Audience Alienating Era / Live-Action TV

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples shouldn't be added until five years after the era begins. Please also try to avoid Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.

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Scripted Series

• Season 6 of 24 tried to shake up the previously-established formula with a number of surprising changes while still keeping the status quo. On paper, the season's plot probably seemed like a good idea - Jack Bauer, who has been released from Chinese custody, spends the season trying to atone for his past sins while embroiled in a battle against Middle Eastern terrorists and duplicitous family members. In practice, the season turned out to be a mess - Jack was working with CTU again (for a reason that stretched believability after five seasons of the same thing), characters dropped in and out of the plot, potential season-long storylines (the effects of a nuclear bomb detonation in California) were never capitalized on, several returning characters got an "X goes through Hell" storyline, and the entire affair was bogged down in ridiculous family drama involving Jack's brother's wife and her child, as well as Jack's father (who was a corrupt executive). Following this season (and the lowest ratings in the show's history), FOX "rebooted" the show, moved it to the other side of the continent, and jettisoned most of the previous cast and locations.
  • Season 7, while recovering in the ratings, critically still overall did pretty poorly. The season was packed to the brim with tons of poorly-received replacements and brand-new characters that were not liked by most, with only a few actually getting any genuine acclaim, and one major character in the series returning only to go through a very controversial twist and revelation that left a massive Broken Base at best. All of this was coupled with an infamous story arc that left Jack sidelined for nearly half the season and oftentimes completely Out of Focus, and then ultimately saved by a blatant Deus ex Machina. All this led to the show being completely revamped again with yet another, almost entirely brand-new cast and setting brought in for Season 8 (which unsurprisingly turned out to be the final season). That one had its detractors as well and continued the rot for a bit, though ultimately the majority of the fans of the show did feel it (finally) managed to improve itself by the time it was over.
• Seasons 7-10 of All That are often looked at by older fans with scorn. To go back a bit, following Season 6 ^note (which suffered from the losses of Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, the limited availability of Amanda Bynes due to her own show, and the general feeling that the show was getting repetitive and tired), Nickelodeon temporarily suspended production to start from scratch. Just like with Season 6 of Saturday Night Live back in 1980, All That relaunched in 2002 with an entirely new cast. Fans seem to feel that, save for Lisa Foiles (often singled out as the most talented among the new crop of kids), the new cast weren't as charismatic or had as much chemistry as the one from the "golden age". Also, by this point, All That had all but lost its unique urban-influenced edge ^note (the musical guests were initially usually of the R&B and rap kind instead of flat-out Pop) and sense of diversity ^note (half of the cast during the early seasons was black, whereas the latter cast was more or less primarily composed of Middle American, suburban-looking white kids. Jamie Lynn Spears would join the cast in Season 8, which naturally led to accusations of Nepotism due to her being Britney Spears' little sister). Season 7 in particular also had an overabundance of "special guest stars", which took too much focus away from the cast themselves. By this time, All That did away with familiar elements from the past like Vital Information^note (it would however, reemerge in Season 10, with Lil JJ starring in it), the big ear of corn, Kevin Kopelow as the stage manager, the cast members saying "Let's give a round a sound..." while introducing the musical guests, and the announcer saying "Fresh out the box..." prior to TLC's theme song. Meanwhile, fans argued that the skits by this time, such as "Sugar and Coffee" and "Randy Quench", were too predictable, too reliant on grossouts and Toilet Humour, and based on already extremely thin premises that were eventually stretched too far. All That even resorted to recycling the famous Good Burger sketch, with Ryan Coleman as Ed. There were, however, some key milestones that should be noted from this era, such as the nationwide contest to search for the "funniest kid in America"^note (the winner, Christina Kirkman, would join the cast in Season 9) and All That celebrating its 10th Anniversary with a one-hour special leading up to the start of Season 10. Despite these transactions, Nickelodeon believed that the show, just like in Season 6, had run its course, and All That was canceled in 2005... but would eventually resume production almost 15 years later.
