History SeasonalRot / LiveActionTV

** Season 3 had its moments, but most fans remember and dislike it for a pair of story arcs: The Tritter arc is disliked for severe DeusAngstMachina, {{Wangst}} from House, [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy]], and a resolution that felt forced & anticlimactic, while the [[NotSoDifferent "Foreman Is House"]] was disliked for turning Foreman into a CreatorsPet. The resignation of House's original team at the end of the season also upset many fans.

** Season Seven... dull. House and Cuddy's relationship, dull. [[CreatorsPet The prodigy chick]]? Dull. For longtime fans, if season five or six didn't deter you, seven definitely will.
** Season 3 wasn't that bad on average, but the Tritter arc was despised: Not only was there serious DeusAngstMachina, but was heavy on {{Wangst}} from House and uncharacteristically cruel moments from the other characters so that [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy everyone on the show was an unlikeable tool]]. The arc ended with [[spoiler:Cuddy perjuring herself to get House cleared on all charges]], which felt like a huge cop-out.

* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' had a weaker story arc involving Charlize Theron. Acknowledged by the creators in the episode "[=SOBs=]":

'''Michael:''' I don't want to just round up a bunch of famous people that have nothing to do with our family as some sort of cheap stunt. What's that got to do with us?
** Part of the reason season 3 suffered was having only thirteen episodes. Many plot points seem rushed. George is put under house arrest with no explanation for why he didn't get sent back to jail.

* Many fans would agree that ''Series/{{Glee}}'', a once promising show, showed a steep decline in its second season with characters constantly changing motives and personalities, character development going backwards, plots coming out of nowhere, and the show becoming the preachy PublicServiceAnnouncement it used to mock. The decline was much more noticeable in season 3, which had even more egregious examples of CharacterDerailment with just about every character, [[BrokenAesop Broken Aesops]] galore and constant [[RetCon RetConning]] of forgotten plots. In the fourth season, the show had at least four concurrent plots at any one time, with New Directions members in Lima, Los Angeles, Louisville, and New York City, and couldn't develop and pay attention to all of those at once. Part of the problem was that around the time of the second season, Glee was at an all time high for its popularity to the point where it ended up displacing Series/AmericanIdol as Fox's Flagship Series and AdoredByTheNetwork started to kick in full force. With the aforementioned decline in quality of the plots, by the third season, ratings began to rapidly tank that by the end, they were actually lower than the ''first season's. By the time 4th season premiered, Fox caught on to the declining popularity and moved the series onto Thursday nights. If the current ratings are anything to go by however, [[JumpingTheShark the damage has been done]].

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'': When seasonal rot ''completely'' set in is a matter of [[FlameWar polite disagreement]]. Seasons one and two are considered the golden age, and despite {{Flanderization}} and CharacterizationMarchesOn, as well as the frustrating [[WillTheyOrWontThey love triangle]] -- not to mention [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking Tara Reid]] -- the third season contains the highest-rated episode of the series. The fourth and fifth seasons both contain universally acclaimed ''episodes'', but whether the rot began and took over then is [[InternetBackdraft probably not a question you want to ask]]. The sixth season onwards, however, is definitively this trope, with the {{Uncancelled}} final season more or less ignored by what remained of the fandom. ExecutiveMeddling with episode ordering and the [[TVStrikes 2007 WGA Strike]] meant the show had no chance of a dignified ending.
** The ''second'' {{Uncancelled}} last season, Season 9, borders on FanonDiscontinuity due to low quality: Many of the original cast were DemotedToExtra or just written off the show in favor of all-new characters. The new cast could have been good, but the first part of the season focused on JD tying up loose ends at Sacred Heart, so there was no time to develop them in the half-season that remained.

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' had Season 7: The first half or so of the season had the Bundys become an adoptive family for Peg's nephew Seven. Seven was an unfunny obnoxious brat, while Peg became a genuinely caring mother to him, rather than the LoveToHate negligent mother fans had been accustomed to. Even the crew didn't like him. He was thankfully removed completely and PutonABus in the middle of the season.

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' had Season 7: The first half or so of the season had the Bundys become an adoptive family for Peg's nephew Seven. Seven was an unfunny obnoxious brat, while Peg became a genuinely caring mother to him, rather than the LoveToHate negligent mother fans had been accustomed to. Even the crew didn't like him.

* ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' is a rare show that was able to survive the transition from high school to college because of the strong mother-daughter dynamic and quirky town of Stars Hollow... give or take a season or two. Then season six would introduce CousinOliver [[TheScrappy April]], who was universally loathed, made Rory into a delinquent and had whole episodes where the girls didn't interact with each other, and extended the WillTheyOrWontThey even further after a fake-out resolution. Come the CW merger, creator Amy-Sherman Palladino and her husband were basically forced to leave the show and many fans had abandoned the show. It was clear that whoever was left in charge had no idea how to continue a successful long-running series.

* ''Series/ICarly's'' fourth season. Season 2 was the GrowingTheBeard season, season 3 looked to be setting up the show for more mature characterization, continuity and a resolution to the {{Shipping}} aspect of the show. However, Season 4 became reliant on Guest Stars when the show hadn't really used them at all in the past,, the addition of Gibby to the main cast divided fans, and some found the shipping arc to be very forced, with one of the cast suddenly being 'in love' and having a computer program reveal it without any clear foreshadowing.
** This happened because of new Nick show ''Series/{{Victorious}}''. The same production company and [[Creator/DanSchneider show runner]] produce both. Limited resources meant that at the time they couldn't film both at the same time. It led to a yawning gap of months and months in airings of ''Series/ICarly'' episodes. There is also a distinct impression that the best ideas of the production group are being used on ''Victorious''. There are also annoyed fans who dislike how obvious the push over the new show over the old one has become. One major example of this push is that the CrossOver between the two shows used 3 episodes out of the 13 that had been budgeted for ''Series/ICarly'' Season 4 despite revolving around the ''Victorious'' cast.
*** Season 5 has taken the show to new lows of ratings and quality. While Seasons 2, 3 and 4 were all roughly similar rated on average, Season 5 with its Seddie arc dropped the average of the other 3 seasons by ''millions'', and the final episode of the Seddie arc, "iLove You", was at the time the 2nd lowest rated episode ever.
*** Season 6 began with "iApril Fools", a nonsensical episode with no storyline that rated poorly. An over hyped ''Music/OneDirection'' guest episode coming short of 4 million viewers (for the show's standards) despite record Twitter activity and iTunes sales figures. Only 2.8 million viewers watched "iOwn A Restaurant", making it the worst rated episode in the history of the show, and the "iHalfoween" episode that came shortly after it only had 2.9 million.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'': The fans near universally hated ''Series/PowerRangersTurbo'' (season 5), due to it being a serious story at odds with the tongue-in-cheek ''[[GekisouSentaiCarranger Carranger]]'' footage, not to mention Justin as TheScrappy. The CrisisCrossover season ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'' picked up the slack and won everyone back over.

* ''GamesMaster'' has Season 3, where host Dominik Diamond had left because of the [=McDonalds=] sponsorship and was replaced by Dexter Fletcher, and the challenge format was changed to the ''Games World''-esque Team Championship. Also, Seasons 5, 6, and 7 became less about video games and more about Dominik's rude jokes and constant flirting with female celebrities.

*** Season 6 began with "iApril Fools", a nonsensical episode with no storyline that rated poorly. An over hyped ''Music/OneDirection'' guest episode coming short of 4 million viewers (for the show's standards). Only 2.8 million viewers watched "iOwn A Restaurant", making it the worst rated episode in the history of the show, and the "iHalfoween" episode that came shortly after it only had 2.9 million.

*** If anything, season 7 is greatly considered another big part of the rot. Once again, after the lackluster response to season 6 the show attempted another ReTool, but this lead to several unlikable [[ReplacementScrappy copies]] of previously loved characters, fan favorite [[spoiler: Tony Almeida]] having his death retconned only to infamously [[CharacterDerailment change him up so much]] [[BaseBreaker many]] [[FanonDiscontinuity prefer it never happened]], [[BreakoutVillain Jonas Hodges]], a widely enjoyed antagonist introduced in the season getting [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter discarded]] in favor of the lesser receive Alan Wilson as the BigBad and a widely hated storyarc with Jack slowly dying in [[TheyCopiedItNowItSucks a repeat of a much-more-loved storyline from the show's second season]], sucking out any potential drama since [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt everyone knew]] he'd get some sort of save at the end (and sure enough, that's exactly what happened). Another problem was that the season went into production right at the time the Writers Strike of 2007 happened, shutting production down when only the first eight episodes were completed. When production resumed and the show was delayed for a year the writers used this time to plan out next two-thirds completely in advance, but this also led to a lot of it completely contradicting events previously established during the first third of the season, especially the infamous way [[spoiler: Tony]] behaved as the direction they decided to take him in for the latter half was completely opposite of the way they wanted to go with him a year ago when the first part of the season was filmed, which resulted in behaving jarringly different in both sections. It's likely all this ultimately helped lead to the show being cancelled in the following year.

