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The Office is one of those rare moments where the US version is actually more entertaining to me than the UK which I could never get on with at all. Though I will note I only tend to see the US version as clips on youtube, but its still wildly more entertaining.

Game of Thrones. I didn't even make the first episode!

I was up for a Middle-Earth kind of series, and it came highly recommended but after watching a few clips on Youtube and it was basically just sex and violence. I think I would be in the minority that would actually enjoy Rings of Power instead, somehow. I think it might also be because I live in the same area as one of the big stars from the show, and would rather keep them as a fellow local, than a big celebrity that I can't even say "good morning" to without feeling awkward.

Stargate SG-1.

Loved the 1994 movie, but it was really for the high quality visuals, incredible model effects and stunning computer animation. From the opening episode the super-cool cgi helmet-mask-thingys were replaced by cumbersome cobra-toilet seats and...MacGuyver. He's a nice chap, I'm sure, but replacing Kurt Russell was always going to be a very tall order. I have sat through some of the episodes, but its usually thanks to the charming Amanda Tapping and Teryl Rothery. My head was turned by Atlantis, and especially by Torri Higginson. Look, I don't know why but I love ladies in uniform and who are far more intelligent than I am. But seriously, Atlantis offered a much needed new setting, and you don't get much more fantastic than the sunken city itself. Ben and Claudia were like seeing two old friends! But SG-1...I'm super glad that it found great success its loved by so many...but I just wasn't feeling it.

So, two great shows, but just not feeling them.

 LunarSol wrote:
I pretty much struggle to get into anything I have to watch as a binge.

?? What shows do you have to binge?

ccs wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I pretty much struggle to get into anything I have to watch as a binge.

?? What shows do you have to binge?

Many modern ones are designed that way. Particularly 'limited release series', which mostly function as exceptionally long movies. One throwback, which is way, way better if you binge it, is Arrested Development. Trying to watch that on broadcast was painful. It will spend several episodes setting up a single joke, or in some cases an entire season.


Perhaps not the most popular, but I absolutely can't get into or enjoy anything about Toddlers and Tiaras. The whole thing just seems like borderline child exploitation or abuse to me.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Perhaps not the most popular, but I absolutely can't get into or enjoy anything about Toddlers and Tiaras. The whole thing just seems like borderline child exploitation or abuse to me.

Can't say I've heard of that before - something revolving around child beauty pageants?

 Dysartes wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Perhaps not the most popular, but I absolutely can't get into or enjoy anything about Toddlers and Tiaras. The whole thing just seems like borderline child exploitation or abuse to me.

Can't say I've heard of that before - something revolving around child beauty pageants?

Yeah, my wife's a big fan of reality TV. That one tracks a different group of children and their parents as the parents prep them for a beauty pageant. Typically they choose kids who have competed in dozens already, so you see high end pageant prep. Spray tans, fake teeth, several thousand dollars spent on tiny, fancy dresses, and hours of pageant coaching classes about how to smile and walk, and be charming. Then the actual competitions.

That whole scene creeps me out. Kids being used as dolls is just bloody weird to me.

 Gitzbitah wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Perhaps not the most popular, but I absolutely can't get into or enjoy anything about Toddlers and Tiaras. The whole thing just seems like borderline child exploitation or abuse to me.

Can't say I've heard of that before - something revolving around child beauty pageants?

Yeah, my wife's a big fan of reality TV. That one tracks a different group of children and their parents as the parents prep them for a beauty pageant. Typically they choose kids who have competed in dozens already, so you see high end pageant prep. Spray tans, fake teeth, several thousand dollars spent on tiny, fancy dresses, and hours of pageant coaching classes about how to smile and walk, and be charming. Then the actual competitions.

There's a bunch of shows like this in the US, on channels like TLC. Dance Moms is one of the big ones, reality shows that follow children is one of the most cruel types of entertainment for sure.

 Flinty wrote:
I watched the first couple of seasons of the Expanse, and it’s amazing, but it’s just unrelentingly harsh which makes it hard to stick with. I am at a phase in my life where I need somewhat lighter fare..

The unrelenting harshness is pretty much what lost my interest in Game of Thrones. The Expanse I loved, though, although it took me a couple of tries to get past the first couple of episodes, as it didn't grab me the first time through.

Lost suffered here in Oz by being aired on commercial television. Because it was really popular, they absolutely slammed it with adds, which just made the whole drawn-out-and-nothing-getting-resolved aspect of it even more drawn out and tedious. I feel it would have been a much more enjoyable experience binged on streaming, but by the time that was possible the ending was spoiled and there didn't seem to be any point in sitting through it.

Someone mentioned Survivor, which I thought sounded like a cool concept when I first heard about it and turned out to be far too gameshow-y. Alone is closer to what I always wanted Survivor to be, although it suffers from too many of the participants being portrayed as completely inept.

The Office is a tricky one... I liked bits of the UK version, but can't stand Gervais. I liked bits of the US one, but when I first saw it couldn't stand Steve Carell. Warmed to him somewhat after seeing Anchorman (up there with Three Amigos on the list of movies that I really enjoyed despite starring actors I didn't like) and enjoy that one a lot more now as a result, although still can only take so much of it at a time.

