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1SeasonalRot in [[{{Series}} Live-Action TV]].
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3!!Series with their own pages
4[[index]]
5* ''SeasonalRot/PowerRangers''
6* ''SeasonalRot/{{Supernatural}}''
7[[/index]]
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9[[foldercontrol]]
10
11[[folder:#-F]]
12* ''Series/The100'':
13** For quite a few fans Season 3 was when the show took a huge nosedive in quality thanks to many questionable behind-the-scenes reasons. Firstly despite building up a potential war between Azgeda and the other members of the Coalition the storyline is abruptly aborted three episodes in [[spoiler:when the Ice Queen is killed off by Lexa, especially since she was established to be the one who killed Lexa's FirstLove Cosita]]. Instead that conflict is replaced by the much more divisive Pike storyline which many fans felt [[ArcFatigue was just rehashing the same tired Sky People v. Grounder conflict already covered in the first two Seasons.]] Next were the infamous deaths of [[spoiler:Lexa]] and [[spoiler:Lincoln]] which were so abrupt and controversial that many fans left the show entirely. Finally the A.L.I.E. storyline itself for some fans thanks to the introduction of an [[AIIsACrapshoot AI that's trying to take over the world.]] Fortunately Season 4 was considered to be a huge improvement.
14** The pacing of Season 7 is very problematic for a final season, with the writers focusing several episodes on secondary characters, while the protagonists Clarke and Bellamy are left severely OutOfFocus. Sheidheda and Bill Cadogan are far from being the most interesting villains of the show, and the script forces the heroes to act like complete idiots to justify the pair having to stay alive. Finally, [[spoiler: Clarke killing Bellamy was extremely divisive among the fandom, to say the least]].
15* ''Series/TwentyFour'':
16** The fourth series of the show is markedly different from the preceding three seasons; Jack is effectively deposed as head of CTU operations, the building itself has undergone a makeover, and almost everyone from the previous season is gone without explanation. It's not surprising that, by the end of the season, almost all of the major [[AnyoneCanDie surviving]] characters from the series were brought back into the fold.
17** Season 6 is the only season that was hated by almost ''everyone''; even the writers admit it was incredibly subpar. It started out promising and then became mired in a complex, ridiculous family drama filled with plot points ripped haphazardly from previous episodes.
18** Since Seasons 2, 3, 5, and 7 are generally considered some of the best seasons (obviously debatable, but at least S5 is universally acclaimed), a distinct pattern can be seen: all non-prime-numbered seasons are subpar.
19** The miniseries ''Live Another Day.'' While the majority of fans see it as [[GrowingTheBeard a big step up in quality from the previous 3 seasons]], there are a fair number who think it's a part of the same rot that started on Day 6.
20** ''24: Legacy'', a reboot/continuation season, already suffered from an AudienceAlienatingPremise of continuing the show but not including Jack this time around. As it progressed, many people found new lead Eric Carter to be a lackluster replacement for Jack, the story arc was criticized for its uneven pacing despite the shorter episode count, the ending came off as a huge AntiClimax to many with the final showdown, which only soured fans further when [[spoiler:Rebecca Ingram]], whom many felt was a better protagonist than Eric, ended up getting killed off. Not helping was the show hyping up the return of fan-favorite Tony Almeida, only to do [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter almost nothing with him]], including having him disappear in the middle of the finale.
21* Season 4 of ''Series/ThirtyRock'' is widely considered to be the show's weakest, with an abundance of gags that had simply become tired by that point and an extreme amount of focus on Jack Donaghy's love life. It's also criticized for its harsh treatment of Liz Lemon as the writers started making her out to be much frumpier and more pathetic than she had been in past seasons. While it isn't exactly universally panned, it was certainly considered a step down from the show's incredibly strong first three seasons. Luckily, most fans agree Season 5 refreshed the series and brought it back to the strength of its earlier days, and that Seasons 6 and 7 have followed suit.
22* The last two seasons of ''Series/ThreeTwoOneContact''. They [[RearrangeTheSong rearranged the opening theme]] [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks to the chagrin of many]], used many recycled segments from the first two seasons, relied more on individual hosts rather than a team, and the Bloodhound Gang was absent (except for a few repeats).
23* ''77 Sunset Strip'' underwent mass changes in its sixth and final season, throwing out every character save Stu Bailey and inserting ReplacementScrappy secretary Hannah as the only new character. The result thus played out more like an early version of ''Series/ISpy'' than a straight private-eye series, and [=ABC=] axed it mid-season (although reruns were aired during the summer).
24* ''Series/{{Airwolf}}'' took a bit of a nosedive when it was renewed for a fourth season and {{Channel Hop}}ped to the Creator/USANetwork. Since this season was produced on an obviously lower budget, some things had to go, including the original main characters and the actual helicopter (which became mainly portrayed by StockFootage).
25* ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' had ended its 8th season with Creator/NormanLear departing as executive producer and the Stivics being PutOnABus to UsefulNotes/{{California}} which resolved the core premise for the series and provided an emotional TearJerker of a finale. However, Creator/CarrollOConnor accepted [[MoneyDearBoy a huge salary increase]] that led to the show limping on another year that saw the introduction of Edith's [[CousinOliver young niece who was abandoned by her alcoholic father]] that the Bunkers took in. This failed to replace the tension that Archie had with Meathead in the first 8 seasons, and while there were still some funny episodes, Lear's creative guidance was sorely missed. After this Creator/{{CBS}} decided to {{ReTool}} the show as ''Series/ArchieBunkersPlace'' which limped on for 97 more episodes that saw the series shift from DomCom to WorkCom, the death of [[spoiler:Edith]] and Archie growing into a kinder, less ignorant person with an ethnically diverse social circle, which effectively killed his effectiveness as an UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist.
26** In fairness, the episode that dealt with [[spoiler:Edith's death]], "Archie Alone", was considered the high point of the series and directly impacts the next two episodes. One could argue that Archie's softening after this point was also a result, given his breakdown near the end (particularly since [[spoiler:he was yelling at Edith to get out of bed, unaware that she had died of a stroke in her sleep]]).
27* All Creator/IrwinAllen series. Each one starts off with an interesting premise, a serious tone, and good production values, but by season three the cast is fighting giant carrots. Fans have long noted that the quality of his series is inversely proportional to how long they lasted -- ''Series/VoyageToTheBottomOfTheSea'' managed four seasons and by the end, most episodes practically had chorus lines of [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment big-lipped alligators]]; ''Series/LostInSpace'' went for three and was transitioning from campy to bad by the end, while ''Series/LandOfTheGiants'' lasted two and stayed SoBadItsGood. ''Series/TheTimeTunnel'', which got canned after just one year, was only beginning to show signs of decay by the end of its run.
28* Season 6 of ''Series/AllThat'' is generally agreed upon by fans to be the weakest of its original run (1994-2000). This season had to deal with the losses of both Creator/KenanThompson and Creator/KelMitchell[[note]]Creator/GabrielIglesias was brought in to fill the void.[[/note]], who were the hearts and souls of the show. With Kenan and Kel [[TheBandMinusTheFace gone]] to focus on their own show, ''All That'' was now led by Josh Server[[note]]Who was by Season 6, the [[SoleSurvivor only remaining]] original cast member.[[/note]] and Creator/AmandaBynes, who was by this point, becoming too busy with her [[Series/TheAmandaShow own show]] to appear regularly on ''All That''. This was already coupled with the departure of Lori Beth Denberg after Season 4, which left Amanda and Christy Knowings as the only remaining female cast members for the next two seasons. Meanwhile, the sketches were nowhere near on caliber as earlier seasons[[note]]When Seasons 4-6 were going, it was relying on some of the same cast members, same skits, and same jokes mixed in with new people that weren't as funny as the original cast members. Plus, the original cast members looked awkward with the newer cast members since they were getting too old. Also on the production side, Creator/DanSchneider and Kevin Kopelow were becoming less involved in the writing. As time went on, the popularity of ''All That'' declined and the show was cancelled.[[/note]] and even the musical guests throughout this season were pretty weak. This was the shortest season among the first six, with only 13 episodes. Afterwards, Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} temporarily canceled ''All That'' due to crew disputes and a general desire to move on. The next time that first-run episodes were produced two years later, it featured an entirely new cast.
29* ''Series/TheAmazingRace'':
30** Season 8 was a "Family Edition" which was utter crap, and even the production team later said that ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime but turned out badly. The intra-team drama invariably became parents yelling at kids, having children restricted international travel, teams of 4 also restricted international travel (as the show already requires a huge travel budget with teams of 2), the challenges had to be watered down for the families, and so on. The entirety of the race ended up taking place in [[UsefulNotes/NorthAmerica North]] and [[UsefulNotes/LatinAmerica Central]] America, and viewers watched families turning seemingly [[DysfunctionalFamily dysfunctional]] while being challenged to [[SarcasmMode such difficult tasks like pitching a tent in exotic Pennsylvania]]. Its main shining moment was the injection of UnfortunateImplications {{Narm}} of an African-American family having the surname of "Black" (leading to such captions as "Black Family: Last Place" with narration to match). Thankfully, Season 9 returned to the original format.
31** Season 15 had a whiny, mediocre cast full of pseudo-celebrities running on a subpar course. It did not help either that three teams essentially quit the race when they came up against something too difficult (which included such daunting tasks as going down a waterslide and unscrambling the name Franz). Not helping matters was that the fan favorite team, Zev & Justin, who’d been doing extremely well got put out early over a lost passport. This left the other top team, Meghan & Chayne, with no competition and they waltzed to a FlawlessVictory as one of three teams ever with an average placement under 2.0.
32** Season 24 is, perhaps, the most poorly produced season since they shed the EarlyInstallmentWeirdness. It was an All-Stars season with some truly baffling casting, including threepeaters at the expense of fan favorite teams. The editing was inexcusably poor for a show that had been on the air for [[LongRunners thirteen years]] which lead to almost everyone being unlikable. The course was also way too easy for a returnee season with excruciatingly tough tasks [[SarcasmMode like screwing and unscrewing lightbulbs]]. The travel route is also considered one of the worst in the show because it was boring with 5 Asian Legs and 6 European Legs. They visited several of the OnceASeason (or so) destinations like UsefulNotes/{{China}}, UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}, and the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdom UK]].
33* ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'':
34** Fans and critics are divided on whether the first season, ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryMurderHouse Murder House]]'', or the second season, ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryAsylum Asylum]]'', is better, but everyone agrees that they were both exceptional seasons of television. The third season, ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven Coven]]'', saw a noticeable decline in writing quality (common complaints included a lack of scariness and a disappointing ending), but it was still widely considered enjoyable and spawned some of the show's most enduring [[MemeticMutation memes]]. Plus, it was the first season with Creator/AngelaBassett and Creator/KathyBates, who both received critical acclaim. The rot only really came with the fourth and fifth seasons, ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryFreakShow Freak Show]]'' and ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryHotel Hotel]]''. ''Freak Show'' was universally panned by fans for its lack of plot, one-dimensional characters, and for randomly bringing in big-name guest stars that would [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter ultimately contribute nothing]]; to this day, it's an easy candidate for the show's worst season. ''Hotel'', meanwhile, was visually stylish and initially seen as a return to form, only for it to go off the rails later in the season.
35** From there, each new season is polarizing, though even those who don't like the newer seasons see them as better than ''Freak Show'', at least. ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryRoanoke Roanoke]]'' had an [[OddballInTheSeries unusual structure]] inspired by RealityTV and TrueCrime documentaries that puzzled many fans, with some proclaiming it to be among the show's best seasons and others ranking it among its worst. ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCult Cult]]'', also known as "the [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump Trump]] season" for its plot that was based around the 2016 US Presidential election, was likewise seen as either gutsy and urgent in its satire or [[{{Anvilicious}} heavy-handed]] and [[CluelessAesop flippant]] in such. Finally, ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryApocalypse Apocalypse]]'', a {{crossover}} featuring characters from several prior seasons, was liked for its ContinuityPorn but not so much for its own story being a mixed bag.
36* While ''Series/AncientAliens'' has always traditionally relied on heavy usage of InsaneTrollLogic and AllMythsAreTrue, early seasons kept the silliness down and generally kept to well-known conspiracy theories (Egyptians building stuff for aliens, for example). Latter seasons get into spiritual conspiracies (angels are aliens, God is an alien) and increasingly relied on tenuous BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy and ETGaveUsWiFi premises (aliens caused TheGreatFlood, UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, superheroes are based on aliens, GreekFire is alien tech, etc) for episodes, along with large amounts of rehashing episodes from earlier seasons.
37* ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow'' was [[FranchiseZombie supposed to end after five seasons, but it was eventually decided to continue with another three]], with the biggest change being the show going from black and white to color. Creator/DonKnotts (Barney) had already left the series by this point, leaving a noticeable void. Creator/AndyGriffith tried to fill the empty spot with newer characters, such as [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Barney-clone Deputy Warren Ferguson]] (Jack Burns) and Howard Sprague (Jack Dodson), which didn't work and led to falling ratings. On top of that, those seasons featured a clearly tired Andy Taylor (and an equally tired Griffith), and an ill Howard [=McNear=] (Floyd the barber).
38* ''Series/{{Angel}}'', much like ''Series/{{Buffy|TheVampireSlayer}}'', is subject to a lot of argument over this.
39** A minority of fans found Season 4 to be extremely hard-going, thanks to a [[BaitAndSwitchBoss Bait-and-Switch Villain]], a hefty portion of {{Squick}}, and the continually annoying {{Wangst}} of Connor. Summed up nicely by Gunn's description of the season thus far as "a supernatural soap-opera."
40** However, a sizeable minority of the fandom loved Season 4 above all others for being one long serial with constant plot momentum, providing new revelations and/or resolution for plot arcs dating back to ''Buffy'', and a subset of these were disappointed by the [[ExecutiveMeddling network-mandated]] episodic nature of much of Season 5.
41* ''Series/TheApprentice'':
42** The UsefulNotes/LosAngeles season. It would have been fine if the location was the ''only'' thing that changed, but in the face of steadily declining ratings, the show added a number of gimmicks. Viewers saw former viceroys Carolyn and George replaced by UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's children (granted, Carolyn had quit the show to focus on her own career and George had become TheGhost in the previous season due to his other work, but the replacement choices stunk of nepotism to many viewers). The show's focus shifting toward boardroom and interpersonal drama at the expense of the task (which generally got no more than ''ten minutes'' of screentime per episode), the week's losers having to live in tents, the winning Project Manager staying PM until a loss, said PM getting to sit in on boardroom elimination discussions, an entire team getting immunity for a week and as a result, the losing team being split into two groups that had to compete against each other, and the final challenge pitting two teams of two instead of just two finalists. This resulted in a winner that ''never served as Project Manager''. This led to poor ratings and a near-cancellation. Three "Celebrity" editions and dropping the aforementioned gimmicks kept the show afloat; the tenth season returned to regular folks, but ratings were even more dismal than the L.A. season, so Trump announced at the end of Season 10 the discontinued use of the original version and all subsequent seasons (11 onwards) would be in "Celebrity" format.
43** With the UK incarnation of the show, the second season tends to be seen as something of a SophomoreSlump, due to the generally poor quality of the candidates (with the notable exception of Ruth Badger). After that, many fans consider the show to have gradually gone downhill since Season 7 when the prize was changed from an actual job with Lord Sugar to an investment prize, which has led to many accusations that competent candidates are fired for tenuous reasons simply because Sugar doesn't find their proposed business appealing.
44* ''Series/AreYouBeingServed'': The more or less universal consensus is that the show took a major nose-dive at Series 8, only marginally recovering over the next two series. This was down to a number of reasons, including...
45** A lengthy gap after Series 7, during which the cast members became involved in other projects -- including a two-series SpinOff in which Mr. Humphries (still portrayed by Creator/JohnInman) was transferred without much explanation to an Australian department store called Bone Brothers.
46** The departure of Mr. Lucas, who was never seen or mentioned again; Creator/TrevorBannister left to pursue a theatre gig, and also felt that the show's humor was becoming stale and repetitive.
47** The replacement of Mr. Lucas by Mr. Spooner (Mike Berry), whose mean-spirited jabs towards the well-known characters were an unwelcome addition. His characterization would be toned down a fair bit after a while.
48** An attempt to replace the ailing Creator/HaroldBennett, who played Young Mr. Grace, by introducing his supposed older brother (played by the much younger Creator/KennethWaller). Waller's Old Mr. Grace proved to be an unlikeable character and a very pale comparison to his predecessor and was never seen again after the end of the season. Unfortunately, neither was Young Mr. Grace... Harold passed away during the run of the season, and the episode featuring the last appearances of both Grace Brothers ("Roots?") aired months after his death.
49** Increasingly desperate attempts to find a senior to replace Mr. Grainger. After losing Mr. Tebbs (Series 6) and Mr. Goldberg (Series 7), the series saw two new unmemorable seniors (Mr. Grossman and Mr. Klein) who lasted a mere four episodes apiece. Thankfully, Series 9 and 10 did away with the idea of having a third man in the Men's department, reducing the staff to only Mr. Humphries and Mr. Spooner.
50** Odd and offensive shifts in the show's humor -- "Roots?" is notorious for featuring the cast in a blackface routine (thus preventing it from airing on many Creator/{{PBS}} stations), and "The Erotic Dreams of Mrs. Slocombe" features not only a heavy-handed storyline about Mrs. Slocombe's alcoholism but a completely out-of-character ending in which a horny Mr. Humphries suddenly wrestles Miss Brahms to the floor.
51* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' had a weaker story arc involving Creator/CharlizeTheron in early Season 3. Acknowledged by the creators in the episode "[=SOBs=]":
52-->'''George Sr.:''' Hey, we can have some celebrities in. [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Oscar]] winners, like Creator/NicoleKidman...\
53'''Michael:''' [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall 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?]]
54** Part of the reason Season 3 suffered was having only 13 episodes (Season 1 had 22 and Season 2 had 18), so many plot points were rushed. This could be why George was put under house arrest with no explanation for why he didn't get sent back to jail.
55** Season 4 caused a bit of a BrokenBase. Some people thought it was so bad the show should have stayed canceled. Some thought it was good, if not the best season, [[SoOkayItsAverage while others didn't care much for it and thought it was okay]]. This is in part due to changes in format. [[TooBleakStoppedCaring Some people also felt all the main characters became too unsympathetic in it]].
56** Season 5 was almost just as poorly received, since the humor still didn't feel as fresh as the first three seasons, and most of the loose ends left by Season 4 took forever to resolve.
57* ''Franchise/{{Arrowverse}}'':
58** ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': In general, the show had a mixed reception since the universally-acclaimed Seasons 1 and 2. Seasons 3 and 5 were good but not as good as those two. Season 7 was passable. Seasons 4 and 6 were when the rot really took hold. Season 8 was agreed as being the same level of good as the first two seasons, but alas, it's also the show's final season.
59*** Season 3 is seen by many to be a comedown after the near-universally praised season 2 left a ToughActToFollow. While it was praised for providing previously disliked characters such as [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap Laurel and Thea some much-needed development]], it was also derided for excessive flashbacks, an [[RomanticPlotTumor increased focus on Oliver and Felicity's relationship]] (what made their relationship so refreshing early on was just how angst-free it was), underwritten plot points (such as Oliver becoming Ra's al Ghul's apprentice and then revealing in the very next episode that it was all an act), and the removal of fan favorite characters Sara and, later on, Roy. Ra's al Ghul was also seen as a less compelling villain than Deathstroke due to his general lack of motivation and development, which led to a finale that was viewed as anticlimactic and formulaic. Compared to the unholy rot that happened in later seasons, though, it was [[VindicatedByHistory retroactively considered a good season]] (though not Season 2 good).
60*** Season 4, goodness. [[CriticalDissonance Critics as a whole still liked it]]. The fans, however, considered it the moment when the series really sank to the lowest depths. While it did make some notable improvements to Season 3, such as providing a more compelling villain with Damien Darhk, changing the status quo for its cast, and giving compelling story arcs to characters such as Diggle and Thea, it was also criticized for [[RomanticPlotTumor further dragging out the Oliver/Felicity angst]], which led to Felicity going from the series' EnsembleDarkhorse to the show's [[CreatorsPet most overused character]]. Like Season 3, the second half is said to have lost momentum, as the show once again indulged in poorly-integrated flashback sequences and introduced a contrived and easily resolved nuclear apocalypse threat, not to mention suffered from deteriorating fight choreography. The season finale, ''Schism'', had ended the season on a sour note, with some going so far as to call it one of the series' worst episodes. Season 4 was so derided, in fact, that when the show's star Stephen Amell [[http://comicbook.com/dc/2017/09/17/arrow-seasons-ranked-stephen-amell/ had to rank the show's seasons]] from best to worst he did ''not even include'' Season 4 in his list. Even the series' fiercest and most loyal defenders agree that Season 4 was, and is, the worst.
61*** After managing to WinBackTheCrowd with the acclaimed Season 5, Season 6 unfortunately dropped the ball again. For starters, it opened with the reveal that [[CliffhangerCopout the entirety of Team Arrow survived the supposedly]] TotalPartyKill [[CliffhangerCopout of the Season 5 finale]]. Other criticisms are too much focus on Oliver's son William who doesn't serve much purpose other than to distract Oliver from his duty in keeping the city safe, Deathstroke being PutOnABus due to the embargo imposed by Creator/WarnerBros, and polarizing villains in the form of Cayden James, and later Ricardo Diaz, who simply don't have the menace or charisma that Prometheus had (though Diaz was seen as better than James). The New Recruits sank into unpopularity by breaking off from Team Arrow and forming their own team and acting like petulant brats any time they have to work with their own comrades. The whole schism arc, which consumed the second half of the season, was seen by some as dragging past its welcome. The finale was also polarizing: while it did effectively shake things up with the death of Quentin Lance and Oliver being arrested after revealing his identity to the FBI, it had a number of controversial elements (the most prominent being [[KarmaHoudini Diaz getting away scot-free]]. However, others thought this was a brilliant idea, as it set up anticipation for the next season instead of introducing a villain from whole-cloth). Season 6 was so negatively received that it was announced that Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle would not be showrunners for Season 7; Mericle left the franchise completely while Guggenheim was KickedUpstairs to the role of "executive consultant".
62*** Season 7 was considerably better than the previous in some aspects, but it was derided for its main villain, Emiko Queen, who was bland even compared to Cayden James. The finale also drew mixed reception, with some feeling that it's too rushed.
63** ''Series/TheFlash2014'':
64*** When it first aired, Season 2 was [[ToughActToFollow not as well-received as the previous one.]] There are several reasons for this: accusations that Zoom is too similar to the Reverse-Flash to stand out on his own as a BigBad; him being a SpotlightStealingSquad as most of the metahumans this season have been his lackeys at the expense of the Rogues (all of whom have been PutOnABus), while other fan favorites like the Trickster and Grodd were used pretty quickly in the first half; the big reveal of Zoom's identity causing some pacing issues; the way the main characters have been forced to act like idiots to justify Zoom's threat; Barry's romance with Patty being seen as a RomanticPlotTumor for those who didn't care for them while she was never properly used as Joe's new police partner because she was always kept LockedOutOfTheLoop before she was quietly written out. But the final straw for many was Zoom's plan to conquer Central City, which was seen as a blatant copy of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', since many a villain on that show has tried to conquer Star(ling) City. Regardless of its problems, this was seen by many as the best Arrowverse season during 2015-2016, and, in light of the rot of the following seasons, [[VindicatedByHistory has been vindicated by the fans]].
65*** Season 3 garnered mixed reception. Detractors felt tired of the BigBad being [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks another evil speedster]], too many filler episodes, excessive focus on [[RomanticPlotTumor many romantic plots]], Savitar's goal not being enough to sustain a big bad and the fan perception that Barry just hadn't grown as a hero at all, with him seemingly being unable to dodge attacks he should easily be able to and relying on his STAR Labs crew to win his battles for him.
66*** Like ''Arrow'', Season 4 was considered the series' worst, ranging for its mishandling the team characters even more, still developing characters at the expense of at least another one, the action being lacking, an overcompensating use of comedy, the [[ArcFatigue long time of teasing plot twists]] for its own sake, its poor arc writing, a villain whose strategic skills seem unconvincing and lacking, and a plot disconnected from the BigBad.
67*** Season 5 was considered better than 4, but it still broke the fanbase. [[KidFromTheFuture Nora West-Allen]] was seen as annoying in some aspects and the villain, Cicada, was simply not likeable. Thankfully, the return of [[EnsembleDarkhorse Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash]] in the second half of the season saved it from really collapsing down.
68*** Season 6 tends to be a bit more divisive (with highlights given to Bloodwork as a villain and introducing Chester P. Runk as a main character, but the low point being the Mirrorverse Plot dragging out for so long), but it's almost nothing compared to the vitriol Season 7 got. That season wound up introducing not one, but two [[TheScrappy Scrappies]] (Chillblaine and Kramer) that didn't sit well with fans for being nothing more than eye-candy for Killer Frost and UnintentionallyUnsympathetic respectively (which only got worse when both were confirmed for Season 8), the plots involving the Forces and Godspeed wound up falling flat by the end, half the villains in the show are defeated by a RousingSpeech and ThePowerOfLove (which comes off as far too silly), and the CGI wound up being far worse this season than usual.
69*** Season 8 was considered an improvement to Season 7, which is considered the worst season, however the Armageddon crossover received criticism for not utilizing The Reverse-Flash more but the villains, such as Deathstorm and The Negative Forces were well received.
70** ''Series/Supergirl2015'':
71*** Season 2 is criticized for being infected with {{Romantic Plot Tumor}}s, several {{Plot Detour}}s, messy plot threads, unclear antagonist(s), and BaseBreakingCharacter Mon-El. Additionally, after J'onn was set up as the WorldsBestWarrior, "the most dangerous man on Earth," he was constantly subjected to TheWorfEffect, which only got worse in season 3.
72*** Season 3 got its first half well-received, developing more Kara and Alex, as well as the new and tragic villain Reign. Unfortunately, the behind-the-scenes mess following the dismissal of showrunner Andrew Kreisberg (due to dozens of sexual harassment charges) influenced the second half of the season, which was once again heavily criticized because of an excessive focus on RomanticPlotTumor and TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter.
73*** In spite of Season 4 winning back the audience, the immediate Season 5 was considered a letdown for many reasons, not in the least of which included yet ''another'' RomanticPlotTumor between Kara and newcomer William Dey (who wound up becoming TheScrappy for his creepy behavior), sending Lena, a relatively well-liked character, down the FaceHeelTurn path and focusing too much on the conflict between her and Kara in the wake of this (which went on for several episodes with Kara not finding out), while the rest of the show's cast was given far less focus. It didn't help that the message of the season (relying too much on technology) fell flat almost out of the gate when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, leaving many folks stuck at home needing to use said technology more often.
74** Unlike other shows in the franchise, ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' has a consistent track record of good seasons. Nevertheless, Season 4 is considered the weakest since the first (though not bad). There are several reasons for this: the much-maligned awkward and forced romance between Zari and Nate which took the focus of several episodes (not helped by the fact that Zari actually has some pretty good chemistry with newcomer Charlie), too much focus on the Time Bureau employees at the expense of the Legends, ''especially'' Constantine, the new character Mona quickly becoming TheScrappy (something that the series had managed to avoid since the first season), the writers constantly changing their mind at the last minute (like turning Hank into a JerkWithAHeartOfGold despite several episodes of setting him up as the antagonist which was their original plan), and a rather underwhelming finale which fans might've forgiven had Zari not gets {{Ret Gone}}d and replaced by her brother. In response, Season 5 wrote Mona out as a main character, and the Time Bureau was dissolved, while Zari's absence is a subplot of the season. The main story arc of Season 5, finding the pieces of the Looms of Fate got some criticism for being similar to Season 2 story arc of finding the pieces of the Spear of Destiny. Also, Zari Tarazi (Zari 2.0) was divisive compared to the original Zari who was PutOnABus. Seasons 6 and 7 were considered major improvements, particularly Season 6.
75* ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'' experienced this when Creator/DianaRigg chose to leave the show, forcing fan-favourite Emma Peel having to be replaced with Tara King. The sixth season was a huge TroubledProduction and failed in America with ratings. An attempt at reviving the show (without Rigg again) failed too.
76* Season 5 of ''Series/TheATeam'' had this, with the A-Team being caught and forced to work for the government (and most closely with Creator/RobertVaughn), and then with the addition of [[TheScrappy Frankie Santana]], an annoying mechanic who added nothing but minimized B. A.'s role. Even the opening theme got messed with--they did away with the opening monologue altogether and changed the theme's sound from orchestral/electric guitars to an almost entirely synthesized remix. This unfortunately led to the series's cancellation.
77** Season 4 was really the beginning of the end. After the first three strongly-rated seasons, a major shift began to occur in Season 4, which relied heavily on guest stars and ratcheting up the camp (even for an admittedly campy show). On top of that, the show suffered serious production problems during Season 4. Finally, mercurial lead actor Creator/GeorgePeppard and breakout star Creator/MrT began to have serious problems with each other (which caused the aforementioned re-tool, and casting of Creator/RobertVaughn, a friend of Peppard's, who it was thought would calm the waters).
78* It was the fear of this that caused Danny Arnold to end ''Series/BarneyMiller'' after season 8. As this article describes this is a point well after many series had begun their rots.
79* ''Series/{{Bunkd}}'': Fans will agree that the show gone downhill after season 3 when The Ross Kids left.
80* ''Series/BabylonFive'': The consensus is that the fifth and final season suffered this badly, particularly during the "Telepath Colony" arc, which suffered from being [[ArcFatigue overlong]] and centering around a new character widely considered to be [[TheScrappy dull and uncharismatic]]. The "overlong" part was mainly due to the show's potential cancellation at the end of the fourth season, which caused many plot arcs destined for the fifth season to be crammed in early, leaving relatively little for the last season to work with. To a lesser degree, Season 4 gets this as well, also due to the plot cramming, which caused weird pacing issues.
81* The Creator/HiTEntertainment era (2002-2010) of ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' provides quite a few points of contention for folks who grew up on the Lyrick Studios era (1992-2000), from [[TheOtherDarrin Dean Wendt's portrayal]] of Barney and the park set to the more conflict-driven plots and Riff's introduction.
82* ''Series/{{Batman|1966}}'', despite the stereotype, had a fairly good balance of drama and farce in its first season. The subsequent seasons lost it, with Season 2 becoming primarily ridiculous while Season 3 was both embarrassingly cheap and ridiculous. The first season, even when being an AffectionateParody of the Superhero genre, was more of a DeconstructiveParody where AnyoneCanDie, the villains were intelligent and the BigBudgetBeefUp could afford SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome that were seen in ''Film/BatmanTheMovie''. The second season exaggerates the parody and becomes an IndecisiveParody, the villains suffered {{Flanderization}}, EverybodyLives and the budget is lower, giving place to {{Bottle Episode}}s that break the rule of ShowDontTell, there were [[SpecialEffectFailure bad special effects]] and {{Stock Footage Failure}}s. The third season was the worst: the {{Flanderization}} is at its fullest, creating a StealthParody or a RedundantParody, there were almost NoBudget, an episode with [[InvisibleMonsters Invisible Villains]] and not even the inclusion of Batgirl as MsFanservice could save the ratings.
83* ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'':
84** ''Series/Galactica1980'' suffers from this in spades, assuming you count it as the second season of ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978''.[[note]](Most DVD releases of ''1980'' just promote it as a second season of ''BSG'', and the episodes outside of the three-part premiere go by "''Battlestar Galactica''" instead of "''Galactica 1980''")[[/note]] The show was forced to pander to kids far more due to its time slot, resulting in an overly juvenile feel to the stories, many of the characters from the original show are implied to have been victims of a BusCrash, and the heavily-slashed budget is evident throughout.
85** As far as ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' goes, the miniseries and Season 1 are both generally regarded as awesome, and Season 2 is also well-liked despite a couple of patchy episodes in the second half of the season. However, Season 3 is considered to quickly run out of steam after the New Caprica arc wraps up (albeit the two-part finale was well-received), Season 4 is regarded as pretty forgettable, and Season 4.5, outside of the coup storyline, is just seen as a nonsensical mess that completely fails to wrap up the show's storyline. Unusually, most of the individual episodes in the final seasons are actually pretty well-regarded in and of themselves, with the major criticisms being more around the overall story arc (or lack thereof).
86* The British children's series ''Series/BernardsWatch'' started out as just a simple series about a boy with a magic watch that could freeze time, which he used to fix various problems he ran into. But [[UnCanceled post-revival]], the show focused mainly on Bernard's misadventures in school, and the series seemed to gain some kind of misogynistic agenda, as now all of Bernard's problems were caused by the AlphaBitch who was constantly bullying him and his teacher who [[DoesNotLikeMen hates boys]] and gives special treatment to girls (especially AlphaBitch).
87* ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'' is the TropeNamer for TheOtherDarrin, and many people agree that the series went downhill when Dick Sargent took over. The birth of Adam is also a potential cause of this.
88* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''. While there are plenty of fans who think 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 the "nerdy" elements and more on relationships, and taking away aspects from the characters that many people loved.
89* ''Series/BigBrother'' [[UsefulNotes/UnitedStates U.S.]]
90** Fan opinion is that Seasons 2-7 were the show's best seasons, and rot set in at Season 8 when Arnold Shapiro left the show and Allison Grodner took over as the main executive producer. While several seasons are still well-received, fans of the earlier seasons complain that the complex house dynamics were thrown away in favor of a simpler "good vs evil" storytelling each season, and an increased emphasis on romances in the house (this was in part due to the popularity of the Boogie/Erika and Will/Janelle "showmances" on Season 7. Ironically, both of these men started the relationships for strategic reasons and coined the term "showmance" to refer to a fake romance for the show. Later seasons ignored this and now "showmance" is mainly used in a sincere way). Season 9 in particular was poorly received, due to a hastily put together cast of JerkAss eye candy (two of whom were later arrested for selling prescription drugs, one of whom as ''the winner''), and a twist that was meant to prompt the couples into romantic relationships, but was ended a few weeks in after it kept getting the likeable people evicted due to the actions of their partners.
91** Season 13: Following in the wake of ''Series/{{Survivor}}: Redemption Island'', practically ''half'' the cast was made up of returnees, the worst editing this side of Redemption Island giving the [[CreatorsPet Producer's Pet]] over 95% of the screentime, the new contestants being edited as a LivingProp, Rachel Reiley [[{{Wangst}} being unable to go even so much as three days without having some kind of mental breakdown]], Evel Dick having a NonGameplayElimination before the feeds were even up, any bit of drama shaking up the status quo in the house quickly being nullified by [[ExecutiveMeddling blatantly contrived twists and safeguards]], and almost every one of the returnees sans Danielle and Jordan being [[EntitledBastard entitled bastards claiming they deserved to win because they were the only ones playing the game]]. It was so bad that several of those people who've applied for years didn't apply the following year... which ''almost'' redeemed it despite the obvious ExecutiveMeddling (if only because the ExecutiveMeddling ''failed'' to give a CreatorsPet the win like it did in 2011.)
92** After the success of Season 14, the show re-entered a slump with the following 2 seasons. Season 15 was disliked for again having a cast mainly composed of {{Jerk Ass}}es, the MVP twist favoring Elissa for the first 3 weeks, and a scandal breaking out nationally due to racist comments made by ''many'' of the houseguests (Aaryn, largely responsible for the majority of the comments, actually became the first person to be booed while leaving the house). Season 16 suffered from having a much blander cast than previous seasons (largely due to the producers wanting to play it safe after the controversy of Season 15), an 8-person alliance forming in the first week that turned the rest of the season into a CurbStompBattle that was boring to watch, the now-unpopular Battle of the Block twist making it even easier for said 8-person alliance to stay in power, the majority of the cast being TheLoad, and having one of the biggest {{Attention Whore}}s in the history of the show in the form of Frankie Grande.
93*** Thankfully, Season 17 has been met with much more positive reception, due to a more interesting, likeable cast and all twists ending before jury, resulting in more moments of enjoyable gameplay rather than ExecutiveMeddling or gimmicky twists.
94** The two seasons following ''Big Brother 17'' saw another downward turn for the series. ''Big Brother 18'', while not hated, was largely seen as SoOkayItsAverage: there were likeable heroes and unlikable villains, but no true standout players or memorable moments. Combine that with a number of unpopular production moves such as the casting of both new and returning players, and a ''very'' large amount of twists, and you have a season that generally ranks on the lower end of season ranking lists. ''Big Brother 19'', on the other hand, almost immediately shot past 9, 13, and 15 in the "worst seasons" discussion thanks to one individual: [[CreatorsPet Paul Abrahamian]]. Within the first week of the game, he entered as a twist, having been a BaseBreakingCharacter on the previous season, kicked an {{Adorkable}} guy out on day one, and was granted [[ExecutiveMeddling three weeks of immunity]]. The rest of the season played out roughly as follows: The entire house worshiped Paul as a God, with anyone who dared go against him almost immediately getting evicted. Those other houseguests were also a collection of the most emotionally unstable, manipulative [[JerkAss Jerk Asses]] to ever be on the show, with the season's two "heroes", Jess and Cody, being just as confrontational and unlikeable. You know there's a problem with your season when ''bullying a veteran to try and trigger their PTSD'' is an accepted social strategy, and it happened ''twice''.
95*** In the midst of some unfortunate moments for the main series, US ''Big Brother'' still saw success with two of its SpinOff shows: ''Over the Top'' and the first season of ''Celebrity Big Brother''. Over the Top, while it had its share of good and bad moments, was overall well-received for its smaller scope and shorter length, as well as for the interesting always-on live feed approach (especially the universally loved live Diary Rooms). ''Celebrity Big Brother 1'' received similar praise for being a more contained yet more well-executed version of the main show: It saw several contestants quitting or otherwise asking to be evicted, but had several game players, and the older cast was seen as a refreshing change of pace from the increasingly-younger casts of the main show.
96** Season 22 is another contender for many people's least favorite season. While hopes were initially high due to it being the show's first All Stars season since 2006, the season saw many fan favorites be evicted in the first few weeks and a dominant alliance made of bland and unlikeable players form which proceeded to control ''every single eviction'' throughout the season. Many have complained that the season felt like the equivalent of watching paint dry, and the format of the twists throughout the season seemed to stifle drama: many were excited to watch the fallout of the majority alliance finally turning on IceQueen Dani, only for a poorly-timed triple eviction leading to her being nominated and evicted in the span of an hour.
97* The [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdom UK]] version of ''Big Brother'' isn't immune from this either with fans generally placing the Seasonal Rot sometime either from series 8 onwards (thanks to uneven casting, bad twists, and polarising production decisions such as Emily Carr's ejection) or from Series 12 onwards (thanks to the show moving to Creator/Channel5 and an over-reliance on casting younger and more polarising housemates, most notably Helen in Season 15/16).
98* The Usefulnotes/{{Brazil}}ian ''Big Brother'' also suffered from this, with many claiming the rot starting with Series 12, but everyone agreeing the latter half of TheNewTens was where the show is starting to overstay its welcome, with 19 having the lowest overall ratings. Things reversed in 20, which along with the UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic bringing viewers back had the audience getting attached to its diverse cast of mostly subcelebrities, and 21 was also well-liked. 22 then went back into a dip, with viewers frequently complaining on how boring it was compared to the previous two.
99* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': As legendary as the series finale is, Season 4 is widely considered to be by ''far'' the show's weakest season due to the [[spoiler:loss of the Liberator, Cally getting a [[DroppedABridgeOnHim bridge dropped on her]] and being replaced by the much less memorable Soolin]], the plot of ''every'' episode being [[spoiler:"The crew try to find something with which to fight the Federation, and don't get it,"]] and the episodes in the first half of the season just being generally very poor due to the hasty re-commissioning of the series.
100* Season 3 of ''Series/BlueMountainState''. We never get a full explanation as to what happened to Radon Randell, Thad alternates between being a {{Jerkass}}, a prima donna, a nutball, and a good guy throughout the season, Alex flip flops between his lazy self and a changed man, Coach Daniels isn't as funny as he was, the new coach starts off as a JerkAss before inexplicably doing a heel face turn, Mary Jo becomes a lesbian, and Sammy, poor Sammy. He goes from being a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} to a total dumbass (part of it has to do with the fact that he hasn't registered for classes since his first semester of freshman year.) Add the fact that the team nearly got the death penalty and Marty, Thad, Alex, and the remaining main Guys are set to leave and an actual game of football was played in the final episode killed any and all renewal hopes.
101* ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'': Season 7 had a few good episodes and some very memorable moments (i.e. "Playswithsquirrels"), but it was not very good overall. It had many [[DenserAndWackier wacky and cartoonish]] plotlines that didn't fit with the series, tons of MoodWhiplash between the wacky plotlines and serious plotlines, {{Flanderization}} up the wazoo, especially with Eric who went from being ditzy to being borderline psychotic, and just not as many laughs to be had. Fortunately, this was the final season and the finale ended the series on a good note.
102* Although not divided into "seasons" as such, many fans felt UK soap ''Series/{{Brookside}}'' declined rapidly from around 2000 until its eventual cancellation in 2003. The show went from being a thrice-weekly staple of Creator/Channel4, showcasing some of the most controversial storylines of its day, to a Saturday afternoon slot with stories as mundane as Alan trying to give up smoking, in a ham-fisted attempt to reverse the SequelEscalation in plots since the series' mid-90s heyday. Viewing figures declined in tandem with the storylines.
103* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' is widely agreed that there was Seasonal Rot but less clear which season it was:
104** Season 4 is a popular candidate, losing the high school element and most of the popular characters, with Angel and Cordelia having disappeared off onto another show and Xander and Giles DemotedToExtra. Buffy's relationship with Riley was not well received and the introduction of a demon-hunting military unit was too much of a departure from the show's norm. The season also took far too long to get to the point, waiting until over halfway through before introducing BigBad Adam and then hardly doing anything with him (only his first full episode and the two-parter that wrapped up his storyline give him any real screen time, with the intervening episodes trying to keep the arc moving by having characters go [[NonSequitur "We must do something to stop Adam" while confronting unrelated problems]]), leaving it feeling rather directionless at times. Main plus points were Spike's emerging EnsembleDarkhorse status, the return of Faith in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E15ThisYearsGirl This Year's Girl]][=/=][[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E16WhoAreYou Who Are You?]] ", and a few decent individual episodes like "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E4FearItself Fear Itself]]", "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E10Hush Hush]]" and "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E22Restless Restless]]".
105** Season 6 in particular is a case of divisiveness; many revile it for levels of gloom bordering on {{Wangst}}, the pathetic-ness of the Trio of as BigBad, plot elements such as the widely-detested "[[{{Anvilicious}} magic]] [[DrugsAreBad addiction]]" arc and an inconsistently written romance between Buffy and Spike, while some praise it for the attempts at emotional depth and character development, a change of pace from the relentless SortingAlgorithmOfEvil, and individually beloved episodes like "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E7OnceMoreWithFeeling Once More, With Feeling]]" and "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E8TabulaRasa Tabula Rasa]]". Lampshaded in this scene:
106--->'''Buffy''': Giles, everything's just been so... Xander left Anya at the altar, and Anya's a vengeance demon again... Dawn's a total klepto... money's been so tight that I've been slinging burgers at the Doublemeat Palace... And I've been sleeping with Spike.\
107''Giles starts to laugh''
108*** A minority praise Season 6, though it does seem to be more common among younger viewers who in some cases did not watch the show when it aired. Many people forget today how vilified Season 6 was at the time, especially on TV discussion boards and forums. It reached a point where Creator/JossWhedon had to personally come out and speak about it, saying that he completely understood WHY people reacted so unfavorably towards it.
109** Season 7 likewise gets a lot of flak when compared to what came before. While it doesn't have as much in it that ''angered'' fans like Season 6 did (what with the dissolution of Xander/Anya, Willow's addiction to magic, and the near-rape of Buffy), it also lacks a lot of the highs that Season 6 managed ("Once More, With Feeling", "Tabula Rasa", the final arc with Willow's HeelFaceTurn). Season 7's greatest offering is "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E7ConversationsWithDeadPeople Conversations With Dead People]]", but other than that, the entire run of episodes is spent preparing for a fight with the BigBad. This provides the season with a lot of weariness, as there are far fewer lighthearted episodes to offer levity, and the BigBad itself was rather uninteresting (being little more than an incarnation of evil). Its [[TheDragon Dragon]] Caleb had potential but is introduced far too late and killed off far too quickly to be among the show's most memorable villains. The Potentials had a mixed reaction: Individual characters were liked by some and hated by others, but either way giving Buffy a mostly non-speaking RedShirtArmy resulted in long-standing characters being pushed to the sidelines. There are, however, a number of decent episodes like "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E3SameTimeSamePlace Same Time, Same Place]]", "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E14FirstDate First Date]]" and the Spike character piece "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E17LiesMyParentsToldMe Lies My Parents Told Me]]".
110* ''Series/BurnNotice'', from Season 5 onwards, can be considered a case of this. Insistence on StatusQuoIsGod and new, much less interesting villains introduced in DeusExMachina ways (particularly Anson) while old ones are [[DroppedABridgeOnHim unceremoniously killed off]] or [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse never heard from again]] are the main problems. There's also the ludicrously complex villain storylines, of who's working with whom for what purpose, who's been betrayed, etc.
111* ''Series/{{Californication}}'' first began to slip in season 3, which went off on a wacky tangent of making Hank a schoolteacher, but then made a recovery in season 4 as it finally resolved all long-running plot arcs from the beginning of the show and tied things off with a very well-received SeriesFauxnale. Seasons 5 and 6 were less well received as they turned the series increasingly DenserAndWackier. But the rot had definitely set in by season 7: the show became painfully unfunny, introduced the truly loathsome character of Levon, and had strung along the RelationshipRevolvingDoor dance between Hank and Karen for so long that audiences just stopped caring if they would end up together or apart.
112* ''Series/{{Castle|2009}}'':
113** Many fans have argued that Seasons 3 or 4 have experienced this, with the most common reason given being that Castle and Beckett's developing chemistry and relationship, a highlight of the first two seasons, has suffered through numerous ham-fisted attempts to string out the WillTheyOrWontThey factor by introducing various third-wheel love-interests, angsty 'roadblocks', and an increased emphasis on the conspiracy plot behind Beckett's mother's murder. Many also argue that Beckett has been gradually {{chickifi|cation}}ed into a FauxActionGirl as well.
114** An in-universe example of this trope -- according to the interview in the real-life Nikki Heat novel ''Heat Wave'' -- is why Castle killed off Derrick Storm before the start of the show. According to him, he'd grown to know the character too well and couldn't think up any surprises, so he had Derrick go out with a bang rather than inflict "the slow death of literary mediocrity".
115** Season 6 and especially Season 7 have seen deep fractures of the base and a certain level of agreement that seasonal rot has set in. Increasingly absurd plots, failures to tie up arcs, and generally inconsistent characterization have all contributed. A good deal of the base seems to think the [[spoiler: Season 6 finale and Castle's disappearance]] was the marker of a show that has descended from quirky and clever crime-dramedy into soap opera. Other complaints include Castle's {{Flanderization}} from savvy layman detective who had a variety of skills including (crude but effective) hand-to-hand combat, expert marksmanship, and intuitive profiling of criminals, into dim-witted conspiracy theorist who seems incapable of finding his way out of a paper bag without equally-flanderized ActionGirl Beckett to bail him out.
116** Coinciding with a change in showrunners, Season 8 was widely derided by many fans for a plot that undid the character and plot developments of the previous seasons just to rehash well-trodden ground about Beckett pushing Castle away to investigate the sinister conspiracy behind her mother's murder all by herself, despite the fact that this plot had been well and truly resolved two seasons earlier.
117* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' fans are divided on where the show started to go downhill.
118** The second season is viewed as the weakest of the Prue era. It features a sudden GenreShift that downplays the magic elements and focuses on the sisters' personal drama - with the season's only arc being a love triangle between Piper, Leo, and Dan. Given that Leo was the more interesting character, it was obvious that Piper would eventually pick him. But [[ArcFatigue it was stretched out over nearly all the season]]. Dan was unsurprisingly written out at the end of the season, and Constance M. Burge regretted having the love triangle dominate like that. Uniquely for this trope, it's felt to have picked up steam towards the end, as the next two seasons are considered [[GrowingTheBeard the show's peak]].
119** Season 5 is despised by a lot of fans. After strong arc-based storylines in Seasons 3 and 4, the episodes in Season 5 were mostly standalone (aside from Piper's pregnancy). Some fans also found the tonal shift to be too jarring - as this season introduced a lot more overt fantasy elements - such as mermaids, leprechauns and wood nymphs. This was also around the time Creator/TheWB really started pushing for {{Fanservice}} - resulting in lots of episodes marketed around the fact that they would require a CuteMonsterGirl for one of the actresses (usually Creator/AlyssaMilano). Phoebe also TookALevelInJerkass and fans were annoyed at how her storyline with Cole was treated. Guest stars playing villains also became much hammier and impossible to take seriously. Like Season 2 however, it does have a number of well-received standalone episodes, appreciation for higher production values and some NarmCharm for those who found the sillier aspects part of the show's appeal.
120** Season 6 is divisive, as it features some of the similar tonal storylines as Season 5 - but they were essentially [[NarmCharm less fun]]. The season's arc also had to be rewritten to account for Creator/HollyMarieCombs' pregnancy, leading to a lot of unanswered questions and clumsy explanations. This was also the season that brought about many of the show's infamous continuity errors. However, it's often compared favorably to Season 5 because of its greater emphasis on arcs, fan-favorite Chris, and an epic two-part finale.
121** Season 8 is a mild example, as it was a PostScriptSeason. General consensus is that the storylines and overall episode quality was fine, but the network slashed the budget and demanded loads of new faces. Darryl was written out completely, and Leo had to be PutOnABus for ten episodes - while a new character Billie was introduced, to [[TheScrappy negative fan reactions]]. But it introduced a very likable end game love interest for Paige, gave Phoebe some needed CharacterRerailment, and the resulting arc towards the end of the season is considered to have ended the show on a high note.
122* ''Series/ElChavoDelOcho'': Everyone who knows of this show agrees that the departures of Carlos Villagrán (Quico) and Ramón Valdez (Don Ramón) hurt the quality pretty bad (along with the RecycledScript abuse and the SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitutes that became Popis and Ñoño for Quico, and Jaimito el Cartero for Don Ramón). Even nowadays, most reruns on TV tend to avoid the episodes of the post-1978 seasons precisely because of that.
123* ''[[Series/Chef1993 Chef!]]'' ran three series in the early '90s. The first two are sharp, witty, and a wonderful vehicle for Creator/LennyHenry. The third series... it's almost impossible to believe it is the same show.
124* ''Series/ChicoAndTheMan'': While the show was still decent by the middle of the third season, Freddie Prinze's drug use and depression was affecting the quality of his acting. His last few episodes show him looking frail and dazed and his performances were more forced and less genuine. He sadly took his own life in January of 1977, before the third season was finished. While the remaining season three episodes did relatively well with other characters picking up the slack, the show ultimately slipped even further in the fourth season. Though they tried to fill the void left by Prinze by bringing on 12-year-old Gabriel Meglar to play "Raul", an orphaned boy Ed eventually adopted, the show was unable to regain the magic it had without the chemistry between Prinze and Jack Albertson. The show was eventually canned in early 1978, with the remaining episodes being burned off later that summer.
125* ''Series/ChikyuuSentaiFiveman'' was the first Sentai series to really suffer from this, and it [[FranchiseKiller almost proved fatal]] -- [[http://tokusatsunetwork.com/2016/06/fact-checked-did-carranger-save-sentai/ as noted here]], the series was seen as very stale amongst fans, and ratings were some of the worst at the time[[note]]''Flashman'', the 4th highest rated Sentai, had average ratings of 12.29%; ''Fiveman'' had average ratings of 6.49%[[/note]]. The staleness was attributed to head writer Hirohisa Soda, who had been in charge since ''Series/DaiSentaiGoggleFive'', having seemingly been burned out[[note]]although some fans would argue that it began with ''Series/KousokuSentaiTurboranger'', it's generally agreed that he was fully burned out by the time of ''Fiveman''[[/note]] by the time he began writing ''Fiveman''. Low ratings, in combination with poor toy sales, would have led Creator/{{Toei|Company}} to pull the plug on the franchise...had it not been for the success of the next series, ''Series/ChoujinSentaiJetman''[[note]]although later series would end up having lower ratings -- most notably ''Ohranger'' -- toy sales in those series have generally offset the low ratings[[/note]].
126* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'':
127** Whether the show decreased in quality in between Seasons 2 and 3 is up for debate, but season 4 is regarded as a large step down by both fans and critics. This was because both seasons started out with thirteen episode orders and a sense that the show's perpetually low ratings would force it into cancellation, thus necessitating the writers to write episode 13 of each year as a potential series finale. But then, the show would inevitably get an extension from that original order due to its ratings being "good enough" amid the endless ratings bloodbath at NBC, thereby forcing the writers to somehow extend a season arc that had already (and in season four in particular, hastily) been wrapped. Season four in particular was rough on this, given that it was extended ELEVEN EPISODES from that original thirteen-episode order, forcing the writers to do several standalones (albeit ones that were received rather well by the fanbase) between the end of the Alexei Volkoff arc and the beginning of the Vivian Volkoff arc. Vivian's arc in particular suffered from poorer character development than Alexei's and the perception that Lauren Cohan wasn't enjoying herself in the role as much as Timothy Dalton was. This latter point got to the extent that both Dalton and Ray Wise had no problems at all upstaging Cohan onscreen despite Vivian supposedly being the driving force of the second-half arc (until the focus whiplashed back to Alexei after it was revealed that [[spoiler: his entire persona was a creation of an old version of the Intersect that had gone haywire and submerged his original persona, Hartley Winterbottom]]).
128** The mass writer exodus during and after Season 3 (Matt Miller and Zev Borow went to ''Series/HumanTarget'', Scott Rosenbaum to the ''Series/{{V|2009}}'' remake, Alison Adler to ''Series/NoOrdinaryFamily'' and Phil Klemmer to ''Series/{{Undercovers}}'') certainly didn't help, given that all of these departures were veterans of the original staff, who had helped shape the show in a very particular way up to that point.
129** Season 5's plot seemed to be about how nothing that had happened in the series (FULCRUM, The Ring, Shaw, etc.) was a coincidence and that Chuck was being manipulated from the start. But then it turned out that Decker was just [[spoiler: working for Shaw]] and any implication of some MythArc disappeared. Then the season meandered before introducing the rather unsatisfying Nicholas Quinn in the last few episodes. A lot of people also didn't like that [[spoiler: Morgan]] became the Intersect because it was said numerous times that Chuck is special and is the only one who could handle it. His brief stint as the Intersect at the beginning of the season was also debatably pointless.
