I love year end lists … The good, the bad, and the ugly. Today, I’ll cover what I didn’t like in 2010, and tomorrow what I did. Spoiler alert: There is a certain major series finale that most of the world hated that you won’t find on this list, and will probably see tomorrow. I’m just sayin’ … You have been warned.
The Event/Undercovers and the New Fall Slate
The new TV season this year was pretty much as bad as anything I’ve ever seen. The Event and Undercovers were two shows that I had incredibly high hopes for, and neither has turned out to be any good. Frankly, not “having turned out to be any good” might be the most generous thing I’ve ever said. I’m still watching The Event, but it’s a show in desperate need of a turn-around. Even shows I was looking forward to that have managed to survive are still in the “Eh” category (I’m looking at you, Hawaii 5-0 and No Ordinary Family).
The Pacific
It seems like only yesterday that I was saying The Pacific was the show I was most looking forward to this past television season. As a big fan Band of Brothers, the spiritual sequel was a very different story, one that from my point of view didn’t measure up. Obviously a much darker story, and I think trying to weave the different arcs of the three Marines was a bad idea executed even more poorly. I know many people liked it, but it just wasn’t for me.
What happened to Bones?
You have to know it is a scary, scary day when Julia and I are thinking in the same direction, but when we are as completely on the same page as we are about Bones right now, it is basically the seventh sign of the apocalypse. The show has just lost its mojo, most likely, as Julia has pointed out, because Brennan and Booth have lost their chemistry. I personally think that any type of long term plan for putting the two together romantically will never work at this point. As much as I tried to give up on the show after the debacle that was the 100th episode.
Glee 2010
The first thirteen episodes of the series were pretty darn good. The second half of season one was incredibly inconsistent. The second season has actually gotten much worse. The high points are high enough, but when the show is off of its game, it is waaaaaaay off. What I find really funny are the people who complain about season two, having forgotten that the back nine of season one were just as rough.
The Persons Unknown finale
And to think I almost missed the entire series. I jumped on board the train near the end, based on continued recommendations from both Carla and Carissa. Thematically the show borrowed quite a bit from Lost but managed to be much, much different. The inevitable cancellation, and incredibly crappy cliffhanger proved again that there is a market out there for short run single season shows.
SGU Cancellation
I didn’t watch any of the previous Stargate properties, but somehow got hooked on SGU. Much of the criticism was that the show had too much of a Battlestar Galactica feel, which, honestly, was one of the first things that drew me in. To me, Stargate Universe was everything that Star Trek: Voyager should have been but never was. Another good show bites the dust.
New Idol Judges
I’m not a fan of American Idol (or petty much any reality television), but I did catch the Harry Connick Jr. week last season. He was exactly the kind of addition that would get me to tune in more often, but apparently J-Lo and Steven Tyler were the “superior” choices. Go figure.
Aftermath of Grey’s Finale
I was a big fan of how Shonda and Co. finished its sixth season (Spoiler: more on that tomorrow), but have absolutely hated most of the aftermath seen this fall. Head of my list is the devolution of Cristina Yang. Most “CocoNuts” know she’s not my favorite character to begin with, and what I’ve seen this year has not helped. I’m hoping she’s on the right track now, but when you look around Seattle Grace/Mercy West Hospital, there are very few of the storylines I’m looking forward to diving back in to.
The reveal of the Yin-Yang arc on Psych
I’m not sure what I expected from a show that has never been interested in anything approaching serial storytelling, but I expected more than what we got. The mystery has been pretty well contained to the three episodes over the last couple seasons that featured it, but they was so much more potential in the story than what was shown. If they’re not going to put much effort into the payoff, I’d like Psych to stay away from stories like this.
Jersey Shore
Really, do I need to say anymore here at all?
Clacked by Ivey West 
on Dec 30, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
Ivey,
Sorry that Bones is not working for you this season. I haven’t been able to watch all season because I hate angst and 3rd party story lines and there does not seem to be anything else. There has been a lot of speculation about Bones move to 9pm on Thursdays. Do you really think it is going to help the ratings? Won’t most people stick with CSI or Greys if they normally watch them? Also, it now gives people who are discouraged with the Bones SL more options. Rose
Yep – you caught a lot of my disappointments. Unfortunately for 2010, it had far more disappointments than are warranted for any year in TV.
I might add the LOST finale (well, the last season in general, where the focus on the Losties was, well, lost).