The UK Office kind of loses its appeal when Gervais is on screen. I get it’s kind of The Joke, but his character is just too overblown

The others are caricatures of course, but not as dramatically so.

Also I can’t stand Gervais in anything. First saw him on the 10 O’Clock show waaaaaay back when, and he just came across as an obnoxious human bean.

 Just Tony wrote:
The Office, Parks and Recreation, Seinfeld immediately come to mind.

While this obliviously wouldn't change whether one enjoys them or not that is a list of three shows where the first season is often skipped, even by fans.

I third being unable to stand Gervais. Puts me off a show.

I watched the Office (US version) for a bit more than 3 seasons (I think) before giving up. Part of it is because it hits too close to several extremely bad workplace experiences I had.

Might as well lump nearly all “reality” TV into one.

There’s clearly a market for it, but I find it near universally repulsive.

It makes stupid people famous, makes idiotic lifestyles seem appealing, and I swear lowers the average intelligence.

There are very few exceptions. One would be Last Man Standing, where British and American athletes went round the world, trying their hand at obscure, cultural sports. Sure the odd participant was your archetypal jock moron, but to see clearly very fit people give it their all, and quite often fail with humility and good grace was compelling.

Lost is probably my biggest one. I watched the first season, with gradually decreasing interest, then quit at the start of the second season. I figured that there wouldn't be some magnificently clever answer to most of these mysteries they set up and was happy to be proven correct when it finally finished.

A few other shows have come close to not being my thing, but turned out great when I stuck with them. The Expanse gets mentioned a lot for that and it applies to me here. The first season is more or less a detective drama with some political stuff on the side, but that gets completely flipped on its head from season 2 onwards. I think anything that has 30-minute long episodes is generally an easier sell for me now, but it's a lot more difficult to get into 40-plus minute shows if they don't grab me right away.

Maybe not quite the same thing, but kind of related to the thread title, I find X-Files is a show that seemed great at the time, watching one episode a week, but having bought and watched the box set about 10 years ago, it's surprising how patchy the show is as a whole, even before David Duchovny left.

 Gitzbitah wrote:

ccs wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I pretty much struggle to get into anything I have to watch as a binge.

?? What shows do you have to binge?

Many modern ones are designed that way. Particularly 'limited release series', which mostly function as exceptionally long movies. One throwback, which is way, way better if you binge it, is Arrested Development. Trying to watch that on broadcast was painful. It will spend several episodes setting up a single joke, or in some cases an entire season.

Arrested Development is one of the few shows I can enjoy in bulk, but a lot of that is as much as the long form jokes become easier to follow, the episodes are still paced as half hour self contained stories. It's one of the best paced shows period, which is something they really lost in the revival seasons.

Reality TV in all its forms is just terrible. Just cheap, low effort drivel across the board to mass produce content.

I'm not sure if it counts as "popular" or "mainstream" but I cannot get into most seasonal anime, specially if it is another battle shonen or Isekai harem. If it is placed highly on MAL, probably didn't watch it (dropped Frieren after the first batch of episodes).

Well into S2 of The Expanse.

Pretty sure someone is trying to start a war, and is doing so by sowing distrust. But I still couldn’t tell you who’s who, or on which side.

But man the combat scenes are pretty rad.

I liked Expanse very much, though never saw Season 3 because they switched to Amazon in between.

Stranger Things, despite being very popular, became very dull after season 1, just bad writing (though many current/modern series suffer from this, apparently the writers only sell a first season to the Studio and then are surprised/clueless when they actually have to do a 2nd season).

Peaky Blinders maybe? Not sure how popular it actually was, but I watched the whole thing and just found them all acting more and more stupid, but maybe that was the message.

Oh, the "new" Battlestar Galactica series. A terrible series, I never made it past 1st season, every character sucked, the zylons sucked (literally, I think), the whole atmosphere was just depressing and everyone acting stupid. I never got why they wanted to copy a bad series like that with Stargate Universe.

Yellowstone.

The reason that so many people wear Carhartt clothes but don't actually do Carhartt things.

I dug it for two seasons with some reservations(no pun intended), but gave up on it after that.

There's a point where a show loses focus on its main narrative and just becomes something less/more than what it started out as. I believe this show is still a ratings/viewership juggernaut, but once it put the Dutton struggle to keep their ranch in the backseat and started bringing in "seasonal villains" and focusing more on minor characters, it lost me.

Weirdly, I'm more interested in the various spinoffs of this show more than this one that started it all, but I haven't checked any of them out.

Lost: After a few episodes it felt like they were throwing things into the show to get people hooked with no plan for a satisfying conclusion.

Seinfeld: Really enjoyed Curb Your Enthusiasm and tried a couple of seasons of Seinfeld, found it amusing enough, but never felt compelled to watch anymore. Didn't hate or love it.

Big Bang Theory: Oh boy, I worked with people who loved this one and I never understood the appeal. What I watched of it was the most bland, middle of the road comedy and unimaginably boring characters.

 Bonegrinder wrote:

Big Bang Theory: Oh boy, I worked with people who loved this one and I never understood the appeal. What I watched of it was the most bland, middle of the road comedy and unimaginably boring characters.