130* Season 4 of ''Series/{{Community}}''. When creator Creator/DanHarmon was out as showrunner, many think the creative energy left with him; episodes relied more on fan-service, increasingly exaggerated plots and characterizations. It's generally agreed that Season 5 [[GrowingTheBeard grew the beard]] again to an extent, thanks to the return of Harmon and fresher, more dynamic episodes. However, both Seasons 5 and 6 also have their detractors (particularly Season 6, which -- following the show's move to a purely online model after being taken over by Yahoo -- had some changes to the format which took some getting used to), and it's widely argued that even after Harmon came back, something was still missing -- probably Pierce, Troy, and Shirley. It's also often argued that, in part due to the behind-the-scenes issues mentioned above, the show stayed within the "community college" setting long after it had passed its sell-by date, with the result that the remaining characters seemed to stagnate or devolve. Not to mention that episode plots in the final two seasons increasingly relied on surreal humor with much less of a foundation in relatable character drama, making it difficult for many viewers to stay emotionally invested.
131* [[FanonDiscontinuity We do not talk about season six of]] ''Series/CriminalMinds''. Thanks to ExecutiveMeddling, Creator/AJCook (JJ) got fired, Creator/PagetBrewster's (Prentiss) screen time got reduced and the writers and the fans were ''not'' pleased. The WriterRevolt of the episode where JJ gets promoted is ''very'' justified. About halfway into the season, Ashley Seaver was introduced as a major character. It didn't help that she looked [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute a lot like JJ]] and had a lot of MarySue attributes. Creator/{{CBS}} fixed their errors by Season 7. AJ got rehired, Paget returned and Seaver got PutOnABus. Season 7 was ''much'' better.
132* ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm'' had multiple cases of this:
133** After Seasons 3 & 4 were very well received, Season 5 is considered to be one of the worst in the series. Both story arcs were boring and a bit too serious for the show, and the bizarre season finale which temporarily killed Larry David off is often cited as the worst episode of the series.
134** After the critically acclaimed seasons 6-8, Season 9 was a lot more divisive. The writing has definitely suffered, and the Fatwa arc was disliked as well. It didn't help that it was resolved with an episode that felt like a complete ripoff of the already divisive Seinfeld finale, only to be brought back and tacked onto the season finale as a cheap cliffhanger.
135* ''Series/{{Dallas}}'':
136** The ninth season had two things going against it: the departure of Creator/PatrickDuffy and new showrunners who were turning the show into a ''Series/{{Dynasty}}'' knockoff, but it was still watchable. The tenth season, which brought back both Duffy and the original showrunner, lost a lot of fans due to the decision to handwave the previous season as AllJustADream, not just to bring Bobby Ewing (Duffy) back from the dead but to undo the direction the show was headed by [[CanonDiscontinuity decanonizing the season]].
137** The eleventh season is generally agreed by fans to be the point where the show's plotlines went from campy and fun to absurd and overwrought. This was buoyed by the departure of Victoria Principal, who is last seen heavily bandaged and sent off with a hastily-concocted excuse that she doesn't want her son to see her condition and that she would rather go into hiding. Budget cuts due to declining ratings led to the firing of key cast members every season, which got so drastic that Creator/LarryHagman, Patrick Duffy, and Ken Kercheval were the only actors from the show's original cast that remained all the way to the end. On top of that, audiences didn't fall in love with the new characters, including new wives for J.R. and Bobby and an illegitimate offspring of J.R. Increasingly-ridiculous and [[RecycledScript overused plotlines]] became the norm, coupled with [[QuestionableConsent awkward sequences where J.R. aggressively pursues women]] and a ripoff of ''Film/FatalAttraction''. This ultimately led to a series finale that ended on a cliffhanger that wasn't resolved until a reunion special ''five years later''.
138** The third season of the reboot near-instantly became this. Having wrapped up nearly all of the show's [[SeriesFauxnale overarching plotlines]] at the end of season 2, the showrunners decided to reverse several character decisions, most notably by having John Ross cheat on Pamela with Emma Ryland after a season of their mutual attraction blossoming into a full-fledged relationship (and eventual marriage). The show then proceeded to rehash plots from the original series' history, driving viewers away in droves and seeing ratings for the show plummet to historic lows, not just for ''Dallas'' but for Creator/{{TNT}} itself. By the end of its run, the series was barely garnering a fraction of the ratings it had three years earlier, and it ended with a whimper, having a {{Cliffhanger}} that will most likely never be resolved.
139* ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'': The seasons that get the most flack are seasons 6 through 8.
140** Season 6 split focus between kids already at Degrassi and the college lives of graduates Marco, Paige, Ellie, and occasionally Jake - great for fans of the graduated characters in theory, but in practice it just ended up splitting focus between the two settings with hardly any character interaction. It also killed off [[spoiler:fan-favorite J.D.]] halfway through the season, causing stories to take a dour turn (not that they couldn't already get dark, but they seemed to ShooOutTheClowns during this time).
141** Season 7 continued the split focus, except now the plotlines for the original characters were significantly worse quality and the supposed power couple of the season, Peter and Mia, had their characters overhauled to be a rockstar and teen model respectfully. CharacterDerailment was not only rampant but used to justify said characters being written off.
142** Season 8 clearly hoped to undo some of the issues of the previous seasons by dropping the graduates almost entirely and introducing a new group of students to the school. However, there was also a ''new'' set of graduates in the form of Emma, Liberty, and Manny, which meant the show was essentially juggling ''three'' generations of students across twenty two episodes - and the last four are actually a tv movie bringing Paige, Marco, Ellie, and Jake back for a very divisive finale plot. Suffice to say, a lot of people were happy when season nine cut the original cast appearances down to cameos and were able to focus on the new blood, and it's generally well-received (apart from, again, a divisive tv movie at the end).
143** After some pretty siginificant acclaim in seasons 10 through 12, thanks in no small part to the new telenovela format on Much Music doubling the number of episodes per season and increasing the amount of character development everyone got, the show hit it again in season 13. The first eight episodes are taken up by an arc that splits the cast between Paris and Degrassi during summer break, introducing borderline unlikeable characters in the former and killing off [[spoiler: Adam]] in the latter in what many feel was a poorly-thought-out move. It also sucked most of the cast into tired love triangle plots. While it managed to find its footing by the end, it was likely a sign of the times that the next season had a reduced episode count and then became the final one.
144* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'': The Season 5 time jump aborts numerous storylines such as Bree and Orson being new parents while the relationship between Mike and Susan once again got haphazardly changed in order to drag out the "Will they or won't they" drama.
145* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' is largely considered to have nosedived after its fourth season (except for Season 7, which was well-received).
146** The fifth season was criticized for the [[TheScrappy Lumen character]], the weak resolution of its plotlines, and for being an overall underwhelming follow-up to Season 4's shocking finale.
147** The sixth season was outright panned for poor pacing, ridiculous scenarios, and an obvious plot twist.
148** The eighth and final season disappointed many people thanks to its by-the-numbers villain, its heavy focus on [[TheScrappy Hannah]] [[RomanticPlotTumor [=McKay=]]], poor wrapping up of plot arcs for both major characters and B-plot cast, and its lack of urgency and finality. The fact that it aired right alongside ''Series/BreakingBad'''s universally adored final season, did not do it any favors either, only making all of its flaws stand out even more.
149* Many feel ''Series/DiffrentStrokes'' took a nosedive at the tail end of Season 6 when Phillip Drummond married Maggie [=McKinney=]. Maggie (Creator/DixieCarter, and later Mary Ann Mobley) and her son Sam (Creator/DannyCooksey, [[CousinOliver the new cute kid]]) became regulars the following season. The last two seasons focused largely on Arnold Jackson playing big brother to Sam, [[DemotedToExtra leaving eldest brother Willis with little to do]]. Furthermore, Kimberly was no longer a regular (though she would make occasional appearances) due to the firing of Dana Plato.
150* Being a {{Long Runner|s}} with a huge fanbase, ''Series/DoctorWho'' seems to be [[BrokenBase called on this one]] with [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks every season]], with symptoms ranging from [[TheNthDoctor cast changes]] to [[ReTool shifts in direction]] to questionmark lapels appearing.
151** While not a severe case of this trope, the last full seasons for both the First and Second Doctors (Seasons 3 and 6 respectively) are felt to be a slight step down after two very solid seasons each. While both Seasons contain great stories, they also contain some of their weakest stories of their tenure in both seasons.
152** Season 11, the Third Doctor's last season, is often considered his weakest. It did introduce one of the best-loved companions, Sarah Jane Smith, in the well-received first story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E1TheTimeWarrior The Time Warrior]], but "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E2InvasionOfTheDinosaurs Invasion of the Dinosaurs]]" is a good story with awful special effects, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E3DeathToTheDaleks Death to the Daleks]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E4TheMonsterOfPeladon The Monster of Peladon]]" contain a lot of RecycledPlot and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders Planet of the Spiders]]" feels quite padded. It didn't help that the [[ArchEnemy Master's]] actor had [[DiedDuringProduction suddenly died]], scrapping the original plans for an emotional sendoff to the Master ''and'' the Doctor.
153** Many fans found Season 17 (the season Creator/DouglasAdams script edited) the weakest of the Creator/GrahamWilliams era. Yes, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath City of Death]]" is almost universally considered to be one of the best stories of all time, but it doesn't make up for the despised "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E1DestinyOfTheDaleks Destiny of the Daleks]]", the innuendo-laden "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E3TheCreatureFromThePit The Creature from the Pit]]", the {{Anvilicious}} "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E4NightmareOfEden Nightmare of Eden]]", the ridiculous "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E5TheHornsOfNimon The Horns of Nimon]]" or the fact that the entire season was cut short by a poorly-timed crew workers strike.
154** Conversely, Season 18 is often considered an overreaction that went too far the other way. New production team producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner and script editor Creator/ChristopherHBidmead declared their intention to make the show "less silly" and produced a season that came across as rather dour and humourless at times. Creator/TomBaker often looked a shadow of his former self, forced to play the role in a way he disliked, and popular companions Romana and K9 were replaced with [[TheScrappy Adric]].
155** The Fifth Doctor's middle season (Season 20) is generally considered the weakest of his three, due to nearly every story being SoOkayItsAverage and lacking any of the memorable episodes such as "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock Earthshock]]" in Creator/PeterDavison's first season, and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]" in his last.
156** One thing nearly everyone seems to agree on is that Seasons 22 through 24 (1985-7), better known as the two seasons of the Sixth Doctor and the first season of the Seventh Doctor, were the nadir of the classic series, although different fans pick different ones of those seasons as the worst.
157*** Season 22 saw Creator/EricSaward going overboard with the DarkerAndEdgier, with the Sixth Doctor (Creator/ColinBaker) acting like an arsehole most of the time (including to his own companion), grim plots with lots of BlackAndGrayMorality, and enough FamilyUnfriendlyViolence to, for the only time ever, cause the fans themselves to start getting uncomfortable. Saward was also purported to dislike Baker's performance of the Doctor and reduced his role accordingly, to the point that in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks Revelation of the Daleks]]" the Doctor is completely superfluous to events.
158*** Season 23 had the unpopular "Trial of a Time Lord" extended arc, some very lacklustre writing, and an ending that revealed the behind-the-scenes chaos the show had descended into by being almost incomprehensible, unintentionally. Both this and the previous season are also notable for bothersome amounts of ContinuityLockOut and ContinuityPorn.
159*** Season 24 suffers from a LighterAndSofter shift that many fans considered to go too far into glitzy {{Camp}}, Creator/SylvesterMcCoy playing the Doctor as an actual [[TheDitz Ditz]] instead of his later, more popular performance as a world-weary ManipulativeBastard who occasionally engaged in ObfuscatingStupidity, and Keff [=McCulloch=] and his disco-aerobics brand of incidental music.
160*** All three seasons also suffered from having two of the most widely unpopular companions in the show's history: Peri who was one of the few pre-1989 companions to genuinely be as [[DamselScrappy hapless]] and frequently-demeaned as they are often stereotyped as; and Mel who was [[TheScrappy just annoying]] and played by an actor who had an irritating public image and a lot of baggage from earlier roles.
161** Series 2 of the new series (Season 28 overall) is considered the least of the first five, due in part to an over-reliance on the Doctor/Rose ship and the show in general becoming a little too goofy, even for ''Who''. A lot of people also found the Doctor and Rose's behaviour unbearable. It also produced two of the least liked Doctor Who stories, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E10LoveAndMonsters Love & Monsters]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E11FearHer Fear Her]]". It wasn't a ''complete'' disaster, though; Creator/DavidTennant's performance as the Doctor was fantastic, catapulting him to star status and making him the most popular Doctor since Creator/TomBaker. The series also brought back classic series favourite Sarah Jane Smith in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E3SchoolReunion School Reunion]]". The two-part finale is also well-regarded, though the ending is divisive.
162** Series 3, while generally viewed positively and as an improvement over Series 2, is something of a polarizing season. On the one hand, it has a much better, more defined story arc than the previous seasons, and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature Human Nature]][=/=][[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood The Family of Blood]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink Blink]]" are two of the best ''Doctor Who'' stories ever. On the other, there's a thoroughly-despised DeusExMachina ending, a weak Dalek two-parter that marked the beginning of their VillainDecay, and companion Martha is a bit of [[BaseBreakingCharacter a hot-button issue]] in fandom, likewise Creator/JohnSimm's portrayal of TheMaster.
163** The "Specials Year" that saw out Tennant's tenure is seen as a step down compared to Series 4, with the first two stories, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E14TheNextDoctor The Next Doctor]]", and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead Planet of the Dead]]" being fairly average and unmemorable, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars The Waters of Mars]]" actually pretty decent, and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]" massively divisive, with some considering it a worthy GrandFinale to both Tennant's and Davies' time on the show, but others seeing it a bloated and Wangst-filled example of Russell T Davies overindulging in some of his worst flaws as a showrunner, and bringing Donna back after her heart-breaking exit only to do nothing with her.
164** Series 6-7 (Eleventh Doctor) and 8 (Twelfth Doctor) constitute an AudienceAlienatingEra collectively to the Creator/StevenMoffat era. The complaints summarized:
165*** Series 6 had a good premise and cast, but ''very'' shaky writing, culminating in the TroubledProduction and disastrous reception of the mid-season premiere "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]". The StoryArc, in its attempts to continue and top the wildly popular arc of Series 5, was incredibly convoluted and marred by [[RandomEventsPlot constant plot twists]], odd swerves in tone and character development (thanks in part to two episodes being switched to different halves of the season), {{Romantic Plot Tumor}}s, and controversial plot points poorly presented (Amy's pregnancy, River Song's existence, etc.). Tellingly the best-received episodes were the ones that had the least to do with the arc, such as "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife The Doctor's Wife]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E10TheGirlWhoWaited The Girl Who Waited]]". For "bonus" points, the post-season ChristmasEpisode "[[Recap/DoctorWho2011CSTheDoctorTheWidowAndTheWardrobe The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe]]" was seen as a big comedown from "[[Recap/DoctorWho2010CSAChristmasCarol A Christmas Carol]]".
166*** Series 7: With the show effectively trying to make two seasons out of one AND fix the issues fans had with Series 6, AbortedArc, pacing issues, and TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot set in. 7A meandered with little more to say about the Ponds and their relationship with the Doctor, and ''then'' they were [[DroppedABridgeOnHim thrown under a bus]] in favor of Clara Oswald in "[[Recap/DoctorWho2012CSTheSnowmen The Snowmen]]" and 7B, with the long term mystery of just who she was being seen as poorly handled and causing many to label her as an over glorified LivingMacGuffin. The Great Intelligence (re)introduced at the same time as Clara never reached its full potential as an arc villain. The post-season [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor 50th anniversary special]] and associated shorts were huge hits, but the [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeoftheDoctor Christmas special]] the following month was divisive in its clumsy attempts to wrap up Eleven's story after a season spent neglecting it. All this meant trouble for...
167*** Series 8: An inconsistent characterization/companion dynamic affected Creator/PeterCapaldi's performance and the Twelfth Doctor wound up too [[DarkerAndEdgier dark]] and [[GrumpyOldMan grouchy]], not softening soon enough for many viewers' tastes. Finally defining Clara as a character meant she got so much screen time that the derisive fan nickname "''Clara Who''" emerged during this season; her RomanticPlotTumor with a [[TheScrappy Scrappy of a boyfriend]] was part of a gloomy StoryArc which implied, among other things, that her gallivanting around with the Doctor was bad for her. There were two dumber-than-usual episodes ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon Kill the Moon]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E10InTheForestOfTheNight In the Forest of the Night]]") calling back to the early revival seasons, while the biggest development in the post-Series 7 specials ([[spoiler:Gallifrey's return]]) went unaddressed except to provide a minor plot point in a finale that had '''many''' controversial twists ([[spoiler:Clara's blackmail attempt, female Master, murder of Osgood, Cyber-Brigadier...]]) and a mostly-sad ending. At least it laid the groundwork for the very well-received "[[Recap/DoctorWho2014CSLastChristmas Last Christmas]]" and [[GrowingTheBeard Series 9]], which broke the show's losing streak.
168** The Creator/ChrisChibnall era in general, overlapping with Creator/JodieWhittaker's tenure as the Thirteenth Doctor, was divisive at best:
169*** With Series 11, even those who like it do feel it suffers for Yaz being an underdeveloped companion, several weak and unmemorable stories (with "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa Rosa]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E6DemonsOfThePunjab Demons of the Punjab]]" being exceptions), and an underwhelming SeasonFinale, though the follow-up New Year's special "[[Recap/DoctorWho2019NYSResolution Resolution]]" was the best-regarded Dalek story in years. Creator/JodieWhittaker's performance is praised, but a lot of those excited for a female Doctor were rather put off that Thirteen's initial season made her the most ineffective Doctor since Five, hardly ever getting a clean win as {{Karma Houdini}}s abound. HistoryRepeats as well with the issue of Yaz's underdevelopment, since a major criticism of Five's era was his having too many companions.
170*** Series 12, despite some improvements on Series 11 (the big one bringing back some "classic" antagonists and concepts after 11 focused solely on new ones), hasn't been much better. Some in the fanbase believe Thirteen became more insensitive and ruthless for no clear reason[[note]]to the point that Creator/TheBBC issued an apology for the ending of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E12CanYouHearMe Can You Hear Me?]]"[[/note]], Yaz remains a non-entity, and Graham and Ryan have far less compelling arcs. Episodes alternated between {{Filler}} and {{Wham Episode}}s that contradicted canon [[ContinuitySnarl even more than usual]]. Without going into spoilers, the SeasonFinale "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren The Timeless Children]]" became one of the most divisive episodes in the entire show's history thanks to a {{Retcon}} that changed the entire lore of the show for seemingly very little payout -- and yet still avoided the brunt of the criticism for the season due to the almost-universally reviled "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E3Orphan55 Orphan 55]]". To make matters worse, the ratings were the lowest since Series 1 in 2005.
171*** Series 13, the "Flux" StoryArc, had a ''very'' TroubledProduction thanks to COVID-19 restricting TV production in the UK. The episode count was reduced to eight, with two of those episodes being delegated as specials. Chibnall had to write every episode himself, with only one receiving a co-writer. While "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E2FluxChapterTwoWarOfTheSontarans War of the Sontarans]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E4FluxChapterFourVillageOfTheAngels Village of the Angels]]" were considered highlights, with fresh takes on old monsters, the Timeless Child arc was revisited in a severely truncated fashion with no real payoff. The finale proved to be [[RandomEventsPlot nigh incomprehensible]] and was left on an unsatisfying note, with the characters themselves not seeming to acknowledge one way or the other about the destruction that was wrought.
172* ''Series/DowntonAbbey'':
173** Season 2 was very divisive, featuring plots that were started and stopped at random -- a disfigured soldier turns up claiming to be the original heir, only to disappear forever at the end of the episode -- and the show's DashedPlotLine nature working against it.
174** Season 3 had to suffer from the loss of three main cast members, two of which had to be KilledOffForReal.
175** By Season 4, CharacterDevelopment had become forgotten and [[ReplacementScrappy Replacement Scrappies]] were everywhere. Creator/DanStevens lampshaded this on ''Series/TheGrahamNortonShow'', joking that he only ever gets people saying "I loved the ''first'' season." Fellow guest Creator/HaydenPanettiere sympathised, saying she got the same with ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' (see below).
176* The fourth season of ''Series/DueSouth''. Several problems contributed to this: the season premiere (Doctor Longball) is not nearly as memorable or exciting as the others from seasons past, the episodes go back to the well of "unmentioned friend/colleague from Fraser/Stanley's past is in need of help," there are no real guest stars or memorable episodes (until the finale), and there's an increasing reliance on Fraser's spiritual conversations with his dead father. The loss of Paul Haggis as a contributor also meant that a lot of the imagery, themes, and quotable lines that were prevalent in the first two seasons disappeared. Luckily, the series slightly rebounded with the two-part finale, "Call of the Wild," but the second part of finale is loved by some fans, and hated by others who think most of the characters didn't get satisfying and happy endings.
177* ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' began to rot when Bo & Luke exited and were replaced with Coy & Vance. But even after Bo & Luke returned, the show had already shown its age. We already know that the Dukes clan was all goody-goody. It got to the point where you were no longer booing and hissing at the star villains Boss Hogg & Sheriff Coltrane, but looking forward to their stark contrast to the Dukes' personalities, and relishing in their comic-relief antics -- especially since Roscoe TookALevelInDumbass to become more of a 12-year-old who lives for "hot pursuit". ("Good news, good news! Yuk yuk yuk!")
178* The third and ultimately final season of the reboot of ''Series/{{The Electric Company|2009}}'' had to cope with Lisa being PutOnTheBus (the explanation being that she was away at science camp), which left Jessica as ostensibly, the [[TheSmurfettePrinciple only remaining girl]] on the Electric Company team. Plus, they added Marcus and Gilda on the Pranksters' side, who naturally became like the {{Cousin Oliver}}s of their respective groups. Meanwhile, [[SpotlightStealingSquad too much time]] was spent on [[NaiveNewcomer Marcus]] "learning the ropes", and the animated version of Francine stopped hosting the "Prankster Planet" segments at the end of the episodes. It was also in the [[{{Retool}} third season]] that new animated characters served as "hosts" for the show, commenting on the plot and segueing to the segment breaks as well as their own shorts.
179* The second half of the second season of ''Series/{{Elementary}}'', which is already a case of SophomoreSlump as a whole, mainly due to the deterioration of Sherlock and Joan's relationship and an underwhelming story arc involving Sherlock's brother Mycroft at the end when compared to last season's Moriarty arc.
180** Many fans point to Season 5 as the weakest when it comes to the seasonal StoryArc, as it revolved around an UnintentionallyUnsympathetic character (Shinwell Johnson), a forced conflict emerging between Sherlock and Joan, a lack of personal stakes, and ending on the [[AssPull Shocking Swerve]] of [[spoiler: Sherlock developing brain damage]] for the sake of setting up the next season.
181* ''Series/{{ER}}'' had several points where the quality of the writing and characters notably slipped.
182** Season 5: Ratings-wise, the season was very popular, but the introduction of Lucy Knight wasn't well handled (she was a CousinOliver at this point) and the exit of Doug Ross (Creator/GeorgeClooney) is divisive even though, debatably, the two episodes in which it occurs were very well-written.
183** The first half of Season 6 involves a lot of cast shuffling, as [[spoiler:Jeanie leaves]] and [[RevolvingDoorCasting five new characters are added]]. The season redeemed itself with "All In The Family", the episode where [[spoiler:Lucy Knight is killed]], and a happy ending for Doug and Carol.
184** Many, many fans argue that the quality dropped off after Season 8 when Benton and Greene both left the show and handed the reins of the show to Carter. This period of the show is often remembered for its divisive Doctors Without Borders story arcs (while the producers were proud of these, the cast had mixed feelings); [[RevolvingDoorCasting a constantly shuffling ensemble]] in an attempt to recapture the chemistry of the original cast; and dramatic event episodes often culminating in gruesome character deaths. Season 8's "On the Beach" is considered the final episode by certain fans.
185** Relatedly, Seasons 10 and 11 with Carter in the lead. Carter was the designated protagonist after Greene's departure. But because the audience had already seen Carter go from ingenue med student to seasoned attending, there was little character growth left for him, at least in the world of County General itself. Carter's storylines thus take place away from the hospital. For some fans, these seasons devote too much time to Carter's love life and African adventures at the expense of other characters still working at County, and the show bounces back in the next season when Carter departs.
186* ''Series/{{Endeavour}}'': Series 6 took a decidedly DarkerAndEdgier tone to its predecessors, following which Series 7 and 8 featured a greater emphasis on [[StoryArc series-long storylines]], suffering in quality compared to earlier series.
187* ''Series/{{Eureka}}'': Season 4 was extremely formulaic and overused ChekhovsGun, plus the alternate-timeline subplot didn’t really amount to anything other than a few superficial changes. [[GrowingTheBeard Season 5 is much better.]]
188* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'': It's common for fans to claim the show underwent some form of this after the great will-they-or-won't-they tension was resolved in Season 7, with Daphne and Niles finally getting together. Though Season 8 mostly deals with the complicated fallout of the relationship, Seasons 9-11 often seem somewhat confused as to what to do now. The character of Daphne in particular is often seen as taken an unpleasant turn post-marriage, with her earlier dotty, charming personality being largely phased out in favor of a new role as a somewhat naggy wife and the chronically exasperated and put-upon family fixer, particularly after her obnoxious mother and brother become major characters in the series.
189** Season 10 gets the worst of it since it's the season where Daphne's obnoxious mother is present in almost every episode, along with a developing love triangle between Frasier, Roz, and a newcomer in the form of the also obnoxious Julia Wilcox, where the supposed romantic undertones of Frasier and Roz falls flat on its face. Mix that in with Frasier becoming an even more pompous jerkass than usual, and... well. The season ends with a juggling of the JerkassBall ''and'' the IdiotBall, where Roz demands Frasier chose between her or Julia. Mercifully, season 11 fixes that in its first two episodes, the first dedicating itself to shooting down Froz and blowing up the smoldering remains, the second to getting rid of Julia, and the season as a whole, while still having some rougher patches, is generally considered to be a major improvement that sent the series out on a high-note.
190* ''Series/FridayNightLights'': Season 2, which bafflingly changed gears from the first season's subtle, understated, and authentic portrait of small-town life to Landry murdering a rapist and hiding the body, Matt having a sexy affair with his grandmother's live-in caretaker, and Tim Riggins running afoul of Dillon's dangerous local meth dealer. Many fans feared that the show had lost the plot for good, only for it to return for a brilliant third season once again in the best spirit of the show's original intentions and with even less filler than the already-brilliant first season.
191* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': Despite taking on a DenserAndWackier tone towards the end of Season 3 and {{Flanderization}} kicking in sometime around Season 5, most fans and critics agree that it generally remained a high-quality sitcom and had very strong ratings up to the last episode. But even most agree that its last two seasons (9 and 10) are where it really lost its luster. Common complaints are that the {{Flanderization}} was stretched beyond believability (to the point where the characters had become caricatures of their former selves), the plots were less creative and more outrageous (for example, one episode centered around Joey not even being able to successfully repeat basic French words), and the actors were very visibly bored with doing the show. While Rachel and Ross having a kid together in Season 8 could have been a great way to ''finally'' end the WillTheyOrWontThey saga between them since ''the very first episode'', they didn't stop it, leading for the whole thing to continue until the ''last five minutes'' of the series finale. Luckily, the show went out on a high note with a solid finale that averted the flaws with the last two seasons, for the most part.
192* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': Not as pronounced as in a lot of cases but for some people [[spoiler:the switch to an alternate timeline]] starting in Season 4 and the confusion as to whether we should see these characters [[spoiler:as those we knew for the first three years or merely alternate versions]] caused problems and emotional distance from the storyline. Season 5 (the final season) brought a lot of changes, with a shift to a [[spoiler: post-apocalyptic future following an invasion by the observers]], all with very little build-up beyond a flash-forward episode in Season 4 which similarly came out of nowhere. It also had to proceed with a decreased budget and episode count, leading to a rushed pace. The changes alienated many viewers, but fans are overall forgiving of the season because [[PostScriptSeason they very nearly didn't get a season 5 at all]] so getting any kind of ending was a blessing, and because the finale (the final scene in particular) is very well regarded.
193* ''Series/FullHouse'' fans debate over exactly which season of its eight began its decline, but everyone agrees as to the cause: the holy terror that is [[TheScrappy Michelle Tanner]]. [[Creator/MaryKateAndAshleyOlsen The Olsen twins]] became a massive cash cow starting in 1992 -- they got their own albums, TV movies, DirectToVideo films ''and'' series. As a result of this and Stephanie Tanner having aged out of the "adorable wisecracking tot" role, the show began to focus more and more on Michelle, forcing the other characters out of the spotlight and essentially making them prisoners of her whims (the Season Seven finale saw the titular house's original owner offering to buy it for a huge sum, with everyone happy except Michelle--and in the end, they all capitulate and decide not to move simply because she wants them to stay). By this time, fans derisively began calling the program "The Michelle Show," and it never really recovered.
194** The rot begins to kick in with Season Four, with a significant premise upheaval at the 3/4 mark of the season when Jesse and Becky get married. They end up moving into the renovated attic of the house -- all because Michelle doesn't like the idea of them moving to Becky's place, which is in the same neighborhood! This ties into the biggest problem the show has in its later seasons: The original concept of a widower inviting his brother-in-law and best friend into his house to help raise his daughters after his wife's death is now moot. None of the girls need a full-time caretaker anymore, making Jesse and Joey's presence in the house largely inexplicable.
195** Season Five's 1/3rd mark sees the birth of Nicky and Alexander, Becky's twins and the joint CousinOliver of the series. The remainder of the season, and a chunk of Six, has quite a few [[RecycledPlot copied-and-pasted plots]] from Season One when Michelle was a newborn baby. In addition, the writers' complete lack of interest in continuity becomes clear with a two-part SeasonFinale in which Jesse is struggling to get a recording contract and doubting his skills as a musician...despite the fourth season finale being about him ''getting a contract in the first place!''
196** Season Six is the year that sees poor Stephanie relegated more and more to the background (because Michelle gets the "cute tot" plots and D.J.'s RomanceArc begins), with one of her few leading episodes being a VerySpecialEpisode about an abused classmate. Otherwise, she's Michelle's OlderSidekick. (By Season Seven's "Day of the Rhino", Stephanie -- a middle schooler -- joins Michelle and her six-year-old friends' protest of a kiddie show character, and the visual contrast between the small children and the teenage Stephanie says it all.) Joey also becomes a more popular character's {{Sidekick}} with the abrupt loss of his ExcitedKidsShowHost job from the previous season, whereupon he and Jesse go into business as radio deejays (even as Jesse got a story arc about getting his [=GED=] at the same time). This season also sees increasingly ludicrous scripts, including one where Michelle causes a massive dinosaur skeleton in a museum to completely collapse, and an over-the-top two-part VacationEpisode to Ride/WaltDisneyWorld serving as the SeasonFinale. There are two pretty good {{Romance Arc}}s for D.J. and Danny, respectively, but that's all.
197** Season Seven sees the show really grasping for new ideas: both {{Romance Arc}}s end, Jesse becomes a nightclub owner, a (actually well-received) VerySpecialEpisode about a death in the family leads straight to an episode about Jesse's evil lookalike cousin from Greece, there's a new wacky neighbor in the form of Mrs. Carruthers, and the penultimate episode's big plot twist involves Music/LittleRichard turning out to be the uncle of one of Michelle's friends. This problem continues into the final season.
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201* ''Gabriel's Fire,'' starring Creator/JamesEarlJones as a former cop who went to prison, and became a private detective after his release, won four Emmys in its first season. After an ill-advised {{Retool}}, it ran for only 12 more episodes under the title ''Pros and Cons.''
202* The general critical consensus at the end of the series was that ''Series/GameOfThrones'' began to decline in quality once the showrunners made the decision to stray away from faithfully adapting Books 4 and 5, and declined further once [[OvertookTheManga they moved past the published material in Seasons 7 and 8.]] This began in Season 5 and continued until Season 8, where the rot hit a peak:
203** Season 5 was highly contested for the show's radical alteration and streamlining of several important storylines from the books, which resulted in sudden characterization shifts, anticlimactic resolutions, and plot holes becoming more frequent. Another point of contention was the series' increasing tendency to prioritize shock value over narrative coherence, with scenes such as [[spoiler:Sansa's rape at the hands of Ramsay Bolton]] and [[spoiler:Stannis' burning of his daughter Shireen as a ritual sacrifice]] receiving criticism for coming across as gratuitously violent and mean-spirited. However, even in the context of an overall controversial season, the Dorne storyline is generally considered the lowest point of the entire series for its blatant idiocy, the involvement of [[TheScrappy the widely despised Sand Snakes]], and a CruelTwistEnding that essentially [[ShootTheShaggyDog renders the entire subplot pointless]].
204** Season 6 was generally considered an improvement over the previous season due to its tighter pacing and a much more satisfying climax, with its final two episodes, "The Battle of the Bastards" and "The Winds of Winter" being counted among the show's highlights. However, it also marked the point where the show began to abandon the slow-paced storytelling, complex political drama, and moral ambiguity of the earlier seasons in favor of spectacular action scenes and a much more straightforward, conventional HighFantasy narrative with clearly defined heroes and villains.
205** While season 6 change of direction wasn't necessarily considered a problem at first, season 7 is where it began to be seen in a more negative light. For all it's impressive visual effects, it was widely criticized for exploiting OffScreenTeleportation and EasyLogistics to justify its rapid pacing, conflicts driven by [[IdiotBall supposedly smart characters making illogical decisions]], and a diminished emotional impact due to the increasing use of PlotArmor for the protagonists -- all of which are elements that the show had been praised for ''averting'' up until this point.
206** Season 8 was lambasted by fans and critics alike for making characters act {{out of character}} for the sake of plot advancement or drama (with the resolution of Jaime's and Daenerys' arcs being particularly contentious), a number of glaring continuity errors, and a very uneven pacing due to a shortened runtime of only six episodes. Aside from underutilizing some of the show's most popular characters, several plot points that had been built up for multiple seasons were dropped entirely or ended anti-climactically (one of the worst-received decisions was to resolve the threat of the Night King and the White Walkers in a single episode halfway through the season). The baffling HollywoodTactics employed during the Battle of the Dawn in that episode and the approach seen in the episode that followed were also ridiculed when compared to high points of the series in that department such as the Battle of the Blackwater, the Battle of Castle Black, and the Battle of the Bastards. Obvious bloopers such as a scene where a modern coffee cup was left in full view confirmed, for some viewers, the declining standards of the show.
207* While Series 3 of ''Series/GamesMaster'' has its flaws, such as host Dominik Diamond leaving because of the UsefulNotes/McDonalds sponsorship and being replaced by Creator/DexterFletcher as host, and the challenge format being changed to the ''Games World''-esque Team Championship, it still stayed true to the competitive gaming nature of the program. However, Series 5, 6, and 7 all marked the slow death of the show due to being less about video games and more about Dominik's comedic talents, frequent innuendos, and constant flirting with female celebrities, losing the aspect of punishment along the way, all of which hurt the show far more than Series 3.
208* ''Series/GetSmart'': The beginning of the end generally goes to Season 5 after it was UnCancelled, from going in the FridayNightDeathSlot, to a long storyline about Agent 99 being pregnant and ultimately giving birth to twins in the two-part episode "And Baby Makes Four," to Creator/DonAdams (and thus Max) refusing to appear (apart from a brief cameo) in "Ice Station Siegfried" with [[IAmNotSpock José Jiménez… uh, Bill Dana]] filling in for him, [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking to]] Siegfried being PutOnABus after that episode. Little wonder Creator/{{CBS}} pulled it after its only season there, only to resurface with…
209** The 1995 reboot, full of lame, stale jokes that make the fifth season a lot better than the six episodes aired by Creator/{{Fox}}. Zack took over as the DesignatedHero and fails to match [[LikeFatherLikeSon the lovable stupidity of his father]], now DemotedToExtra as the Chief of Control. The reboot [[FranchiseKiller did the series in]] until it came back with [[Film/GetSmart the cinematic reboot]] thirteen years later.
210* ''Series/GhostHunters'' has the end of Season 4 or the end of Season 5 being this point for some fans. Even Jason and Grant seem bored while investigating locations. Part of the issue is the similarity of everything from episode to episode as well as the lack of evidence found (especially in relation to shows like ''Series/GhostAdventures'' where they seem to capture far more shadow figures and physical apparitions). Another issue is that the show and the TAPS group has seemed to become more [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks popular]] as opposed to the [[JustForFun/OneOfUs next-door neighbors]] they started out as.
211* ''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 6 would introduce universally loathed CousinOliver [[TheScrappy April]] (even Creator/VanessaMarano admitted herself that April was a show wrecker), made Rory into a delinquent, had whole episodes where the girls didn't interact with each other, and extended the WillTheyOrWontThey even further after a fake-out resolution. Come Creator/TheCW merger, creator Amy-Sherman Palladino and her husband were forced to leave the show, the actor who played Christopher getting more of a role in the show against the entire fandom's wishes, and many fans had abandoned the show. The new people left in charge (including an executive producer who went off the rails and previously wrote a one-man show about how he wanted Heidi Klum) had no idea how to continue a successful long-running series, and The CW maligned the show by trying to turn it into a teen soap with one adult couple in a hellish love triangle with a hated character, while forgetting a whole town of supporting characters existed, along with new writers who did no research on character canon. A proposed Creator/{{Netflix}} revival ''A Year in the Life'', with A-SP at the helm, was created in the hopes of rectifying this and giving the show some closure.
212* Many viewers think that ''Series/{{Glee}}'', a once-clever and promising show, underwent a steep decline as it went on. Part of the problem was that around the time of Season 2, ''Glee'' was at an all-time high for its popularity to the point where it ended up displacing ''Series/AmericanIdol'' as Creator/{{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 tank so rapidly that by the end, they were actually lower than the ''first season's.'' By the time Season 4 premiered, Fox caught on to the declining popularity and moved the series onto Thursday nights.
213** The show ran into serious trouble in its second season with characters constantly [[DependingOnTheWriter changing motives and personalities]], character development going backwards, plots coming out of nowhere, and the show becoming the preachy PublicServiceAnnouncement it used to mock. Any pretense of realism had disappeared by the end of Season 2 -- the Glee Club inexplicably went from a broke bunch of misfits in Season 1, which was a huge part of the show's charm, to being able to assemble and perform any musical number instantly, complete with jaw-dropping effects, by the Season 2 finale.
214** The decline was much more noticeable in Season 3, with {{Broken Aesop}}s galore and constant {{RetCon}}ning of forgotten plots. Characters broke up, cheated, and hooked up for no good reason, or else were {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed beyond recognition (especially Quinn).
215** In the fourth season, the show had multiple concurrent plots, with New Directions members in Lima, Connecticut, UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, Kentucky, and UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, and couldn't develop and pay attention to all of those at once. Fan-favorite Sue appeared less and less, they added a bunch of new characters who were {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed versions of the original cast (for example, Kitty is a fill-in for Quinn), and Sectionals, Regionals & Nationals, previously a huge part of the show, came out of nowhere and disappeared afterwards.
216** Season 5 attempted to rectify this by dropping Lima altogether and moving more of the original kids to New York, but the damage had been done, and Season 6 was the show's last (the death of Creator/CoryMonteith is another reason).
217* ''Series/TheGoodDoctor'':
218** Although it has some praised episodes like "Friends and Family" and "Hurt", Season 3 has received backlash from some fans for an increased focus on romance drama, with more of Shaun's struggles now being on his love life rather than his social and professional lives. Criticism increased after the writers made some controversial decisions in the season finale, more specifically, [[spoiler:the sudden death of Melendez, and Shaun and Lea finally becoming a couple]].
219** Season 4 received criticism for two reasons. First, for introducing four new residents to the series, which many fans accuse of being uninteresting or irritating, spending an absurd amount of time that could be devoted to the main characters (the show alleviates this as the season progresses when two of the new residents leave). Also, some fans are not keen on multiple episodes this season focusing on social and political affairs in an unsubtle way (particularly "Irresponsible Salad Bar Practices", which has the lowest user rating of the series on IMDB).
220* ''Series/TheGoodWife'' never really recovered after its co-lead Will was killed off in the final third of season 5. The following season pushed protagonist Alicia into a plot that went nowhere. She ran for a state-level political office and then quickly stepped down after a scandal, only a season after what most people saw as the natural conclusion to her arc, opening her own law firm. Season 7 introduced another love interest for her that also went nowhere as the show ended.
221* ''Series/GossipGirl'':
222** Some fans would place this in Season 3 with its poorly received NYU plot and the way the writers sabotaged Chuck and Blair's relationship. Generally, though, Season 4 is considered to be suffering from this trope, with far too much focus on guest stars and the show becoming more and more plot-driven at the expense of characterization being the initial reasons, followed by sidelining Chuck and Serena in uninspired subplots in order to isolate Dan and Blair so they could become friends. The Dair storyline is subject to debate in this regard since some fans felt the show got much better but there are just as many fans who hate the pairing with a passion and feel the show has been ruined.
223** Season 5 had far too much focus on Louis and the Blair/Louis engagement was not a good idea when the majority of the fans are either passionate Chair shippers or passionate Dair shippers and ''both'' sides hate Louis. The season quickly turned into "Blair and all the men who love her", making Serena almost irrelevant and Blair herself rather unlikeable. You'd be hard-pressed to find a fan who's really enjoyed the fifth season.
224** Season 6 was the last for which the actors were contracted, but as a result of Joshua Safran's insistence on turning it into ''Everybody Loves [[CreatorsPet Blair And Dan]] And So Will '''YOU''', Dammit'', it was the final season and a reduced season at that (very reduced -- to 10 episodes, less than half of each of Seasons 2-5 and less than even the first). It also had the show's lowest ratings ''ever''. [[spoiler:And having Dan be Gossip Girl with ''everybody'' letting him off the hook for his behavior wasn't universally well-received, to say the least.]]
225* Oxygen's show ''Series/HairBattleSpectacular'' suffered this with its second season. While the first season had a SoBadItsGood vibe to it that was zany, Season 2 screwed the show over, dropping everyone except for the [[CampGay queertastic]] mentor Derek J. The main problem was that it dropped the likable Brooke Burns in favor of [[EthnicScrappy Eva]] [[ReplacementScrappy Marcille]], therefore removing the main reason why the first season was better than Oxygen's previous attempt in the "hair competition" genre ''Series/{{Tease}}''.
226* ''Series/HappyDays'' is the {{Trope Namer|s}} for JumpingTheShark, thanks to the infamous fifth-season premiere where Fonzie performs a death-defying stunt in shark-infested waters. Although this episode is seen as the moment when the show's quality began to slip as it led a slew of other episodes with ridiculous or {{Narm}}y plots (although one about an alien appearing is forgivable for giving Creator/RobinWilliams his big break, bringing the house down with it), it is thought to have gone completely downhill in Seasons 8-11 after Creator/RonHoward left with the show's seventh season and the focus shifted firmly to Fonzie's antics, if not Joanie and Chachi's relationship, and is said to have gotten worse as it dragged on with the introduction of Chachi, Ted [=McGinley=], and a slew of other unlikable characters. As such, some believe of the show's 11 seasons only about 4 and a half are actually worth watching.
227* A common view among the fans of ''Series/{{Homeland}}'' is that the series' writing quality gradually declined after a universally celebrated Season 1.
228** Viewers started to [[BrokenBase divide a little bit about the show's quality]] as early as Season 2. While many aspects of the season is considered to be improved from Season 1, such as having higher pacing to the main plot, more action scenes and thrilling moments, it is also considered to spend too much time to [[TrappedByMountainLions weak or underwhelming sub-plots]] such as [[spoiler: (Brody helping [[TheLoad Bassel]] escape, Mike's investigation of Walker's death, Aileen being BackForTheDead, Mike and Jess' relationship, Brody's [[HeroicBreakdown nervous breakdown]] to name a few]]. If that wasn't enough, the season finale involves pretty egregious examples of DiabolusExMachina, [[AssPull Ass Pulls]] and PlotArmour that negates everything the heroes have been fighting against in these two seasons and was seen as one of the weakest episodes because of it.
229** The general consensus is that Season 3 is the worst, mainly due to having an entire subplot about a teenage RomanticPlotTumour which doesn't at all fit in a show that is otherwise a spy-thriller about stopping terrorists; having a major AssPull plot-twists in the middle of the season that negates the logic of an entire subplot; and several [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome characters]] and [[AbortedArc supblots]] never appear again in the second half of the season, also making the season as a whole feel like two different seasons mashed into one.
230* ''Series/HellsKitchen'' went through this starting in Season 8, due to the excessive focus on crazy and/or incompetent contestants rather than talented ones. Season 9 got a lot of heat for Creator/GordonRamsay's blatant favoritism toward the incredibly bitchy and unlikeable Elise, though for some it was redeemed by the final two of Paul and Will, widely regarded as one of the show's best finalist pairs. However, Season 10 is where many feel the wheels fell off, with virtually every contestant being obnoxious and narcissistic beyond belief, something which wasn't helped by what was widely seen as racist behavior toward popular contestant Barbie by the other women on her team -- though like Season 9, it might be redeemed by the season's winner, Christina, regarded by more than a few to be the single best contestant in the show's entire history. Season 11 also faced significant backlash for having one of the worst casts ever. In general, the series went on a significant decline after 10 and 11, with a few exceptions (12, 14, 18, and 19) mixed in.
231* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'':
232** Season 2: Half the characters had boring storylines, one of the more interesting ones was [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome mostly offscreen]], and [[TheScrappy Maya Herrera]]. The season was cut short by the 2007 writers' strike and acknowledged by the writers as inferior to Season 1. The main plot also required Peter Petrelli to carry the largest IdiotBall in recorded history to keep it from being resolved before the season ever started.
233** The first half of Season 3 was worse. The writers heard the complaints that Season 2 was too slow-paced and lacking twists. Their answer? A RandomEventsPlot and one AbortedArc after another. Fans could no longer say it was predictable or slow-paced, but the result was even worse. The show mostly returned to form with the second half of its third season and the fourth and final season, though fans argue by how much.
234** Interviews with the creators later clarified (though not necessarily justified) a lot of the problems with Season 2 that led into Season 3. Originally, Peter wouldn't have caught the virus and it would have been released, causing the bad future he foresaw. What was supposed to be the first half of Season 2 involved a lot of setting up for the second half; plot points that ended up being abandoned were originally {{Chekhovs Gun}}s (for example, Claire's blood was going to be used to cure victims of the virus, and Maya's power would have had some level of control over the virus). Instead, when the writer's strike happened, they decided to change what was supposed to be a mid-season finale into a season finale and chose to take the story in a different direction when they returned.
235* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'': Minor example. Despite some problems with Season 4 due to Creator/KevinSorbo suffering an aneurysm, it remained constantly good throughout its run. But Season 5 was REALLY good. It introduced a main villain, had much more drama, introduced deconstruction elements towards TheCape archetype, had Hercules facing mythical figures from other lands and legends, and was just really well done. Season 6 was cut short due to Sorbo being done with the role and had to be wrapped up. It was good but Season 5 left a high bar.
236* ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' takes a steep dive in Season 6. The main character and supporting cast disappear most of the time, and different Immortal women are "auditioned" for a possible spin-off series, which ultimately became moot as ''none'' of the actresses got the part and the role was instead given to recurring cast member Elizabeth Gracen. Of the 13 episodes, only "[[ADayInTheLimelight Indiscretions]]" and the two-part series finale are worth watching along with maybe one other.
237* The fifth season of the MTV reality show ''Series/TheHills''. After several seasons of growing controversy and mockery over perceived fake drama, Lauren left the series, distancing herself as much as possible while new lead (and fellow ''Series/LagunaBeach'' cast member) Kristin Cavalieri joined the cast. The resulting sixth season saw tanking ratings and contrived circumstances to have the characters get into arguments, culminating in a GainaxEnding (yes, for a reality show) that suggested most, if not all, of the series was faked. Needless to say, fans were not pleased, and the resulting years saw several cast members (including Cavalieri) disparage Creator/{{MTV}} and the producers for going too far in the opposite direction.
238* ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' took a dive in Season 6, which saw Howard and Brodie be PutOnABus and began focusing on [[CreatorsPet the newly introduced Falsone and Ballard]] in favor of the other, pre-established and already beloved characters, even the show's BreakoutCharacter Pembleton. Season 7 suffered again from the loss of Pembleton; the show tried to replace him with both Falsone and the newly introduced Mike Giardello; Falsone had become [[TheScrappy widely despised by fans]], while [[ReplacementScrappy Mike Giardello was not particularly hated but regarded as an inferior replacement]]. Season 7 also saw the show turning into a ''Series/LawAndOrder'' clone, and while it had a few good episodes, couldn't recapture the quality of previous seasons.
239* The third series of the ''Series/HoratioHornblower''. The first two series adapted ''Mr. Midshipman Hornblower'' and ''Lieutenant Hornblower'' fairly straight, with some AdaptationalExpansion. The third series, based on ''Hornblower and the Hotspur'', takes one foiled French effort to stir up rebellion in Ireland and turns it into a story about implausible deep-cover agents in the Navy. Styles goes from impudent-but-likeable to [[TookALevelInJerkass surly seaman of the week]] and Pellew, a competent and fair captain, becomes a clueless admiral who only seems to care about Hornblower. The production values took a hit, with several instances of SpecialEffectFailure and gratuitous StuffBlowingUp. It didn't help that the Forester estate mandated the death of Kennedy, a very popular AscendedExtra, at the end of the second series. Although this was not an unreasonable demand, given that he drastically changed the dynamic of Hornblower and Bush, it did mean that the third series was starting with a disadvantage in the eyes of the show's fans and made them less willing to forgive its flaws.
240* ''Series/{{House}}'': There is a long debate where the rot actually ''really'' began.
241** 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, TooBleakStoppedCaring, and a resolution that felt forced and anticlimactic, while the "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.
242** Season 5 also gets accused of this. Plot points that were never brought up again, Wilson and Cuddy acting like bigger asses than ''House'' was, an overemphasis on [[StrangledByTheRedString Foreman and Thirteen]] and giving Foreman all the big plotlines, Chase and Cameron being very rarely seen, the medicine being even worse than before, House turning pathetic and rather stupid and Kutner's [[spoiler: suicide]] made this season even worse than Season 3 in the fans' eyes.
243** Season 6 isn't exactly liked either, being accused of removing almost all of the character traits from House that ''made him a compelling character in the first place''.
244** Some say it happened in Season 7 when House and Cuddy became an official couple and several episodes were now revolving around trying to figure out their new work relationship that was now influenced by their private life relationship or had House interact more with Cuddy's adopted daughter and seemed to domesticate him. But the final straw for many fans was the ending, in which House, [[spoiler: having been dumped by Cuddy, ''drives his car into her house'' (while she's in the kitchen, no less). House has always been a jerk, but even so, this went well beyond fans' WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief]].
245** Others say it was in the final season, Season 8, where House [[spoiler: gets out of jail after having been imprisoned for driving a car into Cuddy's living room when she broke up with him]]. Aside from this season making Foreman the new Dean of Medicine, the team was once again changed with two new people, then re-altered to include Chase and Taub from before and the overall episodes were not that well-written anymore.
246* ''Series/HouseOfCardsUS'':
247** Following the critical acclaim of the first two seasons, coupled with the epic cliffhanger of Frank weaseling his way into the presidency, many viewers found the third season to be a step down in quality. Now that Frank had become president, the writers seemed to try to make him face more challenges and obstacles, but instead it made the cunning, Machiavellian Frank come off as [[TookALevelInDumbAss bumbling and counter-productive]]. The season focusing around a single state primary that even by Frank's admission would make very little difference to who would win the nomination also came across as somewhat unambitious, especially after two seasons in which he worked his way into the Vice-President and then President's roles. Additionally, this season saw Frank and Claire pitted against each other in what felt like [[ConflictBall drama for the sake of drama]].
248** After managing to WinBackTheCrowd with the exciting return to form fourth season, common consensus is unfortunately that Season 5 also falls under this. The show's longevity was beginning to show not helped by the change in showrunners and many viewers felt that since the writers had nearly covered every aspect of the Underwoods' rise to power, they were running low on ideas. The result was that Season 5 just ''dragged'' featuring such highlights as the use of DeusExMachina to move the plot along, the repetitiveness of nearly every scene with the Conways and Claire/Tom, the Underwoods pitted against each other again and worst of all was [[spoiler: Frank revealing to the audience near the end of the season that his plan all along was to resign from the Presidency and rule things from behind the scenes in the private sector. Why couldn't he do that from the start? Why even bother becoming President in the first place? After spending all of Season 5 building up hype that the Underwoods would establish a dynasty and rule with an iron fist and previous seasons showing Frank fight tooth and nail to land the Presidency and fight even harder to stay in the position, this felt like a big "fuck you" from the writers to the viewers who are now expected to believe that Frank Underwood would be okay with just giving up]].
249** Season 6 had an uphill battle already with the show continuing without its main character now that Creator/KevinSpacey had been fired and Frank had died in a BusCrash between seasons. Instead of completely focusing on Claire, though, the season has Frank's shadow over everything, with the major story threads for the season all centering on how he died, what's going to be his legacy, and how Claire will distance herself from him as President. As for Claire herself, she makes many awful decisions as President (including threatening to ''start a nuclear war'' if her cabinet doesn't uncover the details of an assassination conspiracy against her) and uses sexism and motherhood to shield herself from criticism by framing such critiques as misogyny. Combined with an extremely disappointing finale that leaves ''many'' questions and plot threads unresolved, and ''House of Cards'' ended with a whimper instead of a bang.
250* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'':
251** Season 5, which came packed full of {{Flanderization}}, terrible handling of a romance plotline, piling on the DenserAndWackier for an already Dense and Wacky series, far fewer of the show's signature {{Flash Forward}}s or {{Flash Back}}s, and a focus on random hijinks repetitively lampooning the characters' personalities instead of the first four seasons' emphasis on Future!Ted needing to explain a lot of seemingly-random hijinks in order for the crucial elements of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the main plot]] to make any sense. After Barney and Robin's breakup, the characters had no real development for the rest of the season, which crippled the show's ever-present character-driven momentum. However, it never actually did anything criminally stupid, so the writers could make do with what they had by using Season 6 to undo most of Season 5's damage and introduce lasting change to the characters (especially Marshall and Lily's attempts to conceive), and giving Season 7 a very focused, plot-driven direction with a great deal of foreshadowing, the "bride" mystery, and the Barney/Robin WillTheyOrWontThey arc.
252** Judging by the HIMYM message boards, Season 8 left many fans either A) exasperated with the whole "How Ted Met the Mother arc", B) exasperated with the Barney and Robin Will They or Won't They arc, C) thinking the writers have run out of ideas and the show is just running on fumes and needs to end, or D) all of the above.
