Overrated TV shows

[Drtooth]

Someone's gonna get hurt and end up crying. I hope not

But since we have one for movies, I might as well add one for TV shows.

Will and Grace: I'm sorry but the charm was forever lost on me. Half the time the cast was screaming like howler monkeys, the other half they spent making pop culture references. And it's the only show I know that was SOOOOO unfunny that it sucked the humor out of John Cleese. And for that, it has my undying hatred.

Freakin' love John Cleese...


Biggest Loser:..um... yeah. You know something's wrong when you make Jillian and that other guy do the talk show circuit defending their barbaric practices. That's like when Toyota made all those "Trust us! We're safe" commercials.

New Adventures of Old Christine: can someone explain WHY this is funny and WHY this has appeal? I have absolutely no clue. I'm glad it's supposedly canceled... but now they're syndicating it.

Cougar Town: Now, I liked it when I first watched it, but after several weeks, I grew to hate the characters that all share one uniform personality. These are the most shallow characters I've ever seen on TV.... and you can tell half the jokes were going to be used on Scrubs. They're apparently changing the title. How about "Drunken Aging Bimbos and their Idiot Boyfriends"?

Those are just some that I can think off off the top of my head.

 

[frogboy4]

(I agree on many points of Will & Grace, but I do have a little affection for it. I love Karen and would have rather seen a different premised, more in-depth show based on her entourage. Fleshed out the character a little more. As much as they milked the humor, there was much more they could have done with that character.)

Most reality television - I don't understand why the average person would want to live vicariously through the lives of other insipid people. It's cheap, manipulative, and exploitative and caters to the worst part of human nature. If I'm going to live vicariously through another person they better be able to fly or have darn good writers.

Lost - Just never appealed to me. Tried, but just not my thing.

Quantum Leap - I know many people are going to be upset at this one, but many of the stories were ripped off from current movies and didn't live up to their quality. Good cast, interesting premise, lazy writers. Well, that might not be fair. NBC could have dictated the more hackneyed scripts for ratings.

Seinfeld - While I do like this show, the comedy of Jerry Seinfeld is overrated. The ensemble cast and writing by Larry David was always excellent, but the title character always falls flat. Jerry's comedic brilliance never really advanced beyond airline food humor as evidenced by his post-sitcom career.

ducks from tomatoes

 

[Drtooth]

Most reality television - I don't understand why the average person would want to live vicariously through the lives of other insipid people. It's cheap, manipulative, and exploitative and caters to the worst part of human nature. If I'm going to live vicariously through another person they better be able to fly or have darn good writers.

I have a theory. No one watches reality TV on purpose... they watch it because it's a "trainwreck that you can't look away from." Sure, I'm kinda a ghoul... Last night I watched a Super Friends episode where the Legion of Doom attacked a certain building I won't mention, I laughed and doubled back to watch it again... and one day, I hope to pour a tall glass of something strong and get through "Coal Black and De Sebbin Dwarfs" if only for the animation historical factor... but I would never watch ANY of these shows because they're so bad it's good. No. They're so bad they're mortifying. Snooky should not be a celebrity by any means. I shouldn't even know what a Snooky is! if you want so good it's bad, watch a 1950's horror movie. plus, if you like to stare at a train wreck, something IS wrong with you. I'd look for a split second, feel horrified and depressed and vomit.

Seinfeld - While I do like this show, the comedy of Jerry Seinfeld is overrated. The ensemble cast and writing by Larry David was always excellent, but the title character always falls flat. Jerry's comedic brilliance never really advanced beyond airline food humor as evidenced by his post-sitcom career.

I have to agree on that. Seinfeld is a great sitcom... but ONLY because of Elane, Kramer, George and Newman. And even George's parents and Larry David's George Stinebrenner. Heck, almost everyone in the show was funnier than Jerry... and that was his best work.

Though, back to my New Christine rant... after all the lame shows they made after Seinfeld that had the supposed "Seinfeld curse" I have to say Christine is the WORSt one... and this is out of a bunch of real losers. The only one I really dug was the one where Michael Richards was the private eye... maybe the Tick, if you count that.

 

[D'Snowth]

Most reality television

I totally agree, though Seinfeld is pretty much the last great American sitcom...

For me...

The Office... again, this show is so fricken boring, I really don't see why people would want to sit through a half-hour of boredom; on top of that, I really dislike Steve Carell as a screen actor (voice actor a different story), as any role he has, he always plays them the same: flat, one-dimensional, deadpan, no emotion... and he's so overrated an actor as well, remember for a while there he was the star of practically every single new movie that came out? I thought maybe finally we saw the end to that, but now, it's happening again...

