Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

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Reader Interactions

288Comments

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Are you including good-when-it-started-but-WAY-overstayed-its-welcome? If so, since MTP is taken, I’ll go with SNL.

  6. 6.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Now we’ve got a chucklefuck county commissioner (Court Boice, what a name) that wants to go mini-DeSantis and ship the homeless here in Curry County, OR to Salem (the capitol) because that’s what grandstanding assholes do, of course.

    The stupid in this county beats the sane by 2-1 and it shows.

  8. 8.

    RaflW

    Definitely what dmsilev said.

    But in terms of narrative TV that was inexplicably popular, possibly Green Acres. Shows like that only lasted because there were so few stations to chose from back then. That’s my theory, anyway.

  14. 14.

    JustRuss

    @RaflW: I remember enjoying the surreal absurdity of Green Acres back in the Olden Tymes, but every time I try to watch it now…I just can’t. I guess there were a few good moments sprinkled amongst tons of dreck, so when nothing else was on we’d watch it.  Now there’s always something else on.

  20. 20.

    beth

    Handmaid’s Tale – loved the book and the first two seasons.  It was harsh and shocking and should have ended when the book did.  I don’t know what season it’s on now – it’s just exhausting to watch.  Escape, capture, torture, rinse and repeat.  There’s no point to it anymore.

  22. 22.

    germy shoemangler

    @JustRuss:

    I’m just the opposite.  I didn’t get it when I watched it in the 1960s as a kid, but when I watch it now, I understand his frustration with contractors, local government, etc.

    I lived in a exurb for twenty years, and my experience was similar

    For example, I just found out my favorite plumbing company was sold to “Crisafulli Brothers” plumbing, that also boasts it’s a female-owned company.  In Green Acres he deals with a contractor brother and sister team who call themselves brothers for the purpose of their company…

  25. 25.

    cope

    First thing to come to my mind was “Three’s Company”.  Seconds after thinking that, my mind is bogged down contemplating dozens of others.  Back to the asteroid moon impact which is being covered on the Discovery channel.

  26. 26.

    TaMara

    @beth: Yup. Victimizing women for entertainment under the guise of “look how strong these women are under these circumstances.”

    Violence-against-women porn basically

  27. 27.

    Shantanu Saha

    The Dukes of Hazzard: an hour long show about living in the South that managed to offend everyone while refusing to break any stereotypes about dumb southern hicks (while never showing a black character), as well as a Hero car named General Lee with a Hillbilly Swastika painted on top.

    Also a guilty pleasure of mine in high school.

  32. 32.

    Martin

    Legit think that Jerry Springer or Cops were worse for society than Meet the Press was. MTP at least accidentally provided useful information. Springer and Cops merely revealed what a garbage species humans are inclined to be.

    I still think that Hogan’s Heroes was the weirdest show to get multiple seasons. Nazis as comedic relief? What a great idea.

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    @JustRuss:

    I would argue that Petticoat Junction was worse than Green Acres. But, really, there was so, so much crap back in the day. As there is now, I guess. But there is probably a higher percentage of good stuff now to go along with the greater number of programs.

  35. 35.

    AndoChronic

    I got sucked into The Walking Dead years ago. While some seasons were torture, literally a walking dead season, I made it through. I’m of course on Fear the Walking Dead now, and I don’t know why.

  36. 36.

    Layer8Problem

    @germy shoemangler:

    Surreal’s the right word, or subversive.  Green Acres spoke to my elementary school mind set.  Mr. Haney and Arnold Ziffel v. Oliver Wendell Douglas, a guy too much like my father.

  38. 38.

    eddie blake

    lost.

     

    -also, after its EXCELLENT mini series open, the people running battlestar galactuca had NO idea what they were doing and the ending flopped.

  39. 39.

    germy shoemangler

    @Layer8Problem:

    I had to sometimes deal with local government in the exurb and one of the town reps reminded me of a character on Green Acres, the one who talked too much and whose mind wandered.

  40. 40.

    Martin

    @Peale: Hung out with Giorgio Tsoukalos in my office about 5 years ago. He was filming a segment in my boss’ lab (public uni’s need to be creative about getting cash) and needed a place to chill for a bit, and I was discreet.

    I *just* now realized the person he was filming with is on another cringe show that my wife just LOVES and that I met him. Had completely forgotten about that.

  41. 41.

    thruppence

    All of these Housewives of Spoiled Rotten iterations make me want to gag. I’ve tried to watch a few minutes to see what the appeal is, but I just can’t do it. Not everything is for everyone but sheeesh…

  44. 44.

    Layer8Problem

    @germy shoemangler:  Hank Whatshisface, the county extension agent!

    Oh yeah, and at the time I was watching I thought making phone calls on a butt set at the top of a telephone pole would be cool.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    What is the worst tv show to inexplicably have multiple seasons?

    Battlestar Galactica (any iteration) and The Beverly Hillbillies quickly come to mind. The A Team gets a dishonorable mention.

    Also, I understand why it’s popular, but Doc Martin is annoying and makes my teeth hurt.

  53. 53.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Steeplejack: Green Acres may have been in the same universe as Petticoat Junction, but it existed in a different reality.

    Some seasons were better than others. Seasons 3 and 4 still hold up pretty well.

  54. 54.

    Johnny C. Lately

    Decades ago,  I got a call from one of the TV networks asking me if I would watch a pilot TV show and answer a survey on it when they called back a few days later.

    It was the most idiotic, cliche-ridden “family sitcom” I had seen in years. When I took the survey call,  I told them that the show was terrible, that it all had been done ten times better a hundred times before, and that I would never in my life watch another episode of that show.

    The network picked it up and it ran for three seasons as “Hope & Faith”.

  57. 57.

    Steeplejack

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    This season of Archer is really flagging. I think I missed the entire previous season, so I don’t know how long the rot has been setting in. Need to get on Hulu and get caught up.

  58. 58.

    The Thin Black Duke

    The X-Files. Chris Carter originally intended the series to end after five seasons, but Fox kept on throwing money at him until he surrendered.

