Shows you’ve gone 360 on

[Famous Mortimer]

Parks and Rec is good until Billy Whatshisface shows up, he is a black hole of comedy

Strong agree, but people who pay for shows seem to like him.

My pick is How I Met Your Mother, which I loved in its early days but got enraged by later on, and then just stopped watching with like two seasons to go.

[Famous Mortimer]

I can think of a lot of US shows that do this, actually: starting really strong, completely losing direction in the middle as the network demands more and more, but then pulling it back in the final few. Parks and Recreation and Lost, for example. I think it shows the difference in writing a show when you have no idea how many more years you have to keep things going (so you end up keeping the characters stagnant, not taking risks, relying more and more on the same old ideas or jokes, going wackier and crazier), and writing towards a definitive ending (so you can mix things up, tell stories with consequences, refocus things and actually deliver on the set up).

BritishHobo hits the nail on the head. It's like reading a book that's got a great beginning and end, but the middle third is for some reason 5000 pages long and nothing much happens in it.

[BritishHobo]

Strong agree, but people who pay for shows seem to like him.

My pick is How I Met Your Mother, which I loved in its early days but got enraged by later on, and then just stopped watching with like two seasons to go.

I almost came back around - I really liked seasons 6 and 7, as they seemed to address the aimlessness of Ted's life by giving him some major storylines (after 4 and 5 pandered to the popularity of NPH), and seeming to genuinely refocus on getting closer to meeting the mother. But then 8 was hot garbage, I would have stopped watching then if it wasn't announced 9 would be the last. And I should have, as 9 was the worst one of all.

Another 845° turn!

[BritishHobo]

Actually I've been thinking of the quality of the shows themselves, so if the show gets worse - but in terms of my opinion then I have gone 360 on Better Call Saul. I loved season 1, but really struggled with 2, 3 and 4 due to my own wrong idiot expectations that the show could only be good once he finally 'becomes' Saul. Season 5 was then incredible, and on a rewatch during season 6 I've realised how wrong I was, and that it's gold-standard right the way through.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Honest question: do some of you lot have dyscalculia?

That thing only goes up to 350. It doesn't prove anything.

[Famous Mortimer]

I started off loving "The Vampire Diaries". It had a bunch of bastards in it, and they ran through plot like it was going out of fashion, while cleverly ignoring the "hey, this town is the teen murder capital of the world" implications of the show.

But they ran out of interesting things to do with their central cast, then brought in the Originals and gave them their own spinoff, and now have the guy they killed in season 4 running a vampire school. It suffered from power-creep, like the Originals were essentially gods, but one of them was a werewolf-vampire hybrid, making him a super-god. And the daylight thing was handwaved away by them all having special rings.

It burned bright and quickly, but I remember seeing a premier date for one of the later seasons and not having the slightest desire to carry on with it. I guess it's still going in one form or another?

[Crenners]

I did a full 360 on watching football. I used to love it but I've completely gone off it.

[ImmaculateClump]

I did a full 180 on the darts.

[billyandthecloneasaurus]

I went from thinking Orange is the new Black was fun and exciting and cool to being boring as fuck and abandoning it within about 6 episodes.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Strong agree, but people who pay for shows seem to like him.

My pick is How I Met Your Mother, which I loved in its early days but got enraged by later on, and then just stopped watching with like two seasons to go.

This show actually picked up in those last couple of series, when they started making the "gang" a bit more " Always Sunny In Philadelphia" -ish.

" Two And A Half Men" started fucking about in a couldn't care less way towards the end of its run too after Charlie Sheen left, that was quite funny.

[Glebe]

The problem with all modern telly is that it's just a machine for replicating itself

[JesusAndYourBush]

Lost was a 540. Great at the start, loses the plot in the middle when they drag it out more seasons than necessary, improves at the end, then ruins it again with the ending.

[Lord Mandrake]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe.

[Goldentony]

Parks and Rec is good until Billy Whatshisface shows up, he is a black hole of comedy

Strong agree, but people who pay for shows seem to like him.

ahh come on SHE DROVE ME HERE

[shoulders]

The Last Kingdom was a bit of a prosaic slog I was watching just through being interested in the history of the era* than any love of the show,  then suddenly halfway through its run its gets really good. Series 3 through to the end of 4 manage genuinely touching moments that have been slowly and carefully set up rather than through contrivances or cheap production trick, the stakes both short and long term are at a knife edge, there's  equal focus on the human and strategic elements. They constantly eschew easy wins and instead make every plot advancement feel earned. Cinematography and soundtrack are distinctive too rather than formulaic. It has a fuckload of effort put in.

Then towards the end the essential balance Dane/Saxon is lost,
most character arcs are spent,  Alfred's wife becomes this rather 2D comedy character which I hadn't expected,  and they rely on final battles, it is not well done and it rather staggers over the line, bringing me right back to the only 5/10 passable nature of its early days.



*although it is really an imagined history,  a composite set around real life kings and queens.

[The Pink Chunk Jazz Band]

I went from thinking Orange is the new Black was fun and exciting and cool to being boring as fuck and abandoning it within about 6 episodes.

For some reason, I thought Orange Is The New Black was going to be like a all-female version of Oz or Scum. Imagine my surprise when the first episode was just the guy from American Pie farting in a teapot while his wife made a face.