• Arrow had Seasons 3 and 4, in which Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle took over as showrunners from Andrew Kreisberg. This includes Sara being killed off in the Season 3 premiere, later coming Back from the Dead and becoming one of the main characters on the Spin-Off Legends of Tomorrow, and allowing Laurel to become Black Canary (though she managed to get Rescued from the Scrappy Heap); the Romantic Plot Tumor involving Oliver and Felicity (which resulted in Felicity going from Ensemble Dark Horse to Base-Breaking Character); the overuse of flashbacks; Roy being Put on a Bus; mediocre plots; and most controversially, Laurel getting Killed Off for Real in Season 4. Despite this, the crossover with Constantine was considered to be one of the best things from it and the Audience-Alienating Era ended with the well-received Season 5, which served as a Revisiting the Roots season and concluded the five-year flashback subplot. Guggenheim and Mericle left after the divisive Season 6 and were replaced by the better-regarded Beth Schwartz for the show's final two seasons.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Season 4 is sometimes mentioned as an Audience-Alienating Era, given the awkward Initiative storyline, the introduction of the widely unpopular Riley as Buffy's rebound love interest, and above all the episode "Beer Bad" about a beer that turns people into primitive savages, although at least that episode has the excuse of being a failed grab at government money. On the other hand, this season also produced the Emmy-nominated episode "Hush", regarded as one of the show's best and scariest, along with Willow's Coming-Out Story and the introduction of fan favorite Tara (see below).
  • The UPN years are agreed to be an Audience-Alienating Era by fans:
    • The infamous Season 6 is frequently regarded as an Audience-Alienating Era for the titular heroine, in which her traumatic resurrection from Heaven is explored so realistically that she loses all her (previously characteristic) warmth, passion, sense of humor, and interest in the world around her, becoming a pale and often-unwatchable imitation of her former self. The supporting cast doesn't get it much better, either: Willow's magic addiction metaphor is simultaneously anvilicious and a lore trainwreck given that it was never portrayed as such in prior episodes, the death of Willow's girlfriend Tara came off as a blatant fridging, Dawn's constant complaining got really annoying, the dissolution of Xander and Anya's marriage was forced, Spike reached the depths of his Badass Decay, and the Trio's actions were just... stupid. At least Buffy had an excuse. In the season's favor, it did give fans "Once More with Feeling", widely considered among the show's best episodes.
    • Season 7, meanwhile, had the change of Buffy into a full-fledged Knight Templar, Willow's inability to use magic for the better part of the season, Xander, Dawn, Anya, and Giles getting virtually no character direction, having a textbook Generic Doomsday Villain as the Big Bad, the arrival of the insufferable Potentials, and Spike's total eclipse of the whole show. Joss Whedon has admitted that everyone working on the show was exhausted by that point, and it shows.
  • Some also see the Season 8 and Season 9 comics as a continuation of the Audience-Alienating Era, as Buffy, while a bit more sane than in Seasons 6 and 7, is also more alienated from everyone, and in addition to this, the Slayer army is just irritating.
• Happened twice in Charmed:
  • After a great first season, the creators decided to focus on the melodrama of the sisters' lives, and whole episodes were devoted purely to their personal lives with supernatural subplots thrown in as afterthoughts (in, you know... a show about witches). The show was saved by its awesome third season, however.
  • Season 5, while still quite good in quality, changed the tone slightly to make things Lighter and Softer, and the structure shifted to have more standalone episodes instead of an actual story arc. They introduced magical creatures such as mermaids, leprechauns, wood nymphs, etc. which had never been heard of in the show's mythology. Season 6 had childish storylines such as King Arthur's sword, the sisters creating a Mr. Right for Piper, and a demonic reality show. Seasons 7 and 8 became darker in tone and developed interesting story arcs to rectify the problem.
• The "Rebecca era" of Cheers, comprising of Seasons 6-11 after original co-star Shelley Long quit the show and was replaced by Kirstie Alley, generally tends to be seen as inferior to the original "Diane era" of Seasons 1-5. Some fans consider the entire show after Long's departure to be a write-off, but more commonly it's seen as just Season 8 onwards, or even arguably only Season 11, where the quality noticeably declined.