  59. 59.

    hells littlest angel

    Here’s hoping the last thing we see isn’t figures in spacesuits walking around on the asteroid.

  61. 61.

    narya

    @Viva BrisVegas: Though I particularly like “Top Chef.” A few years ago, they stopped with the really stupid challenges and now mostly do challenges that give the chefs a chance to shine, be creative, etc. Also, they’ve found a lot of amazing chefs who aren’t white men, and it’s been wonderful seeing that. This year’s winner was spectacular, and the other three finalists were great as well.

  65. 65.

    Steeplejack

    @Soprano2:

    Medium was harmless fun. The only thing that really bugged me was how her husband and her boss (the D.A.?) constantly pooh-poohed her insights or visions. Like, c’mon, man, she’s 100% right all the time! I blame that on the writers for not finding better plot hooks.

  67. 67.

    LeftCoastYankee

    Married with Children.  Every character was awful, and it was a pretty clear indicator of where the relatively new Fox network was headed.

  68. 68.

    cain

    Barnaby Jones!

    Hercules the adventure continues

    Greys Anatomy after 3 seasons.

    But MTP was the best answer!

    Also since it is an open thread – anybody hear about the banning of “Girls Who Code”? It could go either way, either they are trying to prevent girls from coding on computers or the book a girl had an aunt who is gay. I suspect it is the latter rather then Moms for Liberty trying to fuck with girls trying to code.

  70. 70.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @JustRuss:

    @Steeplejack:

    I was flipping through the channels a few weeks ago and watched Green Acres and couldn’t stand it. One thing I’ve noticed with most television of the era is that they didn’t seem to try very hard at realism, in contrast to later decades

  71. 71.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    As I said on your FB post, Blue Bloods (or as John Oliver called it, adult Paw Patrol). My mom got into the show when I was living them a few years ago, and thus I was forced to watch it sometimes, and good God it is awful. I tried a few times to point out to her how ridiculous and right-wing it is, but she didn’t seem to agree or care.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    I can’t watch any sitcom after watching It’s Always Sunny. Sunny reveals too clearly the sitcom formula of ‘let’s have terrible people do terrible things and then have a redemption arc inside 24 minutes so that we can laugh at them’ that it stops being funny, because Sunny just omits the redemption arc and amps up the terribleness.

    I tried watching Abbot Elementary and it’s well done but the commentary on the public education system is tragic, not funny, and I just can’t get out of the tragedy phase. Tried watching Modern Family and decided I just hate all of these people.

  79. 79.

    Origuy

    @cain: The ban on “Girls Who Code” has been repealed after parents raised a fuss.

     

    The book was on a list of material being banned. But books already in use were excepted from it. So because the book was in use at that school, it was technically not banned. But seems schools not owning it would be banned from using it.

    The ban has been repealed. pic.twitter.com/GPWUI6X0kg
    — Rumpole of the Bayou (@RumpoleBayou) September 26, 2022

  80. 80.

    Dangerman

    I’m not sure it had multiple seasons but it was a crime it had multiple episodes (and LeBron James was behind it).

    The Wall.

    Made Masked Singer look like Masterpiece Theatre.

    ETA: Knight Rider was horrific, too. Also Airwolf. They all had to be on something.

  81. 81.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I didn’t know they were having another season.

    I loved them. Another chance to show my Irish American husband that he is American not Irish since he can’t even understand what they are saying.

  83. 83.

    piratedan

    well, I can name plenty of shows that should never have seen the light of day; in keeping with the premise, I gotta go with the gimmick shows and suggest The Dukes of Hazard County.

  84. 84.

    cain

    @Origuy: ​
     
    It looks like it was not banned at that school, but other schools would not be able to acquire it for their libraries.

    I’m not sure how this shit is going to work – there are real life kids who have two dads, two moms, two aunts and so on. Are you going to gag them from saying who their parents are? Will the parents no longer be able to come for parent-teacher conferences?

    You can ban books, but you can’t ban real life – gay life is out there and has been since the species existed.

  86. 86.

    Layer8Problem

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  ” . . . the third season of Derry Girls will start soon”

    I’m looking forward to that.  We’ve run through all of Zelenskyy’s show and I need a laugh.  You too, I think.

  88. 88.

    cain

    Very disappointed nobody was triggered by Barnaby Jones – it has the best soundtrack though. Love that jazzy soundtrack with the flute.

  89. 89.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Dangerman:

    I’m not sure it had multiple seasons but it was a crime it had multiple episodes (and LeBron James was behind it).

    The Wall.

    I never liked the fact that the contestants could walk away with absolutely nothing, especially in light of the fact the show makes such a big deal about how deserving they are to win the money. At least you could walk away with something on Deal or No Deal, even if it was only a few hundred dollars

    Why was Knight Rider horrific?

  91. 91.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Martin:

    I always hated that show and thought it be-clowned the situation those men were in because prison camps were no joke. I made a comment on Twitter to that effect and another user who had a deep, deep knowledge of TV and Hollywood pointed out a few things, like the Colonel was a camp survivor, and Frenchy and someone else were vets of the war.

    He also told me Rod Serling was another one who despised the show because he, as a WW2 vet himself, thought it made a joke of a very serious situation.

    The guys really knew his stuff, and the aim of the show wasn’t to make light of the camp situation, but instead to highlight the actual ingenuity those interred used while in custody to make life more bearable.

  92. 92.

    Captain C

    @Ken: I’d watch that if he was stuck on an ever-accelerating Bussard ramjet headed into one of the great voids with its controls locked.

  93. 93.

    sab

    @beth: I kind of hate Margaret Atwood books. They lecture.

    I deeply loved Surfacing, but everything after that seemed so political/polemical. People with attitudes not real people not real pain or problems.

    Probably not fair of me but that is how her books hit.

  94. 94.

    Starfish

    @frosty: The first season or so had actual science related things that the writers had to know about.

    Then it became just another show about relationships with maladjusted dudes, and it was much less interesting.