[willbo]

X Files. As it first aired when I was in my teens, I really thought it was building up to some amazing climax, but it ended up dwindling.

as for 360 - Simpsons. Stopped watching it in 00s, but enjoyed newer eps now

[Des Wigwam]

I did a 180 on It's Always Sunny at season 2 but I don't think I'm alone there.

Did you start off liking it or hating it?

I watched S1 years ago and was indifferent but picked up again recently and love it. I started my rewatch at S2. Considering going back to see what I didn't like.

House MD is my 360. Just plain old really liked it, got bored and fed up with the new characters and supposed tensions but picked up again after a while and enjoyed the overblown later series - for no particular reason. Always thought Laurie's accent was shit though - amazed at reading those pieces where he auditioned and they thought he was - not a native American but that sort of phrase to mean born and raised there.

[willbo]

I always thought all complaining about TV accents was silly anyway, with the amount of real life people who live between different places. I remember reading in Radio Times people would write in to complain that a character in Heartbeat or Emmerdale "sounded like they came from the north via Canada!" and I'd think, well why not. They should hear my uncle's voice who lived between Canada and Birmingham all his life.

[ProvanFan]

X Games but I was fitter then

Then switch over to BBC 2 to do one on GCSE Bitesize.

Alternatively, have a wank.

[elliszeroed]

I started watching It's Always Sunny at season seven. Watched the earlier seasons after, and the first season was pretty rubbish.

I did a 180 on Parks and Rec, watched the first season and thought this is a shit Office. Second season however was great. A lot like the US version of the Office which I hated, then loved, and then after Michael Scott left, loathed. That's a 360, right?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I liked Always Sunny from the start. As great as it became with Danny DeVito, I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like if it had carried on without him (cancelled, probably).

I didn't do a 360 on Parks and Recreation so much as waver between an indifference and loving it. The first and last seasons aren't terrible, just a bit drab and saccharine respectively. Also, I started watching it in the second season and watched the first one after, so it would be a 540.

[willbo]

I bought Season One of "Heroes" for pennies from my local charity shop recently, was looking forward to it as I love early 00s action/sci fi shows (24, Lost, Battlestar etc), but I'm finding it unwatchable. Not only do the visuals and acting seem old, even for the era, (like an 80s soap IMO), but the handful of eps I sat through seemed ridiculously drawn out and "characters wandering around and talking seemed mysterious, but nothing actually happening, to fill up space and pad out the season". In Lost, if they did a drawn out "nothing actually happens" episode, at least there'd be funny banter and interesting images, but this just seems mindless.

 I like the cheerleader's story, but the rest...Hiro appears in the US, he appears back in Japan, he tells his friend how scared he is, he gets a secret hint to his destiny, he appears back in the US, he wanders around for a bit, he appears back in Japan...how did anyone sit through this? If this is the good season I dread to think how incoherant it became

[Famous Mortimer]

"Heroes" was made just after "Lost", and suffers with every "we have no idea where this is going, but let's pretend we do for as long as possible" problem that its forebear had.

Do you remember "Invasion", the 2005 show with William Fichtner and Tyler Labine? There was a show which was designed to go five seasons, but they'd decided to only give it a season's worth of plot, so when the first 22 episodes finished and they'd barely moved at all, it was no great surprise that it got cancelled. I'm glad those sorts of shows aren't as ubiquitous as they were.

[Memorex MP3]

The Americans, although I can't fully recall why I thought season 1 sucked.

Better Call Saul was quite tedious for me initially and the Chuck/Jimmy dynamic done absolutely nothing for me, Chuck having full on xpac heat at times. Still think I've had to stomach a lot more of Chuck's allergy bullshit through the series than needed tbh but the show gradually got really really good around it.

[Dayraven]

I think Lost was at its most becalmed when Heroes began, so in comparison the way Heroes was introducing new characters and jumping between plotlines looked fast, even if it can also be seen as just shuffling things around to no real purpose (and going in knowing it all fell apart probably doesn't help).

Also its downplaying of superhero elements just doesn't seem necessary for mass appeal now the MCU's done 20-odd films, and it's not like it gets anything intelligent out of doing that either.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I watched the pilot for It's Always Sunny and didn't get on with it, but years later the acclaim led me to watching the first of season 3 and I fell in love with it, and by the time I got to season 9 I thought I should probably watch the first two seasons, and I didn't mind but didn't massively enjoy season 1 but thought season 2 was a right step up. Then back to season 10 and I really enjoyed it, with the same applying to 11 and 12, but I only liked about half of 13 and the same with 14, watched the first episode of 15 and thought it was time to stop watching before it spoilt the happy memories I have of the show.

um, so yeah, no idea what I'm up to on the old 360 degree front. Maybe 612? Or maybe I just plucked that number out of the air and I've no idea why, like most of my ratings.

[jfjnpxmy]

Not sure about 360 but I did a 270 with Peep Show

(INDIFFERENT > LOVE > HATE)

I would be interested to hear why.

[JaDanketies]

Might give It's Always Sunny a shot. Tried from season 1 episode 1, was okay, watched about three episodes and forgot about it. Will see if I can convince fiancee to watch it with me starting from season 2, which she will be intrinsically opposed to cos it's season 2