253** The final season is mostly devoted to the wedding weekend. However, while it started off strong and featured a number of well-regarded episodes, it resulted in the controversial finale which is executed poorly [[spoiler:as they crammed 17 years of the story which also destroys the character development of Barney, Robin, and Ted]] in order to fit the original ending back in 2006 (when the ending had been shot; no, seriously). Despite the amounts of {{Foreshadowing}} [[spoiler:that Ted is actually telling the story of how he fell in love with Robin, even though quite a few episodes had shown all the ways they simply weren't good for each other]], the later seasons still couldn't match the delivery of the first four.
254* ''Series/ICarly'':
255** Season 2 was the GrowingTheBeard season and 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 showrunner]] produced 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 were being used on ''Victorious''. There are also annoyed fans who disliked how obvious the push over the new show over the old one had 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.
256** Season 5 had taken the show to new lows in ratings and quality. While Seasons 2 and 3 were all roughly similar-rated on average, Season 5 with its Seddie arc dropped the average of the other 4 seasons by ''millions'', and the final episode of the Seddie arc, "iLove You", was at the time the 2nd lowest rated episode ever.
257** Season 6 began with "iApril Fools", a nonsensical episode with no storyline that rated poorly. An overhyped ''Music/OneDirection'' guest episode coming short of 4 million viewers (for the show's standards) [[JustHereForGodzilla despite record Twitter activity and iTunes sales figures]]. Though the following episodes were, in general, better received by fans, the ratings didn't improve. 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. The latter half of Season 6, however, was a bit of an improvement, with slightly improved ratings and a greater number of well-received episodes, but it wasn't enough to save the show.
258* Season 5 of ''Series/InLivingColor'' The fourth season saw showrunner Creator/KeenanIvoryWayans stepping away from the show due to ExecutiveMeddling by Creator/{{Fox}} -- and taking his family/fellow castmates (Damon (who had left after the previous season to pursue a film career, but would make guest appearances), Marlon (joined the cast in season 4, but left after 13 episodes), Kim and Shawn tried to leave, but both were contractually obligated to remain left at seasons' end) and other members of the staff with him. Scrambling to fill the void, Fox hired a host of new castmates, and of the returning ones, Creator/JimCarrey barely appeared due to his burgeoning film career. What was left were a group of new castmates who didn't elicit much reaction from the audience, jokes and skits that often fell flat, and a general lack of excitement among the cast. Ratings plummeted as a result of general audience apathy, and the show was unceremoniously cancelled in mid-1994.
259* ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' has seen many [[BrokenBase divisive]] changes:
260** Season 14 (1997-98): Changing the iconic JeopardyThinkingMusic (which was used in the Fleming years and the first thirteen seasons of Trebek's run) to a new arrangement, the first video clues read by celebrities, an increase in [[ThemeNaming themed]] and punny category names, travel shows, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and the removal of the podium microphones]].
261** Season 17 (2000-01): Contestants no longer walking onstage in their introductions (partly due to Eddie Timanus' five-day run), and the Teen Tournament winner no longer being invited to the Tournament of Champions (due to said winners having to face a difficulty spike in terms of material for the latter tournament).
262** Season 18 (2001-02): The introduction of the Clue Crew, a set of {{Lovely Assistant}}s who present even more video clues, the doubling of dollar values, and host Creator/AlexTrebek [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking shaving off his iconic mustache]].
263** Season 20 (2003-04): Removal of the five-game cap for champions, followed within mere months by Ken Jennings' 74-game run that lasted into the next season, a decline in clue quality following the death of longtime writer Steven Dorfman, and Alex acting [[LighterAndSofter goofier]] ever since.
264** Season 25 (2008-09): Removal of the classic clue "pop-in" effect used since the 1984 premiere, and after this season without any popping-in effect, was replaced by another sound effect in the 2009-10 season.
265** Season 31 (2014-15): Removal of the co-champion rule which allowed players who finished tied to compete again on the next show. All ties are now decided with a tiebreaker clue; the winner plays on and keeps their winnings and the loser goes home with $2,000, though none occurred until March 31, 2018.
266** Season 37 (2020-21): The clue writing in general suffered, with a few Final Jeopardy! clues garnering controversy (including two in the span of a week), as well as an increase in poorly-worded and/or misleading clues thanks to new executive producer [[ReplacementScrappy Mike Richards]]. In addition, Trebek's death meant that a rotation of guest hosts would take his place for the rest of the season. Some like Ken Jennings, Buzzy Cohen, and David Faber were widely accepted by fans, while at least one ([[Series/TheDoctorOzShow Dr. Mehmet Oz]]) was universally rejected by fans, former contestants, and at least one contestant who played on one of his episodes. Luckily, the show got out of it in Season 38 thanks to Richards' firing and replacement with Michael Davies.
267* In the sixth and ultimately final season of ''Series/KateAndAllie'', both of the daughters had [[PutOnABus gone off to college]] and [[EmptyNest no longer]] (or rarely) appeared. Even [[CringeComedy more awkward]] was Chip now being at a period of adolescence where his [[InopportuneVoiceCracking voice constantly cracked]] and had a newfound [[HormoneAddledTeenager horniness for girls]] that was only marginally convincing. They also weirdly wrote in that Allie's new husband was [[WhenYouComingHomeDad away from home frequently]] so Kate could move in. By this point, the character of Allie became really [[ControlFreak insufferable]] once she married Bob. All of this was likely a result of the series being cancelled and then [[UnCanceled brought back]] for half a season. Plus, the creative forces behind ''Kate & Allie'' (Bob Randall and Bill Persky) had left after Season 5. And while it was also affected by a [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes writer's strike]] that affected the quality, it really was trying to go [[PostScriptSeason beyond its premise]] at that point. Creator/JaneCurtin for her part, was not happy with quality of the final season, as she called the scripts "uneven".
268* Many people felt this way about ''Series/KickinIt'' in season 4, due to the entirely new setting and Kim's departure.
269* Some people felt that ''Series/KyleXY'' began to suffer when it became less about Kyle himself (as in Season 1) and more about the evil MegaCorp that was pursuing him (as in Seasons 2 and 3).
270* With ''Series/TheLWord'', the later seasons in general are often accused of this, but particularly the final season -- which is so universally hated that some [[FanonDiscontinuity fans prefer to pretend it didn't happen.]]
271* Fans of ''Series/LabRats'' thought that the show hit this when season 4 came around. Because of some... "thing" happening in the show, the series was moved from Leo's basement to a bionic island. The only thing that fans thought was good was the {{crossover}} with ''Series/MightyMed'', and only because it didn't have anything to do with the season's plot; and the season's special episodes (''Bionic Rebellion'', ''Bionic Action Hero'', ''On The Edge'', ''Space Colony'', and ''The Vanishing'') since those have consistently been the show's greatest strengths. Fortunately, it ended with a good note...
272** ...until ''Series/LabRatsEliteForce'', fifth season/spinoff/fusion with ''Mighty Med''. The show had nothing to do with the original series, not to mention only two actors from ''Lab Rats'' actually appearing. The show flopped and was cancelled after 15 episodes.
273* ''Series/LagunaBeach'': The third season saw an entirely new cast of characters (including the sister of one of the main characters from the first two seasons) take the stage, though audiences quickly soured in the face of middling plots, relationship teases which went nowhere, lines and dialogue that quickly gained infamy for their cheesiness and a main character (Tessa) who came off as unlikeable to some. As a result, the show was [[{{Retool}} retooled]] into ''Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County'', which was set several miles up the coast and featured an entirely different locale and cast. It didn't work, and the flagship franchise died with that season.
274* ''Series/LALaw'':
275** The rot began when the show lost three of its original cast members (Creator/HarryHamlin, Creator/JimmySmits, and Michele Greene) at the end of the fifth season. New cast members Creator/ConchataFerrell, Michael Cumpsty, and Sheila Kelley tried gamely, but Season 6 was nowhere near the quality of previous seasons.
276** Season 7 was even worse: Ferrell, Cumpsty, Amanda Donohoe, Cecil Hoffman, and original cast member Creator/SusanDey all departed the show, along with series creator/executive producer Creator/StevenBochco and consultant Creator/DavidEKelley. The show lapsed into an AudienceAlienatingEra, with ridiculous soapy stories, {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s, {{Romantic Plot Tumor}}s and a severe decline in script quality. The series began to (slightly) pick itself up mid-season, when John Masius and John Tinker, Bochco's replacements, were let go and William Finkelstein took over, but by then much of the show's fandom had abandoned it. ''L.A. Law'' limped through one final season before it succumbed to low ratings.
277* With ''Series/LastOfTheSummerWine'' being the [[LongRunners longest-running live-action sitcom ever]] at 31 seasons, it's inevitable that some seasons would be better than others. However, it's generally agreed that the show was never quite the same after Compo's death, and the advancing age of Creator/PeterSallis and Creator/FrankThornton resulting in Clegg and Truly being DemotedToExtra in the last two seasons and replaced with a [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute new central trio]] brought the show to its lowest point.
278* For fans of ''Series/LaverneAndShirley'', the show went downhill when the main characters [[ReTool moved to California]] after the 5th season. Even those who still liked the show after the move were put off when the final season took the series to FranchiseZombie levels by featuring Laverne... without Shirley.
279* ''Series/LawAndOrder'': The undeniable highlight of the show was its run from Season 3-14, with the loveable DeadpanSnarker Det. Lenny Briscoe, played by Creator/JerryOrbach. While the prosecutors, junior detectives, and district attorneys varied, as well as the show's overall tone (Season 10 was far DarkerAndEdgier than the rest), many fans tuned in solely for Briscoe. It should be noted that Jack [=McCoy=] was ever-popular during this run, and Lieutenant Van Buren helped draw in minority viewers; however, District Attorney Nora Lewin's (played by twice UsefulNotes/AcademyAward-winning actress Creator/DianneWiest) run from Seasons 11-12 was so unpopular that she was written off by having her [[LandslideElection lose an election by a landslide]]. After Orbach's [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim untimely death]], the show dropped in ratings, though Det. Fontana was considered a LovableRogue from 15-16. However, Season 17's primarily young cast and sensationalist storytelling was such a departure from its roots that it began the show's downward spiral, despite having strong cast members such as Creator/JeremySisto and Creator/LinusRoache in Seasons 18-20.
280* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': While it's arguable exactly where the show's rot truly began (although good candidates for such include Season 9, when Benson grabbed the show's IdiotBall by helping out her wayward long-lost brother and nearly losing her badge; and Season 8, which brought both the inclusions of Lake and Beck, the latter of whom added yet another layer to the already complex LoveTriangle between Benson, Stabler and Stabler's wife), but Season 13 is when many have pinpointed where the show started going south. Even with his [[BaseBreakingCharacter base-breaking status]], people will agree that the show lost some of its heart when Stabler resigned from the force in the season finale and was replaced by Amaro, who, after a year or so of having little to no personality, devolved into a Stabler-clone to many fans' chagrin. Additionally, Munch was DemotedToExtra ''again'' in favor of a new character, Rollins (only this time, he eventually would retire while her character got to stay), storylines were rehashed, the RippedFromTheHeadlines plots became rather over-the-top and it became the CrimeTimeSoap that its detractors had always accused it of being.
281* ''Series/LawAndOrderUK'': The rot began in Series 5 with the departure of two of its original cast members, then kicked into high gear by Series 6 with the departure of Creator/JamieBamber and really ramped up by Series 7 with Bradley Walsh as the only original cast member remaining. Their replacements, while not bad characters or actors in their own right, simply did not generate the flawless chemistry of the original cast. In particular, Ronnie and Matt's rapport was never duplicated with either of Matt's replacements. The remaining episodes, while not bad -- "Deal"/"Survivor's Guilt" are almost unanimously considered among the series' best -- were not nearly as good as those from the first 4 series.
282* ''Series/LazyTown'': Seasons 3 and 4 were made years after the second one, so this was inevitable to happen. Interactive dance sequences were added to the musical numbers in season 3, Stephanie got flanderized and her flaws were removed, Robbie and the kids were dumbed down, and overall people felt that while they had their moments, they didn’t have the same charm as the first two. However, everyone agrees that without these seasons, we wouldn't have had the series' SignatureScene, "We Are Number One," or Robbie's ADayInTheLimelight episode "The First Day of Summer."
283* During Season 5 of ''Series/{{Leverage}}'', the team began depending upon more outlandish cons requiring unlikely levels of technology from Hardison to pull off (from the Really Big Bird Job's false flight of the Spruce Goose to the "Close encounter" in the First Contact Job to the White Rabbit job's Film/{{Inception}}[=/=]holodeck system. [[SlidingScaleOfSillinessVersusSeriousness This was not helped by the increase in contrast between the sophistication of many of their cons and crucial plot points increasingly being played for laughs. This had been a problem in earlier seasons as well but was much worse here.]] While the season still offered several truly excellent episodes, especially the series finale, the drop in quality was noticeable, and doubtless helped contribute to the series' eventual cancellation.
284* ''Series/LineOfDuty'', despite being a well-loved BritishSeries DetectiveDrama, has had multiple cases of this:
285** Season 3 is where the rot was really considered to have set in, with PacingProblems and {{Filler}} episodes being a major criticism from the viewers. In general, the problems were largely down to "The Caddy" StoryArc, and HateSink Gill Biggeloe and Lindsay Denton, the BigBad, was seen as a FillerVillain despite being in the well-liked Season 2.
286** Season 4 was largely seen as one {{Filler}} StoryArc, with unlikeable characters (although this show ''is'' set in a CrapsackWorld), including Jodie Taylor, who was divisive and seen as a {{Jerkass}} at best, and in general, the plotline was seen as average. Despite a good cast, it was seen as having too many episodes with filler and the pacing being poor.
287** Some viewers/fans even considered Season 5 FanonDiscontinuity due to {{Filler}} and sluggish pacing, although Natalie Gavin's appearance as Sergeant Martina "Tina" Tranter (who's liked by the fandom) softened it a bit since she is a well-regarded actress in the UK who doesn't often get major roles, although [[RootingForTheEmpire it was a case of supporting a villainous character]] that she played. In general, some fans feel that it's been difficult to keep the momentum up in recent series.
288* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' has had this:
289** What's known for sure is that Season 2 ''[[{{Pun}} lost]]'' many viewers because of an overly large KudzuPlot. The first six episodes of Season 3 (the "pod") were widely panned and turned off a lot of fans (who would then go on to miss episode 7, "Not in Portland," considered one of the show's finest, and the nearly unbroken line of incredible episodes that followed it). Fortunately, with the series' end scheduled to the sixth season years in advance, Seasons 4 and 5 started expanding the context of the story and tying together some of the various loose ends.
290** Season 6 suffered from this as well for a lot of viewers, mainly because of an alternate-universe subplot that was generally seen as unnecessary and uninteresting, and an increasing emphasis on mystical and metaphysical themes (which the show hadn't really embraced until that point), all culminating in an extremely polarizing series finale which answered very few questions.
291* The third season of ''Series/Lucifer2016'' proved to be deeply unpopular with the fans. While the addition of [[Creator/TriciaHelfer Charlotte Richards]] as a regular character was well-received the rest of the season was widely panned. Lucifer and Chloe's relationship decayed, straining the patience of fans who didn't ship them, and Chloe's [[StrangledByTheRedString suddenly hooking up]] with Marcus Pierce just made the RomanticPlotTumor even worse. Meanwhile, Maze TookALevelInJerkass, becoming completely self-centered and lashing out at everyone around her. With ratings slowly dropping Creator/{{Fox}} cancelled the show at the end of the season. Creator/{{Netflix}} eventually revived the show and the writers took several steps to correct the issues from season 3. The resulting fourth season is considered the best season of the entire show.
292* The last couple of seasons (the starting point depends on the viewer) of ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'' aren't viewed as favorably as the first couple seasons due to the GenreShift of the show. By the last season, it was practically little more than a soapbox for the major issues the writers viewed as important. Most of the elements that made the show successful were toned down or phased out in favor of {{Anvilicious}} issue-of-the-week episodes.
293* Some fans have accused the later seasons of ''Series/MadMen'' of this, especially since Don married Megan.
294** Season 5 got a lot of complaints about its extremely uneven tone and pacing, and for its focus on more melodramatic subplots, plus fan-favorite characters Don and Joan acting at times quite OutOfCharacter without a compelling explanation. For some, it seemed like ''Mad Men'' was descending into the territory of high-gloss soap opera.
295** Season 6 in particular seemed to suffer from this, with a number of odd episodes ("The Crash" standing out in particular) and a slower season-long plot that some accused of being too scattershot. There was much acclaim for the final few episodes of the season, though, with the finale ("In Care Of") being particularly well regarded.
296* The third season of ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'' (during which the approach was changed to ride the coattails of ''Series/{{Batman|1966}}'', which also affected ''The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.'') is hated by most fans -- two low points being Kuryakin riding a bomb full of essence of skunk that's falling onto UsefulNotes/LasVegas and Solo dancing the Watusi with a gorilla -- and considered to be the season that killed the show, although it did get an abbreviated fourth season that tried to reverse the damage (too little, too late -- and as Jon Heitland's book on the series pointed out, if the third season was too comical the fourth season was too ''serious'').
297* ''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.
298* All fans agree ''Series/{{MASH}}'' had Seasonal Rot, but depending on who you ask, it starts at Season 4, 5, 6 or 8. And for some, it's Seasons 1-3.
299** Season 4 saw Henry Blake and Trapper replaced by Colonel Potter and B.J., and the series started moving from its tone firmly from comedy towards more drama. Head writer and developer Larry Gelbart left after Season 4.
300** After Season 5, Frank Burns was replaced with Charles Winchester, executive producer Gene Reynolds was replaced by Burt Metcalfe, and Creator/AlanAlda (who played Hawkeye) got more control over the series, with the anti-war message becoming more and more {{Anvilicious}}.
301** Radar O'Reilly disappeared from the series in Season 8, by which point the entire original writing staff had been replaced. Harry Morgan (who played Colonel Potter) has said in interviews that he felt the cracks were starting to show by Season 9.
302** A lot of commenters bring up the fact that Season 10 has an episode in which a goat eats the camp's payroll as a sign of obvious creative bankruptcy.
303** Despite the increasingly worn plots, boffo ratings demanded renewal until the main stars refused to make a season 12. And yet season 12 happened anyway in the form of a [[{{Spinoff}} successor series]] [[Series/AfterMASH featuring three of the supporting cast]].
304** And said show may have been a victim of this as well. The first season actually did pretty well finishing 19th in the ratings, a standing that any producer of a first-season show would be over the moon about. But Creator/CBS wanted ratings equivalent to a ''Series/{{MASH}}'' season 12, and so instituted a major campaign of ExecutiveMeddling for the second (and last, as it turned out) season of ''Series/AfterMASH''. The writing of the first season, which was closer to the "dramedy" of seasons 4-11 of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' was replaced with broad comedy closer to the first three seasons. Many of the supporting cast were replaced with more comedic characters (and in Mildred Potter's case, was just plain recast, with her character devolving from a level-headed spouse to a more sitcom-y ditzy wife), and Klinger started wearing dresses and pretending to be crazy again. CBS seriously thought that the retooled show could be the thing to dethrone the ratings juggernaut of ''Series/TheATeam'' (whose own date with SeasonalRot was just around the corner), and so scheduled ''Series/AfterMASH'' against it, running (in retrospect, hubristic) ads depicting Klinger in a nurse's uniform shaving off Creator/MrT's distinctive mohawk. Viewers abandoned the show for ''The A-Team'', and it never recovered, being unceremonoiusly cancelled halfway through its second season.
305* ''Series/{{Maverick}}'' lost most of its appeal after James Garner's departure from the series, and Seasons 4 and 5 are often considered the low points. The former introduced two new characters to fill Bret's cowboy boots, but Beau and Brent did not last very long, and in the latter season, the series' last, the new episodes featured Bart alone.
306* Seasons four and five of ''Series/Merlin2008'', due to the writers not caring about previous plot details, like Arthur knowing his mom died due to magic, despite Uther going to great lengths in season two to hide that fact. This also applies to the Dragon's prophecy falling apart because of Mordred showing that Arthur will die on the fields of Camlann by a druid's hand. And on top of that, the dream of Morgana's death in season four is nothing like her death in the finale. That, and Arthur can't remember Mordred at all. And the whole Aithusa debacle.
307* ''Series/MiamiVice'': Season 4 is considered to be the worst season, due to the LighterAndSofter approach, with some of the lighter episodes veering wildly into science-fiction and comedy, most infamously the seventh episode "Missing Hours", which is often cited as the show's worst episode. The disparity between dark episodes and light episodes leads to a decidedly uneven season. There's also Tubbs being OutOfFocus and Jan Hammer's musical contribution noticeably reduced, with many of his cues from earlier seasons simply being recycled.
308* ''Series/{{Misfits}}'':
309** Many fans consider the quality to have dropped in Series 3, particularly the departure of [[EnsembleDarkhorse Nathan]]. Despite his replacement by [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Rudy]] and the promise that the characters would get completely new powers... it amounted to Curtis [[MisterSeahorse being able to turn into a woman]] and Kelly was now a rocket scientist. The show vaguely meandered for several episodes, before shifting focus to power-dealer Seth and his quest to resurrect his dead girlfriend, before culminating in a lackluster finale, which ended with the StupidSacrifice of [[EnsembleDarkhorse Simon]], who after the death of Alisha decided to go back in time to perform a HeroicSacrifice to save her life in the past. Fans were left baffled why he couldn't have prevented ''both'' things from happening since they'd previously used time travel to alter history ''dozens'' of times before?!
310** By Series 4, with the further departure of Kelly, this left [[OnlySaneMan Curtis]], oft-considered the ''least'' interesting character. Add two new characters many reviewers believe to be bland, the CringeComedy moments from Rudy are the only thing that made the show marginally entertaining. [[spoiler: And then Curtis ''[[ZombieInfectee died]]'']]. Series 4 also irritated fans by hardly ever featuring the characters' powers. However, the fifth and final series was generally quite well-received as a return to form.
311* This trope set in on ''Series/MissionImpossible'' after the third season, with the departures of producer Bruce Geller and co-stars Creator/MartinLandau and Barbara Bain. Landau’s role was taken over by Creator/LeonardNimoy, who made the most of his opportunity but never seemed completely comfortable with his character. The lack of continuity in the female co-lead also affected the show's chemistry, with Creator/LeeMeriwether (adequate), Creator/LesleyAnnWarren (clearly miscast), Lynda Day George (a slight improvement over Warren), and Barbara Anderson (a temporary replacement for George when the latter went on maternity leave) taking on that role and falling short of filling Bain's shoes. Later seasons were also hit with increasingly limited budgets, which resulted in formulaic scripts that had the IM Force almost exclusively battling organized crime.
312* Fans of ''Series/ModernFamily'' believe that the show declined in season 7 when Joe became a speaking character who became a typical verbose sitcom kid rather than an interesting child character like his predecessors when the original child characters became older, and the show became more and more reliant on farcical stories as opposed to slower-paced, more realistic ones, guest stars, and location episodes. Season 11, the final season, which [[FranchiseZombie wasn't supposed to happen]] was a particular example of this because instead of focusing on Haley's life as a new mother and Phil and Claire's new role as grandparents, it focused more on Manny's love life with the universally hated [[TheScrappy Sherry]] and featured widely disliked plots such as Claire leaving her family business.
313* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'': Creator/JohnCleese left the show after the third series. Without his rigorous quality control, the fourth season, renamed simply ''Monty Python'', featured way too many half-baked ideas and thin premises stretched well past breaking point, resulting in a horribly uneven batch of episodes. This was acknowledged by the remaining Pythons, their excuse being that, unlike Cleese, they didn't have a project to move on to (Cleese was writing ''Series/FawltyTowers'' as well as writing for other TV series), so they were uncomfortable about letting go of their only work.
314* ''Series/MorkAndMindy'' went from being 3rd place in the Nielsen charts in its first season to 27th place in the second, and failed to really recover from the ratings drop, due to ExecutiveMeddling at Creator/{{ABC}}. The network wanted to appeal more to a younger, hipper crowd, jettisoning Mindy's dad & grandma as regular characters, introducing more and more bizarre or cartoonish characters to the show to play off Creator/RobinWilliams (granted, formerly one-shot character Exidor [[EnsembleDarkhorse did get a bit of popularity rivaling Mork]] when he was featured in episodes), and the show was given a disco rearrangement. The executives also wanted Mindy to [[HollywoodBeautyStandards dress more sexually with more cleavage and curves]], before Robin stepped in and protested. This, along with [[FridayNightDeathSlot a move from Thursday night to Sunday night]], introducing special guests like Creator/RaquelWelch and [[Series/LeaveItToBeaver Barbara Billingsley]] and moving its stories from the "space alien observes Earth customs" theme [[StrangledByTheRedString to making Mindy and Mork a couple]] (and later, a married couple with a child played by Robin's idol Creator/JonathanWinters) did not help ratings at all. The show struggled on until its cancellation in 1982.
315* It was fear of this that caused Creator/JimHenson to end ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' after five seasons, despite being at the height of its popularity at that point.
316* 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 [[AssPull suddenly and arbitrarily coming out as gay]]. Season 11 marked the point when the long-suffering Creator/RobertLindsay and Creator/ZoeWanamaker, who had spent several seasons complaining about the scripts, gave up and quit.
317* ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'' began to develop this reputation when the show began moving into scenarios drawing more from fantasy or controlled environments instead of the urban legends in which it began to the point where Adam began to call them tropes instead of myths. The seasons in which the Build Team left are also a point of contention, as they took their unique personality and additions to the show with them. The most significant instance was the dragon lady myth, which was considered to feel like an excuse for the spectacle presented with no actual testing, recreation, or fact-digging with the myth itself only referred to once at the end of the show.
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321* Some viewers feel ''Series/{{Nashville}}'' started suffering this in Season 2 following the departure of T-Bone Burnett on the musical front, but his other commitments meant he was only going to work on the series in its first season anyway. Others feel it started suffering this following moving the focus from the music industry, an increase in melodrama (not helped by several of the show's original writers leaving) and introducing a revolving cast of Scrappies; it continued in Season 3, with the show courting TooBleakStoppedCaring by staying on the same creative path. Because of the misguided faith in misery and recycled plots (especially in regards to Gunnar and Scarlett) -- as well as giving Juliette a postpartum depression storyline that not only didn't work with viewers (or critics) but wound up [[GoneHorriblyWrong backfiring horribly]] due to Creator/HaydenPanettiere having it ''for real'' -- Season 4 was its last on ABC. It made a ChannelHop to Creator/{{CMT}} with new showrunners and the departure of Aubrey Peeples and Will Chase, meaning no more of the [[TheScrappy widely disliked Layla Grant]]. Thankfully, the series was given a SeriesFinale that went down ''much'' better with viewers.
322* The third and final season of ''Series/NecessaryRoughness'' was a nearly-complete overhaul of the series, with Dani being fired from the Hawks for stupid reasons and instead going to work for an agency that was obviously corrupt as hell. Meanwhile, most of the regular cast was either PutOnABus or DemotedToExtra, and the storyline about T.K.'s efforts to redeem himself (or at the very least, restore his public image) was tossed out in favor of a RomanticPlotTumor that magically undid all of his CharacterDevelopment from the previous two seasons. None of this was received well by fans, and thus the series was cancelled.
323* For ''Series/NorthernExposure,'' the fourth season (featuring Creator/AnthonyEdwards' gratingly insufferable bubble-bound eco-activist Mike) was wobbly, but the real trouble started at the beginning of the fifth season when the series got a new {{Showrunner}} in the person of David Chase. Chase openly despised the show's basic premise--calling it [[http://www.rogerebert.com/demanders/magical-realism-nothern-exposure-25-years-later "...something I couldn't understand."]]--and admittedly [[MoneyDearBoy only took the job for the paycheck]]. Clearly at sea with a show set in a "non-judgemental universe", the Chase-led fifth season lurches along never sure about what it's trying to be, clearly unable and unwilling to go for offbeat whimsy but also not really going for dramatic either. The decline accelerated the following year after Joel Fleischman left and was replaced as town doctor by the uninspiring Phil Capra.