• Season 4 of Community (aka the one Dan Harmon wasn't the Show Runner for) is generally regarded as this. Many characters underwent Flanderization, with some being defined solely by a single joke (Abed has a mental disorder! The Dean is a Wholesome Crossdresser!), or worse, no joke at all, with Troy hitting near-Satellite Character levels and Pierce being increasingly Demoted to Extra (and let's not even talk about the actual extras). "Concept" episodes became both more common and considerably less interesting, and the references slid from Viewers Are Geniuses to Lowest Common Denominator. More than that, though, a lot of the plotlines felt slack and uninteresting, with Troy and Britta suffering a major Shipping Bed Death as the writers fumbled with giving them actual chemistry, and Chang's Faking Amnesia plot being about as obvious and hackneyed as they came. Finally, many prior jokes and storylines were brought back as Fanservice... and they certainly felt like it, with the Inspector Spacetime joke being completely run into the ground. This meant that the show essentially began to suffer from They Changed It, Now It Sucks! and It's the Same, Now It Sucks! simultaneously. The finale, which brought back a concept that'd been lampshaded as old and forced an entire season prior, was roundly critically thrashed, with many saying its All Just a Dream ending was the only redeeming factor. A few shots were taken at it in-universe with reference to the "gas-leak year".
• CSI in its 10th and 11th seasons. They wrote Laurence Fishburne's character as a CSI first and tried to show things from that perspective, but being a big-name actor, Fishburne's character kept getting quickly promoted and allowed to do new things far too quickly for the fans. Fishburne's character arc was completed at the end of Season 11 and the character was then Put on a Bus, and Season 12 reverted to the star being the team leader, which stuck for the final four seasons, though it ultimately didn't fully overcome William Petersen's departure from the role.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation: Being a teen drama famous for its longevity (14 seasons, 16 if one counts Next Class, which pretty much everyone does) this was bound to happen at some point.
  • Season 8 is unanimously considered by fans to be the lowest point of the entire franchise due to a multitude of factors, including the departures/greatly reduced roles of numerous fan favorites such as Paige, Ellie, Marco, Jay, and Jimmy, the Promotion to Opening Titles and introduction of new characters on a scale not seen since Season 1 (many of whom weren't compelling/developed/likeable enough to carry storylines on their own), a widely hated Official Couple (Peter/Mia), the college storylines feeling too disconnected and inconsequential in regards to the titular high school, plot lines being dropped after only one or two episodes (most notably Jane's sexual abuse storyline), and the show's iconic title sequence getting an unfortunate case of Rearrange the Song that was supposed to sound current and updated, but whom many felt They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. The series took all of Season 9 to recover.
  • Many felt the second block of Season 10 and the first block of Season 11, titled In Too Deep, and Now or Never respectively, together were another one. This one had the seniors largely Out of Focus, the real-world life and school issues the series had always been known for depicting taking a backseat to romantic drama, the Flanderization and OOC of numerous previously-strong and developed female characters for the sake of said romantic drama, and the new Official Couple, Eli and Clare, quickly becoming a Spotlight-Stealing Squad whose personal issues eclipsed pretty much everyone and everything else, both In-Universe and in Real Life. The most infamous example of the latter being the Season 10 finale: Jenna giving birth to her and KC's son, an event the show had been building up to all season (40+ episodes!) was reduced to an extremely short B-plot in favor of yet another Eli/Clare storyline.
• Doctor Who:
  • While fans are a notoriously divided bunch, with factions that take umbrage at any period of the show's history, Seasons 22-24 marked an irrecoverably massive exodus of viewership. Producer John Nathan-Turner's insistence on using new writers brought success in the early '80s, but here the practice's shortcomings overcame its benefits. Script editor Eric Saward's affinity for Darker and Edgier content resulted in Season 22 seeing the show's highest levels of violence and cynicism, leading to widespread complaints of Too Bleak, Stopped Caring. The BBC consequently tried cancelling the show before putting it on hiatus, and the result was Season 23's The Trial of a Time Lord, a season-wide arc which tried to address fan complaints but was regarded as padded-out and gimmicky. Season 24 further attempted to amend things with a Lighter and Softer approach, only to be seen as a swerve to the opposite extreme. While Seasons 25 and 26 moved to a more Byronic direction and are widely regarded as a creative renaissance, by that point the damage had been done, and the show was unceremoniously cancelled at the end of 1989.
