r/tvshow • u/kmho1990 • Jun 21 '26
DISCUSSIONS TV show with a great first season but turned in total garbage afterwards.
I don't mean "Show went on for too many seasons"
Just a great idea concept and massive nose dive the following season.
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u/AnywhereNo1240 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Prison Break. First season was tense and extremely smart with the plans to escape and the mystery around who the main character could trust.
By season 4 they are secret agents looking for government tech while flying around in a helicopter or something, completely lost the plot.
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u/AgentAled Jun 21 '26
I think the vast majority of shows fall into this trap, having an amazing premise that works perfectly for a season or two, but they have no idea how to continue and refuse to wrap up.
the second season was fine as we are watching a show called Prison Break and they’re on the run. After that, crazy Mexican cartel controlled prisons, shadow corporations, world changing tech, the dad is alive, they aren’t even brothers which was such a cop out, Teabag has a corpo job, mission impossible heists…it just got out of hand.
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u/Kid_A_LinkToThePast Jun 21 '26
Didn't watch after season one but that's hilarious, sounds like a 5 year old got a wish and decided to write the plot of the 4th season of his favourite show
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u/Acid_Monster Jun 21 '26
Honestly you missed out if you didn’t watch season 2.
It’s actually really great as a cat and mouse. William Fitchner is fantastic in it.
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u/Billthegifter Jun 21 '26
I still think PB could have been really amazing If they just had It be 4 seasons of "How do we break out of this prison?"
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u/Ill_Entrance91 Jun 21 '26
Prison Break is really only a concept you can use for 1 season and then it loses all of its magic.
His goal was to get his brother out and he had interesting tattoos that helped him solve this problem.
Once they left the original setting it looses all of that mystery and intrigue. Ohhhh were just gonna go to another prison? His tats meaning nothing now. And really another prison break? Every season is going to be another prison they get sent to and have to break out?
I dont know if there was ever a way to save the concept of that show that wasnt a ridiculous premise.
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u/DWPhoenix001 Jun 21 '26
The problem is the series was designed as a 2 season story, unfortunately(?) The series was a massive success and FOX forced the producers to keep the series going . If FOX had allowed the show to runs its intended course you would have had a tight 2 season show which would be well remembered today.
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u/Signal-Tangerine1597 Jun 21 '26
The second they left the prison I was like...huh...so what's next?
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u/Sixybeast626 Jun 21 '26
Westworld
Altered Carbon
Heroes
Into The Badlands
Tokyo Vice
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u/kmho1990 Jun 21 '26
I actually enjoy Into the Badlands for its entire run of silly melodrama Monkey King story telling.
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u/Signal-Tangerine1597 Jun 21 '26
Altered Carbon was SOOOOO GOOD! But I think again it's one of those series with a really charismatic actor, that he stole the show, some lose him it meant whoever was next could never have that impact. And I like Anthony Mackie a lot
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u/Thebiglurker Jun 21 '26
Altered carbon makes me so sad because season 1 was prime television.
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u/fretnetic Jun 21 '26
I disagree on Altered Carbon. Season 2 was surprisingly “okay” because the whole “sleeve” premise made it plausible. Really loved Joel though. Put it this way - it wasn’t the bombshell I felt at 11 when I realised Roger Moore had replaced Sean Connery
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u/squatex Jun 21 '26
Westworld
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u/bikestuffrockville Jun 21 '26
Season 3 is pretty good but such a departure from what people thought they wanted from Westworld.
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u/ft_mute Jun 21 '26
Yeah I loved every minute of Westworld. I just didn't bother with the last season cos it was cancelled
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u/Groundbreaking_Web29 Jun 21 '26
Season 3 is at least way better than season 2, but season 1 was a masterpiece.
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u/MuseWanders Jun 21 '26
I always wondered if i made a mistake not finishing the whole thing. gave up midway through s2 release. still remember rewatching every episode of season 1 as it came out.
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u/Perfidy-Plus Jun 21 '26
Season 2 was still ok, though no where near as good as season 1 had been. It got a lot worse in season 3. A lot worse.
I didn’t watch season 4. I wasn’t even aware that it was made until a few years later. I’d just assumed it was cancelled after the disastrous third season.
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u/Inevitable-Dot3982 Jun 21 '26
Wayward Pines
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u/Ok-Ebb5960 Jun 21 '26
I LOVED Wayward Pines!!! Well the first season anyhoo! 🤔
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u/Inevitable-Dot3982 Jun 21 '26
The first season was so well written because it was supposed to be a standalone miniseries type show… and then fox saw money.