  97. 97.

    germy shoemangler

    Some of the best shows that didn’t last long:  The PJs (Eddie Murphy), Dinosaurs (the baby looked like Bill Barr)…

  101. 101.

    cain

    @Baud: ​

    YES! Manimal – damn, I loved that show but the transformation from man to hawk was disgusting! Of course it was first on the list! :D

    There was another one that apparently not seen anywhere and that was “Man called Sloane” lol. I loved that show, but it didn’t last like 5 shows.

    ETA added a twitter poll asking if there should be a manimal reboot – trolling the twitters, that’s muh jam!

  102. 102.

    sab

    @RaflW: I loved Green Acres. The Eva Gabor character could have been my mother. Aspired to high society. Ended up  on a farm.

    Mom didn’t end up on a farm, but she would have been graceful if she had. She wasn’t as smooth or as pretty as Eva Gabor.

  104. 104.

    Geoduck

    People keep mentioning the original Battlestar Galactica, but it only really had one season, plus a short-lived “Galactica 1980” revamp.

    Maybe I’d nominate Gilligan’s Island, but that did occasionally manage to be genuinely funny, especially when they’d launch into a dream sequence.

  105. 105.

    Brachiator

    @Layer8Problem:

    “They drove a dump truck full of money to my house.  I’m not made of stone!”

    I was talking to my sister about how Robert Downey Jr became the heart of the Avengers and Marvel franchise. After a while, Disney kept a fleet of dump trucks at the ready, approved by Scrooge McDuck, to deliver tons of money to Downey to keep him happy.

    I think I read that he only got $500,000 for the first film.

  107. 107.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Kind of feel like the worst show has to be a sitcom from the ’80s. We’ve Got it Maid, Alf, Mr. Belvedere, Growing Pains, Who’s the Boss. These were TV shows that had multi-season runs.  There has to be a show that is lost to memory from that era because it lasted only a season or less that was even worse than those.

  108. 108.

    Mallard Filmore

    @cain: I agree.  The sets, writing, and cast were very good.  The only problem I had was it was dog fights, but in space.  I don’t understand why it gets on a “worst” list.

  109. 109.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Starfish:

    I’ve read that too about Patinkin. I often wonder how the screenwriters and such deal with so much of that kind of dark material on shows like CM and SVU

  112. 112.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I’d also nominate the 1966 Batman series, but it’s more in “So bad, it’s good” territory

  113. 113.

    cain

    @sab:

     
    Green Acres was something else. I used to watch it as a kid, and of course being a zany kid – every time the part in the intro “fresh air!”, I’d say “big boobs!” Hey, I was pre-puberty – I blame the adults around me.. and D&D

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    I still think that Hogan’s Heroes was the weirdest show to get multiple seasons. Nazis as comedic relief? What a great idea.

    Agree that it was a weird, but funny show.  And it demonstrates possibly that there is almost no topic so taboo that it cannot be turned into a TV series.

  119. 119.

    sab

    @sab: My family: Silly because we are also Irish American, but we are also German American and Scotish American and English American and French American. And Franco-Swiss American.

    At some point somebody realizes we are from all over the world. We are just Europe, but the next guys have a dad from the biggest city in China and also the World.

  123. 123.

    eclare

    @PBK:   Never saw the American version, but the original has Ricky Gervais at his cringe-worthy best.  The show makes you squirm watching it.  It is brilliant. YMMV.

    On Hulu now.  Three seasons.

  125. 125.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @cain:

    Kind of?:

    The television series Hogan’s Heroes (CBS, 1965–71) is based on a similar Stalag. Richard Erdman, who played Hoffy in Stalag 17, guest-starred on Hogan’s Heroes as Walter Hobson, a reporter who, with Hogan’s crew, is freed in the episode “No Names Please”. Erdman is the only star of the movie to have guest starred on Hogan’s Heroes.

    Oh and unfortunately I found out Bob Crane was kind of a creep:

    Crane frequently videotaped and photographed his own sexual escapades. During the run of Hogan’s Heroes, Dawson introduced him to John Henry Carpenter, a regional sales manager for Sony Electronics, who often helped famous clients with their video equipment. The two men struck up a friendship and began going to bars together. Crane attracted many women due to his celebrity status, and he introduced Carpenter to them as his manager. Crane and Carpenter videotaped their joint sexual encounters. Crane’s son Robert later insisted that all of the women were aware of the videotaping and consented to it, but some said they had no idea that they had been recorded until they were informed by Scottsdale police after Crane’s murder. Carpenter later became national sales manager at Akai, and he arranged his business trips to coincide with Crane’s dinner-theater touring schedule so that the two could continue videotaping their sexual encounters.

  130. 130.

    eddie blake

    @cain: yeah, they just had no idea where they were going or what they wanted to do with their show and it just oozed off the screen.

    sure, starbuck as a lady is neat. starbuck as a angel is fucked up.

    the whole thing with the “missing cylons” was ridiculous and having the trigger be jimmi hendrix was absurd, as much as i love hendrix.

    it was visually stunning, but oh MAN BSG’s writing sucked.

  131. 131.

    Amir Khalid

    @Shantanu Saha:

    John Schneider from The Dukes of Hazzard has a YouTube channel you might want to avoid. He likes to feature his memories of the show, which is fine, but mixed in with that is some Confederate apologetics/historical whitewashing.

    By the way, some years ago a car collector acquired the General Lee and had the Confederate battle flag on the roof painted over with the American flag.

  133. 133.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @AndoChronic: The first couple seasons though, were incredible, imo.  I usually hate zombie shows/movies and thought TWD was just gonna be trashy fun, but I was blown away by how good it was.  We tapped out shortly after Neegan entered the picture.

  136. 136.

    Martin

    @Brachiator: My daughter and I regularly draw attention to shows where an adult man is attracted to an underage girl (maybe in costume, some kind of mix up, other comedic device) and presented as totally normal.

    At no point does the man recognize that he’s attracted to a child, or reflect on that fact afterward. It’s just an ‘of course you thought that middle schooler was hot’ and the story merrily marches on. It’s very common.

    What’s refreshing about It’s Sunny is that they do the exact same bit, but fully acknowledge how fucking creepy it is and don’t ever ask the viewer to forgive the character for being a sociopath.