324* When ''Series/TheOC'' premiered in 2003 it became a pop culture sensation overnight. Critics praised the show for its clever dialogue, excellent writing, and interesting characters, and it was one of the highest-rated television shows in its time slot. For its second season, Creator/{{Fox}} moved the show to a competitive Thursday night time slot, which ended up costing it viewers. There's also a general agreement among fans that the quality of the show declined in the second season, although it was still pretty good. Season 3 is almost universally considered to be the show's worst season due to it introducing several new characters who were disliked by fans as well as the overall tone becoming more serious and angsty, thus causing the ratings to drop even further. When Season 4 rolled around the show began to improve in quality, returning the focus to the main cast members and bringing back the comedy. Unfortunately, by that point, most people had given up on ''The O.C.'' and it was cancelled due to low ratings.
325* Fans' opinions on when ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'' started dipping in quality differ wildly.
326** While Series 2 and 3 are almost universally adored and considered the show's golden age, Season 4 divided fans a little by its focus on darker storylines and some sudden changes to main characters (though with the newly unemployed Jan and the newly enshrined Ryan, it could make sense in context), and some thought actually putting Jim and Pam together brought on a case of sharp ShippingBedDeath. The fact that the writer's strike cut into the number of episodes (14 down from the originally planned 22-episode season) meant that some story arcs probably didn't get their full time to grow and be resolved.
327** While Season 5 got some sighs of relief as the show seemed to regain its goofier, warmer, improv-friendly tone of previous seasons, some thought the characters were slowly descending into caricatures and the plotlines were becoming increasingly tame and redundant. Season 6 onwards is widely considered when the show took a sharp dip in quality, as there seemed to be little urgency to their plotlines, and the various quirks and ticks of the ensemble had become increasingly ho-hum and the show started begetting too many OutOfCharacter moments. Only Jim and Pam's wedding at Niagara Falls and the build-up to Michael's leaving of Dunder-Mifflin were considered noteworthy plotlines.
328** Seasons 8 and 9 are generally considered the worst of the show, although the SeriesFinale is generally well regarded. Season 8 is criticized by the addition of the CreatorsPet Nellie to the plot and a general inability for the show to keep itself afloat with Jim and Pam's now uninteresting relationship and the lack of Michael's presence. Season 9 was absolutely reviled by characters becoming extremely more unsympathetic, Nellie's extended focus, the addition of the Pete/Erin romance, a plotline generally disliked for being a poorly done rehash of Jim and Pam's earlier dynamics, and derailing Andy's character.
329* The Yorkshire Television sitcom ''Series/OhNoItsSelwynFroggitt'' enjoyed three series of big audiences and favourable, if not rave, reviews from critics as it followed the antics of cheerful but clumsy council labourer Selwyn Froggitt (Creator/BillMaynard), whose {{Catchphrase}}, "Magic!" (delivered with a big grin and double thumbs up), became part of everyday slang. However, everything changed for the worse for the fourth series in 1978, re-titled ''Selwyn''. All of the original cast (except Maynard) and writer Alan Plater left to pursue other interests, and Selwyn was now the entertainment manager at a run-down holiday camp on the east coast of England. Everything and everyone that made ''Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt'' work was gone, replaced with a hackneyed personality clash between Selwyn and the camp manager's nephew Mervyn (Bernard Gallagher), and critics and audiences turned on the series ''en masse'', leading to plans for a second series under the ''Selwyn'' name being scrapped.
330* Fan and critical consensus is that ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'' stumbled during Season 5. Season 4 set up the prison riot with [[spoiler:Poussey's death at the hands of a guard]], but the resulting riot was seen as a big disappointment. In an apparent lack of nerve the writers seemed unwilling to commit to the drama that the occasion warranted and instead relied heavily on slapstick comedy and lighthearted antics. This resulted in a tonally inconsistent season with episodes juxtaposing Taystee's crusade for prisoner's rights with scenes like [[MoodWhiplash the guards partaking in an American Idol audition and the meth-heads holding court where they are grilled about Saved by the Bell trivia.]] The following seasons moved to the maximum security prison, and while they are generally seen as an improvement, the change in setting resulted in half of the cast being [[PutOnABus put on a bus]], never to return except for a brief cameo here and there. Fan favorites like Boo and Sophia were sorely missed, and while the ending is generally well regarded, many considered it [[DownerEnding unnecessarily bleak]], with multiple characters being given life sentences for crimes they didn't commit.
331* ''Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses'': At the very least, nearly everyone agrees that the 2001-2003 trilogy is markedly weaker than the rest of the series. Some consider the series to have been at its best when it was just two guys and their grandfather/great-uncle trying to pull off "get rich quick" schemes, and that its initial premise was derailed by the introduction of Cassandra and Raquel.
332* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
333** There is a widespread dislike for [[SophomoreSlump Season 2]], especially its second half following Emma and Snow's return from the Enchanted Forest. Season 1 is [[FirstInstallmentWins beloved]] and opinion on Season 3 is [[BrokenBase split down the middle]], but Season 2 is usually criticized for all the new character additions and multiple storylines being piled on at the expense of the characters and stories the show already had.
334** Season 4 as well. Like Season 2, it had a strong start, with the ''Frozen'' story arc breathing new life into the show and giving it popularity it hadn't had in a while, but this has sadly been undone by many questionable story decisions, [[ArcFatigue a padded two-parter killing the Frozen arc's momentum]], and a second story arc [[AudienceAlienatingPremise with an unpopular premise]] and so much stuff packed into it that it was met with derision before it had even begun ''airing''. And when it ''did'' air, reactions were even ''more'' negative, culminating with [[spoiler: outrage over the AssPull reveal that Maid Marian was Zelena the Wicked Witch in disguise all along]].
335** The first half of Season 5 has its own problems. Several fans were not happy with [[BaseBreakingCharacter Zelena]] being upgraded to a regular. Merida was largely criticized for overshadowing the main arc and taking screen time away from the core characters. What's more, the show quickly became overloaded with another KudzuPlot -- with the revelation that [[spoiler: Hook is now a Dark One]] causing the season to do a complete 180 and abandon the arc it had been building with Camelot. Likewise, the midseason finale ending with an AssPull was met with outrage by many fans. Others, however, like how the season, in spite of some flaws, managed to fix most of the problems Season 4 had.
336** While Season 5's second half is considered better than 5A by some for avoiding the problems that arc had and fixing some of the things the show has been criticised for in the past, others don't agree. The arc ended up using the same basis as the Neverland arc but made the primary criticism of that arc (it is character-based and [[ArcFatigue progresses very slowly]]) even worse. Another factor is the three biggest focuses of the arc: people who don't like Hook disliked the show [[spoiler: killing off Robin Hood in the same episode Hook is revived (after it looked like he would stay dead)]], people who don't like Regina don't like how she once again seems to [[KarmaHoudini skate by on her crimes]] even when many victims she's killed are right there in the Underworld and she even seems to ''benefit'' from her time spent down there, and people who don't like Zelena hate how much time is spent on her and her out-of-nowhere romance with the BigBad.
337** The first half of Season 6 has been met with scorn by many fans for [[AbortedArc abandoning the Land of Untold Stories concept a few episodes in]], [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter wasting several characters like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]], bringing in versions of Aladdin and Jasmine that were considered underwhelming, having a [[VillainDecay much campier and less threatening Evil Queen]] as the BigBad, bringing Rumple's behavior toward Belle to ''very'' uncomfortably abusive levels, adding further unwanted {{Retcon}}s, and generally feeling like there's no coherent plot. The second half has also been receiving flack with [[spoiler:Hook]] revealed as the killer of David's father which led to Hook and Emma being separated '''''again''''' ''for three episodes'', [[AntiClimax the Split Queen arc ending with Regina absorbing some of the Evil Queen's darkness]] and [[KarmaHoudini her doppelganger getting her chance at a happy ending]] with [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter wish!Robin]], and the BigBad generally being a rather underwhelming villain despite being the one prophesied to kill Emma, with [[GreaterScopeVillain the one pulling his strings]] seen as something of a GenericDoomsdayVillain despite [[HamAndCheese a fun actress playing her.]]
338** Season 7 was already in a tough spot by dumping most of the old cast including the main lead and looking like it would break up the show's main couples. The fact it also reuses the plot of Season 1 was seen by many as a sign the writers were running out of ideas. However, the back-to-basics approach, the ways the season resolves the casting issues and adds [[NotHisSled several twists]] to the season 1 plot has won some people over, and [[BrokenBase just as many people love the series finale at the end as there are who hate it.]]
339* The second season of ''Series/TheOuterLimits1963'', while not horrible and still having masterpieces (most notably Creator/HarlanEllison's "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S2E1Soldier Soldier]]" and "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S2E5DemonWithAGlassHand Demon With A Glass Hand]]"), was of very uneven quality, due in part to it being moved to a Saturday night timeslot against ''The Creator/JackieGleason Show'', which in turn caused major staffers (including very major ones like Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano) to leave in protest. Then the production budget was cut even lower than it already was, and they tried to make the show more commercial than before. That the second season was a ratings flop and triggered its cancellation midway shows how well that turned out. (It should be noted, however, that Ellison -- ever the contrarian -- is one of the very few people who prefer season two to season one ... although that could be because he was unable to sell a single story idea to the season one producers, while the season two producers bought two.)
340* Later series of ''Series/{{Outnumbered}}'', in particular the fifth and final one, are considered not to be as strong as the earlier series, as the children were getting older and, in contrast to the largely improvised earlier series, their dialogue was more scripted and less natural as a result. A few years after the final series there was a ReunionShow that was meant to act as a springboard to further specials, but it received similar criticism -- by this point the eldest child was in his twenties and the youngest was very definitely a young adult -- and no further specials have since been produced.
341* While the last three seasons of ''Series/{{Oz}}'' are still well-received overall, some felt the increasingly bizarre elements (such as a [[AbortedArc quickly abandoned]] storyline about accelerated aging drugs) jarred with the sometimes quirky, but still generally down-to-earth and gritty tone set in earlier seasons. The loss of [[spoiler:fan-favorite Adebisi]] is also used as an argument against the later seasons.
342* ''Series/PartyOfFive'' got hit with this hard in Seasons 4 and 5. First was Charlie's cancer storyline, which cranked the emotional tone of the series (which had been kept tastefully downplayed) [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] and episodes followed a formula of 'Charlie {{Wangst}}s about being sick for forty minutes' until he made a miraculous recovery. Then there was Julia's storyline, which got so dramatic it was almost to the point of parody - she and Griffin get married and both are unfaithful until it ends in disaster, she ends up seeing her new best friend's boyfriend who then turns out to be abusive and she develops UsefulNotes/StockholmSyndrome for him. By Season 6, fans were just bored with the series, and the actors visibly were as well.
343* ''Series/APlaceToCallHome'' was hit by this from ''Season 2'' onwards, with accusations of PacingProblems, and there was a lot of {{Filler}} in a series which had 13 episodes a season. It went beyond SophomoreSlump to the point where the last two seasons (Seasons 4 and 5) had too many filler episodes despite the ChannelHop and budget changes.
344* Creator/{{ITV}}'s ''Series/PoliceCameraAction'' ran for [[LongRunners sixteen years]], and though not quite as controversial as some of the series on this page, it still draws arguments concerning whether and when rot occurred:
345** Season 7 in 2000 was seen as a very {{Filler}}-based season, and only the episodes "In The Driving Seat", "On The Edge" being liked.
346** The first few episodes of Season 11 were seen as dull due to CluelessAesop, pacing, and other issues.
347* ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'':
348** For Season 18, host Creator/BobBarker on some episodes looked lost and likely was bored, while his ego was swelling after he became executive producer. There were backstage issues beginning to crop up with the staff (most prominently TheAnnouncer Rod Roddy and LovelyAssistant Holly Halstrom). This also seems to be the point that the staleness and "phoned in" nature of the show in the 1990s began, not at all helped by Rod's health problems making his announcing a lot less enthusiastic. Rod also stopped appearing on-camera in Season 31 due to said disputes, and the show's distributors [[LyingCreator covered it up]] by saying that they had enacted a policy against announcers appearing on-camera. It also didn't help that throughout the 90s, the show continued to cling to outdated game show technology such as trilons and eggcrate displays, even as all of its contemporaries were freshening up and modernizing their sets.
349** The later Barker seasons as well: the hideous "Hollywood mural" on the Turntable was used early in Season 31 and clashed with every other set piece; the aging Bob was continuing to have senior moments; more and more contestants were playing the idiot card, seemingly for 15 minutes of fame; and Rod's death in 2003 led to a succession of mostly-mediocre to awful announcers (Daniel Rosen, who had no enthusiasm at all and supposedly {{astro turf}}ed a fan forum with praise for his announcing, being considered the nadir). Many fans also disliked the fact that Rich Fields was chosen to be the new announcer over Randy West or Burton Richardson, either of whom seemed far more qualified for the job (both of them had filled in for Rod in the past when he was undergoing cancer treatments; both of them had worked on several other game shows [Burton even did the short-lived 1994 nighttime version of ''Price'']; Randy was a close friend of Rod and original announcer Johnny Olson). Of the other candidates who filled in after Rod's death, nearly all were quickly forgotten save for Jim Thornton, who became the announcer on ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' in 2011.
350** Season 37, the second hosted by Creator/DrewCarey. It added a lot of oddball Showcases written by Carey that often demeaned Rich (to Drew's credit, [[CreatorBacklash he later admitted that the sketches didn't work]]), Rich became incredibly [[NoIndoorVoice over-the-top]], the pricing games' difficulty spiked (though that one can be blamed on the show '''having''' to do so when one showcase was won to the exact dollar due to a predictable prize pool), pricing games [[PutOnABus vanished without a trace]], bizarre prizes began showing up, several infamous special guest appearances began, and several other higher-ups disappeared for various reasons. However, the show soon got over the growing pains of a new host and, while some still don't like the Carey era, complaints about it have subsided somewhat.
351* After the second series of ''Series/{{Primeval}}'', the reactions to the show have been very mixed. Critics appear to dislike the fourth series the most, with the fans mainly targeting their hate towards 3 and 4.
352* ''Series/PrisonBreak'' fans either cite the third or fourth season as the show's worst. For Season 3, the Sona prison turned out to be much less scary than the ultra-creepy penitentiary viewers spotted in the Season 2 finale, the plot suffered from the usual {{Padding}} and brave-step-forward-two-steps-back plotting that affected the other seasons, the new plotlines regarding the Company gave them a dose of VillainDecay, and [[spoiler: Sara's death]] upset the fanbase tremendously. Sure, [[spoiler: Sara]] came back in one piece for Season 4, but the Mission-Impossible-meets-A-Team {{retool}} sent the series' signature ridiculousness to levels beyond recovery. The fact that the convicts-turned-fugitives get captured by police so quickly to assemble a secret agent squad contradicts their mostly-successful evasion for most of Season 2. In addition, the once scary Company continues to get neutered by VillainDecay, and the side plots only get crazier and more illogical. And then there's the ending, which almost every ''Prison Break'' fan hated.
353* ''Series/{{Reba}}'':
354** It's not ''really'' considered Seasonal Rot, but in its second season, it became [[LighterAndSofter noticeably lighter]] than the [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness previous season]] and was considerably different in terms of quality.
355** Season 3 was hit with this hard, as it [[MiddleChildSyndrome mostly focuses on Kyra]], and the episodes are, in a word, bad.
356** Season 4 was much worse, as the problems in the past season were made much worse, as [[CloudCuckoolander Barbara Jean]] is dumber, and ''Reba''[='=]s tone is considerably darker.
357** Season 5, with Cheyenne doing drugs and Kyra being absent most of the season.
358** With Season 6, it's not really bad, but it could've been better.
359* ''Series/RedDwarf'' gets this a lot.
360** Either the sixth, seventh, or eighth series; which one qualifies best, or rather worst, as the seasonal rot depends on who you talk to.
361** While fans differ as to where it began exactly, it's generally agreed that the period in between Series III and VI was its peak, with the rot starting depending on personal impression. However the rot became obvious after Rob Grant and Doug Naylor split, with Doug Naylor choosing to revive the series and turn it into a comedy/drama with no studio audience for Series VII and a new Kochanski and getting the backlash that followed. Despite returning to a pure comedy format and shot in front of an audience (not to mention bringing back Rimmer) for Series 8, the response was similarly poor, due to the jarring change of premise to a prison comedy with the old crew brought back to life as opposed to the more natural progression from series V through VII. Ditching Kochanski and reverting to the standard four-character ensemble in later seasons seems to have helped turn things around.
362* If and how much this happened to ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'' over its fifteen-season run is debatable, but writer and star Steve Smith was aware of this happening, which is why he chose to end the show on its 300th episode.
363* ''Series/TheRestaurant'', Season 3. It was clearly made on a tighter budget than the previous seasons, but what really did for it was the poor quality of the contestants and the favouritism shown toward eventual winners [=JJ=] and James.
364* ''Series/RiverMonsters'':
365** After Season 3, there was a noticeable decline in quality. Jeremy started playing up supernatural legends about the animals he was investigating, whereas in previous seasons he'd focused on scientific fact. It also became apparent that the show had started to run out of actually dangerous (or potentially dangerous) animals to investigate -- the episode about sea lampreys was especially bad in that regard, as Jeremy portrayed it as a serious threat to humans when the only human deaths that lampreys have ever been involved in were incidents of people who got food poisoning from eating them. He was also more prone to pushing speculation without any decent evidence to support it, such as the episode where he speculated that the Loch Ness Monster was the Greenland shark while completely failing to demonstrate that Greenland sharks ever entered Loch Ness.
366** With the introduction of the new "Mysteries of the Ocean" season, the series seems to have regained some of its old spark by [[{{Pun}} diving]] into new material. For example, in the first episode of the season ''Sea Serpents'', Jeremy ultimately goes blue water scuba diving ''at night'' and gets to spend a little while hanging out with [[spoiler: ''two'' spooky-looking oarfish]]. (Which qualifies as a certified SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome.) It's just enough to make viewers overlook the deviation from the original premise. (Wasn't this a show about ''River'' monsters?) Still, with this new material, the show seems to have mostly [[GrowingTheBeard regrown the beard]] for now.
367* If ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' was a normal show, it could claim that the rot set in halfway through season two. However, said rot hit so hard and so fast that the show looped around to SoBadItsGood, and the fanbase followed. While Season 4 had some unavoidable struggles - the need to write in Fred Andrews' death due to Creator/LukePerry's own passing at the season's beginning, and then cutting it short due to the COVID-19 pandemic - it seemed to fire all its zaniest plots in the first few episodes before settling into SoOkayItsAverage territory, quite the opposite of what fans hoped for. Fortunately, season five was seen as a return to form if not doubling down on the series' now-beloved madness.
368* ''Series/RobinHood'': There was still time to save it even ''after'' the horror of the Season 2 finale (in which [[spoiler:Marian was killed off]]), but a number of contributing factors ensured that the third season not only earned the hatred of the fans but the cancellation of the show. This included the new writers who apparently didn't bother to watch the previous two seasons, the [[AbortedArc dropping of long-term storylines]] from the show, the complete lack of mention of Will Scarlett and Djaq (who were abandoned in the Holy Land), the reimagining of Tuck as a MagicalNegro, the introduction of the horrid Kate as a love interest for Robin, the reduction of the outlaws into bit-parts (whose only job was to babysit [[TheLoad Kate]] and [[CreatorsPet talk about how great she was]]), the abandonment of the "rob from the rich/give to the poor" premise, the painful introduction of Guy and Robin's [[LongLostRelative half-brother]] in an attempt to set up Robin Hood as a LegacyCharacter for a proposed Season Four, and finally, the mass cast exodus of all but two of the original cast members (who were disposed of in some of the [[DroppedABridgeOnHim worst deaths conceivable]]), who certainly weren't shy in voicing their displeasure at the direction the show had taken.
369* Around Season 6 of ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'', the blue-collar humor on which the series was built began to be derailed by self-referential jokes, gimmick episodes, StuntCasting, and the {{Flanderization}} of several characters (particularly Bev). [[BrokenBase And then there's Season 9...]]
370* ''Series/RowanAndMartinsLaughIn'' suffered this in the '70s after many of its notable cast members (such as Judy Carne, Jo Anne Worley, Creator/GoldieHawn, Arte Johnson, Creator/HenryGibson, and Alan Sues) left the show. Its 6th season is considered to have killed the series, especially since the original producer was no longer with the show.
371* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'': Seasons 4,5, and 6 are generally believed to be the show's "Golden Age", and almost every season past those will be accused of this, though just how poorly received it is varies from season to season.
372** At the time, Season 7 was considered by many to be the show's worst season, due to an abundance of team challenges not giving the cast room to shine as individuals, a controversial elimination order that saw fan favorites leave early while more controversial personalities remained, and an overall mean-spirited tone and lack of chemistry among its cast. Nowadays it's been VindicatedByHistory to an extent, with many acknowledging that it contains several of the greatest queens to ever compete on the show, and that the main issue is that it has an abundance of fashion queens and yet most of the challenges are acting and comedy-oriented.
373** Season 11 was not well received while it was airing: many felt that a cast of fifteen queens was too many and resulted in several contestants becoming filler. Those that did stand out among the cast were either seen as talented yet lacking personality (Brooke Lynn, Plastique, Nina) or boasting big personalities without the talent to match (Yvie, Silky, Vanjie), and several were accused of [[CreatorsPet favoritism]] and [[EliminationHoudini lasting a lot longer than they should have]]. While many of the personalities clashed along the way, it seemed like the fights didn't have the same catty bite that those from the earlier seasons did.
374** Season 13 gets a lot of flak for how ''long'' it is. The first three episodes are non-elimination, another non-elimination episode comes when there's still nine people left, and the following week's episode is a documentary about filming during the [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID Pandemic]], meaning the show had been airing for two months with only four people going home. Additionally several of the challenges felt like half-baked retreads of challenges from previous seasons, and the decision to have the queens lip sync in the first episode to determine whether they would compete in the "High Team" or the "Low Team" in the next two episodes was [[ScrappyMechanic poorly received]].
375** Season 15 saw a change of format, with episodes that were only two-thirds as long as in past seasons. This might not have been so bad if the producers had been more selective in their choice of contestants, but they decided it was also a great time to bring in a cast of ''sixteen'', one more than on season 11 (which, as previously mentioned, was criticized for having too many queens and needing to put some back). The result is a ruthlessly edited season with very few memorable moments.
376* ''[=RuPaul's=] Drag Race All Stars'' has also struggled with this, mainly stemming from the fact that All Stars 2 is considered to be one of the best seasons the show has ever produced, and the next few seasons [[ToughActToFollow attempted to recapture this success without fully understanding what made it work in the first place]].
377** The most common complaint levelled against All Stars is that once it started being produced on an annual basis (compared to the four-year gap between All Stars 1 and 2), there simply weren't enough top-tier contestants to create a true "All Stars" roster each year, and several contestants were all but cast to be [[JokeCharacter Joke Characters]] with no true chance at winning. Starting with All Stars 4, queens from previous All Stars seasons started showing up, seemingly admitting that there were slim pickings for strong contestants who had not done All Stars already[[note]]Though several of these returning queens were from All Stars 1, which is show does not look at fondly due to using a different format[[/note]]. The yearly production schedule also means that queens will return to compete only a year or two after their first season, leading fans to question whether they've grown enough to give a stronger showing than their first time around.
378** All Stars 3 gets hit hard with this. While it still has several strong points, [=BenDeLaCreme's=] decision to eliminate herself cast a shadow over the last two episodes, as many had considered her the frontrunner up until that point. The finale only makes things worse due to a twist that results in the eliminated queens choosing the show's winner for the first time, leading to the elimination of the other frontrunner and resulting in a winner who was met with controversy rather than a warm welcome.
379** All Stars 4, while more well-received than All Stars 3 due to a cast of several fan favorites and a string of strong challenges, starts to suffer near the end. The ShockingElimination of Manila two episodes before the finale left several people unwilling to finish the series, and the decision to crown both members of the Top 2 was seen as a cop-out meant to placate fans upset with Manila's elimination.
380** All Stars 5: From the moment it began, it was a ForegoneConclusion that Shea Coulee would win the entire thing, leaving little suspense or drama for the rest of the season. Additionally, the new Lip Sync Assassin twist meant to address complaints towards the previous Lip Sync for your Legacy system was met with mixed reception, as having only one queen from the cast lip sync each episode seemed to only further sideline the All Stars 5 queens on their own season, and the addition of a group vote aspect worsened the issue of queens keeping their friends over queens that deserved to stay more.
381** All Stars 6, on the other hand, was received much more positively. The season bills itself as more of a "second chances" season for queens who didn't do well on their original season but have since shown a lot of growth. This results in a cast that seems more evenly matched rather than having a clear frontrunner. Along the way, several queens known for being TheScrappy on their original season get to [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap show a softer side and exhibit how they've grown in confidence and talent]], including ADayInTheLimelight for one of its most infamous Scrappys, Silky Nutmeg Ganache, where she tears through several lip syncs in a row and proves that she is a true drag talent. Combine this with several other moments of funny and awesome, and you have a season that excels precisely because it finally managed to break out of All Stars 2's shadow.
382* ''[=RuPaul's=] Drag Race UK'': While the first two series of ''UK'' were very positively received, especially compared to the middling reception of more recent US seasons, UK Series 3 was seen as a steep decline for the show. After the second series had both its filming and airing impacted by the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, Series 3 was meant to get the show back on track, resulting in its [[TroubledProduction production being rushed]] and premiering only six months after the second series ended. Aside from this, the early elimination of fan favorites Victoria Scone and Veronica Green and an abundance of twists (including an episode with no winner, a double elimination, and two non-elimination episodes) left many feeling like production had [[ExecutiveMeddling too heavy of a hand]] in the trajectory of the series. The crowning of CreatorsPet Krystal Versace was similarly met with mixed reception, leading many to try and forget the series happened.
383* ''Series/SanfordAndSon'' initially subverted this earlier in its run with Fred being PutOnABus a few times because of Creator/ReddFoxx's contract disputes. However, the supporting characters were strong (and plentiful) enough to hold up the show alongside Lamont, with [[CloudCuckooLander Grady]] in particular even filling in Fred's role as the second main character (complete with Grady [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute picking up on some of Fred's mannerisms and hostility to Aunt Ester]]). While some would say Whitman Mayo's Grady --through trying his best-- didn't hold a candle to Foxx's Fred, this still helped keep things along until Fred returned to the show.\
384\
385The ''real'' Seasonal Rot kicked in the final two seasons, marked by a change in production staff. The original writers and producers from the earlier seasons moved on to other things, and had newer staff taking their place; and it shows with the minority-focused stories replaced with [[RecycledInSpace more typical sitcom fare]], the show's more practical tone becoming [[DenserAndWackier much less serious]], and an odd influx of AsHimself guest stars (who inexplicably showed up at the junkyard). The sixth and last season in particular truly marked the show as creatively bankrupt of ideas by that point, even in comparison to the fifth season (which is credited with still having a handful of good episodes): among other things, season six opened with a two-part VacationEpisode to Hawaii that had Fred and Lamont [[GenreShift mixed up in a jewel heist]] and featured a bizarre episode about Fred entering a [[CelebrityParadox Redd Foxx look-alike contest]]. On top of that, Foxx and co-star Demond Wilson were both engaged in contract battles with the network that hurt their work on camera and ultimately caused both to leave the show thus ending it. The less said about the AfterShow ''The Sanford Arms'' ([[TheBandMinusTheFace sans Foxx and Wilson]]) and the {{Revival}} ''Series/{{Sanford}}'' (sans Wilson) that Creator/{{NBC}} tried to cash in with, the better.