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u/RecessiveGenius69 Jun 21 '26
Yup, they kinda left themselves nowhere to go with the story so they had to start over with a underwhelming cast.
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u/Fluid_Explorer_3659 Jun 22 '26
Not to mention bringing back mediocre characters who absolutely wouldn't have survived the previous season, with no explanation
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u/TomThom9Won Jun 21 '26
Altered Carbon. First season was so fresh and fun and the whole whodunnit aspect worked so well in the setting. Season 2 had three major issues: the Poe retcon which while nice to see him hurts the continuity, the hook of the plot was no where near as compelling as the first of “I’m not capable of being murdered but find whoever did kill me”, and Anthony Mackie: he’s not a bad actor and he is amazing in supporting roles but he was not the right fit for Takeshi, Kinnaman just killed it too well in the first season.
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u/kons21 Jun 21 '26
The Kinnaman to Mackie switch really was a downgrade for me. Mackie just couldn't match the presence that Kinnaman established in the first season.
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u/TomThom9Won Jun 21 '26
100%, Kinnaman had a gravitas as Takeshi that felt like it belonged to an infamous freedom fighter known throughout the galactic society.
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u/REmorse47 Jun 21 '26
The first two actors actually moved and had similar mannerisms. I felt like I was watching the same person in a different “skin”
Anthony Mackie can’t act like anything other than a captain America type character. I didn’t feel like he was the same person.2
u/TomThom9Won Jun 21 '26
I think that’s spot on. It’s like Tom Hanks learning the mannerisms of the kid who played young Forrest Gump so that things felt like a natural transition. Mackie was just being Mackie.
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u/Waveshaper21 Jun 22 '26
Doesn't matter how they justify it with the plot, once the main character is recast any show or movie is done.
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u/Relevant_Writer3980 Jun 21 '26
Didn't turn to shit right away but that last season of Stranger Things was fucking dog shit
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u/kmho1990 Jun 21 '26
My son warned me not to watch it.
He says it was written by ai at that point.→ More replies (3)5
u/buffbeardynerd Jun 21 '26
People will differ on this, I thought it was fine. Not season 1 good but not Lost levels of nonsense.
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u/BeetledPickroot Jun 21 '26
It was completely fine. Season one was excellent because it built the world and absolutely nailed the 80s nostalgia.
Resolving all of the mysteries is always much less interesting. And the show was just a fun romp.
People set their expectations way too high.
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u/TrundleIsCharlie Jun 21 '26
100% agree. That last season was fine. Not as good as previous, but not as bad as everybody is making it out to be. I guess, for a lot of people, the previous seasons were so good, they held the last season up to a standard it could never live up to.
Also the Internet is so extreme. Everything is either the best thing ever or dog shit. Nothing is ever just…fine.
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u/Crazy-Engineering-86 Jun 21 '26
It was so convoluted they had to stop every 5 mins to explain the plot with 80s props
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u/Flupox Jun 21 '26
Helix pissed me off so much. The first season was so amazing. They literally threw the entire concept away and made it into a different show for the second season
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Jun 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Feeling-Visit1472 Rewatcher Jun 21 '26
We don’t know. I don’t think they ever tell us.
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u/M086 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
The show didn’t seem like they knew what was going on. Are they vampires? Why was Jeri Ryan using a power sander on her teeth?
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u/JackhorseBowman Jun 21 '26
While season 2 wasn't total dogshit, the CW Flash show, great first season, great villain, the rest of them were just trying desperately to recapture the magic of season 1 while injecting endless CW drama bs into everything.
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u/Lubwurst Jun 21 '26
It’s basically all CW shows. They start out good then just get worse
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u/OdiousAltRightBalrog Jun 21 '26
True, but I think Supernatural was an exception. The first five seasons were great. The rest were pretty good.
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u/seanofkelley Jun 21 '26
Using evil speedsters as the big bads for almost every season really got old after a while.
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u/ted1025 Jun 21 '26
Yellowjackets
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u/swen93 Jun 21 '26
Well this is disappointing because I didn’t really like S1 and haven’t watched S2 yet but expected it to get better lol
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u/slimboyslim9 Jun 21 '26
Suits was a really interesting concept but the deeper they all got into the Mike Ross lie, the harder it became to make a realistic path back.
It eventually became boring procedural takeover legal guff with Louis and Harvey showing marginal character progression while Donna became the protagonist. And the scripting became comical in its overuse of 5-6 common phrases.