    So yeah, I think the only taboo topic is making fun of RW Christians. That’s ground you need to tread on VERY carefully. Wanna fuck a 7th grader? Sure – go for it. Lulz all around.

  137. 137.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @HumboldtBlue:

    like the Colonel was a camp survivor, and Frenchy and someone else were vets of the war.

    Interesting fact about the actor who played Klink was that Werner Klemperer, who was Jewish, only agreed to play Klink on the condition that he never came out looking like a hero in any episode

  140. 140.

    Martin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): kind of a creep

    Then proceeds to document behavior that is massively creepy, revealing just how normalized this kind of shit is in our society.

    Not a dig on Goku in *any* way. This shit is so normalized that you have to actively work to see it for what it is.

  141. 141.

    TriassicSands

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    All reality TV shows deserve a vote.

    When you look at what happened afterward, Trump’s mindless garbage may deserve the all-time worst designation. What is particularly noteworthy is that Trump, as president, showed conclusively that he is the worst judge of character and competence in history.

    I’d nominate essentially every sitcom, but apart from catching tidbits while visiting friends, I’ve never watched one all the way through. The tidbits were more than sufficient. Since tastes vary, I’m sure there are probably lots of B-Jers who have enjoyed one or more sitcoms over the years. Especially deserving of abhorence would be any show with a laugh track. Has there ever been a sitcom without a laugh track? If someone has to tell the audience when to laugh…

  142. 142.

    Cmorenc

    “Lost” – although alas it wasn’t until about the third season when it became increasingly apparent that though the producers began with an interesting concept, nevertheless they had no clue where to take it and were making shit up and throwing it against the wall, with no idea where they were going with it, crashing in the end after 6 or 7? seasons with the lamest ending ever since “Dallas”’s faux ending and actually stealing a similar plot device idea from it.  Gigantic waste of time.

  143. 143.

    sab

    Gilligans Island.

    I loved most of the actors but that show seriously and totally sucked. Gawd it was awful.

  148. 148.

    Andrew Abshier

    No one has mentioned Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo?  That went two seasons.  I didn’t bother watching.

  152. 152.

    coin operated

    Well…since this thread was already won on the first comment…I enjoyed the new BSG right up to that mini-series that split the seasons in half.  Total bomb after

    Sitcoms and romcoms drive me up the frigging wall.  So damn stupid and predicable.  I can proudly say I’ve never watched a full episode of Friends, Seinfeld, or Big Bang.

    Surprised nobody’s mentioned any of the Dr shows that spun off from Oprah.  For all the good she’s done, her unleashing of Dr Phil and Dr Oz onto the airwaves cancels that out.

  154. 154.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    All of reality TV is trash. I agree with all of you that have said that. On MeTV, the other day, I also saw a show called ‘Bosum Buddies’ from the 80s. It was just cringeworthy.

  156. 156.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @Martin: Yeah, I  really appreciated that episode. I was an L&O fanatic back in the day, and also loved SVU when it first came out. But over time and as I got older, both shows started to wane, especially SVU, which has gone on way fucking longer than it should have.

  157. 157.

    Gin & Tonic

    @HumboldtBlue: What’s remarkable about that show is it premiered a mere 20 years after the end of WWII. MASH (the movie) was only 17 years after the end of the Korean War.

  159. 159.

    Peale

    @Baud: IDK if its fair as an adult to pick out series that were popular with kids. I mean, I was 10. I liked it. I wanted to be Gil Girard.

  161. 161.

    Geoduck

    @Amir Khalid: Suppose it’s embarrassing that I know this, but there was no “the” General Lee. Thanks to all the stunts, the show burned through huge numbers of that particular make and model of car, and was always scrounging for more.

    And at least Boss Hogg and Roscoe made for amusing villains. The actors did personal appearances together as the characters years after the show ended.

  162. 162.

    Captain C

    @Geoduck:

    People keep mentioning the original Battlestar Galactica, but it only really had one season, plus a short-lived “Galactica 1980” revamp.

    It was a lot of fun when I was six years old and unaware of its flaws.  Also, it seems to have a certain amount of crypto-Mormon theology to it.

  163. 163.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ohio Mom: Lost in Space is a weird one: the first season (in black and white) was trying to be a serious science-fiction show and was frankly not that good, then the writers decided to camp it up and just write increasingly ridiculous stuff and they had a hit on their hands.

    Whenever they try to reboot it they try to make it serious again, and it just doesn’t work that well. It’s a show that needs to dare to be stupid.

  166. 166.

    kalakal

    @Mallard Filmore: Ah Space 1999. I loved all the Gerry Anderson shows as a kid, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet & the Mysterons, UFO, Stingray etc. Space 1999 started off fine (very silly but fine) but got more and more desperate as it went on

  168. 168.

    E.

    You guys are all just talking bad TV. The question is for shows that started out great and then tanked. I submit to you: Westworld.

  175. 175.

    BretH

    Rapidly ossifying thread but one of the craziest times of my life was in the Peace Corps in a remote African village in the ‘80s coming across the one solar powered TV at night with villagers crowded around it watching Airwolf.

  177. 177.

    AndoChronic

    @UncleEbeneezer:

     

    @UncleEbeneezer: Neegan was my favorite! He made a turn around. His back story is compelling too. However, he may have blown it in the last scene of the season I saw. There’s one more season out there I haven’t seen. It has got to be the last.

  179. 179.

    sab

    I am cancelling my Patreon monthly contribution, because I am really sick and tired of funding the emoji screened nyms

    I realize I haven’t been a historically wonderful contributor, and some of you have been. But I have been wasting my time on a site with no standards.

  182. 182.

    jefft452

    @kalakal: UFO was great.  It went down hill when they thought they had to punch it up for American audiences

    (although the purple wigs were stupid)

  186. 186.

    C Stars

    I haven’t watched many of these shows. I am assuming “Real Housewives” must be the worst because the premise is awful and whenever I see images from that show everyone seems to have gone way overboard on the lip injections which I guess is a pet peeve of mine. But speaking of that, I did just watch a show in which the Real Housewives franchise is mentioned ridiculously frequently that I actually do like — “The Other Two.” Anyone seen it? Also am not minding “Reboot.”