  • Chris Chibnall's seasons (2018-22) are considered by many fans to have been an overall failure. Jodie Whittaker's status as the first-ever female Doctor in the main continuity created a lot of initial interest and goodwill (apart from a small faction of overtly misogynistic right-wing fans who were largely despised by everyone else), but her first season was criticised for too many relatively low-stakes stories, a lack of memorable guest characters, too little character development for the companions, and a frequently-passive Stepford Smiler Doctor who seemed to dislike taking overt moral positions and let too many villains escape consequences. The second season tried to win back the fans with more returning villains and more consequences, but further alienated them due to major mythology developments that were generally unpopular (such as unceremoniously killing off all the Time Lords again after the Moffat era had resurrected them, and massively retconning the Doctor's origin and relationship with the Time Lords in a way that some fans viewed as undermining the character's essential nature and philosophy). The third season, "Flux", was again criticised for laying waste to the entire setting for relatively little return, and failing to wrap up its arcs in a satisfying way. The period saw a serious decline in viewership for the show, and a notable reduction in public profile, merchandise production, and Expanded Universe material. It also disappointed many fans by hinting at a same-sex romance between the Doctor and her long-serving companion Yasmin, but hurriedly wrapping it up with what was, to many critics, a worn-out "the Doctor won't commit to short-lived humans for fear of being hurt" resolution that retrod ground that had already been exhaustively covered since 2005.
• Fear the Walking Dead: Season 4 was a Retool that transplanted main-series character Morgan Jones into the series as a Ratings Stunt and become a fan pariah, particularly after the well-received third season. The entire main cast was either sidelined (or, in the case of Nick and (originally) Madison, killed off) or left Out of Focus in favor of Morgan, who became the nominal lead character. As a result, characters became far different than their portrayal in previous seasons, while the cast ran up against Big Bad Martha, a villain who is near-universally recognized as one of the worst in the franchise for inspiring massive amounts of Idiot Ball moments among the characters. While the following season stemmed the damage with better-received plotlines (particularly with the arrival of fan-favorite Canon Immigrant Dwight, of the Saviors), the ratings for Season 4 suffered dramatically, leading the show to bleed nearly half its viewers by the time Season 5 finished airing.
• The 2007 Flash Gordon TV series has been viewed as an Audience-Alienating Era by many fans, particularly for the extent to which it toys with the characters' mythos and familiar aspects. To cite one example, Ming the Merciless is white, has a full head of hair, is clean-shaven, wears a Western-style military uniform, is only rarely called "the Merciless", and derives his authority over Mongo from owning the water company. Some things benefit from a clearer, less Values Dissonant, and more realistic interpretation, but Flash Gordon is not one of them.
• Game of Thrones: In light of the show's ending, general fan consensus is that the show began to decline in quality after Season 4, when the story increasingly diverged from the books, and completely fell apart in its final two seasons, when it ran out of books to adapt and its writers had to complete the storylines themselves, with George R. R. Martin's notes offering only the Broad Strokes. The attempt to compress numerous pivotal plot and character developments into just a few episodes led to a badly-rushed story that culminated in one of the most bitterly controversial TV finales in recent history, to the point that many viewers believed it retroactively tarnished the entire series. The widespread disappointment and lack of interest in anything related to Game of Thrones lasted until the release of the prequel series House of the Dragon in 2022, which featured a different team of writers and producers, more involvement from Martin, and was generally praised by both fans and professional critics for recapturing the spirit of the original series' early seasons.
• The Good Night Show: In 2011, the show moved from the Goodnight Garden to the You and Me Tree. Changes the You and Me Tree brought included new pajamas for Nina, a new segment in Sprout a Sandy Story, a new Clean Up song, and Star interacting with real kids. Like The Sunny Side Up Show, many longtime fans did not like these changed. Despite the setting change, Goodnight Garden episodes continued to air until Summer 2012.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Season 5 is widely reviled for the mishandling of the Barney/Robin pairing and their first break-up. After the break-up came Don, who is said to be "the guy who will marry Robin" except he's a jerk and is shilled by the main cast for being funny, smart, etc. The only positive thing about this season is "Girls VS. Suits" which introduced some very important information about the Mother and Barney's awesome dance number. Later on, Season 6 attempted to repair the damage by introducing arcs about Lily and Marshall's attempts to conceive, Barney meeting his real father, and Ted trying to choose between career and love.
  • Season 7 is considered mediocre and boring by most due to Ted and his quest of meeting the Mother being sidelined for Barney's and Robin's relationships. It doesn't help that their new love interests met with a mixed reception. Then after Barney has another break-up, he gets a new girlfriend who happens to be like him and it turns out in the end that she's not the bride that Barney's going to marry in the wedding where Ted meets his future wife.
