It's Fine. I've Seen Worse.

So the scuttlebutt is that Game of Thrones is going to botch the landing tonight. And I have feelings about that, mostly surprise that I really don't. The truth is that while I understand folks' frustration, as far as unsatisfying television turns go Game of Thrones wouldn't make my list. For me it's still watchable. Maybe not as good as it could have been, but still a decent way to kill time on a Sunday night. Here's what would make my list of good shows that went to crap fast though. 

Lost

Is it as bad as Lost? 'Cause it's not as bad as Lost.

So the first season of Lost is good but unremarkable, Survivor but if Survivor actually had writers. The second season though is nuts. It was the middle of the writer's strike and whoever was left threw spaghetti on the wall. There were some interesting moments but as a whole, the show was an incoherent mess.

Then the back half of the third season managed to pull a minor miracle and actually explain all the weird stuff that happened. The island is actually a temporal anomaly.  The fourth and fifth seasons were about exploring a place where time doesn't work the way you think it does.

The sixth season pretty much junked every interesting thing that was happening in the show by that point just to answer a bunch a fan questions and theories that had long since stopped being relevant when the writers had a clear answer to shut everybody up.

Time Travel is a hell of a drug.

Heroes

The first season of Heroes is tight. Everything and I means everything that happens gets tied to the main plot. The second season also got tied up in the writers strike but it's just rushed. There are still a lot of good ideas in there they just aren't executed well, the third on the other hand, oh boy.

Mostly it's the character inconsistencies that bother me. Everybody got hit with it but the worst is Mohinder.

He's the series smart guy. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's bad. But Mohinder doesn't act rashly... until he injects himself with untested drugs so the writers have an excuse to turn him into the fly.

Once Upon A Time

I ...

....

Uhh

I don't hate Once.

I kept coming back to it but every season there would be at least one big thing that turned me off.  But there are two big ones.

The first was in season 3B when they brought back Rumplestiltskin. Season 3A is his redemption arc. Really to be honest most of season 2 is that as well. And his arc in season two is his slow realization and acceptance that he can't be the good guy. At least he can't be a straight hero which is what he wants. His death speech is all about accepting that and doing something worthwhile anyway and it was the best closure that character was ever going to get.

And they undid it in three episodes flat.

Season 5 was essentially the story mandating the Emma Swan turn evil for no other reason than the script said.  Which in my mind is actually worse because it undermines the redemption arcs of the villains having their magic being the source of all their problems when the show always hinted there was something else there. It retroactivley ruined almost everything that was good about that show. Specifically it makes previously interesting villains boring if all of their motivations could be boiled down to magic made me do it.

Andromeda

I don't know why but I never really gravitated to Star Trek as a kid but I did watch a lot of stuff that was, "Star Trek" adjacent. And Andromeda is basically a grittier Star Trek where The Federation has fallen and instead of being a naval crew comprised of the best officers in the sector, the cast is a bunch of ragtags brought together by chance and the promise of a big score.

Part of what made Andromeda interesting was that most of the crew were self-interested. They all had relationships with one another but at the end of the day, they all had secrets and ulterior motivations for staying on the ship. This ain't about the power of friendship and they all knew that.

Specifically Tyr. whose defining characteristic was that "Tyr only does what's good for Tyr".  The characters understood it. The audience understood it. Evidently, the writers didn't understand it.

Season 3 turned him into a cackling bad guy.  And I hated it so much. To be fair a lot of season 3 doesn't bring it up so it's watchable. The actor just isn't there after his character's sudden but inevitable betrayal. But in the series finale, he comes back basically as a Disney villain and I hated it so much.