  187. 187.

    Another Scott

    @Starfish: My J used to watch that.  “Unsub” this and “Unsub” that.  And it seemed to me like any one of the characters could say any of the lines of the other characters.  I didn’t like it.

    What was the similar show that every episode had “red” in the title?  That one was really creepy.  The “hero” had some mass murderer (Red John) who killed his family and the “hero” ended up hunting down and killing some guy that he thought was involved (and wasn’t) and [blink] absolutely nothing happened to him [/blink].  Yeah, ok, he went on leave for a few weeks or something.  But nothing else.

    Ah, The Mentalist.

    That was a messed up show. Probably one of the reasons why I don’t watch much TV anymore. Which is probably a good thing! ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  189. 189.

    Matt McIrvin

    @kalakal: There was a pattern where if a science-fiction/action-adventure show just barely managed to get renewed, the second season would have some major retooling to try to punch things up or just reduce the budget, and it would usually make the show worse.

    Space: 1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and the original Battlestar Galactica were all like that. Battlestar Galactica was a weird case because “Galactica 1980” was actually on a different network.

    seaQuest DSV was an example from the 1990s–the first season was a kind of stodgy “Star Trek but underwater, with some attempt at realism”; the second season was nonsensical monster-of-the-week schlock. But that one got retooled again into a slightly less bad show and had a short third season, then died.

    It happened to the original Star Trek on the third season rather than the second. The basic premise wasn’t damaged too much but the scripts got a bit worse.

  191. 191.

    Michael Cain

    Charlie’s Angels. Watched in a dorm when I was an undergraduate, and used to tell myself, “If I can’t cut the math and physics, I can go to Hollywood and write screenplays.”

  193. 193.

    Brooklyn Dodger

    Anybody ever catch Strange Empire? It was the best TV show I’ve seen to inexplicably have only one season, which I watched on Netflix a few years ago. Western-ish story set in 1869 on the Alberta-Montana border. Great female leads.

  194. 194.

    eddie blake

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  he just doesn’t seem to understand heroes at ALL. it’s kind of weird. selflessness and altruism seem lost on him.

    …and that’s a problem if you’re making a movie about heroes.

    (also, also? using extensive slo-mo in a movie that’s FOUR HOURS LONG is just sadistic.)

  195. 195.

    Ruckus

    @Martin:

    I think that Hogan’s Heroes was only to show that not all Germans were nazis or even agreed with them.

    It also might have appealed to someone who has served in the military, because while many of the characters may have been slightly over done, it really did reflect some of day to day military life, the sometimes/often times boredom, the often times risk one may have to take and the never ending fun and the sense of adventure that most of us missed.

  196. 196.

    Spanky

    I’m a-gonna pull one out of the Wayback Machine. One that really perplexed my pre-kindergarten self.

    Queen for a Day

    From the wiki:

    The show was not without its critics for exploiting people’s hardships for profit.[20] Veteran television writer Mark Evanier[21] has called the program “one of the most ghastly shows ever produced.” He further described it as “tasteless, demeaning to women, demeaning to anyone who watched it, cheap, insulting and utterly degrading to the human spirit.”

  197. 197.

    Amir Khalid

    @Geoduck:

    I suppose the car collector liked to claim that he owned the General Lee rather than a General Lee. Collectors sometimes exaggerate like that.

    A much better (and funnier) Southern-themed show than The Dukes of Hazzard was The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo. It spun a comic villain from BJ and The Bear (truck driver with chimpanzee BFF) off into his own show.

  200. 200.

    eddie blake

    @leeleeFL:  i was talking about the remake. they had no plan plotted out for the show after the mini-series and i thought it limped to a very unsatisfying conclusion.  the showrunners admitted as much in several forums.

    eta- as was noted elsewhere on this thread, the first show didn’t get a second season.

  202. 202.

    LeftCoastYankee

    @indycat32:

    True, but on occasion Seinfeld was funny.   Married with Children was just awful people mocking each other in stupid stereotypes.

     

    .

  204. 204.

    Cmorenc

    @Brachiator:

    I am surprised Hogan’s Heroes didn’t face massive backlash for portraying German prisoner camp guards as lovable bumblers – i found out the hard way how sensitive a substantial portion of folks are toward finding ANY humor in the Getman Nazi regime when I referred to what I thought one of the funniest “Downfall” parody clips, and the reaction i got from folks in the room (mostly non-jewish) was as if i had told a jole with the N-clang word as part of the punchline.

  209. 209.

    eddie blake

    @C Stars: aaaaaah. i thought you were talking about ReBoot, the cg animated show by mainframe entertainment from 1994.

    that show was BRILLIANT. but no. you’re talking about something current.

  210. 210.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    ?

    I think that was the point of my comment? I was saying Bob Crane’s behavior was creepy.

    And I agree with you it is very normalized when it comes to sexualizing teenage girls, more so prior to MeToo imo. Paul Walker dated 16 year old girls twice and stayed with one until his death in 2013. It wasn’t really commented on much at the time or before from what I can tell

    I remember reading about this about George Lucus and Stephen Spielberg: Indiana Jones was an abusive creep (but he was almost much worse)

    One of the most interesting things about Raiders of the Lost Ark is that we have the transcript of the 1978 story meetings between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan. These three men sat in a room and threw out ideas before the movie was written, and it’s an interesting look at the process behind one of the most influential action films of all time.

    And then you get to the ideas behind Marion Ravenwood, and how the two characters know each other.

    Lawrence Kasdan: I like it if they already had a relationship at one point. Because then you don’t have to build it.

    George Lucas: I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.

    Kasdan: And he was forty-two.

    Lucas: He hasn’t seen her in twelve years. Now she’s twenty-two. It’s a real strange relationship.

    Spielberg: She had better be older than twenty-two.

    Lucas: He’s thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve.

    Lucas: It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.

    Spielberg: And promiscuous. She came onto him.

    Lucas: Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it’s an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she’s sixteen or seventeen it’s not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he…

    Spielberg: She has pictures of him.

