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What popular TV show did not do it for you and you quit watching? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by nicgentile@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] sxan@midwest.social 28 points 1 week ago

Shit. That's exactly my list.

I didn't even watch GoT long enough to see Emilia Clark in the buff. But, then, I'd read the first two books and absolutely loathed them, and didn't find the TV series improved the story much.
I liked the first season of Lost, but the second felt like the writers were like, "oh shit... we got a second season? Shitshitshit..." Like they were just making it up as they went, and the writing and plot was just... bad.
I didn't watch BCS because I didn't like
Breaking Bad. I mean, I like scenes from BB, but the show itself suffered (for me) from this tendency in the past decade to base entire shows on tense anxiety. Boardwalk Empires was another that used this mechanism, as did
Peaky Blinders. Great writing. Great acting. But it's just constant tension, and it's simply not fun.

It's like directors got ahold of this one technique and just beat it into every fucking show in the past decade. It's tired, overused, and you'll notice it's a common trait of many of the shows you and agree on. You have to have tension, but I didn't need every god damned minute to be wondering if someone's going to get their throat graphically slashed with a straight-edge.

[-] wjrii@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

this tendency in the past decade to base entire shows on tense anxiety.

Yup. I call it the "drama of paranoia," and it's exhausting after a while. It also gives you a veneer of "prestige" without having to make characters I give a shit about or plots that fit together at all. As a good example of a show that realized this, Mad Men always struggled with a certain early-season plotline until they finally just ripped off the band-aid and said,

spoiler

the "real" Don Draper's widow handwaves something out with our boy Dick, and literally nobody else gives a shit.

What worked about that show had nothing to do with "ONE BIG SECRET."

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 week ago

Oh man! You just put to words why I couldn't stand Breaking Bad, and Boardwalk Empire.

I watched the first simply because a lot of people love it, and I try to watch everything that seems worth seeing. The second I saw some clips from that I really liked, but then I just didn't stick with the actual show.

In both cases, the series left me on constant edge, in a really bad way.

Now I realize that I kept waiting for the shows to grant me some kind of catharsis, but it just never happened. Or it happened rarely and in ways that quickly gets brushed away as inconsequential.

[-] nicgentile@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

I'm not fond of the perpetual tension. Just awful.

this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025

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