A supposedly great thing that I'll never watch again- Great media that left you cold

[pukunui]

Why did you feel the need to share this in a "I don't like this supposedly great thing" thread?

I don't know.

I didn't like GoT or Sherlock, but I wouldn't say it was so much the writing or acting so much as the themes. I also like more episodic content instead of feeling like I'm watching a movie that lasts for literal days.
Series I do like include Cobra Kai, Stranger Things, and The Mandalorian.

Yes, I'll admit something I didn't like about Game of Thrones was the way most episodes of a season were just setting up for the big payoff at the end. That kind of television can get frustrating, especially when you can't binge watch it. I like shows that have a mix of standalone stories with an overarching narrative. I think The Mandalorian does a pretty good job of this, although the overarching narrative is perhaps a bit too thin at times. The X-Files did a good job of it at first as well, though I think it had kind of lost its way by the end and sort of petered out with a disappointing ending.

 

[ccs]

Speaking of the X-Files....
Yeah, that one I never really got what everyone else saw in it as a series. Still don't.

Joker.
It came out & everyones like "it's sooo good!"
Never quite got around to seeing it in the theatres (always something better to see/do or it played at inconvenient times).
So sitting around this spring under Covid lockdown I streamed it.
That's it? That's what everyone was all excited about?? Yeah, definitely won't watch again.

 

[Campbell]

I cannot seem to get into the Mandalorian. It just feels so plotted to me. Great cinematography and some decent acting, but the characters just feel like the writers' playthings and not like people. Game of Thrones was similar to me.

 

[pukunui]

I wasn’t able to finish the Wheel of Time series. Got too repetitive with too many samey characters and too many minor characters who got their own chapters and so on. I think I only made it halfway through book four.

 

[Zardnaar]

I wasn’t able to finish the Wheel of Time series. Got too repetitive with too many samey characters and too many minor characters who got their own chapters and so on. I think I only made it halfway through book four.

I made it to 7 and gave up. Just read the wiki to find out what happened.

Didn't end up caring about any of the characters.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Some of the stuff I just can't stand..

* The Big Bang Theory. I absolutely hate that kind of sitcoms. And no, despite it supposedly being about nerds, doesn't make it better. It is still laughing at the nerd, not with them.

* Southpark. I watched the first season, but I found it lacking. Didn't like the artstyle nor the scatological humour.

* The old man and the Sea. We had to read this for an English-course I took at university. Must say it is the most boring and overrated book I have ever read. The myth about Hemingway > his work.

I have tons of others, but they have been pushed to the back of my mind so thoroughly that you need an archaeological expedition to find them.

 

[pukunui]

OK here’s a controversial one: the D&D cartoon.

I was born in ‘81 and didn’t discover D&D until I was 12 or 13. I borrowed a friend’s DVD box set recently and tried watching it with the girls. Wasn’t impressed and gave the DVDs back without bothering to watch the rest.

I’m assuming it’s so popular because of the nostalgia factor?

 

[Zardnaar]

OK here’s a controversial one: the D&D cartoon.

I was born in ‘81 and didn’t discover D&D until I was 12 or 13. I borrowed a friend’s DVD box set recently and tried watching it with the girls. Wasn’t impressed and gave the DVDs back without bothering to watch the rest.

I’m assuming it’s so popular because of the nostalgia factor?

80s kids.

I liked it but can barely remember the details. I was born 78.

But yeah 4 years makes a big difference, I can remember stuff my wife can't and she's an 80s kid.

Alot of stuff has aged terribly eg Transformers which is a glorified toy ad (that's still better somehow than Michael Bey movies).

I remember the 80s but wasn't an adult so miss a few things that older people didn't.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Only thinking of things a lot of people like:

Rogue One - the bits that are good aren't original and the bits that are original aren't good. It's carried by the tone of a war film and more Empire Strikes Back porn than JJ Abrams uses of ANH in TFA
The Big Bang Theory - I've heard it described as a "Geek minstrel show"
The Avengers films - I've a soft spot for the first. But they are a confusing mess with too many characters and contrived storytelling. I've special hate for the way Thanos is never shown to be wrong, just less powerful
Joker - another film where the bits that are good aren't original and the bits that are original aren't good.
South Park - I didn't like edgy 90s nihilism even back in the 90s. And it's aged badly.
Gone with the Wind - I'm not sure which is worse; how little I like the leads or how little I like the setting
Tiger King - car crash TV about a bunch of horrible people
The Mandalorean - I've mixed feelings about this one. It's weapons grade nostalgia (hey, I own Smash Ultimate) with a good premise, good acting, and about as much progression as an 80s TV series. Each episode is fine as long as you watch them a week apart and don't binge.