    This is a brainstorming session, so bad ideas are going to be presented and ultimately thrown out, but the idea that Marion was way too young when the relationship started was always part of the characters.

  211. 211.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Starfish: Criminal Minds, God, I remember watching that on an exercise-machine TV at the gym and wondering how this universe could have so many serial killers. An utter waste of Paget Brewster, who needs to be in lots of comedies.

  220. 220.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: sab has been playing with having a doggie emoji in her name.  Emoji’s break this incarnation of the pie filter.  She’s had an occasional running commentary about it.

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  221. 221.

    kalakal

    @Layer8Problem: Yeah, the SPVs were cool! I drove my parents nuts, there was some brand of breakfast cereal which had little snap together plastic models of Spectrum  vehicles, I have never eaten so much cereal in my life, I was trying to get a Helijet which were really rare.

     

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s a really accurate summary, I remember being so annoyed with the 2nd series of Seaquest DSV

     

    @jefft452: Hee the purple wigs. I loved UFO because there was genuine tension, unlike all those other series the goodies actually lost from time to time. I watched a couple of episodes recently, it was so cheesy and so 60s sexist

  222. 222.

    eddie blake

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): well, they make it pretty clear he’s fucking his students. beyond the press of girls at his office and the eyelid scene, when marcus brody arrives at indy’s house unexpectedly, you can see he’s got champagne out and two glasses. did one of the students high-tail it out of his house as marcus arrived? who knows. but it’s in the film, telling us indiana jones (a professional grave robber) is not the nicest or most moral of men.

  224. 224.

    sdhays

    @E.: If that’s the criteria: The Pretender and Earth: Final Conflict.

    The Pretender was an interesting concept of a few super geniuses who could “pretend” to be anything and and evil corporation which operated outside of the law to kidnap, control, and exploit them. But the network wouldn’t give it a stable time slot and budget cuts led to the writing staff getting replaced and the new writers took the show into bonkers territory.

    Earth: Final Conflict was a Gene Roddenberry creation that was pretty compelling in the first season, but it lost its main character after the first season and the direction of the show after that really didn’t improve after that.

  225. 225.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    I think that Hogan’s Heroes was only to show that not all Germans were nazis or even agreed with them.

    I don’t think that the series was trying to rehabilitate the image of Germans. They downplayed anything relating to Ideology and focused on Resistance and the heroics of the American POWs.

    There have been a few good films about POWs that may have influenced Hogan’s Heroes. Among them are The Great Escape and the magnificent French film Grand Illusion.

    It also might have appealed to someone who has served in the military, because while many of the characters may have been slightly over done, it really did reflect some of day to day military life, the sometimes/often times boredom, the often times risk one may have to take and the never ending fun and the sense of adventure that most of us missed.

    You also saw this depiction of boredom and adventure in MASH, both the movie and the TV series.

  226. 226.

    sab 🐕

    Alison Rose can post here forever. Last time she wanted to kill Russians. Now she has found Russians she liked.

  228. 228.

    J R in WV

    Mr. Ed — the talking horse no one could hear but the hapless guy. Stupid and never funny.

    Bewitched and the clone show about suburban women who were really witches. Both were terrible, should have been cancelled after episode 2 at most.

    Dukes of Hazard… horrible.

    I liked Gilligan’s Island OK.

  230. 230.

    Seanly

    There are so many terrible shows that had multiple seasons. Very hard to just pick one. However, I would vote for “Revolution” 2012 to 2014. The lead actress, Tracy Spiridakos, was terrible. The plot was terrible. I could only get through a few episodes. My brother ended up hate watching the entire run.

  232. 232.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @eddie blake:

    Well, no, but a 42 y/o man having a relationship with a 12 y/o or even a 35 y/o with a 15 y/o, like Spielberg, Lucus, and Kasden were talking about, was absolutely abhorrent. At least the students in the final film are legal adults, if a bit problematic given the power imbalance

    Making your protagonist flawed is one thing, but that kind of thing is unnecessary and frankly out of place if you’re going for old Republic serials

  235. 235.

    Brachiator

    @J R in WV:

    Mr. Ed — the talking horse no one could hear but the hapless guy. Stupid and never funny.

    Inspired by a successful series of comedy films about Francis, a talking mule.

    Bewitched and the clone show about suburban women who were really witches. Both were terrible, should have been cancelled after episode 2 at most.

    Bewitched was somewhat subversive. It was really about an interracial marriage with Samantha passing for white. And Sam was a powerful witch who early on pretended to be fragile.

    Or you could just say that Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie featured some cute actresses.

  237. 237.

    different-church-lady

    @raven: ​
      Finding dark humor in the madness of war is something you can carry for a feature film, but probably not for many seasons of 30 minute episodic television. Somehow they made it work in the beginning. It’s a shame the supporting acting became so wooden once they made the transition into drama.

  240. 240.

    El Muneco

    @Ryan: There was a wonderful comedy called “Flying Blind” which came along years before its time. It had Sorkinesque dialog while the actual Sorkin was still working on his first film credit. Tea Leoni was charming and they brought in the likes of Peter Boyle for guest appearances.

    It was buried in a lousy time slot on Fox (following the legendary “Herman’s Head”). And the public wasn’t ready for the style yet – “Buffy” was five years in the future, and Sorkin wouldn’t hit TV until a year after that.

  242. 242.

    JAFD

    Attention All Jackals !
    Go outside NOW and look at Jupiter – about 60 degrees above horizon (that’s in Newark, NJ, 9:30 EDT), a bit S of East – Even with glare here it is _something_.

  243. 243.

    Subsole

    Duck Dynasty.

    It really is everything I despise about…not exactly the South, but how the rest of our country fetishizes the South – or, rather, a certain vision of the South.

    A bunch of college-educated upscale middle-class suburbanites playing tarshack swamphut hillbillies for a home audience. Because we want our Southerners a certain way, y’see. The same way we want ALL our country folk.

    Too simple to lie, too sly to fool. A virile masculine figure of maximum gigachad straightforwardhood, there to hand down homespun verities born of hard life without frills or fripperies or the maddening convenience and complexity of modernity.

