TV, you break our hearts.
We give you hours of our time, and you promise us a level of consistent bliss, and then you
stab us right in the back.
During the course of almost any great TV show, you'll find at least one disastrously off-key
episode.
Expect spoilers.
Here are a few TV shows nearly ruined by one episode.
"The worst episode ever!"
The Walking Dead - Thank You
The world’s most popular zombie show has enough suspense and desperate relationship
dynamics to keep itself going indefinitely—which is just one reason why the season six episode,
"Thank You," didn't need to happen like it did.
Glenn's fake-out-dumpster-death was the first time the showrunners pulled a deceptive camera
trick.
Even though viewers quickly saw through the ruse, they were not quick to forgive.
The Walking Dead changed from a straightforward post-apocalyptic drama into a show that was
comfortable deceiving the audience.
Much to the disappointment of the audience, similar camera tricks made a controversial
reappearance during the Season 6 finale.
The Simpsons - Natural Born Kissers
Critics often debate the exact point when the once-amazing Simpsons began to crumble,
though Slate, The New York Post, and plenty of other cultural pundits all seem to agree
that it was "somewhere during the ninth and tenth seasons."
So, it’s fair to choose the ninth season finale as the definitive point where the show
was no longer the series we knew and loved, since even the official Simpsons website admits
that the popularity of that season was sub-par.
The off-key, overtly sexual theme of “Natural Born Kissers” could be attributed to the
fact that it was writer Matt Selman's first crack at the show, but quality control had
already shown signs of slipping.
Viewers started tuning out.
By the time Season 10 premiered, 1.6 million viewers had already left, making it the lowest-viewed
Simpsons premiere until Season 25.
"Ahhhh ha ha ha ha, oh man that's good!"
Xena: Warrior Princess - Lifeblood
There are hundreds of Xena moments that test the downward limits of good TV, but viewers
will never forget the laziness of season five's "Lifeblood."
In an attempt to build an unstoppable trifecta of ancient adventures geared to modern audiences,
Hercules and Xena producer Rob Tapert created Amazon High, a two-hour pilot about a modern
girl transported to the time of the original Amazons.
The network wasn't into it, so Tapert cut the footage down and crammed it into an episode
of Xena instead, adding ghosts and baby sacrifices.
Despite featuring sci-fi royalty like Selma Blair, Karl Urban, and Claudia Black, the
sliced-and-diced episode just confused viewers.
Watching the episode was a labor that even Hercules couldn't have handled.
Doctor Who - Nightmare in Silver
You can easily find a few thousand blog entries with titles like "Why I Quit Doctor Who,"
or "The Doctor Is Out," and they all have their own ideas of where Doctor Who jumped
the shark.
Maybe the breaking point is the episode "Nightmare in Silver."
The Doctor brings some kids to a decommissioned amusement park—but instead of using his
time machine to bring them back to a time when it wasn't a dangerous ruin crawling with
Cybermen, they hang out.
Worst babysitter of all time.
The entire episode is a series of unusually huge plot holes which Radio Times called "execrable,"
"a flop," and "underwhelming,"...which are polite British code words for "you've just
destroyed everything good in this world."
Twin Peaks - The Man Behind the Glass
David Lynch is allowed a greater weirdness quotient than almost any other director...
"It was crazy clown time!"
...but "The Man Behind the Glass" during the second season of the cult classic Twin Peaks
marks the spot where fans started to lose their enchantment.
For no discernable reason, resident bad boy James decides to bust out a guitar and sing
a sleepy, ultra-falsetto ballad to a couple of girls.
"Just youuuuu and I."
The ladies join him in an impromptu singalong, along with other invisible instruments.
It's the least believable part of a show that actively incorporated, well, stuff like this...
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