The crappy marketing of Terriers was a disappointment, because never was there a show I enjoyed so much with so little understanding of the premise to start. If it was not actually recommended via CC, I’d never have watched even one episode. Shame on the marketing team. Imagine if they had had the same marketing team for the ultra disappointing The Event and Undercovers. They looked like winners – all due to marketing.
The marketing of Terriers will annoy me forever. How they never used the words “From Shawn Ryan the creator of the Shield” in their ads was beyond stupid. The only reason I was tuning in was because of Shawn Ryan. I never new what the show was about until I actually watched the first episode. The name Terriers and those commercials with the dog never made any sense.
The show was really good.
You’ve got three that would be on list.
The Event. We all know it’s awful. I don’t care anymore.
SGU cancellation is bad news on it’s own, but worse for the franchise. I hope it can get picked up elsewhere! Someone pick it up please!
But the one that really stings is Pacific. I still watch Band on the treadmill or with my husband. I have no use for Pacific at all. A very grievous letdown.
*POST AUTHOR*
To be frank, I’ve got nothing invested into the franchise, so I couldn’t care less … But I loved SGU, and was very unhappy.
I was actually watching an couple of episodes of BoB last night :)
Calling Jersey Shore a disappointment indicates that you had expectations for it in the first place.
Also, anyone who says LOST here immediately loses all credit with me for the rest of time. The last ten minutes of that finale were, simply put, the greatest ten minutes of anything ever put on film.
*POST AUTHOR*
I guess you’re going through life without credit with a lot of people then, eh?? :). While I agree with you, i think the vast majority of people were disappointed.
And it goes without saying that I’m disappointed in the phenomenon that is people actually watching Jersey Shore.
You have some pretty low standards.
What to date? :-p
I agree soo much with your list! Specially Glee and Bones; after the 1st half season of Glee, it seems it’s just a series of random song video clips threaded with a few random lines of dialogue. It used to be a comedy with music fitting the plot, now it’s just MTV with Brittany one liners inbetween (as awesome as they are..).
Bones: while I absolutely love the work of Emily Deschanel this season I think the main problem with it is they have replaced Booth with some uncaring weirdo alien from outter space.
They cancelled SGU!? Darn.
Yes thankfully.
If you like scifi on TV, the cancellation of any scifi show, whether you like it or not, is bad news for all of the genre. I’m a huge scifi fan, but the problem I have with so many fellow fans is they’re so quick to condemn a show because it isn’t exactly what they expected. I get the impression that they are thinking if they get a show axed the networks might “learn their lesson” and give something else in the scifi-vein a try. What will happen instead is we’ll just get less, or no, scifi on TV.
If I had beer for my friends when they came over and they said they didn’t like the brand I might try once or twice more with other brands to try and please them. If after a few trys they’re still poo-pooing my offerings I will simply assume they don’t like beer and quit offering it at all. That’s what’s happening right now with scifi on TV; snarky fans are refusing to watch shows because they’re uber picky and insistent that they be fed *exactly* what they want, and on top of that they’re taking to the web to shout dismissive statements about said shows.
Constant negativity isn’t going to get you something better, it’s only going to get you cut off completely. Instead of celebrating the cancellation of a quality show you don’t like you might try changing the channel instead.
Blah Blah Blah
It was a bad show. It was a beautifully made show, it just wasn’t good. The writing, acting, plots, were bad. It’s a good day to me when bad TV, be it sci-fi or not, gets canceled. That simple.
Stop over thinknig everything.
*POST AUTHOR*
Or you coud just care less about shows you dont like as the rest of us do.
Instead you seem to enjoy putting it down. So, hey, if thats how you get your kicks than fine.
Some us didn’t think the show was bad. We recognize that were in the minority on this one, but aren’t going to let anyone else ruin it for us.
Oreo, what you call “over thinking” I call open-minded consideration. It’s easy to just put down what you don’t like, but just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not good. That’s just your opinion and you are entitled to it, but it’s hardly objective fact.
It’s obvious, as D.W. said, that you enjoy putting things down. That would be fine if you had some thoughtful points to bolster your opinion and if you also recognized that it’s nothing more than your opinion. Discuss the strong points and weak points, but just saying “it sucks” or “it was bad” is neither productive nor conducive to friendly discussion.
This is a TV blog and in here I don’t think there’s any “over thinking” of the subject matter. It’s kind of the reason Clique Clack exists.