    They take us, in all our color and nuance, our sin and virtue and pride and shame, bleed us paler than bleached chalk, and sell us as crude boorish-but-clever hicks.

    The ideal peasant, really: entertainingly impoverished and very, very far away.

    And that is what they sell: a cartoon of white (very, very white)-washed peasantry. The idea that life in the country is just simple and wholesome and straightforward. Instead of the nosy, clannish, hardscrabble tedium and meanness you so often find in those itty-bitty towns.

    It cheapens the life of actual rural folks, and it diminishes an entire culture by boiling it down into play-stupid for laughs hickery hackery horseshit.

    As if some of America’s finest artists, poets, writers, musicians and wordsmiths didn’t come from the South. It says the only value the rural have is their simplicity.

    It is, basically, a bunch of city folks insulting themselves in hopes that some slimeball used-jetski salesman in their HOA will invite them to the barbecue, because said slimeball is wearing a stetson and pearl-snaps. And that means he’s more authenticker than the rest of us, y’see.

    It’s boldface dishonest pandering in at least three different directions.

     

    God, do I hate

    Hate

    Hate

    Hate

    Hate

    Hate

    Hate

    HAAAAAAAAATE 

    that shit.

  246. 246.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    I served in the navy. No I never was in a war zone, no one shot at me and I was never a POW. However there is a level to all militaries for almost all enlisted men and I’ve met quite a few from other countries. Most of the people I knew in the navy or marines 50+ yrs ago seemed to have similar feelings to mine, there is massive amounts of boredom that you can do absolutely nothing about and there can be occasional moments of terror, even if you are not in a war zone. Carrying a 75 lb 5in high explosive shell in leather soled shoes on a wet slippery steel deck can get your attention real easy.  Having a not a drill general quarters alarm at 3 am in winter time in the North Sea, while being trailed by a Russian destroyer will get your attention. Being bored shitless days on end or going without a shower for 6 weeks in the Caribbean in summer because there isn’t enough fresh water to clean yourself, is a laugh a minute. And my story really is very tame compared to many that I know. No one ever shot at me, took me prisoner, tried to actually blow me up. I know a lot of those guys.

    So for me Hogan’s Heroes may be different than the way many others see it. And one of those concepts is that not everyone is gung ho in war time or in the military and that everyone has to make do with what hits you at any one time. I can see people upset with Hogans and with Mash, even as I’m not. Mash was a far better show but Hogans has it’s points and maybe you had to at least have some part of the experience to see that.  I have.

  247. 247.

    Subsole

    @trollhattan: Good connection.

    I once saw Vance described as a man who was given every opportunity the countryside and the city had to offer, and never forgave either of them for it.

  248. 248.

    PaulB

    All reality shows, as noted repeatedly above, but “The Biggest Loser” is absolutely inexplicable to me. It’s incredibly cruel and abusive, it’s dishonest, and I cannot believe it lasted 17 seasons on NBC, and was then picked up by USA.

  249. 249.

    RaflW

    Anyone heard from Betty about the big wet blow coming to FL? It seems Tampa might be utterly screwed. Betty doesn’t live quite there, but dang it could be a rough time for the west coast.

  252. 252.

    Brachiator

    @different-church-lady:

    ​Sam had to hide her power because of the patriarchy, no? Darren was an idiot, but he was “in charge”.

    In an early episode, it is suggested that Darren is a member of the upper class. He has an old girlfriend who knows all the right people and who belongs to all the right clubs. He and this lady used to hang out together with friends.

    She invites Darren and Sam to her house for dinner and tries to humiliate pretty but obviously low class Samantha.  Sam kicks her ass with some witch power and Darren accepts that he is not really in charge and resigns himself to the idea that he sometimes has to let Sam be Sam.

  253. 253.

    Suzanne

    Freakin’ Everybody Loves Raymond. Or Two and a Half Men. Both of those will drive me from the room. Just reprehensible.

  255. 255.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    Aww, Everybody Loves Raymond had Peter Boyle. And Brad Garrett is an underrated national comedic treasure. The funniest bit was when Ray’s parents crashed through his house into his living room.

  256. 256.

    Tony G

    @JustRuss: That’s right.  When I was a kid in the sixties, there was a grand total of six channels in New Jersey.  So, it was either watch really bad shows, or turn it off and read.

  258. 258.

    Subsole

    @West of the Rockies:

    On a related note, South Park has outstayed its welcome.

    I loved it when I was in high school.  Now??? At the risk of sounding more pretentious than usual…

    I grew up. They didn’t. And seem actively hostile to the concept.

     

    What is it about Rick and Morty you dislike?

    I tried watching, and just couldn’t get into it.

  261. 261.

    Subsole

    @raven:

    The funniest part of the movie (which I loved) was the regular announcements that Movie Night would be featuring a bunch of blood n’ guts war films.

    In a military surgical theater.

    Just seemed like something too utterly devoid of critical thought to not be based on real events…

  263. 263.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    Fair enough, but it’s way better than Big Bang Theory imo. That show was made for Middle America to laugh at the stereotypical Hollywood nerds that are the main characters of BBT. Despite the fact that Penny (who doesn’t even have a last name) Is the butt of jokes sometimes, the audience is clearly meant to identify with her when she has to deal with the dumb nerdy shit the guys get up to. I think it’s pretty contrived that these scientists just so happen to conform to every nerd stereotype known to man

    I’ve read that autistic people don’t like the character of Sheldon and think that he’s an ableist caricature

    The misogyny and racism is also very bad, but hey they acknowledge it in the show, so that makes it all okay according to Chuck Lorre /s

  266. 266.

    Brachiator

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Somehow, though, there has never been a comedy about Soviet prison camps.

    Well, there is this.

    Gentlemen of Fortune (Russian: Джентльмены удачи, romanized: Dzhentlmeny udachi) is a 1971 Soviet crime comedy film, filmed at Mosfilm and directed by Aleksandr Sery. The stars of the film include famous Soviet actors such as Yevgeny Leonov, Georgy Vitsin, Savely Kramarov and Radner Muratov.