*** If anything, season 7 is greatly considered another big part of the rot. Once again, after the lackluster response to season 6 the show attempted another ReTool, but this lead to several unlikable [[ReplacementScrappy copies]] of previously loved characters, fan favorite [[spoiler: Tony Almeida]] having his death retconned only to infamously [[CharacterDerailment change him up so much]] [[BaseBreaker many]] [[FanonDiscontinuity prefer it never happened]] and a widely hated storyarc with Jack slowly dying in [[TheyCopiedItNowItSucks a repeat of a much-more-loved storyline from the show's second season]], sucking out any potential drama since [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt everyone knew]] he'd get some sort of save at the end (and sure enough, that's exactly what happened). Another problem was that the season went into production right at the time the Writers Strike of 2007 happened, shutting production down when only the first eight episodes were completed. When production resumed and the show was delayed for a year the writers used this time to plan out next two-thirds completely in advance, but this also led to a lot of it completely contradicting events previously established during the first third of the season, especially the infamous way [[spoiler: Tony]] behaved as the direction they decided to take him in for the latter half was completely opposite of the way they wanted to go with him a year ago when the first part of the season was filmed, which resulted in behaving jarringly different in both sections. It's likely all this ultimately helped lead to the show being cancelled in the following year.

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' had Season 7: The first half or so of the season had the Bundys become an adoptive family for Peg's nephew Seven. Seven was an unfunny obnoxious brat, while Peg became a genuinely caring mother to him, rather than the LoveToHate negligent mother fans had been accustomed to. Even the crew didn't like him.

* Speaking of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', while there are plenty of fans who thinks it gets better every season due to more CharacterDevelopment and more humor, plenty of other fans think the show has been going downhill since Season 4, because of moving away from the original plot, less focus on science and more on relationships, and take away aspects from the characters that many people loved.

** Season 3 has a slow pace and glaring examples of Oireland and The Mountains of Illinois during the gang's trip to Ireland though the season finale is considered one of the best episodes of the series and redeems the series for some.

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': Just about [[UnpleasableFanbase any season depending on who you ask]] (with the popular answers being that the show hasn't been good since the original cast was on it in the 1970s, or, if viewers [[JustHereForGodzilla just watch it for one sketch or cast member]], they will blame the seasonal rot on the cast member's departure. Popular cast members cited include: Creator/DanAykroyd, JohnBelushi, Creator/EddieMurphy, Dana Carvey, Creator/PhilHartman, Creator/ChrisFarley, Creator/JimmyFallon, Creator/TinaFey, AmyPoehler, Kristen Wiig, [[Music/TheLonelyIsland Andy Samberg]], and, as of 2013, Bill Hader), but the sixth season (1980-1981) stands out as uniquely awful and the season that most fans will agree is a mess in terms of quality. The entire cast and writing staff left in 1980, but [[ExecutiveMeddling the network insisted]] that the show continue along anyway; new producer Jean Doumanian knew ''nothing'' about comedy (on a special about ''SNL'''s history in the 1980s, GilbertGottfried, a cast member around that time, went on record in saying that Jean Doumanian was so clueless about comedy that she would root for Margaret Dumont in a Creator/MarxBrothers film), having been previously in charge of booking musical guests. As a result, the musical guests were fantastic, but the rest of the show was barely watchable (including Weekend Update, which Lorne Michaels invented as a way for viewers to at least find one funny moment in an episode that they didn't like because of the host or if the writing was a little flat that week). More to the point, Doumanian passed up a lot of potentially talented would-be cast members (Creator/JimCarrey being one of them), misunderstood a lot of obvious punchlines, thought that VulgarHumor was what made the sketches funny (as opposed to RefugeInAudacity) -- which became the show's downfall when Charles Rocket said, "I wanna know who the fuck did it" at the end of the Charlene Tilton episode, and focused more on humorless character pieces (some of which were intentionally not funny, like the one from the Karen Black/Cheap Trick episode in which GilbertGottfried played a stroke victim laid up in the hospital while everyone around him -- except his true friend, Rachel [Denny Dillon] -- mocked him). Finally NBC stepped in and fired everyone except Joe Piscopo and some kid named Creator/EddieMurphy that was hired mid-season and was showing a lot of promise...