  • Season 8 isn't well-liked particularly for derailing Victoria, who is Ted's love interest in Season 1, Ted's unrequited feelings for Robin resurfacing since Season 7, Robin's constant jerkass attitude towards her co-worker Patrice, Ted dating a crazy stalker of his, and the Arc Fatigue of how Barney and Robin's wedding came about. Fortunately, this did set up the final season where Ted finally gets to meet his future wife...
  • Season 9, however, is regarded to have seen the show bottom out completely. The creators decided to have the whole season take place across the course of Barney and Robin's wedding weekend, but it quickly became obvious that they had written themselves into a corner by doing so, resulting in many episodes being awkwardly paced and others being irrelevant filler. And then it ended with a finale episode that saw Barney and Robin divorced barely a third of the way through, and then the Mother getting a bridge dropped on her, paving the way for Ted to try dating Robin again.
• Executive producer Steven Bochco and consultant David E. Kelley left L.A. Law after Season 6 was over, with Bochco replaced by John Masius and John Tinker. Consequently, Season 7 suffered a noticeable decline in quality and ratings. Silly, soapy plots dominated the season's first half, culminating in what many fans feel was the worst hour ever of L.A. Law, "Odor in the Court". Midseason, Masius and Tinker were let go and William Finkelstein was brought in to attempt to repair the damage. He mostly succeeded, with the series starting to grow its beard back by Season 8, but it was too late to save the series from cancellation.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 had a period early in its cancellation period where Jim Mallon released a series of animated Flash shorts starring Crow, Tom, and/or GPC (Gypsy). This has largely been forgotten by fans due to the fact that the animation was poor and they just weren't funny.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Season 3 saw Captain Hook turn into a prominent character, which left other fan favorites Out of Focus, leading some fans to start derisively calling the show Once Upon a Hook.
  • Season 4 introduced characters from Frozen. Although the show had used Disney characters before, they were kept different enough from their animated counterparts so that they could feel like a different interpretation (Snow White for example became a forest bandit, Peter Pan was an evil mastermind). This arc however introduced live-action carbon copies of the Frozen characters. While the arc itself wasn't too badly received once it got going (and Elizabeth Mitchell received lots of praise for her turn as the Snow Queen), it left a bad taste in viewers' mouths. Many original fans pointed that as the point they abandoned the show. The fact the second half of the season's arc involved characters being retooled to match their animated counterparts most certainly did not help.
  • The Camelot arc in Season 5 alienated a huge chunk of viewers for being a bizarre Kudzu Plot that left numerous threads dangling, changed directions unexpectedly, and relied on unexpected twists that felt like they came out of nowhere. It was also criticized for the much-disliked introduction of Princess Merida from Brave (itself a polarizing movie, and with less goodwill than Frozen) and two episodes relying on her unnecessary backstory taking time away from the main plot. There was also a huge drop in special effects and writing quality, with an overemphasis on Purple Prose. The following arc featuring the Underworld was slower and more character-driven, with a lot of Authors Saving Throws and Character Rerailment in a clear attempt to do damage control.
• Oz, the terse, taut HBO drama about shanking, Prison Rape, and the impossibility of redemption, started off mightily strong for its first few seasons, kickstarted several careers, and got a lot of attention... and then, following the murder of Simon Adebisi, completely ran out of ideas. New characters were introduced only to be unceremoniously murdered and forgotten, relationships sparked up and died out abruptly, characters were wildly derailed, and carefully crafted storylines were trashed and hurled away until the show's fans were almost begging for the poor show to be put down. And then the formerly gritty and realistic show started to introduce elements like pills that caused Rapid Aging...
• Power Rangers has had a few Audience-Alienating Eras, although some of them are seen a bit kinder with time passing.
  • Power Rangers Turbo tried to shoehorn footage from the silly Gekisou Sentai Carranger into a not-so-silly story, which caused the first half of the series to feel disjointed. Turbo also replaced several long running characters with inferior replacements. Examples are Rocky with Justin and Zordon and Alpha 5 with Dimitria, and the Totally Radical Alpha 6. Another controversial move was to turn Bulk and Skull into chimpanzees for 17 episodes. The second half of the season, however, feels like an improvement over the first, as it embraces the silliness of Carranger, while having improved writing in general.