    The movie follows the story of an amiable kindergarten principal named Troshkin who looks exactly like a cruel criminal nicknamed Dotsent (Доцент, literally associate professor) that has stolen Alexander the Great’s helmet at an archaeological excavation. Dotsent and his gang are caught by police, but Dotsent is imprisoned in a different jail than his mates. Since Troshkin looks identical to Dotsent, the police send him undercover to prison with the real criminals to get information about the stolen helmet. He must pretend to be the real felon Dotsent, so in order to be convincing, Troshkin, a well-educated and good-natured man, has to learn slang and manners of criminals.

    Also….

    I Want to Go to Prison (Russian: Хочу в тюрьму) is a 1998 Russian comedy film directed by Alla Surikova.

    The film tells about the developer of “Zaporozhets”, … With his help, the bank was robbed, and he decided to voluntarily go to prison.

  267. 267.

    NotMax

    @Brachiator

    IIRC in the first episode, Samantha’s father has such strenuous objection when informed of the already performed marriage that he kills Darrin. Yup, disintegrates him.

    Sam, being properly miffed, wheedles dear old dad into bringing him back.

  268. 268.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Subsole:

    Yeah. From the minds who brought you some of the greatest genre/franchise movies of the late 20th century. Star Wars, Back to the Future, Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, etc

  269. 269.

    Seanly

    @Matt McIrvin:

    When Space: 1999 first became available in the US, my Dad was so excited about it. I’m not sure how he heard about TV shows & movies in the 70’s – we lived in LR, AR which was a cultural black hole at the time. He had a late night movie review show on the Arkansas PBS so maybe he had some contacts? Anyhow… I remember watching Space:1999 as a kid but didn’t remember much. Flash forward to a couple of years ago when it was finally available to stream. I couldn’t get through the first 10 minutes – the dialogue was so bad, the sets looked terrible even for 1970’s BBC, the spacesuits were poor quality quilted ski wear, everything was just atrocious.

  270. 270.

    eddie blake

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  well, in star wars, lucas thought it would be cool to have ten year old anakin hit on natalie portman… and even more astonishingly, have her return feelings for him.

    in back to the future, beyond the incest and racism, there’s the rapes, both the attempted one in the first film and the YEARS of sexual abuse lorraine deals with in the second.

    in close encounters, dreyfuss totally abandons his family. just fucking ditches them.

    while schindler’s list is largely unimpeachable, the jurassic park series is full of some of the stupidest scientists known to film, who never EVER learn a goddamn thing and make the same mistakes movie after movie after movie.

    so i dunno. yeah. great hits, but almost all, flawed movies.

  271. 271.

    Steeplejack

    @Tony G:

    Six channels?! Sheer luxury. For most of the ’60s I lived in two small towns that had two or three network channels (no ABC in one of them) and, in one of them, a bare-bones PBS station. Then we moved to Okinawa (father in the military), where we had one channel, AFRTS, in no way remotely as cool as portrayed in Good Morning, Vietnam.

  272. 272.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Seanly: For the time, I think the first season of Space:1999 actually looked pretty good. The model effects for the space shots were excellent. The writing, though, made not a lick of sense, and it actually got worse in season 2; the sets also got cheaper.

  273. 273.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    IIRC in the first episode, Samantha’s father has such strenuous objection when informed of the already performed marriage that he kills Darrin. Yup, disintegrates him.

    I actually watched the pilot episode of Bewitched on YouTube recently, but I don’t recall episodes of the series. But I thought that we first encountered Samantha’s mother Endora and that the father was introduced later. But I could be wrong.

  275. 275.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @eddie blake:

    there’s the rapes, both the attempted one in the first film and the YEARS of sexual abuse lorraine deals with in the second.

    Well, to be fair to BTTF, none of that is portrayed as good, and the “incest” is played for laughs. I personally thought it was funny to watch Marty’s awkwardness around his mom lol. I don’t consider them flaws, honestly. Can’t argue argue about the racism though. Goldie Wilson is literally a minstrel character and I can’t ignore the unfortunate implications of having him be Mayor of Hill Valley in the 80s and the town be a prime example of urban blight. Thankfully, from what I remember, the later films didn’t have these problems as badly

    well, in star wars, lucas thought it would be cool to have ten year old anakin hit on natalie portman… and even more astonishingly, have her return feelings for him.

    Yeah, that was pretty weird, ngl.

  277. 277.

    GibberJack

    Also, to respond to the OP: Pretty much every successful TV series. Sooner or later they all jump the shark.

    (Jump the Shark, from the Happy Days episode near the end of the series where Fonzie jumped over a shark on his motorcycle, is iirc now in the lexicon for something past the boundary into ridiculousness)

  278. 278.

    GibberJack

    @Matt McIrvin: Well this is bad but the first thing I noticed when I first saw Space 1999 was the dick-nosed interceptors.

    I noticed girls had curves about then too.

    No end of amusement upon learning  interceptors had thrusters.

  280. 280.

    AnneW

    Way late, but: Sleepy Hollow. The 1st season was amazing. Then the network got rid of the the creators & the show limped on for two more seasons which I pretend don’t exist.

    Reality shows: Amazing Race is fun, but Canada’s Worst Driver was actually a force for good. It helped me become a better driver just by watching it, & I’ve heard I’m by no means the only one. If you’re curious, do a search on YouTube for full episodes. I started watching with the All-Star season, & I’d advise starting with season 8 so that you get the best judges. Tim Danter’s expressions are wonderful.

  281. 281.

    JustRuss

    @eclare: American Gothic  is one of my faves, although the acting and writing was uneven.  When it was good it was great.  Gary Cole is phenomenal.

  286. 286.

    tam1MI

    Dead thread, but a good example of a show that started out great but stuck around way past it’s sell-by date: SUPERNATURAL. Unwatchable after the first five seasons.

  288. 288.

    Jack the Cold Warrior

    @eddie blake:

    Agree! Lost stop making sense in episode 1 when the group was attacked by a polar bear (on a tropical Pacific island?).

    Reboot Battlestar Galactica was generally ok til the last season, and the last 30 minutes of the series finale is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen on TV. Really? The most technically advanced human society is going to throw away it all to become cave people?

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