The dirty dozen: Stop watching these shows right now

12/10/2013
BY SCOTT D. PIERCE
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Even the most loyal of television viewers can only take so much. Sometimes breaking up isn’t hard to do, it’s easy.

A TV series is not a movie. It’s not a finished product. It’s difficult — pretty much impossible — for every episode to be a gem. And, almost inevitably, the longer a show is on, the harder it is keep the quality up.

Sometimes that happens quickly. The cracks were showing in Heroes before the end of Season 1; it fell apart in Season 2.

Sometimes it takes longer. How I Met Your Mother produced eight good, sometimes great, seasons before the current self-indulgent snooze. (If you want to see how it ends, however, there’s only another dozen episodes to go.)

The only thing harder than creating a good show in the first place is fixing a good show that’s gone bad. That almost never happens.

Here are a few shows that you can drop from your weekly rotation, if you haven’t already.

  • 1. "Revolution" — It started off with an interesting concept, but it’s implausible and a giant bore.
  • 2. "Two and a Half Men" — This show didn’t run out of gas because Charlie Sheen was firedl; it was running on fumes long before that.
  • 3. "Hot in Cleveland" — Love Betty White — love the entire cast — but this is a repetitive, unfunny half-hour.
  • 4. “Glee” -- This is a case study in how to take a good show and make it unwatchable, beginning with the atrocious writing.
  • 5. “New Girl” -- It still has its moments, but getting Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) together has pretty much ruined this once-funny sitcom.
  • 6. “The X Factor” -- It’s not so much a comment on this show as it is a comment on judge Simon Cowell. After all those years on “American Idol,” his act has worn painfully thin.
  • 7. “Grey’s Anatomy” -- At this point, there’s pretty much nothing that happens on this show that doesn’t feel like something that’s already happened on this show.
  • 8. “True Blood” -- This used to be hugely fun to watch despite being borderline insane. Now it’s just a mess.
  • 9. “Defiance” -- Another science-fiction series that launched with a strong premise but faded. Heaven forbid Syfy should actually do a show about outer-space aliens that takes place in outer space.
  • 10. “The Neighbors” -- This show about fish-out-of-water aliens living in suburban New Jersey always seemed like it had a limited lifespan. And that’s expired.
  • 11. “Homeland” -- Sort of pains me to say this, but this once-great show has lost a lot of its luster, in no small part because of an inability to see that the Brody character had outlived his usefulness.
  • 12. “Witches of East End” -- This series got off to a strong start, but turned into a bore in just a handful of episodes.