i have only watched a few from the third

I think the show would be much better if there were no ''others'', it just feels so violently oppressive and hopeless/pointless, everyone on the beach are just potato sacks and everyone else is potato sacks being abused by the others

 

[Tyrant55]

Definitely agree with the above with Lost. Don't get me wrong, I still love the series, but season 3 was just awful IMO and 4 wasn't much better (if at all).

 

[Hollyday]

Death note.

The first season is so awesome. So brilliantly thrilling and just great in almost every way.

Spoiler

Then the whole businesspeople arc comes along, and everything goes to shit.
And Mello...
And Near...
Don't get me started on that fucking guy.

It's still worth watching though, if only for the sake of the first season.
Incidentally, I spoiled the ending to the series for a guy just yesterday.

Couldn't agree with you more, although episode 24 (episode 5 of the second season) is my favourite episode of the whole thing

Spoiler

since Light retrieves his memory and his whole plan becomes clear after episodes and episodes of uninteresting 'good' Light. I remember watching it for the first time and being completely in awe

Don't get me started on Near...

 

[Dansen]

Spoilers

Gurren Laggan goes a bit down hill. The second season starts off great, showing the changes in the world. People are becoming greedier, while Simon and team Gurren have to accept the consequences of their actions and must consider weather or not they have a place in the post war government.

Then the anti-spiral races are introduced and the show lost a lot of its appeal for me. They are just so boring compared to the beastmen and the Spiral King because they have absolutely no personality. The show just stops being as fun the first season and starts to take itself too seriously when it starts to tackle philosophy, and my god that bitter sweet ending pissed me off so much.

 

[The_Waspman]

In my mind, Heroes IS a 1 season show. I could almost forgive the 2nd season due the strike, but then I remember that Peter left his girlfriend in a nightmare future which he then averted and any hope for redemption vanishes instantly.


I also kinda wish Prison Break had ended on season 2 like was originally planned. Not that I didn't enjoy the hell out of the whole series (mainly because I loved seeing how they could put in about 3 cliffhangers per episode), but the overall plot did suffer massively for it, with season 3 being a meandering mess.

Didn't season 3 (of Heroes) ditch a lot of the characters it set up too? Maya was hastily written out, that black chick with the 'muscle memory' power vanished without an explanation...

Oh god, I've just remembered...

Spoiler: Season three storylines

They completely (and non-sensically) retconned Niki's backstory. That made absolutely no sense. So she was part of a genetic engineering project and was one of three triplets? How the fuck did that work? We met her father in season one! It was a stupid explanation for introducing a new character, just to keep Ali Larter in the series.

On top of that, giving literally everyone super powers. Mohinder and Ando, really? Weren't they interesting purely because they didn't have super powers? Instead we get Spiderman and... wait, what powers did Ando get again?

Like I say, its a shame Heroes went south so horrifically, thinking about it now, I really really want to watch season one again.

Lost...

Ugh. I know the point when Lost, uh, lost it. And that was when...

Spoiler: Season four finale

the fucking island disappeared. Yup, just like that. In fact, if you search for it, you can find the extended cut of that episode. Right after the island disappears, a giant shark appears out of the disturbance, and then the Fonz jumps over it on water skis. Ugh, that show. Still haven't watched the final season. Doubt I ever will. And I did so love it when it started...

 

[Shodan1980]

Desperate Housewives (yeah I know, shut up)

The first season with the mystery of why Mary Alice commited suicide very nicely balanced with the comedy moments and was genuinely good. After that they seemed to feel they had to keep hurling mysteries at the screen and it just never worked. Though I will say it got better after they ditched the mystery shtick.

If you like smoking related comedy OP that stayed good tried "The Smoking Room"? Delightful understated character driven black comedy

 

[Kushin]

It wasn't so much the second season that ruined shows for me, but the actual ending

Soul Eater: I thought this show was actually really excellent, sort of a cross between a condensed version of the action/battles of DBZ and the humor of FMA. And then the ending, that last episode....god is it horrible. At least to me

Spoiler

Makka like goes unconscious, and we discover that she's, in fact, a Meister/Weapon hybrid, which is actually quite awesome and something they should have expanded upon. But she gets her ass kicked by the big bad guy Kishen. Then she remembers that her mother sent her a postcard with the word "bravery" and suddenly she just magically wins. And then it stops. That's it. That's literally the last episode

Just feel I have to chip in there. Soul Eater is still going on in manga form, the anime was just way too soon so they had to make a filler ending. The latest stuff has definitely changed from the beginning, but its a very gradual shift and doesn't feel bad.

OT: Would have to say Eyeshield 21. Was really damn good, paced, funny, dramatic, until they finish what should be their final match. Then suddenly, the mangaka pulled a whole new arc out of NOWHERE, and ruined all that pacing by dragging it on for another 6 months to a year.

 

[Rickolas Walrus]

Just feel I have to chip in there. Soul Eater is still going on in manga form, the anime was just way too soon so they had to make a filler ending. The latest stuff has definitely changed from the beginning, but its a very gradual shift and doesn't feel bad.

This is very true but my point was about the anime though. Probably should have specified, my bad. I knew that the two stories diverged after a while, but I've not read the manga so I'm entirely sure what's different

 

[rob_simple]

Family Guy became shit after Seth Macfarlane decided to stop using the show for comedy purposes and instead turned it into a vehicle for his Broadway career.