  • The "Kallish Era" at Disney is considered a dorky time for the franchise, with an overuse of oversized explosions, overreliance on non-Ranger powers, problematic characterization of Rangers in certain seasons, and issues in writing quality compared with what came before. Power Rangers S.P.D. was already divisive enough, but it was the next two (Power Rangers Mystic Force and Power Rangers Operation Overdrive) that really exasperated the problems in this era. So much so that the follow-up Power Rangers Jungle Fury was largely forgotten, though that series now gets a consistent stamp of "Underrated" these days. It took the franchise nearly being cancelled to jolt them out of it with the very different Power Rangers RPM, but unfortunately, this was not the end of the bad times for Power Rangers.
  • The "Neo-Saban" era is generally treated as an Audience-Alienating Era. Consisting of Power Rangers Samurai (and Super Samurai), Power Rangers Megaforce (and Super Megaforce), Power Rangers Dino Charge (and Dino Supercharge), and Power Rangers Ninja Steel, these seasons were loaded with non-existent characters, direct copying of the Sentai without any context or sense, dialogue that was childish even by Power Rangers standards, and a slew of other problems that all came to a head in a massively disappointing Anniversary Season. The season Dino Charge, headed by former PR writer Judd Lynn, attempted to fix many of the issues fans had with the previous four seasons, but it backfired when the writing quality dropped during Dino Supercharge, which was followed by the even more derided Ninja Steel.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch dealt with a Channel Hop between Seasons 4 and 5 that saw a huge shift in setting and tone. While Season 4 had ended with Sabrina graduating high school and it was logical that the next would feature her starting college, what was previously a light-hearted family sitcom involving magical hijinks swapped to something closer to a Teen Drama in a bizarre attempt to make the series more "mature" (even attempting to change the title to just Sabrina). Fan favorite Harvey was Put on a Bus, ignoring the cliffhanger the last season had ended on (Harvey building up immunity to magic and thus permanently learning Sabrina was a witch) with a handwave that they'd split up offscreen. Her new love interest Josh (who had been introduced the previous season to much malignment) was given an extreme amount of Character Shilling to try and push him as a good match for Sabrina. Seasons 6 and 7 found a better balance between magical storylines and Sabrina now being older.
• Saturday Night Live has had plenty of ups and downs in its decades-long history. However, there are three seasons that are generally singled out as being particularly embarrassing:
  • Season 6 (1980-81): The first season after Lorne Michaels left the show and the entire cast was replaced (including the last of the original cast). Lorne wanted Al Franken to take over as producer, but NBC president Fred Silverman refused because of the "A Limo for a Lame-O" segment Franken did on Weekend Update mocking Silverman's mismanagement of the network (Silverman was relatively humorless). Silverman instead chose Jean Doumanian, an associate producer who had helped book the show's musical talent, to produce SNL, and she proved extremely inept at the task. Many of the sketches were extremely crass, and critics wrote scathingly of the show's decline in quality. Dick Ebersol took over as producer late in the season (only one episode was made that season after he was hired before a writer's strike ended it) and stayed on for another four years. Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo were the only Doumanian cast members to make it into the following season, and the entire season helped lead to Silverman's career taking a nose-dive after success in The '70s. This got an honorable mention in What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, which took several shots at Silverman.
  • Season 11 (1985-86): The first season after Lorne's return, the entire cast was replaced again, this time with a new cast that included such famous or soon-to-be-famous names as Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack, and Damon Wayans. However, such an eclectic group didn't work well together, and the show once again faced critical bashing and danger of cancellation. Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Nora Dunn, and A. Whitney Brown were the only cast members kept for the following season, where a group of new cast members led by Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman saved the show.
  • Season 20 (1994-95): The first season after Hartman left (and two seasons after Carvey left), the cast was now led by the likes of Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and David Spade, who weren't versatile enough to lead the show. 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. Also, reports of behind-the-scenes turmoil, much of it involving Janeane Garofalo (who joined the cast that year but left in disgust midway through), led to the perception of general decay. More than half the cast was replaced after the season, and a new group led by Will Ferrell helped create another resurgence.