** When people don't go off on a tangent about whether season 13 was the worst, it's often season 4 or season 9. 4 due to its very lackluster twist, and 9 due to its hastily-put together cast of JerkAss eye candy. (Two of which were later arrested for selling prescription drugs, one of which ''was the winner''.) Conveniently, seasons 5, 10, and 14, all of which following the "worst" seasons of ''Series/BigBrother'' have often been considered among the best. (5 due to its FridgeBrilliance casting & Twist, 10 due to simply ''not being 9'', and 14 simply because attempts to shake up the game weren't instantly canceled by blatantly contrived twists as well as some of the most likable newbies.)

* SonsOfAnarchy. It's often debated as to when, but many agree that Season 5 shows a notable lack of storyline compared to previous seasons, and relies too heavily on killing off characters due to the writers not being able to think of anything else.
** Well, it ''is'' ''{{Hamlet}}'' [[RecycledInSpace WITH OUTLAW MOTORCYCLE GANGS!]], as this very wiki puts it.

* Many fans would agree that ''Series/{{Glee}}'', a once promising show, showed a steep decline in its second season with characters constantly changing motives and personalities, character development going backwards, plots coming out of nowhere, and the show becoming the preachy PublicServiceAnnouncement it used to mock. The decline was much more noticeable in season 3, which had even more egregious examples of CharacterDerailment with just about every character, [[BrokenAesop Broken Aesops]] galore and constant [[RetCon RetConning]] of forgotten plots. Part of the problem was that around the time of the second season, Glee was at an all time high for its popularity to the point where it ended up displacing Series/AmericanIdol as Fox's Flagship Series and AdoredByTheNetwork started to kick in full force. In the fourth season, the show had at least four concurrent plots at any one time, with New Directions members in Lima, Los Angeles, Louisville, and New York City. With the aforementioned decline in quality of the plots, by the third season, ratings began to rapidly tank that by the end, they were actually lower than the ''first season's. By the time 4th season premiered, Fox caught on to the declining popularity and moved the series onto Thursday nights. If the current ratings are anything to go by however, [[JumpingTheShark the damage has been done]].

* Many fans would agree that ''Series/{{Glee}}'', a once promising show, showed a steep decline in its second season with characters constantly changing motives and personalities, character development going backwards, plots coming out of nowhere, and the show becoming the preachy PublicServiceAnnouncement it used to mock. The decline was much more noticeable in season 3, which had even more egregious examples of CharacterDerailment with just about every character, [[BrokenAesop Broken Aesops]] galore and constant [[RetCon RetConning]] of forgotten plots. Part of the problem was that around the time of the second season, Glee was at an all time high for it's popularity to the point where it ended up displacing Series/AmericanIdol as Fox's Flagship Series and AdoredByTheNetwork started to kick in full force. With the aforementioned decline in quality of the plots, by the third season, ratings began to rapidly tank that by the end, they were actually lower than the ''first season's. By the time 4th season premiered, Fox caught on to the declining popularity and moved the series onto Thursday nights. If the current ratings are anything to go by however, [[JumpingTheShark the damage has been done]].

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'': When seasonal rot ''completely'' set in is a matter of [[FlameWar polite disagreement]]. Seasons one and two are considered the golden age, and despite {{Flanderization}} and CharacterizationMarchesOn, as well as the frustrating [[WillTheyOrWontThey love triangle]] -- not to mention [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking Tara Reid]] -- the third season contains the highest-rated episode of the series. The fourth and fifth seasons both contain universally acclaimed ''episodes'', but whether the rot began and took over then is [[InternetBackdraft probably not a question you want to ask]]. The sixth season onwards, however, is definitively this trope, with the {{Uncancelled}} final season more or less ignored by what remained of the fandom. ExecutiveMeddling with episode ordering and the [[TVStrikes 2007 WGA Strike]] meant the show had no chance of a dignified ending, and another season, complete with a change of structure and cast, merely prolonged the agony.

* Fans of ''Series/MyFamily'' tend to admit that the later seasons were marked by a general decline in the writing, with increasingly grating {{Flanderization}}, jokes being run into the ground, and a character who had spent several seasons near-obsessed with women [[SuddenlySexuality suddenly and arbitrarily coming out as gay]]. Season 11 marked the point when the long-suffering Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker, who had spent several seasons complaining about the scripts, gave up and quit.