 

[CynicalB]

Fringe, Eureka and Prison Break

 

[BNguyen]

I'm going to say Heroes, although honestly the second season wasn't crap, just underwhelming compared to the first. It was the third that really dropped the ball.

Agreed, since that got taken I will go with Code Geass. Season 1 was great but season 2 was just a mess (to nicely put it I didn't like how it had turn out in the end). I was enraged more by the fact that the creator didn't intend season 2 to start out that way. Infact it suppose to start of right after season 1 and there was possible shipping with that girl who owned the boardings school

actually Code Geass as an anime was never what the creator intended - there never were any mechs or big battles, it was all supposed to be condensed

 

[Gormech]

Digimon after season 2 (maybe 1 but wasn't that bad)
Naruto ...
DRAGON BALL Z ... Every single thing past Freeza.
Metroid after Prime.
Super Smash Bros (And most of Nintendo) after the Wii.
yadda yadda yadda ...

Console gaming after motion controls. We need work.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

This isn't an exact fit, but the Naruto series does something similar.

Any episodes based on the manga are basically guaranteed to be incredible, but any of the filler arcs that are anime-only are always complete shit.

Considering episodes 136 to TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY of the first series were filler...holy shit did it get terrible. The worst offenders were the one-episode fillers. Ugh.

If I could just find a site that streamed Naruto without the filler, it'd be glorious.

OT:
Bleach, it started out great but the moment a foot was stepped into Soul Society it just morphed into a ball of rancid shit and has been rolling around gaining size and momentum like a snowball ever since.

 

[Eamar]

Another vote for Heroes.

I'd actually forgotten about how much I adored that show in season 1. In fact, I'd pretty much forgotten all about it. This thread has made me sad now

 

[shrekfan246]

I'm going to be lame here and say Spongebob. After the gay scandal hit, they stopped relying on wit and pretty much turned their characters from likeable albeit annoying to annoyingly homoerotic sadists.

The entirety of the post movie spongebob episodes.

For live action TV, the seventh season of Deep Space Nine. While it was still good, it was very rushed, since it had to create an entirely new character arc for Ezri, Dukat went from a complex villain to Skeletor evil, and even Sisko and the Dominion became less complex and more transparent.

Yeah, Spongebob really tanked in quality after the movie came out. They changed the dynamic of the characters completely and essentially turned them into caricatures of themselves; Which, considering their already one-dimensional nature is a pretty bad thing.

Also, as far as DS9 goes, I agree that the final season was still pretty good but obviously rushed. The reason I actually quoted Soviet Heavy is because I wanted to say that Gul Dukat is one of my favorite fictional villains ever.

Even if he did go cartoonishly evil in season 7, the writers did at least try to justify it with the whole "He goes crazy because of his daughter's murder" thing from season 6. Before that, he was almost certainly one of the best written and acted villains I've ever seen.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I'm going to be lame here and say Spongebob. After the gay scandal hit, they stopped relying on wit and pretty much turned their characters from likeable albeit annoying to annoyingly homoerotic sadists.

The entirety of the post movie spongebob episodes.

For live action TV, the seventh season of Deep Space Nine. While it was still good, it was very rushed, since it had to create an entirely new character arc for Ezri, Dukat went from a complex villain to Skeletor evil, and even Sisko and the Dominion became less complex and more transparent.

Yeah, Spongebob really tanked in quality after the movie came out. They changed the dynamic of the characters completely and essentially turned them into caricatures of themselves; Which, considering their already one-dimensional nature is a pretty bad thing.

Also, as far as DS9 goes, I agree that the final season was still pretty good but obviously rushed. The reason I actually quoted Soviet Heavy is because I wanted to say that Gul Dukat is one of my favorite fictional villains ever.

Even if he did go cartoonishly evil in season 7, the writers did at least try to justify it with the whole "He goes crazy because of his daughter's murder" thing from season 6. Before that, he was almost certainly one of the best written and acted villains I've ever seen.

Except that Dukat coming to terms with his own insanity in the episode Waltz would have been a perfect end to his character. That episode was flipping dark, and it delved into why Dukat was the way he was, and how he wasn't really "evil" as much as he was the Cardassian's equivalent of Sisko. He was so utterly driven by his conviction and his belief in Cardassia's role as a super power and its responsibility to rule over those less developed.

He wasn't evil, but in an insanely twisted way, you can see why he would think the way he did.

 

[shrekfan246]

Except that Dukat coming to terms with his own insanity in the episode Waltz would have been a perfect end to his character. That episode was flipping dark, and it delved into why Dukat was the way he was, and how he wasn't really "evil" as much as he was the Cardassian's equivalent of Sisko. He was so utterly driven by his conviction and his belief in Cardassia's role as a super power and its responsibility to rule over those less developed.

He wasn't evil, but in an insanely twisted way, you can see why he would think the way he did.

Well, that's why I said that up until the seventh season he was one of the best written and acted villains I've ever seen.

I don't know why they didn't let his character depart after that. Maybe they wanted a well-established villain for the final season and they didn't think Weyoun could carry it by himself.