Should SGU‘s empty slot eventually lead to a greenlighting of Orion or Sherwood, that would definitely not be bad news for the genre. Even absent those shows, and should Blood & Chrome‘s backdoor pilot not be picked up, the mere deletion of such a truly terrible, pretentious, and derivative sci-fi show solely on cost-ratings terms is not a disappointment for me personally. Many better shows, especially genre ones, are given nowhere near 40 episodes before being yanked off of the air unceremoniously, unmourned.
What no LOST?!
I think Glee went from a 9.5/10 for me in the first half of season one to a 8/10 in the second half to a 4/10 in season two. I still consider all of season one to be strong (even if it wavered a little at the end) but this season has just been BAD. I still think the Britney episode was the downfall… and that the horrible religion episode followed it.
Agree with you on Bones having lost all the chemistry this season.
Agree also with Maria that is also one of my maine concerns, Booth turning into an uncaring jerk. I stopped watching after the seventh episode this season, can´t stand to see his bad behaviour toward someone who used to be his best friend.
. . . . .
New Idol Judges: Hardly the “superior” choices, Ivey … but we won’t ever exactly know the reasons behind the garnering of JLo and “The Mouth”.
Having said that, the new season holds much promise for this fan of the show in that there are so many unknowns to be explored, the fun might never stop.
Agree that Bones has gone down hill, big time, but I don’t find Booth to be the problem. To me the show just never could recover from the silly ending of last season, when each person was going their own way. They were just never able to again grasp the total group magic they had. I also agree that the new Fall Season shows as a group, were pretty bad–especially disappointing were the new scripted shows from NBC. I had a lot of hope for Undercovers and Chase especially, but both were really bad. I don’t find 5-0 as bad as most of you do, but if that is the best of the Season’s survivors, then it was a rough one. I would like to see Nikita survive I think it has shown the most improvement from pilot to present, and is on a network that could use some stronger shows.
I agree with just about everything on your list that I’ve watched….. and here I thought I was the only person who was twerked when they jerked Persons Unknown so unceremoniously. When will the nets learn that leaving us hanging is the worst thing they can do??
Glee is still on my list, but it’s been so uneven this season after season one’s magnificence. Glad I saved all The Events to watch in a row, they weren’t bad that way.
Could care less about any reality show. The new lineup is pretty weak, especially compared to what we have Lost ( pun intended) over the past two years. Wish Kyra would reconsider quitting The Closer so soon.
Everyone here at my house are (were?) big fans of Persons Unknown. We would’ve watched it if it were tucked into a busy Fall schedule, but it was *really* nice to get something new and scripted from one of the networks. It’s going to be disappointing not having it to look forward to after the Spring thaw. Too bad Syfy wouldn’t consider picking it up. The show doesn’t look like it would be terribly expensive and it’s “soft” scifi at best, which is what the channel is gravitating towards, unfortunately.
Well at least we get the last drips of Caprica on Tuesday.
I’ll have to go back and play catch-up with Caprica. When Syfy announced the cancellation and their original plans to not air the last episodes, we just quit watching. Oddly, I’m not at all interested in the Blood and Chrome series, but you know I’ll be watching it anyway and I know I’ll love it. Still, it would be nice to have Caprica and SGU back.
I’m going to miss hard scifi on Syfy. If Blood and Chrome becomes a series, won’t that be the only show to fall into that category? I love Eureka and Warehouse 13, but I have to have some more serious fare, too. It’s odd how scifi movies rake in viewers and cash, but the opposite seems to come true with TV. People are hard to figure out. :o)
With the release of Blood and Chrome in early 2012, you have plenty of time to get excited about it. :)
Just think, Galactica will be brand spanking new, and since the colonies are not destroyed, the characters should only have minor amounts of emotional damage, not the scorched soul kind of damage that is so painful to watch. I’m hoping for a kind of Band of Brothers in space, BSG style.
Meanwhile, I think summer 2011 for “Alphas” on Syfy, but I get your point Tom.
I had forgotten about Alphas, thanks for the reminder. What I’m really pinin’ for is another space-based series. I’m a sucker for a starship, new planets, weird aliens and all that!
Correction: What I’m really pinin’ for is someone to save SGU, but that’s a slim hope to hang on to.
Agreed.
SGU drew me into the Stargate franchise also, but I understand why SGA fans have complaints. The storyline is slow and events are rare. One SGU episode is equivalent to .6*SG1 or 0.3*SGA episodes approximately.
Also this trend of slowing down seems to have started in the last two seasons of SGA. For example, season four has only 4-5 highly rated episodes; see gateworld.
Stargate is a rich world for future scifi shows/movies and hope to see it continue on; approximately 10^5*startrek!