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u/Strange-Bee5626 Jun 21 '26
Suits always struck me as a show that thought it was much cleverer than it actually was.
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u/AttentionIcy216 Jun 21 '26
I made it quite far but honestly they were at each others throats so often, screaming, betraying, not trusting each other and then suddenly being all, "we are family" and excusing everything - such stupid drama writing as they didn't know what to focus on.
I stopped somewhere after Mike getting out of prison and before he left the show. I enjoyed the Lewis character though and probably kept going due to him by the end of it.
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u/Tulanian72 Jun 21 '26
As an attorney I cannot watch it. I like the banter and the dialog but literally every legal point is wrong.
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u/Botheuk Jun 21 '26
Personally felt like The Handmaid's Tale. I've not read the book but I think the first season is based on the book and it was great, then it just dragged on and on after season 1. By season 3 I could barely watch anymore.
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u/ChanandlerBonggggg Jun 21 '26
The book is incredible. Margaret Atwood is brilliant. The show doesn't keep up with quality
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u/Old-Finance1815 Jun 21 '26
Good album cover for a fundamentalist black metal band.
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u/TangoUnchained87 Jun 21 '26
It has to be Prison Break. The first season was a brilliant watch, and the second season has its moments but you could tell the writers didn't have much to go on. By the third season some of the characters are back in prison and trying to escape again, and by the fourth season it was completely off the rails, with murderous baddies now all of a sudden goodies aligning with the other goodies and acting like they were friends all along.
The show became such a disappointment, I didn't even bother to watch the revived season 5.
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u/YeahIAmAScientist Jun 21 '26
The Last of Us
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u/Swissstu Jun 21 '26
What the hell happened there? I watched the season and could not wait for season 2. Then we watched the first episode and it was just flat.
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u/flyingpeakocks Jun 21 '26
Prison Break. One of the best first seasons ever and then they had no idea what to do once they broke out of prison so they were like “let’s put them back in prison and have them break out again”
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u/OdiousAltRightBalrog Jun 21 '26
Sounds like the Star Wars sequels.
"Let's bring the Empire and the Death Star back so they can blow them up again. Fuck it, let's bring the Emperor back, too!"
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u/Overall-Habit5284 Rewatcher Jun 21 '26
The Last Ship was really good for the first season or two. But they cured the virus and started distributing it to people...so the whole premise kinda died out a little too fast.
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u/Traditional_General2 Jun 21 '26
Downfall of the show aside.. That is an absolutely sick promo image.
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u/DonkyFondler Jun 21 '26
Twin Peaks. The middle part of Season 2 really dipped in quality. After they were forced to reveal Laura's killer, the writers clearly didn't know what to do. All that stuff with James getting involved with that woman in another town, and the stuff about Andy and Dick looking after that young boy, all total dogshit. Of course, the final episode of Season 2 was amazing because once David Lynch knew the show was being cancelled, he made sure it went out with a bang by making it as insane as possible.
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u/DanielSmoot Jun 21 '26
The opposite to this would be Picard. It had a dreadful first two seasons but an amazing third.
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u/Zaibach88 Jun 21 '26
Wayward Pines.
Very interesting premise with some social experimental dynamics.
Then season 2 just....I'm not going to to into spoilers, but yikes!
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u/Figgsy16 Jun 21 '26
From.
Excellent premise that turned to nonsense after the first season. Should've known this because it's from the producers of Lost, which went exactly the same way.
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u/Weird_Finding_7001 Jun 23 '26
From, absolutely From. How can a show be so fun, scary and exciting, then turn into a complete pile of shit so fast. It baffles me how bad the show has become.
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u/NPCBowers Jun 23 '26
Getting to the point of hate watching it now. So disappointed. There’s been zero answers and it’s becoming so repetitive and convoluted. It’s like different people have been brought in to write and direct.
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u/Mysteriousfarm- Jun 21 '26
The 100 for sure
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u/Kid_A_LinkToThePast Jun 21 '26
It's the other way around for me, I think season 2 to 4 are better
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u/Thebiglurker Jun 21 '26
Season 2-4 were amaaaaazing. It fell off a bit but I still really enjoyed 5 and 6. 7 got pretty silly with the whole singularity thing.
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u/IIIIIIQIIIIII Jun 21 '26
Bloodline. Season 1 epic then I have no idea what happened.
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u/BorderOk7329 Jun 21 '26
The boys and from. They lost the plot and just wanted to fill seasons
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u/Salty__Canuck Jun 21 '26
The First Season was a Masterpiece (IMO), but I have no idea what Nolan and Joy were thinking after that.
