I recall watching Hello Tomorrow which was a quirky atompunk themed comedy from Apple. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t especially funny - but it had a charismatic affable liar as a lead that you found sympathetic despite his sleaze, and gave huge pre-war Fallout vibes. Apple silently cancelled it some time ago.
I would also argue Peacock’s attempt at Brave New World. Reimagined for the modern era (because really it had to be) and probably took more from Westworld than it did Brave New World, but it was doomed by being a Peacock original.
The Witcher.
Great source material, great actors and actresses, people who really cared about the show, all ruined by people ignoring anyone with any passion.
Also Halo. I couldn’t even finish the first season. We could have had a great drama or fantastic action adventure through space. Instead we got a snooze fest that didn’t understand the source material.
Henry Cavill complaining is the canary in the coal mine for when a show has jumped the shark
Halo has got to be a contender based on how little it actually accomplished across the two seasons before it was cancelled. All we got in the end was a very poorly written introduction to a story, though I’m still not actually sure what the story was going to be about because it basically stopped before it even started.
I couldn’t even get through the first episode of Halo. I understand that they didn’t care about the source material at all. To be honest, neither did i. I hardly ever played the game, i liked the book that i got from a friend. But even i realized that they didn’t even care enough to get the sound of the guns right. They made it so hard on themselves just to fail.
Better off Ted
Portia De Rossi is so good as the unhinged charismatic CEO.
Westworld itself is a great example.
Also every single live action Star Trek since 2017.
edit: oh also Heroes. Season 1 was incredible then just got wrecked by the 2007 writers strike and never recovered.
Came here to say this. 1st season was sensational 2nd was a good show then 3rd was forgettable and I gave up on 4th. The parks was by far the best bit.
First season of Westworld is awesome, second season wasn’t terrible. The last two seasons were not great. Still wish HBO would have at least let them finish the story.
Westworld season 2 should have been Eastworld
Westworld was an absolutely amazing miniseries that got drug along into more story than was available.
The other stuff is not as good, and that’s okay. You can just rewatch season 1 and stop there. That story is almost perfect.
There’s a counter-narrative where the writers’ strike was a convenient scapegoat for a production that was always going to be a trainwreck. IIRC they were going to turn the first season’s titular heroes into villains and have an all-new cast of supers oppose them, and the obvious response of ‘what no ew’ saw them scramble to make up the trainwreck we got instead.
On the plus size, Zachary Quinto’s career took off.
Firefly (drops mic)
The Man in the High Castle
That ending made zero sense, was so disappointed on how they chose to end that.
New Amsterdam (2008) NYC detective who is secretly immortal and has lived there since he was an original dutch colonizer. Flashbacks to historical events and his numerous past careers help him solve crimes.
Damn, that concept seems amazing! How unfortunate!
It did at least get a whole 8 episode season.
The Expense. They decided to have the last season be based on an asteroid throwing terrorist, and just forget all bought the other relm with the alien stuff and creepy kids. So sad.
Season 6 is book 6 out of 9. There’s 3 books left to adapt one day.
I know this was an unfortunate autocorrect on your part, but calling the show
The Expense
Is kind of funny
Would correct it but then it mess up your comment and it is funny, because probably ended this way because it was cheaper.
I partially agree, watched the show and thought the same. A coworker reccomended I read the books, so I started at book 7 and other than the Alex situation it was pretty seamless. The Laconia plot in the show was a teaser to what will come 30 years later in book 7. I didn’t read books 1-6 but everything they covered in season 6 with Laconia was in book 7, so the showrunners wanted to give viewers hope and a minor cliffhanger that more could come.
The last 3 books are great, takes place 30 years after the show ends. Highly reccomend the audio books. One of my all time favorite endings to a franchise.
I will need to check them out.
They were following the books. And they did try to incorporate the alien stuff in S06.
Falling skies or Defiance
Revolution. Such a cool concept ruined by must make girl look pretty 100% of the time.
No that show would have been great if fucking NBC just let Eric do his thing. He always has a 5 season plan. Supernatural first 5 seasons are great. Revolution would have been great. Now Timeline that one he missed the boat on.
But he made it up with The Boys.
Clerks, the animated series.
The movie Clerks is a no-budget comedy about two schlubs working retail and yapping. Kevin Smith & Scott Mosier pitched a quirky adult cartoon, back when that was reasonably novel. They shopped it around to everybody. UPN offered 13 episodes. Smith went with a surprise offer from ABC, whose audience was mostly children and old farts. They wanted to widen their demographics to young adults. So naturally they did a test screening consisting entirely of children and old farts, who haaated it.
Exactly two episodes were aired, out-of-order, and then it was cancelled. I watched both live and had no idea at-the-time I’d seen the entire broadcast run. The premiere was a fake clip show. All six episodes were dumped onto DVD, then aired once on Comedy Central to fulfill contractual obligations.
Most of the dumb shit in Kevin Smith movies would honestly work better in episodic television. Even people who can’t stand Mallrats would be more amenable to a short format with a sillier tone and no ability to use vulgarity as a punchline. They had the right brand of deliberate stupidity. It’s not mindblowing, but it was a working substrate for several excellent deadpan comedy actors and a writer who cannot shut up. ABC suffered a petit version of the development / broadcast disconnect that saw Fox snuff out a dozen promising shows for not being The Simpsons.
And I guess Korgoth Of Barbaria never got picked up.
My So Called Life
What a brilliant show!
Murderbot. So many directions, so little time…
I still don’t understand why they made such short episodes.
They really squandered the source material. So much more depth in the books. And less farce.
Star Trek Voyager if they’d gone for big seasonal arcs
Sword art online.
It had some interesting potential to go a number of different ways. It could have shown a bunch of sweet boss battles, examine the nature of reality, building society in a video game, recovery from shared trauma, or a psychological thriller.
Instead most those topics got a surface level pass to make room for some rape and incest sub plots.
.hack//SIGN was one of my favorite anime growing up. I was so excited for SAO when it came out. It had great animation, great music and sound design, great world building. And then the blandest, most Gary Stu protagonist, with the least engaging plot.
The forest level/area especially, when Kirito and Asuna “settle down” in the cabin and just try to enjoy a bit of a normal life. That called to me so much, it got me interested in playing MMOs again. I wanted that “live life, but in a video game” aesthetic in some form of media.
And then I discovered Log Horizon.
How do you feel about SAO Abridged?
Never watched it. It’s probably a bit better, but it can’t fix the fact significant amounts of potential happened off camera.
Travelers