386* ''Series/SarabhaiVsSarabhai'' from 2004 is considered one of the best Indian comedy shows of all time despite having only one season for a while, and it has a cult following who were eager to see it continued. Season 2, once it finally got released [[SequelGap in 2017]], failed to live up to people's expectations; between cheaper sets, disappointing jokes, less enjoyable characterization, and forced ProductPlacement, the production crew really only made Season 2 to satisfy the demands of diehard fans, and it shows.
387* ''Any'' season of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' can fall into this depending on who you ask, with the popular answers being a) that the show [[FirstInstallmentWins hasn't been good since the original cast was on it]] in TheSeventies, or b), if viewers were [[JustHereForGodzilla just watching 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/ChevyChase, Creator/DanAykroyd, Creator/JohnBelushi, Creator/BillMurray, Creator/EddieMurphy, Creator/DanaCarvey, Creator/PhilHartman, Creator/ChrisFarley, Creator/JimmyFallon, Creator/TinaFey, Creator/AmyPoehler, [[Music/TheLonelyIsland Andy Samberg]], and, as of 2013, Creator/BillHader.
388** The sixth season (1980-1981) stands out as uniquely awful and is 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, who had previously been in charge of booking musical guests, knew ''nothing'' about comedy. (On a special about ''SNL''[='=]s history in the 1980s, Creator/GilbertGottfried, a cast member around that time, went on record in saying that Doumanian was so clueless about comedy that she would root for Margaret Dumont in a Creator/MarxBrothers film.) As a result, the musical guests were fantastic, but the rest of the show was barely watchable (including "Weekend Update", which Creator/LorneMichaels 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 her downfall when Creator/CharlesRocket said "I wanna know who the [[PrecisionFStrike 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 Creator/KarenBlack[=/=]Music/CheapTrick episode in which Creator/GilbertGottfried played a stroke victim laid up in the hospital while everyone around him -- except his true friend, Rachel [Denny Dillon] -- mocked him). Finally Creator/{{NBC}} stepped in and fired everyone except Creator/JoePiscopo and some kid named Creator/EddieMurphy that was hired mid-season and was showing a lot of promise...
389** Season 11 (1985-1986) counts as Seasonal Rot and is particularly embarrassing in the eyes of NBC, Creator/AlFranken, and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' writer George Meyer. One would think that a season in which one of the original producers (Creator/LorneMichaels) returns to try and rebuild the show to its former glory would be welcomed with open arms by fans, right? Not really. The writing was okay (a little weird for its time, but critics didn't complain about the writing), but the cast was filled with semi-famous people (among them Creator/RobertDowneyJr, Creator/AnthonyMichaelHall, Creator/JoanCusack, Creator/RandyQuaid, and Creator/DamonWayans) who may have given good performances, but really didn't gel into that ensemble cast that ''SNL'' had in its early days. This, coupled with the mediocre season premiere hosted by Music/{{Madonna}} and the fact that critics and fans alike were getting sick of ''SNL'', and you had all the ingredients needed for Brandon Tartikoff to plan ''SNL''[='=]s cancellation. (At the very least, unlike Season 6, Season 11's "Weekend Update" was somewhat enjoyable, thanks to the hiring of Creator/DennisMiller, whose [[DeadpanSnarker snarky delivery]] brought back memories of Creator/ChevyChase as the show's very first "Weekend Update" anchor.) (Un)Fortunately, this didn't happen, as Creator/LorneMichaels fired most of his Season 11 cast (leaving behind Creator/JonLovitz, Creator/NoraDunn, and Creator/DennisMiller) and hired a new crew of up-and-coming cast members (Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Creator/JanHooks, Creator/KevinNealon, and Creator/VictoriaJackson). Those who weren't ''completely'' turned off by ''SNL'' in its 11th season rejoiced.
390** The 20th season (1994-1995) also stands out as poor. Between Phil Hartman's departure[[note]]The first season after Hartman left (and two seasons after Dana Carvey left), the cast was now led by the likes of Creator/AdamSandler, Creator/ChrisFarley, and Creator/DavidSpade, who weren't versatile enough to lead the show.[[/note]], the popularity of the Creator/OJSimpson murder trial (which ''SNL'' repeatedly wrote sketches about during this time -- when it didn't write sketches laden with HoYay or {{Overly Long Gag}}s disguised as sketches with some semblance of a plot[[note]]Sketches often had very thin premises, many centering around the O.J. Simpson trial, and levels of sophomoric humor reached critical mass, resulting in lambasting by critics.[[/note]]), and cast and crew tensions backstage (particularly with Creator/JaneaneGarofalo, who hated the juvenile humor of the show and left mid-season[[note]]More than half the cast was replaced after the season, and a new group led by Creator/WillFerrell helped create another resurgence.[[/note]]), it's really not hard to see why some critics and fans have compared Season 20 with Season 6 in terms of sheer unwatchability. (That said, like Season 11, "Weekend Update" was considered a bright spot in an otherwise messy season -- this time, with Creator/{{Norm MacDonald}} as the anchor, though even "Weekend Update" suffered from being weak and repetitive just like the rest of Season 20.)
391** The first half of Season 39 (2013-14) has been criticised fairly harshly for a number of reasons, the most common complaint being that six new cast members is just too many for one season to add. [[note]]While Creator/KyleMooney, Creator/BeckBennett, Creator/SasheerZamata, and Creator/NoelWells have been acclaimed for their performances (Creator/JohnMilhiser is getting there), Creator/ColinJost, Mike O'Brien, and Creator/BrooksWheelan seem to still be finding their voices.[[/note]] Pre-taped sketches are also usually now the best parts of the episodes.
392** Seasons 42 through 46 (2016-2020) have also come in for plenty of flack. These years have, due to the controversial presidency of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, relied heavily on political satire. Trump supporters tend to be unamused by the show's frequent pokes at him and his supporters, while his critics tend to find the attacks rather lame, toothless, and unfunny. About the only thing both sides agree on is that if the show can't satirise the issues of the day effectively they might as well not bother, especially with so much more biting competition out there (''Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'', ''Series/TheLateShowWithStephenColbert'', ''Series/FullFrontalWithSamanthaBee''...) making the "Weekend Update" segments look especially weak.
393*** Also notable about this period is the heavy reliance on celebrity cameos for political impressions. While [[Creator/AlecBaldwin Alec Baldwin's]] Donald Trump and [[Creator/MelissaMcCarthy Melissa [=McCarthy's=]]] Sean Spicer were initially well received, many critics agreed they began to drag past a certain point. Even Alec Baldwin admitted he had become tired of constantly guest-starring as Trump. By the time the Democratic primaries came around in 2019, nearly every major politician was being played by a celebrity, and viewers questioned if the show was underutilizing its cast in favor of these cameos. Of note was the show hiring three different celebrities to portray UsefulNotes/JoeBiden, none of whom were on the cast. The impression was finally handed off to a cast member after the 2020 election, though this was as the show began to turn away from focusing so heavily on political humor.
394** Some other seasons are usually seen as of low quality as well, such as seasons 28 (due to Creator/JimmyFallon's constant cracking up and the absence of Creator/WillFerrell), 30 (had very mediocre political sketches during the 2004 election, the Music/AshleeSimpson lip-synching fiasco had people asking if the show was even live anymore, and everything just seemed kinda slow and dull. The upside of season 30 was that Creator/TinaFey and Creator/AmyPoehler did a good job on "Weekend Update"), 33 (but only because the Writers Guild strike caused a lot of potentially good episodes to go unwritten), 35 (well-regarded at the time, but rewatches deem it very unusual and geared towards certain cast members, usually Creator/FredArmisen and Creator/KristenWiig), and 38 (the Music/JustinBieber ValentinesDayEpisode, too much reliance on Bill Hader and Fred Armisen). Basically, if a fan-favorite cast member leaves, then the show will go through what's called a "rebuilding season," which means that the show's humor quality will either be mixed to in the toilet.
395* ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'':
396** Season 4 made the strange season to put both fan-favorite characters Valerie and Libby [[PutOnABus on a bus]] never to return, and introduce {{Replacement Scrappy}}s in Dreama and Brad. Both characters had potential (Dreama as an IneptMage, and Brad as a witch hunter) but not a lot was done with them, and the high school setting ending with this season made both of them very pointless. While the writing was still very good, it was the start of a decline.
397** Season 5 was when the series moved to Creator/TheWB and was accompanied by a ReTool for Sabrina going to college. As a result, the fun sitcom feel of the first four seasons was replaced with a TeenDrama vibe - with much less magic and more relationship drama between Sabrina and [[ReplacementScrappy the incredibly unpopular new love interest]] Josh. Harvey was also PutOnABus when he and Sabrina break up offscreen between seasons. Season 6 did get a little better but...
398** Season 7 axed both of the aunts who had been part of the series since the beginning (though their hands were partly forced when Creator/BethBroderick decided to quit the show). Josh's departure too required creating yet another love interest in Aaron to have a LoveTriangle with Harvey (though thankfully Aaron was better received than Josh). While the season was not without its good moments, the show was clearly recycling ideas from its previous episodes and had run out of steam.
399* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'':
400** When Seasonal Rot ''completely'' set in is a matter of [[FlameWar polite disagreement]]. Seasons 1-2 are considered the golden age, and despite {{Flanderization}} and CharacterizationMarchesOn, as well as the frustrating [[WillTheyOrWontThey love triangle]] -- not to mention Creator/TaraReid -- Season 3 contains the highest-rated episode of the series. Seasons 4 and 5 both contain universally acclaimed episodes, but whether the rot began and took over then is not a question you want to ask. Seasons 6 onward, however, are definitively this trope, with 7 (when the show was UnCanceled) more or less ignored by what remained of the fandom. ExecutiveMeddling with episode ordering and the [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes 2007 WGA Strike]]. Season 8 was a return to form, but the series finale left a bunch of unanswered questions, mostly surrounding JD's relationship with Kim and his resignation from Sacred Heart.
401** The ''second'' UnCanceled 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, and Turk was suddenly re-cast as a med school lecturer. [[ReplacementScrappy The new cast]] [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot 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.
402* ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'' stopped playing to its strengths in Season 2; the writers introduced a lot of weird sci-fi elements that were out of place on a submarine show. The Season 3 ReTool did a lot to fix this, but it came too late to avert cancellation.
403* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'':
404** Although still popular, seasons 8 and 9 were notably different from the former ones. This is because the showrunner Creator/LarryDavid left the show after season 7, leaving Creator/JerrySeinfeld as the new Executive Producer. With the remaining writing staff left to its own devices, these seasons [[DenserAndWackier featured faster-paced, "wackier" episodes]] with many references to previous episodes, and attempts at running gags. Characters also slightly de-evolved, especially George, and Kramer's stunts became ever-increasing. Still, the series continued to enjoy ratings success and a tenth season was proposed until Seinfeld declined.
405** The first and second seasons (mind you, these two had about 15 episodes total) were very bland, slow, and generically sitcom-y. The only thing that saved it from being cancelled was the opinion of a few execs that the scripts were funny, if not good, and that the characters showed promise. The GrowingTheBeard episode is accepted as Season 2's "The Chinese Restaurant", where the characters do nothing but stand around in a restaurant waiting for a table for 23 minutes (in RealTime, no less), an unusal move for a sitcom (though ''Series/HancocksHalfHour'' did a similar real-time 'nothing happens' episode thirty years previously, consisting entirely of Tony sitting around on a boring Sunday afteroon. But of course, almost no-one in the US saw ''Hancock''...)
406* For many fans, ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' seems to have peaked in series 2. Series 3 is seen as a (slight) let down [[ToughActToFollow compared to what came before it]], due mostly to an increase in meta jokes and interpersonal drama (to the point where the mysteries almost seemed like afterthoughts), while the Christmas Special, "[[Recap/SherlockSpecialTheAbominableBride The Abominable Bride]]", is [[BrokenBase split among the fandom]]. Series 4 had broken the base even further, particularly the final episode, "[[Recap/SherlockS04E03TheFinalProblem The Final Problem]]." Weaker plotlines and writing, the introduction of the extremely divisive Eurus, increasingly unbelievable one-upping plot twists, and a controversial potential final episode made it fail to live up to its beloved predecessors, which even some supporters of the season admit.
407* ''[[Series/SherlockHolmes The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes]]'' and ''[[Series/SherlockHolmes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes]]'', the sixth and seventh series from the Granada ''Franchise/SherlockHolmes'' adaptations were marked by increasing deviations from the Canon. This was mostly due to Creator/JeremyBrett's worsening health, and the planned filming of the entire Canon was cut short by [[DiedDuringProduction his death]].
408* ''Series/SixFeetUnder'':
409** Most fans agree that the fourth season is the worst one, and the creators themselves tend to agree. Character arcs tended to become redundant, out-of-place, irrelevant, or overly gratuitous in their content; it was at that time that the scenarists understood they could not keep using the same characters forever and decided the next season would be the last. Nevertheless, it's still top-quality television, but watching it you really do feel the writers were starting to get a bit confused. It's also compensated by the fact both the beginning and the end are top-notch; the fifth season also did a good job explaining the relevance of more controversial plotlines introduced during season four.
410** Season 3 got complaints for being a season-long "When is Nate going to break up with his RomanticFalseLead?" build-up that swallowed up most of the screentime at the expense of other characters.
411* ''Series/{{Skins}}'':
412** Series 4 is considered by nearly all fans and critics to be the worst series so far -- the debate is over whether it was wholly bad or whether there were some good episodes in the middle to make up for the way the series started and (especially) ended.
413** Series 6 had even bigger complaints. There was a [[DependingOnTheWriter change in head writers]], and it's clear that the concept for most of the characters completely changed as a result. In particular, there seemed to be a desire to bring back older plots -- the TeenPregnancy from Series 2, or similarities between Frankie's Series 6 CharacterDevelopment and Effy -- that alienated viewers.
414* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'':
415** Universally, season three, during which Maggie was introduced, Professor Arturo had a [[DroppedABridgeOnHim bridge dropped on him]], Quinn Mallory ceased being the genius he once had been, and almost all plots were movie ripoffs. The debate is how much the show recovered, if at all.
416** Depending on who you ask, the real decline was either season three, four, or five. Three was definitely a decline compares to one and two, but still mostly kept the original format. Season four was damaged by focusing far too much on the Kromaggs arc, at the expense of the show's original concept. Finally, season five saw the departure of both Jerry and Colin O'Connell, adding two new main cast members who weren't that interesting, and completely changing Rembrandt's personality.
417* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'':
418** While the fourth season brought us [[Franchise/TheFlash Impulse]] and [[spoiler:Chloe learning Clark's secret]], its primary plot was magic stones and reincarnated witches. The writers clearly didn't know where they were going and way too many conspiracies made it hard to keep track of where it had been, especially with Jason and his mother, whom the writers couldn't decide if they were working together or apart, or if they wanted Lana alive or dead. It also had a butchering of Mxyzptlk preventing a more traditional (i.e. having any qualities even remotely resembling Mxyzptlk) version from showing up in the future.
419** Most fans complain about season 8. Mostly due to the increasingly poor plots (Clark always rushes in at the last minute to save the day and it's starting to bug everyone), bringing Lana back again, dialogue filled with needless PurpleProse, and not moving forward at all with the plot.
420*** Lana returning easily derailed the entire season, putting all the established plotlines (which were well-liked) on hold in favor of milking the guest star, who was already the most hated character on the show thanks to previous seasons. The butchering of Doomsday didn't help either, especially since unlike Mxyzptlk he was a regular. The sad thing is, the first half of Season 8 was universally beloved and halfway into the season, fans and critics were already praising it as one of the best seasons yet, and it successfully breathed enough life back into the show to allow it to last a few more seasons. Then the Lana plot arrived mid-season and all the momentum was thrown off course. It seems that a LOT of the fans never completely forgave the showrunners.
421*** And the Season 8 finale "Doomsday", was derided. And Season 9 is also [[BrokenBase base breaking]], with its bigger Recurring Character cast and desire to use more canonical characters.
422*** There were also plenty of fans who felt the show started steadily downhill after Season 5 since after that it stopped being about Clark growing up in Smallville and started being about him being Superman without the name and costume.
423* ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy''[='=]s first two seasons are both well-liked by the fandom with no complaint, after that it gets tricky:
424** Season 3 has a slow pace and glaring examples of {{Oireland}} and TheMountainsOfIllinois during the gang's trip to UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}}, though the season finale is considered one of the best episodes of the series and redeems the season for some.
425** Season 4 is the opposite. It is generally considered an improvement over the previous seasons and takes the characters in interesting directions. Unfortunately, the season finale involves pretty egregious examples of DeusExMachina, AssPull, and PlotArmor that negate a subplot that had been building much of the season, and was thus seen as one of the weakest episodes of the series.
426** Season 5 has a very mixed perception. The death of [[spoiler: Opie]] early in the season was seen as a brave move by writers by some fans and as a slap in the face to others. On top of that, the season ends up ignoring the setup BigBad for much of the time in favor of focusing on familiar conflicts. The season finale isn't as ill-received as the previous season's but is still seen as going to absurd lengths to avoid killing off no fewer than three characters that were in the line of fire.
427** Season 6 has been giving Season 3 a run for its money on just how much the fans loathe it. The season started off with a controversial scene of [[spoiler: a school shooting]] that many critics felt went nowhere and was used mostly as just another obstacle for the protagonists. Nearly every episode was over an hour and a half of what many felt was needless padding. The storylines got more outlandish and repetitive. It all culminated in a finale that has created a MAJOR broken base for the fandom for its idiocy that led up to [[spoiler: the death of Tara]] and left many viewers with a bad taste in their mouth.
428** Season 7 is usually considered an improvement over Season 6, but still not one of the show's better ones. The unrelentingly grim tone, the AnyoneCanDie nature of the show, and Jax completing his transformation into a VillainProtagonist caused many accusations of TooBleakStoppedCaring to be thrown around. Furthermore, nothing was done to cut back on the extended running times introduced in Season 6, causing more unnecessary {{Padding}}. However, the cast's performance was continuously praised, and the season's pacing began to improve towards the end as the show moved towards its conclusion, resulting in a finale that is generally considered a worthy ending to the series.
429* This is debated heavily in the fandom of ''Series/TheSopranos''. The general consensus is that seasons 1, 2, and 5 are the strongest while the opinion on the other three is more mixed.
430** Season 3 is seen by some as suffering because of the writers having to greatly restructure the season after the death of actress Nancy Marchand, though there are still several episodes in the season that are loved by the fandom and some don't even think there was a drop in quality.
431** Season 4 is perhaps the most debated season. Some fans didn't like the season's lessened focus on Mafia concerns (the season has the least people "whacked" of any season) and the turns Carmela's storyline took but others found the way the season explored Tony and Carmella very compelling.
432** Season 6 suffers from the two-year break after the fifth season as well as annoyance from fans over the season being split in two. While the earlier episodes are lauded people generally disliked the way that Vito's storyline dragged in the middle of the season. Season 6 part 2 (the last 9 episodes of the series) is more well-liked though there's a decent amount of broken base concerning [[spoiler: Christopher's death]] and the GrandFinale [[spoiler: having NoEnding]].
433* Although some may have disliked the Ori arc in later seasons of ''Series/StargateSG1'', it's the sixth season which is generally considered the worst. It's telling that the three episodes of that season that are considered the best are the ones that guest-starred Michael Shanks.
434* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' also suffered from this in Seasons 4 and 5, mostly due to the deaths of Elizabeth and Carson, two well-liked and beloved characters. Their replacements were not well-received; Carter was popular but it was felt she'd already had her run in 10 seasons of SG-1, especially compared to the underused Elizabeth. Keller was generally seen as a CreatorsPet and centre of an unnecessary love triangle. (She got better though.)
435* ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'': The general agreement is that each season is worse than the last, with the most dramatic dip in quality between the third and fourth seasons.
436* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
437** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': The hastily UnCanceled third season. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork The slashed budget did not help matters.]]
438** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Season Seven is the most popular candidate for worst later season. The plots were getting stale and repetitive, the writers had decided to pair [[StrangledByTheRedString Troi and Worf]], and much of the A-team was working on other projects: ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' was well underway, and ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' were in pre-production.
439** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
440*** Season 3 is distinctly weak, due to two factors: the departure of Peter Allan Fields (who was responsible for the first two seasons' best writing), and an increasing reliance on Ferengi-centered comedy episodes. It was back on its feet by Season 4, though.
441*** Seasons 5 and 7, while not exactly regarded as ''bad'', are considered noticeable steps down in quality from Seasons 4 and 6. Season 5 features a number of universally despised episodes (most notably "Let He Who Is Without Sin...") and spends a lot of time spinning its wheels and resetting the Klingon War and Maquis arcs in order to make way for the eventual Dominion War storyline. Season 7 suffers a combination of the show's religious symbolism becoming overwhelming, Gul Dukat being turned from a complex villain into a straightforward OmnicidalManiac, and Ezri Dax... [[ReplacementScrappy just being Ezri Dax]]. It doesn't help that the Prophets/Pah-Wraiths plot is resolved almost as quickly as it starts, almost as if they were planning for a season 8 with which to resolve it, and found themselves forced to do it within the latter half of the 7th season instead.
442** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': Depends on who you ask, but Season 2 is frequently chosen. It contained some of the show's least popular storylines (with fans and eventually writers) and famously led longtime ''Trek'' reviewer Tim Lynch to stop watching. The show improved steadily from here, beginning by '''finally''' giving up on trying to interest the audience in the Kazons, probably the least popular recurring alien culture in ''Trek'' history.
443*** Alternatively, some people would say that the first four seasons are the best, and the rot began to set in around Season 5 when a change in showrunner saw Janeway undergo an abrupt personality change from a TeamMom to a DependingOnTheWriter DesignatedHero, and the StatusQuoIsGod kicked in to such an extent that every character developed AesopAmnesia (especially SpotlightStealingSquad Seven of Nine) and learned the same lessons over and over again. Thing got worse in Season 6 as a new staff writer brought over from ''Deep Space Nine'' quit after three episodes over how directionless the show was. Ideas, such as Voyager reviving a race of ancient conquerors, were raised and [[AbortedArc promptly dropped]], two whole episodes were devoted to a holodeck village full of [[{{Oireland}} Irish stereotypes]], and the long-awaited return of popular character Kes turned into a kick-in-the-teeth as she underwent a FaceHeelTurn for no real reason in a [[TimeyWimeyBall Timey Wimey]] plot that ended up not happening. Things got a bit better in Season 7, as long-unresolved plot threads were picked up and there was actual character development, but there was still a high proportion of dull episodes, with a poor lead-in to a rather divisive finale.
444** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': Season 2, which lacked both the novelty of the first season and ambition of the third and fourth seasons. What is widely regarded as the show's worst episode ("[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS02E05ANightInSickbay A Night In Sickbay]]") was produced that season, along with a rather desperate and ill-advised appearance by the Borg, which gets around their [[CanonDiscontinuity canon implications]] by simply having [[NoNameGiven no-one mention their name]]. This is despite "We are the Borg" actually being part of the Borg's standard opening hail. One they do (nearly) ''every'' time!
445* ''Series/{{Survivor}}'':
446** Season 5 ("Thailand") was for a long time considered by most fans to be the worst season, an opinion also shared by host Jeff Probst, who referred to it as "mean-spirited" and "ugly" and called the final four contestants of the season the least likable ever.
447** Season 14 ("Fiji") isn't highly regarded, either, due to a poorly thought out "Haves Vs. Have-Nots" twist where one tribe was initially given a much superior camp, then, predictably, rolled off a string of victories up until the merge.
448** Seasons 21-24 are widely considered to be the nadir of the entire series. Season 21 ("Nicaragua") is usually referred to by fans as the absolute worst season, replacing Thailand. It featured an atrocious cast, boring gimmicks, and had two players quit the game abruptly with only 11 days left, forcing production to later change the rules for how the jury handled quitting players. Seasons 22 ("Redemption Island") and 23 ("South Pacific") also have a mixed reaction, with the underwhelming Redemption Island twist (where a voted-out player could return to the game... often to be immediately voted out again), and bringing back two CreatorsPet characters apiece and giving them the majority of screen-time. It didn't help that both seasons featured an extended Pagong-ing of one tribe over the other in the middle of the season, or how the rest of the cast (in Redemption Island) was probably the stupidest cast to have ever played the show. Season 24 ("One World") gives it a run for its money though, with a likewise moronic cast that at one point collectively gave up immunity for their entire tribe. It also introduced two notably [[TheScrappy scrappies]] in Colton Cumbie and Alicia Rosa. Season 24's winner however is very well-liked. Luckily the seasons surrounding this period, 20 ("Heroes vs. Villains") and 25 ("Philippines"), are seen as excellent, with 20 being a common pick for greatest season of the entire series.
449* The original 1976 version of the post-apocalyptic series ''Series/{{Survivors}}'' is an interesting case. It was only on the air three years, but there was a great deal of cast and crew turnover and the three seasons are all ''very'' different from each other: 1. The protagonists gather at a manor-house and squabble in the wake of a pandemic 2. They spend a season trying to make a subsistence-level farm work and 3. Fruitlessly chase each other around the countryside, and fall into a plan to revive the electrical grid. Fandom has long been divided about to which of them, if any, this trope should be applied.
450* For the fourth season of ''Series/TheSweeney'', there were several changes, including a different title sequence and DCI Haskins being absent from a number of episodes. The final season has been criticised as the weakest and this decline in quality led Creator/JohnThaw and Dennis Waterman to the realisation that the show was in danger of running out of steam and to take the decision to end it while it was still at the peak of its popularity.
451[[/folder]]
452
453[[folder:T-Z]]
454* ''Series/Teachers2001'':
455** The fourth series. The surrealism that had always bubbled under in the earlier series before coming to the fore in the third series got a little too out of hand, the dramatic elements almost entirely vanished, as did most of the better characters, to be replaced by pale imitations. One of the standout characters in the previous series had been Bob, a lovable loser, but for the fourth series, he was {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed into a ButtMonkey with a cheating Thai bride completely unaware of his status as the ButtMonkey.
456** Series 3 is also a good pick. Few shows can survive the loss of their three most developed characters without taking a nosedive, and series 3 demonstrated why; Brian and Kurt were great background characters, but in no way were they capable of leading a series, and as a result, the writing took a massive drop in quality.
457* ''Series/TeenWolf'':
458** This was downplayed in Season 3a but suffered issues largely due to casting. Erica (Gage Golightly) and Jackson (Colton Haynes) left in the break between Seasons 2 and 3, forcing the writers to hastily rewrite the storylines they had planned, while Boyd was abruptly killed off without much explanation. Erica's role was largely shifted to Cora, who didn't resonate with the fans and the writers [[PutOnABus Put Her On a Bus]] at the end of 3a. Twin werewolves Ethan and Aiden in the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Alpha Pack]] were [[TheScrappy hated]], seemingly existing purely for {{Fanservice}}. There were also complaints that the resolution suffered from plotholes, rushed writing, and was a retread of Season 2. However that said, there were some popular aspects, such as Lydia discovering her banshee powers, a more united core of TrueCompanions rather than them being at odds with each other, greater focus on fan-favorites Danny and Isaac, "Motel California" which is generally considered one of the best episodes in the whole series, Scott's mom -- and later Stiles's Dad -- knowing the truth about the supernatural, and Allison being more level-headed after her break down in Season 2. The show also got back on its feet in 3b, with better storytelling and the much-liked [[spoiler: Evil Stiles]] plotline.
