Crossing the line. Passing its peak. Pooping the bed. Jumping the shark. Whatever you want to call it, it’s the moment when a show you love surrenders to the suck are you just can’t get back into it. Like that moment in Happy Days when Fonzie…you know…literally jumped over a shark on jet skis. It really doesn’t get worse than that. So today, we asked our readers to cite that specific moment a show lost them, and their responses ranged from jumps to full-on dive-bombs.
21) Married with Children
The first time I ever realized that a thing I liked could turn bad was when that blonde kid showed up in Married With Children. His freakin’ name was Seven!!! You could almost hear the writers applying for other jobs.
20) Battlestar Galactica
Wow, it’s so great that those Final Five Cylons are so damn important that one can strangle murder the other and it literally means nothing.
19) Shameless
I stopped Shameless after season 4 when I realized there wasn’t really a plot anymore, and it’s really just a way of making people feel better about their lives not being that crappy.
18) Hell on Wheels
I loved Hell on Wheels. Post Cival War Western Industrialism is kinda my thing. That is, until they brought back Common’s character (that had been dead for at least a season) so they could kill him back off again during the same episode?? It turned into “Who Wants To Bone Bohanon?” after all the good characters got killed/written out. Once it was all about mining or whatever I used the show to go to sleep.
17) Star Trek: Deep Space 9
It ended when Jadzia Dax died. They never made another season and there certainly wasn’t some annoying reincarnation of her character.
16) Dexter (a few times)
Dexter was a decent show up until season 4 which was its peak for me. It began to meander after that, and once they started hinting at “Is Deb in love with her brother” I was like NOPE! I’m out. Didn’t even see “Dexter becomes a lumberjack” but I heard about it.
What… the… hell series finale?! Worst way to end the series EVER! It’s like everyone predicted how it could potentially end, so they’re like ‘well let’s make it a horrible ending, no one will predict that!’ Cue The Lumberjacks Song…
15) Sons of Anarchy
Season 3 when they went to “Northern Ireland.” I CAN TELL THAT’S TOPANGA CANYON WITH BLUE FILTERS, JERKS.
14) Pretty Little Liars
Pretty Little Liars was one of my guilty pleasure shows for so long but it was easily 2-3 seasons too long, got more and more ridiculous and the ending was f-ing stupid. They pull that BS with “there’s been an identical twin this whole time!” crap which has always been one of the dumbest endings something can have for me.
13) That 70s Show
Replacing Laurie and Eric leaving ruined it.
12) ER
I stopped watching “ER” around the time that a doctor, shortly after having to deal with a kid around Christmastime, heard a “ho ho ho” through the air as he stepped out of the hospital. It was just too damn unrealistic for what was, until then, a relatively realistic show.
11) The X-Files
The series finale that just aired was pure trash. More like a final eff-you to all the fans like myself who think Mulder and Scully are meant to be together.
10) The Walking Dead (lots of times)
Rick shoots zombies in the head at 50 yards for years, but he can’t shoot Neegan who’s 10 feet in front of him. SHM.
Walking Dead end of season six meandered, ended on cliffhanger felt disrespectful to viewers, then, start of season seven was just sick.. Seriously wtf was that.. Felt abusive.
Walking Dead- Glenn trashcan fakeout…led tons of people to the internet, where they discover what happened to him in the comics… and then do the scene from the comics next season???
I don’t know why I kept with it for so long… but the walking dead. I stayed with it until the guy with the bat showed up. It’s not really one thing. it was pretty much garbage from the start to be honest… but I had to stop when Rick and the gang went up against another group of humans for the umpteenth time in the show. And his group just willy-nilly murdering other humans for no reason and then being mad at other people for doing the exact same thing. Some of the worst writing for a hit show in history. And like… I get it… humans are the real bad guys of the show. not zombies. But can the zombies please be a little more interesting than just fucking slow moving obstacles. Such a terrible show. Screw that show.
9) Heroes
The end of Heroes season 2, when Nathan Petrelli got shot in the chest. Was that really needed?? I stopped watching it after that.
8) Burn Notice
It kind of lost me around season 6. The show got away from a lot of the quirky, funny stuff that I liked about it and became just another NCIS/Scorpion-type show.
7) Glee
There was an episode of the 2nd season of Glee where Mercedes like started picketing the cafeteria because they stopped serving tater tots and I think I stopped watching shortly after that. The Rocky Horror episode helped me quit it for good too…
6) Once Upon a Time
When they lost almost all of their cast and tried to start off this new season in a new world with literally the same stories, but different cast. On top of losing a VERY involved and dedicated fandom, they lost the show. It’s since been canceled.
5) South Park
The last couple seasons are just so far from what the jokes used to be. Feels like a friend has died. Such a shock to go so many seasons strong and then just derp it up so hard. At least the Simpsons is always there.
4) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Once Buffy moved to UPN, AKA, come back from the dead. The story was just horrible afterwards, and even though in those last two seasons there are a few good episodes, it does not make up for the crazy amount of suck. they could have ended it perfectly with her dying, it was beautiful, it was moving. and then they brought back a corpse, literally. And when they did end the series, the finale felt sloppy, and rushed, and overall annoying. I was literally rooting for all of them to die.
3) Supernatural
Supernatural should have ended with Sam going to hell, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO, THEY NEED MORE MONEY! Hey Dean, guess what, I’m back from hell! I ended a great story and now let’s continue doing the exact same thing except in high saturation so instead of being dark and gloomy wear bright and colorful. Let’s make it so every single Monster looks like a human so we don’t have to spend any money on special effects or makeup. And let’s constantly bring characters back from the dead because let’s face it, we’re all immortal by this point.
2) Weeds
Hey everyone, I’m out of jail, for some reason the cartels are not after me. So I’m going to do exactly the same thing, except I’m going to be even more trashy while doing it, and even more ignorant, like I learned literally nothing in my entire experience of being a dealer. Now look, my family who was able to luckily escape this, decides to come back and do the exact same thing even though they were doing much better off in a completely different country. Too bad there’s no actual story that leads anywhere.
1) Lost
A second Island… A SECOND ISLAND!?!?!?!