The Andy Griffith Show - Now, I LOVE Andy Griffith, and his show, along with all the great characters like Barney Fife, Gomer Pyle, Opie, Aunt Bea, etc, not to mention here in the south, this show is pretty much a staple of southern television... but it seems to me that this is the only classic show that TV Land still actually wants to play; I can't remember this show ever being off TV Land's schedule, and they regularly have marathons on weekend, or mini-marathons during the day. Again, as much as I love Andy, can't TV Land give us other classic shows for a while for a change? Besides westerns like Gunsmoke and Bonanza?

And the following animated series: SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons, SpongeBob SquarePants, Family Guy, SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants, American Dad, pretty much anything Seth MacFarlane cranks out, SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants, pretty much the entire Scooby-Doo franchise, SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants, you want fries with that? SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants, can I have 5 bucks? SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants, will you touch my poodle? SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants...

And did I mention SpongeBob SquarePants?

 

[Drtooth]

Funny thing... Spongebob is just about the ONLY thing Nick even has that's animated and that isn't a preschool show. Even then, over 10 years... it shouldn't be the anchor show. I still say if Spongebob came out 2 years ago, we'd get half a season and then they'd shove the rest of it on Nicktoon Graveyard like they've done with every animated series they've had so far. I like the show myself, and even then... come on, Nick... haven't ya got anything else?

I have to highly disagree with American Dad being overrated... Family Guy and Cleveland maybe... but American Dad is highly underrated if anything. Didn't someone come in and say they worked on AD, and when it came time for Christmas gifts for the staff, the FG staff got nice sets of Stewie luggage or something, and the AD staff got baseball caps. I'm surprised Fox didn't even cancel it yet, as it's always the first choice for the Midseason replacement slot. That garish "Sons of Tuscon" for example. And the sad thing is, it's the best written of the all the Seth shows, it's consistently funny, and it doesn't rely on unfunny characters with bad accents for humor. That's Simpsons territory.

Family Guy, on the other hand is HIGHLY overrated. I'm glad Seth himself is deciding to retire the show in a couple seasons. All I want to see is "It's a Trap" and that's it. The show was a LOT better when it was an underspoken little gem that was constantly on the chopping block so Fox could air their sleazy reality sex shows. Then when it came back the X-Box/Adult Swim crowd took the show over, and they basically pander to that fanbase. The O.J. Simpson episode is one of the WORST cartoons I've ever seen. And Conway Twitty cutaways AREN'T FUNNY... no one ever gets the joke that thinks it is funny. The show has been getting slightly better... it's no where near as bad as The Simpsons and their "Let's make another Lisa episode so we can get on our tired soap boxes about how we're so much better than everyone else" attitude. But still... time for them to retire the series.

Oh, and Stewie was funnier when he killed people.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

I totally agree with Family Guy and the Office being overrated. I find neither of them funny.

I think WHipeout is overrated. I have met so maqny people who love it, but I tried watchng it once and after literally 2 minutes, I had to turn it off.

 

[Drtooth]

Whipeout... or as I call it, why Japanese style game shows don't really work in the US. I can't claim I'm an expert on live action Japanese programming (I only pretend to be an expert on the animated stuff cuz I know a small amount about shows no one has ever heard of... heeehee), but their game shows WORK because they're 15 minutes long if anything. Here, we give them bloated, sluggish 1 and 2 hour time slots. That stuff would be fun for a half hour, but anything over that time period makes it boring and klunky.

 

[Mupp]

I have to say without being specific, most reality shows are overrated.

 

[brkndwnbus]

I would begin and end with Friends. I, for the life of me, can't figure out how that show was once the most popular or why stations chose to run it in reruns.

I can't find anything funny about it. I just don't get it.

 

[beakerfan76]

Most reality shows. I don't see the appeal, plus it's false advertising (If you really think what's on screen is real, you need help).

Spongebob also gets my vote. It had its moments, but let's face it, the only reason it's still around is because it's a corporate cashcow and it went the way of Captain Impressive, only around to sell products. All it does is line Nick's wallets.

Most shows on Disney Channel, more importantly, Hannah Montana and Jonas. Again, they're cashcows and Disney will milk them bone dry, much to the dismay of classic Disney fans like myself. The only reason I'm not giving the Mouse House the one finger salute is because they own the Muppets and have been treating them well.