459** However, in Season 4 the show hits this trope hard. Again, the casting made it an uphill battle from the start with Creator/CrystalReed's quitting the show leading to Allison being KilledOffForReal in the penultimate episode of 3b and another ''four'' major characters, Danny, Ethan, Aiden, and Isaac -- the last being especially painful since he had been an EnsembleDarkhorse -- were PutOnABus when their actors declined to return for Season 4. In the season itself, the traumatic events of 3b with Allison's death and Stiles's possession are brushed over and barely mentioned which angered a lot of fans, [[BaseBreakingCharacter Malia]] was abruptly added to the cast, which caused a myriad of issues, including a poor explanation of how she could adapt to being human after living as a coyote for years, the fact 3b left it ambiguous of whether she was a villain or not, a StrangledByTheRedString romance with Stiles, and meant older characters Derek and Lydia got less focus than previous seasons, while another newcomer Kira was largely defined by her romance with Scott. The overall arc lacked a consistent plotline and was filled with [[{{Filler}} Filler Episodes]] and Scott's incompetent mentoring of Liam, while the secret villain team-up between Peter and Kate was established early on in the season leaving next to no mystery apart from the horribly lackluster and illogical revelation that Meredith was involved as well. The sharp plummet in overall ratings and viewership for Season 4 was terminal - Season 5 barely cracked a million viewers, and the sixth and final season didn't even reach ''half'' that.
460* ''Series/That70sShow'' suffered this after the departure of Eric (the main character) and Kelso. The show brought in [[ReplacementScrappy a new character]], Randy, and tried to make him a combination of Eric and Kelso, even though the two characters were vastly different. Randy was universally loathed, although luckily the executives caught onto this and he was barely in the series finale (plus [[spoiler: Eric and Kelso both showed up for one last time]]), allowing the show to end on a pretty good note. Randy is also hated because everyone (in-universe) absolutely adored him, even Red, to the point where it broke a lot of people's WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.
461* Season 5 of ''Series/ThreesCompany'' is when Creator/SuzanneSomers' infamous salary dispute took place, which put the show through hell that year. The show effectively became "Two's Company" for a while when Suzanne refused to show up on several tape days and had to be hurriedly written out. Chrissy was eventually replaced in the apartment for the rest of the season with her cousin Cindy (a character that many fans seem to dislike) and was only seen herself over the phone in the one-minute tag scene at the end of each episode, before disappearing completely without explanation the next season.
462* ''Series/TopGear'':
463** Series 14 is generally considered one of the weakest seasons of the Clarkson/Hammond/May era of the show, with an over-reliance on scripted gags, rehashed jokes/challenges, and focusing more on the caricatures of the presenters (Clarkson being a ham-fisted oaf, et cetera) instead of their actual personalities. Thankfully, the quality of later seasons (especially 17) saw a return to form.
464** Series 23 is an even bigger one. The show's [[ControversyProofImage popular-yet-controversial]] host Creator/JeremyClarkson finally [[TheLastStraw crossed the line]] with Creator/TheBBC in 2015 when he got into a physical altercation with one of the show's producers, leading to his sacking; co-hosts Creator/RichardHammond and Creator/JamesMay both followed him out the door voluntarily. Following a hiatus, ''Top Gear'' returned the following year to a mixed reception, with new host Chris Evans (no relation to [[Creator/ChrisEvans the Captain America actor]]) in particular coming in for heavy criticism due to his lack of chemistry with his co-hosts (especially Creator/MattLeblanc, who was his primary co-host and met a fairly good reception). Evans departed at the end of the season; time will tell how well the show recovers.
465* ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' was a hard act to follow and was seen as GrowingTheBeard for the show. However, ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'' was thought to have too much {{Padding}} (while ''Children of Earth'' was five episodes based around a single premise, this was ten), there were too many {{Idiot Ball}}s going around, severe pacing issues, and a paedophile and child murderer becoming a main character after getting released in a massive case of ArtisticLicenseLaw. Then there was a disappointing finale that still [[VoodooShark left a lot of questions]].
466* ''Series/TrueBlood'' suffered a slow, gradual rot throughout its run. The rot has been argued to start as early as Season 2, but had set in by Season 3 as the initially grounded plot become [[RefugeInAudacity increasingly outlandish]] and subject to {{Padding}}, the protagonists less sympathetic, and the {{Fanservice}} grew to PornWithPlot levels - which drew anger for callously handling sensitive subject matter. While Season 6 was a noted improvement and left fans optimistic for Season 7, Season 7 went back to rotting thanks to poor pacing and a bad case of RomanticPlotTumor, and proved to be the final season for the series.
467* ''Series/TwinPeaks'':
468** The first season and the beginning of the second were a cultural phenomenon, considered by critics to be some of the best television ever created. Then, creator Creator/DavidLynch succumbed to ExecutiveMeddling and revealed Laura Palmer's killer, who until that had been the major driving force of the plot, and in so doing left the show directionless. To make things worse, Lynch suffered some serious ArtistDisillusionment after this and left the show, leaving it in the hands of writers who ''really'' didn't know what to do with it. The episodes post-Lynch were pure filler, and ratings plummeted, leading to its cancellation at the end of the second season. Luckily, there was a brief upswing in quality once the replacement writers got their game together, and Lynch came back to direct the (awesome) series finale.
469** The Laura Palmer reveal would not have led to the cancellation of the show only half a season later under most circumstances. Unfortunately, the development of the most viable remaining storyline on the show, Audrey and Cooper's romance, was forbidden by Creator/KyleMacLachlan when the writers were preparing to do just that, leaving them scrambling for new storylines. Kyle did so because he didn't think Cooper would date a high school girl and this was given as the explanation in-universe. Cooper then proceeded to date a woman exactly two years older than Audrey. Eventually, [[AuthorsSavingThrow Cooper's motivation was changed to his wanting to protect Audrey]].
470** This ends up being a ZigZaggingTrope by the follow-up movie and the third season. The movie received poor reviews and flopped in North America upon initial release, but critical acclaim grew over the years and it has become to be regarded as one of Lynch's best works by many. In 2017, the series received a third season that is widely regarded as not only the best season of the series but one of the best seasons of television ever made.
471* ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'':
472** Season 4: Alan Harper was a flawed character who relied on living with Charlie because he lost everything to his ex-wife, but in the older seasons he actually was the voice of reason. In Season 4, however, he suddenly out of nowhere becomes a complete cheapskate who tries to get money out of everyone he knows, while it's even implied that he isn't even poor broke and just too greedy to pay for the most mundane stuff, something that was never [[AssPull even alluded to]] in previous seasons. This season also added more mean-spirited characterization, or moments in general, like when Alan got depressed after his divorce, no one except for his mother helped him to get over his depression, and even then she said that it would be illegal for a mother not to love her son, soon after she gave him some confidence.
473*** The last episode of Season 4 showed how Evelyn Harper didn't even bother to call an ambulance for her dead lover. She said that he was already dead, but did she really want the corpse to lie inside her room the whole time?!
474** Season 9: It starts with Walden (Creator/AshtonKutcher); he doesn't fit into the show well at all, as he's too much like Alan (only rich and even more of a ManChild) so he's not very interesting and his interactions with other characters feel very awkward. The writing has taken a sharp drop in quality from the last season, and {{Flanderization}} has hit the characters hard: Alan is still a mooch and even more immature, Jake is even dumber and doesn't seem to do much of anything except smoke pot, Rose is more of a bitch, Lindsay is crazier, etc. The entire tone of the show has also changed: there's a much greater emphasis on ToiletHumour which is more gross than funny (like the episode "Not In My Mouth" which was overloaded with vomit gags) and the character interactions mostly feel unnatural, and with the entire premise of the show changed, it's really tough to care about any of the characters.
475** It's also one of the rare cases of Seasonal Rot to have a noticeable enough impact on ratings to cause a full-on schedule change: Season 10 saw the show moving from its top-dog 9 PM Monday slot (being taken over by surprise hit ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'') into 8:30 PM Thursday, now playing second-fiddle to ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''. What's more, Season 10 saw a ReTool with the show taking clear inspiration from ''The Big Bang Theory's'' nerd-culture humor, which at least was seen as an improvement on Season 9's focus on toilet humor, and also a better fit for Walden's character, but left the show feeling like an inferior copy of ''The Big Bang Theory'' rather than its own series.
476** Season 11 introduced [[CousinOliver Charlie's long-lost daughter]]. While the fact that she was Charlie's daughter was reason enough for her to start living at the house, she was mostly only involved in plot lines concerning Walden, and in Season 12 she made very few appearances.
477* ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'': Many fans felt that seasons 4 and 5 were the weakest, with changing villains, [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot strange and underdeveloped storylines]], and too much focus on the [[LoveTriangle love triangle]].
478* ''Series/VeronicaMars'':
479** Season 2: Not merely content to have an underwhelming RedHerring-laden season-spanning mystery, it dragged several of Season 1's plot elements down with it (most notably [[spoiler:{{Retcon}}ning the resolution to Veronica's rape storyline]]), not to mention having [[spoiler:Aaron Echols' hamfisted KarmaHoudini-turned-KarmicDeath]].
480** Season 3 went downhill even further with the overall story arc [[ExecutiveMeddling being reduced to several mini-arcs]] and the {{Flanderization}} of important characters, along with their new network, Creator/TheCW forcing them to add ProductPlacement, which didn't fit the show's mood at all.
481* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'':
482** Most fans have claimed Season 2 to be inferior to Season 1, due to the {{Flanderization}} of Jade's character as well as the dumbing down of Cat, and the excessive focus on Tori (yes, she is the main character, but the show ''is'' supposed to be an ensemble piece).
483** Season 3 is either the GrowingTheBeard season that's made the show better than ever with things such as more serious character development and funnier plots, or even worse due to exaggerated character depths and over-the-top plotting.
484* ''Series/{{Vikings}}'':
485** Fans and critics felt the series went downhill from season 4. Ragnar's subplot with Yidu left many cold and his [[MotiveDecay motive decay]] made the character lose much of his appeal. Perhaps this was intentional, given Ragnar's in-story fall from grace. Björn turning from a loving son and husband to a constantly angry [[{{Expy}} Ragnar-clone]] along with his love interest Thorunn being replaced by Torvi (who is played by the creator's daughter) left some fans with a bad taste in their mouth. This already happened at the end of season 3, but the death of Thorunn's and Björn's child and the lack of reaction from Björn, as well as Thorunn's disappearance in season 4, made it worse. Many once-important characters became [[{{Filler}} relegated to plots that went nowhere]]. The decision to extend the season to 20 episodes instead of 10 seemed to coincide with the dip in quality and left many people puzzled as History Channel still released 10 episodes for 10 weeks and then had a hiatus for almost a year, making no difference to the viewers. Essentially, the halves of season 4 felt like two separate seasons. The series managed to make a turnaround and went home much better with the fans with the coming of age of Ragnar's sons (Ivar, in particular, becoming a break-out character and fan-favorite), actually giving the new villain Harald Finehair some actual depth and the emotionally resonate Ragnar [[spoiler: death arc]].
486** Come Season 5 the rot took hold again and went even further, cementing the series' AudienceAlienatingEra. The plot started to derail and the motive decay (or flat-out derailment) of many of the characters infuriated the fans and outshone eventual bright spots in the seasons. The fan-favorite going from a somewhat sympathetic anti-hero to a full-fledged villain turned out to be a mistake as he was clearly the most defined Ragnarsson, with the others not making that much of an impression. Likewise, the new Saxon protagonists Heahmund & Alfred came off as flat and unappealing, especially in contrast to [[JerkassWoobie Aethelwulf]] and [[MagnificentBastard Ecbert]]. The RomanticPlotTumor between Lagertha and Heahmund baffled both fans and critics. The character of Heahmund was a big failure for the showrunners as he was clearly intended to be a break-out character like Ivar, but most fans simply responded with a "meh". Creator Micheal Hirst once again threw out an established love interest so he could pair Torvi with another of Ragnar's sons. The season also introduced the much-maligned Iceland-arc, banishing one of the show's most beloved characters Floki to a plotline crowded by underdeveloped characters. When the series dropped the big twist(s) at the end of the arc, it was mostly received positively, but most felt it was too little, too late. Speaking of which, most fans did not regard the season entirely without merit: the romance between Ivar and his former slave Freydis was well received by fans and got hyped even before the release of the second part of the season.
487* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' has had this accusation leveled against it during several seasons:
488** Season 2 was the first to receive ''significant'' criticism for its storytelling, backed by a contentious set of production problems that saw Frank Darabont fired by Creator/{{AMC}} after allegedly resisting attempts to streamline the cost of each episode (which eventually manifested itself in a years-long settlement that Darabont won). A significant amount of {{Padding}} meant that large chunks of the first half of each second-season episode consisted of characters repeating the same information to each other OncePerEpisode, while the pacing significantly slowed down to focus on moments that attracted criticism (i.e. Lori Grimes randomly deciding to drive around to look for a missing search party, crashing it and being threatened by a walker). Others contend that the show didn't come into its own ''until'' midway through Season 2's production (the point at which Darabont was fired).
489** Season 6 is ultimately seen as a step down from the previous season. The biggest complaints stem from an overindulgence in cliffhangers and fakeouts, stupid decisions and character choices on par with Season 2, and many of the main cast being OutOfFocus for half a season. Unlike Season 2, which was well-received by critics but not so much by fans, Season 6 is notable for having almost half of its episodes at a ranking of "Rotten" on the rating site Website/RottenTomatoes. Season 6 also has the dubious honor of having perhaps the most reviled moment of the entire show, which many called cheap and manipulative: the cliffhanger that forced viewers to wait another seven months to find out who Negan killed.
490** Season 7 was not well received by fans, and notably features the lowest average viewership since Season 3, despite a massive upswing in interest for the season premiere. The most common complaint was that it has a lack of plot progression, and is mostly about the Saviors humiliating the group and torturing them into submission again and again (even reviewers who concede this is the point of the first half of the season admit the show goes too far). Other complaints include the level of violence and torture in the season premiere; odd character choices like a BottleEpisode devoted solely to secondary character Tara, Dwight's HeelFaceRevolvingDoor, and Negan himself coming across as too silly or talky; and fan-favorites Carol and Ezekiel being OutOfFocus. To note, this is an opinion shared by some AMC executives -- [[https://fanfest.com/the-walking-dead-ratings-hit-under-2-million-down-from-peak-of-17-million-what-happened/ a 2022 interview]] with AMC President Sarah Barnett tied the show's dwindling ratings squarely to the Negan arc, which "became a little too hopeless for audiences."
491** Season 8, despite finally reaching the end of the ''All Out War'' arc, was marred with heavy criticism of uneven plotting and poor character decisions (not helped by several production problems and controversial character deaths). Ratings dropped to lows unseen since the second season while gaining only a meager critical edge on the preceding season, which has the lowest RT score in the series' history.
492* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'''s fifth and final season is almost universally hated by the fans. Given only ''six episodes'' to wrap everything up, the show on top of its final season brevity forced PlatonicLifePartners Pete and Myka into a sudden, out-of-nowhere romance plot.
493* ''Series/{{Weeds}}'': Seasons 4, 6, and 8 generally rank low among the fanbase. Seasons 1-3 set the tone for ''Weeds'' as a funny satire of suburban parents who make irresponsible, often hypocritical choices to perpetuate a fragile existence. This changed after Season 4, which moved the cast to a beach town and introduced [[DeadpanSnarker the unpopular Uncle Lenny]], a rather {{Anvilicious}} nod to illegal immigration, and a mostly passive role by Nancy throughout the season. Season 5 was better-received since Nancy connived to fight Esteban's desire to get rid of her, but Season 6 featured the cast on the run, which made for uneven storytelling. Season 7 was a return to the show's roots since it featured Nancy's desire to once again become a drug dealer out of her league. But Season 8 generally became slow-paced and ended the show rather abruptly.
494* ''Series/TheWestWing'': Everything post-Creator/AaronSorkin, but mainly the fifth season.
495** The third season isn't exactly beloved:
496*** It introduced a handful of {{Base Breaking Character}}s (carrying a RomanticPlotTumor) and suffered from ExecutiveMeddling, all of which would be standard Sorkin if not for the lack of an overarching plot and ValuesDissonance. The first six episodes were written before 9/11 and a direct continuation of the major plotline started in the second half of season two, but several instances of IntendedAudienceReaction later, that plot was dispensed with and the show lost its centre. Was it a personal drama about the president and his Deputy Chief of Staff? Were the activities of the administration primarily political or was the show merely a vehicle to discuss Islamic terrorism? It doesn't help that the finale involves a fictional Shakespeare mash-up... with song and dance. The deliberately non-canon season opener, broadcast in response to 9/11, has aged poorly.
497*** When Season 3 ''does'' address contemporary issues, it typically does so in [[WriterOnBoard strident]] and often {{Anvilicious}} fashion, unlike the show's relatively balanced appraisals up to then. Republican politicians went from generally WorthyOpponent-style characters to fire-breathing caricatures, especially (though more understandably) during the reelection storyline, where the antagonist is a [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed stand-in]] for UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush, with likeable figures like Ainsley Hayes and Cliff Calley either DemotedToExtra or PutOnABus. This was somewhat corrected in subsequent seasons.
498** Attitudes to seasons 6 and 7 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 Season 5 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.
499* ''Series/{{Westworld}}'':
500** Season 2 set a lot of expectations after the unanimous praise that Season 1 received. However, it suffered several problems which many reviews described as putting too much faith in the puzzles and timelines, at the cost of developing several characters. As a result, many viewers find the storylines very confusing and care little about the characters. Consequently Season 2's viewer ratings slowly dropped by 24% and its finale received the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of 74% compared to the Season 1 finale's RT score of 94%.
501** Season 3 is very linear with more action scenes which downplays much of the philosophical discussions, and sidelines several of the original cast; particularly with Bernard and William, who both ended up OutOfFocus. It doesn't help this season only has eight episodes instead of the usual ten, which explains the rushed pace that hampers the story and character development. Furthermore, viewers' ratings continuously dropped and the two last episodes earned the show's first "rotten" scores from Rotten Tomatoes.
502* ''Series/WheelOfFortune'':
503** Some fans criticize Season 14 for a large number of changes: most prominently, using only one Wheel template for the entire game as opposed to each round having its own set of dollar figures; adding several new categories, which some feel make the game too easy; and changing from a mechanical puzzle board (admittedly dated) to an electronic one halfway through the season, thus making Vanna White's job a lot less necessary for anything other than [[LovelyAssistant eye candy]].
504** Others point to Season 26, which had an increase in contrived puzzles (particularly in the form of too-specific Prize Puzzles and FakeDifficulty in the BonusRound), less energy in the studio, a general decline in contestant quality, sloppier production, and the addition of a $1,000,000 cash prize in the Bonus Round.
505** Different fans have criticized the following season. This was when the iconic Free Spin tokens, which had been associated with the show since the ''Shopper's Bazaar'' pilot, were ousted in favor of the Free Play wedge. In addition, the second Bankrupt became permanent starting with this season (before this point, the second Bankrupt generally appeared only in Rounds 2 and 3 and ''never'' in Round 1).
506** Season 28 had several reasons, most egregiously the decision made following the death of longtime announcer Charlie [=O'Donnell=]. While it was expected that other announcers would take over the role until a successor was chosen, it was ''not'' expected that those other announcers would be [[SameLanguageDub dubbed over Charlie]] on a string of episodes that were taped prior to his death but had yet to air. The show stated that it had been a tough decision, but better to do this than have the sadness of hearing his voice so close to his death. (Even worse, the reruns the following summer dubbed over the guest announcers, live or pre-recorded, with Charlie's replacement, Jim Thornton.)
507** Season 33 which has seen an increase in overall cheapness in the show, even more so than in previous seasons. Perhaps the most glaring was that it was the first since Season 8 to not have any road shows. In addition, they did away with the cash bonus with cars won in the Bonus Round, decreased a few dollar amounts on the Wheel, and removed the ½ Car tags in the first round. The same cheapness bled into Seasons 34, 35, and 36, with a greater increase in BonusRound difficulty (even with Season 35 offering a new rule that allows contestants to pick from one of three categories, instead of having the category predetermined). The cheapness also continued in those seasons, as nearly every bonus round win seemed to be for either the lowest prize (which, since Season 32, has been the current season number multiplied by $1,000) or for a car valued at less than that. The announcement that executive producer Harry Friedman would retire after Season 37 was applauded by many.
508** Season 38 was much better received than the previous seasons, with the arrival of Friedman's replacement Mike Richards, who departed ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' and ''Series/LetsMakeADeal'' in 2019; the season took small steps to modernize the puzzles, as well as '''several''' $100,000 wins, and the celebrity specials on Creator/{{ABC}} garnering high ratings.
509** Unfortunately, this didn't last long, as Season 39 more or less reverted to the staleness of prior seasons, notably more questionable puzzles and an infamous bonus round ruling in a December 2021 episode that caused Audi to give a contestant the car she lost, though this season has set the most record for $100,000 wins at seven as of May 2022.
510* ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'' changed formats in the 2008-09 season, adding a timer to the questions — and stupidly, the timer counted down ''while'' host Creator/MeredithVieira read the question instead of after she finished, thus whittling down the seconds. Any banked time was saved up for the million-dollar question, and the {{Lifelines}} changed. It changed again in the 2010-11 season to a "shuffle" format which has also been heavily criticized as straying even further from original Millionaire format. Some would go as far as to say 2002, when the show moved from Creator/{{ABC}} to syndication, while also replacing original host Creator/RegisPhilbin with Meredith, and nixing Fastest Finger First.
511* ''Series/TheWire''[='=]s fifth season. The side plots of the previous seasons were fascinating and expanded the strong ensemble cast, to the point that they could practically carry the show by themselves when the main cast was absent from an episode. In Season 5, though, the newspaper side plot feels extremely superfluous. Seen as a severe WriterOnBoard moment on the part of Creator/DavidSimon, it didn't introduce any memorable or compelling new characters, and the whole "serial killer" plotline came across as implausible, getting away from the "true to life" feel of the show. It may also have been sinking under the weight of the sheer number of characters and plotlines of the first four seasons (in fact, the fifth season is saturated with cameos by characters from past seasons, and they don't serve much purpose). Reducing the episode count to 10 (as opposed to the normal 12-13 per season) did not help matters either.
512* ''Series/TheWubbulousWorldOfDrSeuss'': After having a decent first season, the show underwent a more preschool-friendly shift in the second season. The Cat in the Hat's personality changed as well.
513* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
514** Some fans loathe Season 7, due to questionable twists in the Mythology (especially the Samantha reveal in ''Closure''), a perceived excess of humorous episodes, and the assorted twists in "Requiem." In fairness to Creator/ChrisCarter and Co., Creator/{{Fox}} was planning to cancel the series and only renewed it at the last minute, causing the show to prematurely wrap up loose ends. Still, even X-Philes who dislike Seasons 8-9 sometimes rate them above the 7th. However, a lot of fans still view it as a great season, with some even calling it the last good season.
515** Season 9. There's some disagreement as to exactly ''when'' the show took a wrong turn and started going downhill, but many agree that by Season 9, at least, major problems had set in. Although the replacement of Mulder with John Doggett in Season 8 at least had a mixed reception, the same can't be said of Season 9, where Scully was phased out in favor of [[ReplacementScrappy Monica Reyes]], and the conspiracy arc was dragged out for far too long, leading to a series finale that offered very little resolution.
516*** The finale was intended to be a set-up for a series of feature films that would finally start resolving the MythArc, but that ultimately didn't come to pass.
517** The 2016 mini-series isn't exactly beloved by fans either. The nature of the GovernmentConspiracy shifted in quite a radical way which heavily contradicted much of what came before (even accounting for the fact that the show's MythArc had never exactly been consistent), and a certain amount of ValuesDissonance in the way conspiracy theorists were depicted in the 1990s (as heroic crusaders for truth) compared to how they are widely viewed in 2016 (as deluded and potentially even dangerous followers of fringe and extremist political movements) meant that the premise hadn't aged very well in several ways.
518* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'': Despite being more popular than its parent series ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'', which for reference got better as it went along, Xena seems to have peaked in season 3. Four is considered a letdown compared to the previous season and season 5, to put it bluntly, was not liked, due to a lack of action[[note]]Creator/LucyLawless was pregnant at the time season 5 was filmed (which was worked into the show), which greatly limited the actions she could perform[[/note]] and the infamous "Twilight of The Gods" arc, which is considered by some to be one of the worst storylines in TV history. Season 6 is seen as a modest improvement, although fans are split on how the series ends.
519* Creator/G4TV's number one video game show, even after it was no longer a video game channel, ''Series/XPlay''. The show became popular because of its honest yet comedic themes and reviews of video games. Themes like fake harassing of the interns and special comedy segments like Sensitive Sess and the Creator/{{Apple}} I-Box special were considered some of the show's funniest moments. Then came 2008, and the people at G4 decided to get rid of the comedy theme and make ''X-Play'' a more serious video game show. Many fans felt the show got away from what made it worth watching in the first place. It wasn't a surprise to anyone that the show got cancelled soon after Adam Sessler left in 2012. But at least they were able to record over 1,000 episodes over the decades it's been on the air.
520* ''Series/YouCantDoThatOnTelevision'': Fans tend to point to Season 8 (1987) as the true beginning of the end. Christine [=McGlade=], who was generally considered to be the face of the show had already departed five episodes into the previous season. Alasdair Gillis, who succeeded Christine full-time as host, unfortunately also left at the end of Season 7. By the time Season 8[[note]]Which with only five episodes produced, was the shortest season in ''You Can't Do That on Television''[='=]s history.[[/note]] rolled around, everybody from the original cast[[note]]By 1987, many of the "veteran" cast members such as Matt Godfrey, Doug Ptolemy, Vanessa Lindores, and Adam Reid had grown too old for the show.[[/note]] (as well as most second wave cast members) sans Les Lye was gone. Meanwhile, executive producer Geoffrey Darby had left to work on other projects for Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}. Most significantly, Season 8 featured the only [[BannedEpisode banned episode]] in ''You Can't Do That on Television''[='=]s history, which was the "Adoption" episode. It was also around this time that the show was pulling back from being an open dialogue which manifested in the "kids on the street" segments[[note]]These segments concerned young people being asked about the specific subject of the respective episode[[/note]]. So what was left was a bunch of [[ToiletHumour bathroom humor]] and [[YouAreFat fat]] and [[MirrorCrackingUgly "this is girl ugly"]] jokes. Consequentially, after Season 8, no episodes of ''YCDTOT'' would be produced for 1988 before it would be [[UnCanceled brought back]] for two more years. However, those two years featured an entirely new cast and an increase in gross-out humor, so many fans believe the rot continued or even accelerated.
521* ''Series/YouveBeenFramed'': The five years from 1998 to 2003 after original host Jeremy Beadle left the show are generally seen as a weak point. Neither of the replacement hosts, Lisa Riley and then Jonathan Wilkes, bought the level of energy to the show that Beadle did, with additional problems including Riley's run tending to focus on toddlers doing cutesy things rather than the accidents and bizzare incidents that the show was known for, and then Wilkes' run including needless gimmicks such as having the studio audience vote on the best clip of the week. Fortunately, the show recovered when Harry Hill took over as an off-camera host and restored the format to something more akin to the Beadle era, keeping it going all the way until 2022, by which point the show had been rendered largely irrelevent by Website/YouTube and social media.
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