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': Just about [[UnpleasableFanbase any season depending on who you ask]] (with the popular answers being that the show hasn't been good since the original cast was on it in the 1970s, or, if viewers [[JustHereForGodzilla just watch it for one sketch or cast member]], they will blame the seasonal rot on the cast member's departure. Popular cast members cited include: Creator/DanAykroyd, JohnBelushi, Creator/EddieMurphy, Dana Carvey, Creator/PhilHartman, ChrisFarley, Creator/JimmyFallon, Creator/TinaFey, AmyPoehler, Kristen Wiig, [[Music/TheLonelyIsland Andy Samberg]], and, as of 2013, Bill Hader), but the sixth season (1980-1981) stands out as uniquely awful and the season that most fans will agree is a mess in terms of quality. The entire cast and writing staff left in 1980, but [[ExecutiveMeddling the network insisted]] that the show continue along anyway; new producer Jean Doumanian knew ''nothing'' about comedy (on a special about ''SNL'''s history in the 1980s, GilbertGottfried, a cast member around that time, went on record in saying that Jean Doumanian was so clueless about comedy that she would root for Margaret Dumont in a Creator/MarxBrothers film), having been previously in charge of booking musical guests. As a result, the musical guests were fantastic, but the rest of the show was barely watchable (including Weekend Update, which Lorne Michaels invented as a way for viewers to at least find one funny moment in an episode that they didn't like because of the host or if the writing was a little flat that week). More to the point, Doumanian passed up a lot of potentially talented would-be cast members (Creator/JimCarrey being one of them), misunderstood a lot of obvious punchlines, thought that VulgarHumor was what made the sketches funny (as opposed to RefugeInAudacity) -- which became the show's downfall when Charles Rocket said, "I wanna know who the fuck did it" at the end of the Charlene Tilton episode, and focused more on humorless character pieces (some of which were intentionally not funny, like the one from the Karen Black/Cheap Trick episode in which GilbertGottfried played a stroke victim laid up in the hospital while everyone around him -- except his true friend, Rachel [Denny Dillon] -- mocked him). Finally NBC stepped in and fired everyone except Joe Piscopo and some kid named Creator/EddieMurphy that was hired mid-season and was showing a lot of promise...

* Fans of ''Series/MyFamily'' tend to admit that the later seasons were marked by a general decline in the writing, with increasingly grating {{Flanderization}}, jokes being run into the ground, and a character who had spent several seasons near-obsessed with women [[SuddenlySexuality suddenly and arbitrarily coming out as gay]]. Season 11 marked the point when the long-suffering Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker, who had spent several seasons complaining about the scripts, gave up and quit.

* With ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', this is generally held to have set in around Season 5. Season 1 and 2 are held in very high esteem, while Season 3 just divided the fans a bit. Season 4 received perhaps the most acclaim from both fans and critics of any season thus far, especially for John Lithgow's performance. Season 5, however, gets a lot of flak on account of the [[TheScrappy Lumen character]], the weak resolution of many of its plotlines, and overall disapointment at the entire season finale.
** Season 6 is largely considered even worse, due to poor pacing and writing problems and severe character derailment. Sometimes within the span of two episodes, such as with Quinn and Travis.

* Series 14 of ''Series/TopGear'' is generally considered one of the weakest seasons of the show, with an over-reliance on scripted gags, rehashed jokes/challenges and focusing more on the characters of Jeremy, James, and Richard, instead of the actual presenters. (By which I mean, the caricature-like versions of the presenters, i.e. Jeremy being a ham-fisted oaf, rather than Jeremy's own personality.) Thankfully, the quality of later seasons (especially 17) is on the rise.

** The whole reason Charlie was so brutally killed off was because Sheen pissed off the show's developers so much that they did not just kick him off the show, they made sure that he could never, ever, come back. Exploding Charlie with a speeding train was basically a giant middle finger aimed at Sheen, and to be fair, Sheen deserved it.

** Attitudes to series six and seven are generally split pretty evenly down the middle; on one hand the actual West Wing was sidelined, but at the same time the plot tried something new and focused on the presidential election. The main problem with series five was that it tried too hard to top the previous series by introducing too many new constitutional challenges (the 25th amendment invocation, the federal government shut-down, etc.). Other common criticisms were focused on the impossibility of imitating Sorkin's unique dialogue, the show's shift toward an ''Series/ER'' sensibility (the creation of the last producer standing after the departure of Sorkin and Schlamme), the breaks from form (which were often seen as VerySpecialEpisode in tone), and the retrofitting of characters to create drama. While the sixth and seventh seasons were markedly better, they can fall into FanonDiscontinuity territory even among fans who enjoyed them, as they seem to stand alone from the original show.