Also there are a number of things where I'd recommend people see one work by the author and stop there. Joss Whedon springs to mind (I'll recommend Buffy S1-5), as does JJ Abrams (for me his best is Alias S1-2 but that's also the first I saw), as does Aaron Sorkin (although The West Wing really does not hold up) and Stephen Moffatt.

Dishonourable mentions for being targeted nerd porn (although without onscreen sex): Chuck and The West Wing. I can watch both of them but am well aware I'm being pandered to and it makes them feel slightly icky.

On preview the parts of Transformers that aged well were the UK Gen 1 comic series (which is pretty intricate and continuity heavy) and the original movie. The one where there are actual consequences, starting with the death of Optimus Prime, callbacks, conceptual sci-fi like the Universal Greeting, and a discussion of leadership and how it means going forward in the face of adversity, complete with Devo's Dare To Be Stupid as a theme song. Also I didn't realise the D&D cartoon was popular.

 

[Umbran]

Recalled a couple of others..

Warehouse 13 - This should have been a no-brainer for me. Saul Rubinek as a quirky curmudgeon watching over the collection of weird supernatural and super-science artifacts? Sold! Unfortunately, the casual misogyny by one of the main characters was too annoying to watch.

Battlestar Galactica - I watched for a while, but two things got me - alien (robot) baby that can cure cancer and... the total despondancy of it all. The main characters never caught a win, ever, and they did not establish a solid justification for them to not just use their own sidearms to blow their own brains out. I can accept dark and dire shows, but this was grimdark to the point of my having to gird my emotions up to watch each episode... so I stopped.

I'll join the list of folks who couldn't take Big Bang Theory. I'm okay with comedy poking fun at nerds and nerdy things (like, say, Galaxy Quest) when it is done from a position of caring, but BBT wasn't.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Every superhero movie since X-men in 2000.
Every franchise sequel ever made (honorable exceptions: ESB & Godfather II); even Terminator 2 & Aliens are annoying to me now.

Edit: Every sitcom ever, except Fawlty Towers. Just hate the format.

 

[Neonchameleon]

One more:

Ocean's 11 - A well written and acted heist movie with a great cast doing a heist movie should have been absolutely my thing. But set one EMP off downtown and you're not a heist crew - you're a completely callous set of terrorists.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I wasn’t able to finish the Wheel of Time series. Got too repetitive with too many samey characters and too many minor characters who got their own chapters and so on. I think I only made it halfway through book four.

Me either. I stopped midway through book four I think as well. When you're spending 50 pages describing something that happens in 5 pages in every other book, it drags on and on.

Battlestar Galactica - I watched for a while, but two things got me - alien (robot) baby that can cure cancer and... the total despondancy of it all. The main characters never caught a win, ever, and they did not establish a solid justification for them to not just use their own sidearms to blow their own brains out. I can accept dark and dire shows, but this was grimdark to the point of my having to gird my emotions up to watch each episode... so I stopped.

I liked season 1. Then it dropped off fast for me. Never finished the series.

 

[trappedslider]

Tiger King - car crash TV about a bunch of horrible people
Aaron Sorkin (although The West Wing really does not hold up)

Dishonourable mentions for being targeted nerd porn (although without onscreen sex): Chuck and The West Wing. I can watch both of them but am well aware I'm being pandered to and it makes them feel slightly icky.

Tiger King and the rest of so called reality tv.....makes me feel like i need a long shower.....I haven't watched chuck in over a few years despite owning the whole thing on DvD. The West Wing for the most part like you said didn't age well, thats why we tend to watch a few select episodes around here. Aaron's other hits The Newsroom and Sports Night didn't age other well either...ER also didn't age well, which is a shame since it had a number of good seasons.

One more:

Ocean's 11 - A well written and acted heist movie with a great cast doing a heist movie should have been absolutely my thing. But set one EMP off downtown and you're not a heist crew - you're a completely callous set of terrorists.

The original (with the Rat Pack) had them knock out a substation instead of a 30 second blackout.

 

[wicked cool]

Cant understand the BBT hate. Show is fantastic. After season1 it toned down the nerdiness. The guys play version of D&D, Multiple scifi guest stars, constant fantasy references, comics etc. One of the best comedies and I would say accurate

shows that I couldn't get into
xfiles-mostly boring
the 100-just doesn't sound good
the dc universe shows-just awful
The new Who-Self destructing
supernatural-lot of these horror shows just don't have it
American horror-They get silly. The one on the missing colonists/descendants was some of the dumbest television ive seen
Nurse Ratchet-Nothing like the original character
Lovecraft country-Gave it a shot over free hbo weekend-Cool idea with poor execution. Seems silly
Westworld-Season1 was good but season 2 was awful and I haven't watched season 3 .