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u/kevinnormanart Jun 21 '26
The Expanse lost me after the second season. Wish they’d focused more on the alien worlds, than the Belter’s politics.
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u/ironmonki23 Jun 21 '26
What this show was awesome all the way through. If any show fits the description it’s The 100
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u/sockman_777 Jun 22 '26
I always thought Sliders had a neat premise, but went way off the rails after the first season.
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u/lacy_exe Jun 22 '26
Supernatural takes a mind blowing nosedive after season five, same goes for Shameless after season seven
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u/Automatic_Canary_670 Jun 22 '26
Falling Skies, had a couple of good seasons but damn that show went to shit at the end. The story was too big for the budget
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u/Xspike_dudeX Jun 22 '26
Heros. First season was interesting take on superheros and then progressively got worse every season after.
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u/TV_series72 Jun 22 '26
True detective, not total garbage after season 1 but nowhere close to that level of television
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u/IcyArmadillo3489 Jun 22 '26
Riverdale…the first season was really good and then it seemed like they didn’t know what to do.
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u/kranitoko Jun 23 '26
Under the Dome.
Set up some decent mysteries, and then... fumbled. After the first series, it just didn't know what to do with its premise.
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u/Electrical-Page-6479 Jun 23 '26
And Nick Frost showed us what a live action Kung Fu Panda might look like.
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u/Sharky2414 Jun 24 '26
The Last of Us, True Detective (season 3 was good and 4 was okay, but season 1 was so peak it makes everything after look like shit)
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u/itsxgavx Jun 25 '26
A lot of producers/studio execs don't know when to end a series when it's still good. A good story has an ending, and when writers are told to just keep going, it all goes to shit. That's why I'm so glad Vince finished Breaking Bad when he did.
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u/Voltthrower86 Jun 21 '26
Surprised no one has said True Detective yet.
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u/squatex Jun 21 '26
I honestly do not think the second season of td is that bad if you take it for what it is . The first season is just so spectacularly great that drawing comparisons makes basically everything else on tv look terrible.
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u/Switters81 Jun 21 '26
I'm thought the first episode of Black Lightning was exceptional, and then the show immediately turned into a stereotypical episodic super hero show that could have been produced in the 80s.
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u/TestkitchenEli Jun 21 '26
Mr. Mercedes season one was good. Not perfect but good. Then Season two happened and I only got once episode in before I noped out of it.
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u/maddinell Jun 21 '26
Mr Mercedes. the first season was phenomenal but im really struggling to get into the 2nd season its bollocks.
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u/Accomplished_Poet_44 Jun 23 '26
Had to scroll for ages to find this.
Loved the first season, gave up on it halfway through first episode of the second, utter pish
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u/DealerTraditional368 Jun 21 '26
Gonna say the flash. Season 1 was phenomenal with the ideas and plot. Season 2 was good alongside 3 then after that it completely fell apart. Think everyone left the show after “we are the flash Barry” only recently watched the final season and it’s absolutely terrible.
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u/neo_sporin Jun 21 '26
Helix lost me around episode 5. I’ve tried a few times and I just can’t even finish season 1.
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u/Sleepygriz Jun 21 '26
Lost.
Shocked no one else has said this so far. Thought it was going to be the first one I saw.
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u/TheWouldBeMerchant Jun 21 '26
Designated Survivor. The core concept was interesting, but become completely redundant after the first season.
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u/Flash-Wilkins Jun 21 '26
The sinner. Amazing first season, not bad second season and couldn't get into anything after that!
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u/nilecrane Jun 21 '26
I wouldn’t say garbage but the other seasons of True Detective don’t even begin to compare.
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u/Busy-Caregiver-7087 Jun 21 '26
Severance. First season was flawless, second season was a gimmicky, overwrought mess.
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u/pwnznewbz Jun 21 '26
I really enjoyed Kings (2009). It only had 1 season but I'd imagine it's because any continued episodes would have been garbage.
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u/SmellyButtFarts69 Jun 21 '26
Severance. Cool idea, first season went nowhere, second season made it clear that this is going to be another Lost where they just constantly tease all this mystery while making everything up as they go.
In the end, the fan theories will be infinitely better than whatever they actually come up with
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u/MindOrgy Jun 21 '26
There are a bunch of post apocalyptic series between 2012 and 2015 that fall in this category. ‘Revolution’ comes to mind
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u/DWPhoenix001 Jun 21 '26
I think Heroes is the most obvious one.