Yeah I could never get into this one either. They should have called it "The Sheldon Show" because it wasn't really about geeks it was about mostly Sheldon with so many jokes either being from him or characters thinking about how he did or might react to things.

Lots of people clearly liked it, but honestly it never really grabbed me at all.

Big Bang is awful.

But. Young Sheldon is vastly superior. A very heartwarming show, I’ve found.

*gets on soap box*

Firefly wasn't that good and it's cancellation being treated as a tragedy is is the definition of truthiness.

*gets off soap box and runs*

Any of those shows where they have the characters explain the joke. The Office, Parks & Rec, Modern Family, etc. Mockumentaries I think they're called.
Absolutely loathe that format.
Not only does it break immersion, it seems more than a little condescending if not outright insulting to just assume your audience won't get the joke.
Either that or you're just admitting to being a bad writer. In neither case am I interested.

 LordofHats wrote:
*gets on soap box*

Firefly wasn't that good and it's cancellation being treated as a tragedy is is the definition of truthiness.

*gets off soap box and runs*

I agree. If it had lasted more than a season, it would have gone the same way as most TV shows that start strong. But dying young and sexy like James Dean means we’ll never have to see sweaty, bloated Firefly grunting out regurgitated hits with all the enthusiasm of a slacker kid called to the blackboard.

Bran Dawri wrote:
Any of those shows where they have the characters explain the joke. The Office, Parks & Rec, Modern Family, etc. Mockumentaries I think they're called.
Absolutely loathe that format.
Not only does it break immersion, it seems more than a little condescending if not outright insulting to just assume your audience won't get the joke.
Either that or you're just admitting to being a bad writer. In neither case am I interested.

I get not liking faux documentaries but I don't understand what you mean by "explain the joke" format. I don't recall anything like "well you see it is funny because Andy assumed only Anne would be there so when he showed up naked to the front door and Leslie answers it is unexpected and thus creating humor".

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
*gets on soap box*

Firefly wasn't that good and it's cancellation being treated as a tragedy is is the definition of truthiness.

*gets off soap box and runs*

I agree. If it had lasted more than a season, it would have gone the same way as most TV shows that start strong. But dying young and sexy like James Dean means we’ll never have to see sweaty, bloated Firefly grunting out regurgitated hits with all the enthusiasm of a slacker kid called to the blackboard.

Firefly was killed by the network's incompetence. From Wikipedia:

The A.V. Club cited several actions by the Fox network that contributed to the show's failure, most notably airing the episodes out of sequence, making the plot more difficult to follow. The double episode "Serenity" was intended as the premiere, and therefore contained most of the character introductions and back-story. Fox decided that "Serenity" was unsuitable for opening the series, and "The Train Job" was specifically created to act as a new pilot. In addition, Firefly was promoted as an action-comedy rather than the more serious character study it was intended to be, and the showbiz trade paper Variety noted Fox's decision to occasionally preempt the show for sporting events.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
*gets on soap box*

Firefly wasn't that good and it's cancellation being treated as a tragedy is is the definition of truthiness.

*gets off soap box and runs*

I agree. If it had lasted more than a season, it would have gone the same way as most TV shows that start strong. But dying young and sexy like James Dean means we’ll never have to see sweaty, bloated Firefly grunting out regurgitated hits with all the enthusiasm of a slacker kid called to the blackboard.

While it might have gotten really bad, its likely that there would have been at least a couple of seasons of gold, exploring the system and playing tag with the Law.

The cast had a great chemistry, it was entertainingly quirky and they had laid so many interesting story threads that its frustrating they didn't get to explore any of them.

If they make bad bits of an IP, you can jsut not watch it, but not having made it in the first place I think is a net loss to entertainment.

I mean, I went on to watch like 10 seasons of Castle to get my quirky Nathan Fillion fix. It wasn't all great, but it was good enough, like.

 Ghaz wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
*gets on soap box*

Firefly wasn't that good and it's cancellation being treated as a tragedy is is the definition of truthiness.

*gets off soap box and runs*

I agree. If it had lasted more than a season, it would have gone the same way as most TV shows that start strong. But dying young and sexy like James Dean means we’ll never have to see sweaty, bloated Firefly grunting out regurgitated hits with all the enthusiasm of a slacker kid called to the blackboard.

Firefly was killed by the network's incompetence. From Wikipedia:

The A.V. Club cited several actions by the Fox network that contributed to the show's failure, most notably airing the episodes out of sequence, making the plot more difficult to follow. The double episode "Serenity" was intended as the premiere, and therefore contained most of the character introductions and back-story. Fox decided that "Serenity" was unsuitable for opening the series, and "The Train Job" was specifically created to act as a new pilot. In addition, Firefly was promoted as an action-comedy rather than the more serious character study it was intended to be, and the showbiz trade paper Variety noted Fox's decision to occasionally preempt the show for sporting events.

Honestly very few shows would ever have worked if they were treated the same. Random time slots, out of order and didn't they also put it in timeslots that competed with major things like sports events.
Basically doing everything possible to ensure that the show could never ever take off.