Walking Dead World beyond-WD is my guilty pleasure but I wont cry if it ever got cancelled as both it and FTWD are just ok however world beyond is dreadful with characters I don't care for and feels like a teen drama show with zombies. It is funny how the WD still gets good ratings. Really a sign of how bad television is

The last kingdom-Show is decent but this show and Vikings is very overhyped. I bet 1/2 or more of the last kingdom popularity is the looks of the main character. I think if he was ugly then this show would be a show clinging to life

 

[Sacrosanct]

Cant understand the BBT hate. Show is fantastic. After season1 it toned down the nerdiness. The guys play version of D&D, Multiple scifi guest stars, constant fantasy references, comics etc. One of the best comedies and I would say accurate

I can only speak for myself naturally, and while I didn't hate the show, a turn off for me was how unrealistic and patronizing it was. It was no different than literally every other TV show and movie out there in the context of "Male nerds can be average looking, but all female nerds have to be supermodels." Arguably the least attractive female on that show that played a girlfriend at some point was Mayim, and she is still attractive. All of the others (Kaley, Melissa, Laura, Kate, Aarti, Lauren, etc are all extremely attractive). Kevin Sussman was the only average looking guy, and he was always an outlier friend and not part of the "main" group. Putting glasses and a geeky t shirt on a good looking guy doesn't make them a nerd*. Again, not an issue limited to this show, but every show. I think Sussman and Posehn (only infrequently appearing) look like the people you'd see in a gaming store on any given day (and are gaming geeks in real life). Are there good looking nerds? Sure. I'm one of them . But these shows always seem to only have models play the roles, especially for women, and that's always bothered me. So to me, the representation was a big miss and kept me from truly relating.

*Edit Admittedly this gives me flashbacks of about 10 years ago, when geek started to become chic, and you saw all these super attractive people put on glasses and call themselves nerds or geeks without actually having any nerdy or geeky hobbies or interests, so I have a sour taste about it.

 

[MarkB]

Speaking of the X-Files....
Yeah, that one I never really got what everyone else saw in it as a series. Still don't.

I enjoyed the first few seasons, and was really interested in seeing what the underlying mystery hinted in various episodes would turn out to be. Until I figured out that the writers themselves had no clue, and were just throwing out hints and teasers without any real idea how to tie them up.

Likewise Alias.

Likewise Lost, though at least in that instance I managed to realise it during the first season.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I enjoyed the first few seasons, and was really interested in seeing what the underlying mystery hinted in various episodes would turn out to be. Until I figured out that the writers themselves had no clue, and were just throwing out hints and teasers without any real idea how to tie them up.

Likewise Alias.

Likewise Lost, though at least in that instance I managed to realise it during the first season.

The thing about the X-Files is this ...

As you are first watching it, you really love the interconnectedness of it. Which, for the time, was a BIG THING. In the 90s, they didn't really have the serialized story telling in TV like we do today. So you'd enjoy the great stand-alone episodes, but the "mythology" episodes were massive events.

But somewhere around, oh, season 5 and the alien rebels it all just collapsed in on itself. By that point it became obvious there was no plan, no end goal, and it wasn't going anywhere.

In retrospect, it was a great series, with individual great episodes, but the mythology ... well, it just sucked. Either that, or it was a truly fascinating meta-commentary on how conspiracy theories eventually fall apart and make no sense.

 

[Zardnaar]

Recalled a couple of others..

Warehouse 13 - This should have been a no-brainer for me. Saul Rubinek as a quirky curmudgeon watching over the collection of weird supernatural and super-science artifacts? Sold! Unfortunately, the casual misogyny by one of the main characters was too annoying to watch.

Battlestar Galactica - I watched for a while, but two things got me - alien (robot) baby that can cure cancer and... the total despondancy of it all. The main characters never caught a win, ever, and they did not establish a solid justification for them to not just use their own sidearms to blow their own brains out. I can accept dark and dire shows, but this was grimdark to the point of my having to gird my emotions up to watch each episode... so I stopped.

I'll join the list of folks who couldn't take Big Bang Theory. I'm okay with comedy poking fun at nerds and nerdy things (like, say, Galaxy Quest) when it is done from a position of caring, but BBT wasn't.

Yeah had to force myself to finish Warehouse 13.

Saw Saul in Star Trek TNG. We kind of have a game when watching older shows. Spot the actor from a later show.

Terrible with names though, faces not so much.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah had to force myself to finish Warehouse 13.

Saw Saul in Star Trek TNG. We kind of have a game when watching older shows. Spot the actor from a later show.

Before I was cooking meth in New Mexico ....

I was a Space Captain!