• Sesame Street:
  • The show faced a problem in 1993: the surging popularity of Barney & Friends. Their attempt to restore their own market share was the "Around the Corner" project, which added a gentrified cul-de-sac to the street, populated by characters born in marketing meetings. Nobody working on the show liked it, particularly since the show's tradition of untrained children was jettisoned in favor of professional child actors (because that's what Barney did). This period of the show's history (which resulted in one lasting change, Zoe, and even she took a long time to catch on) is generally skipped over in discussions, though the "street story" introducing the setting and characters was included on the 50th Anniversary DVD set Fifty Years and Counting in 2019.
  • The "Blocks" era (2002-06) has been considered an Audience-Alienating Era, too; the brighter colors, the cheesy opening sequence, and the very structured "block" format are to blame. It did improve a bit with Season 37 (2006), though, and they still did show some segments from the 1970s-80s during that era.
• The Sunny Side Up Show: In 2015, the show moved from the Sunshine Barn to a city apartment, with a road trip arc occurring between September 18th and 26th, when Sprout turned ten. With the setting change, the series was given a new name in Sunny Side Up, several segments were either replaced or dropped (for example, Good Egg Awards became the "Kindness Counts Awards"), and even more celebrity guest stars appeared. It's safe to say that many old fans hated these changes.
• In Smallville, most of Season 4, due to the main Story Arc being "Lana's ancestor is a French witch with Kung Fu powers who is now back for revenge", and heavy involvement of magic stones and artifacts. Season 9 is another flavor of Audience-Alienating Era, being the Dark Age of Smallville, Chloe becoming a Manipulative Bitch and hooking up with Oliver. And Clark's new costume is widely panned.
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand had a well-received first season and, although star Andy Whitfield had to seek cancer treatment, the prequel series Gods of the Arena (created to give him time to recover) was acclaimed too. Tragically, however, Andy passed away and had to be recast with Liam McIntyre for the next season Vengeance. This also coincided with the departure of fan favourite Lesley-Ann Brandt as Naevia, leading to her recasting with Cynthia Addai Robinson. While that wasn't bad in and of itself, it was also marked with a huge shift in characterization after the character's Trauma Conga Line. The change in setting from the ludus to characters being on the run also gave the season a somewhat disjointed feel. It also exaggerated the Anyone Can Die aspects, killing off six major characters in the season finale alone - making it hard to care about anything that followed, since the historical figures Spartacus, Crixus, and Oenomaus were Doomed by Canon anyway.
• The final two seasons of Spin City really signified how much the series had declined in quality when compared to the first four seasons. The beginning of the end could be pointed to as far back as Season 4, when Heather Locklear joined the cast as Caitlin Moore. Locklear's arrival messed with the chemistry a bit, and it never felt entirely right that Caitlin was made to be Mike's new love interest over Nikki. Caitlin as a character was not funny and too much of a bitchy Drama Queen. By the end of Season 4, Michael J. Fox left the show and semi-retired from acting because of the symptoms of his Parkinson's disease worsening. Even though Mike was the main character ^note (Mike Flaherty was charming, charismatic, and energetic and brought a lot of heart to the show), Spin City was, at its core, an ensemble show. But once Charlie Sheen came in as Fox's replacement, it became less about politics and more about relationships and how much of a playboy Sheen was. At the same time that Fox left the show, series creator and head writer Bill Lawrence also departed the series. Before this, Spin City was a very well-written series where the comic timing and the jokes intercepted very well, some of the humor was intelligent, and some of it was Slapstick humor. With Sheen now on board, the show's pacing and energy became decidedly slower. To add insult to injury, production moved from New York City to Los Angeles, and it was obvious. Plus, Connie Britton (Nikki), Victoria Dillard (Janelle), and Alexander Chaplin (James) departed along with Fox.
• The final two seasons of Stargate SG-1 departed markedly from the earlier seasons. SG-1 always had a certain amount of fantasy and classic action-adventure sci-fi serials baked into its formula, but it was also just barely tech- and science-savvy enough to stand apart from many of its contemporaries by fusing the military sci-fi element with at least the occasional nod to plot beats involving engineering, logistics, relativistic physics, celestial drift, and so forth, even if there is a great deal of Handwaving about the details. The heroes are presented as a scrappy band of improvisationalists (well, more a secret branch of the military with an immense budget, but still fighting consistently against odds and against a tech gradient) barely keeping ahead of their better-armed enemies through ingenuity and (relatively) low-tech tactics and a good bit of luck. Phlebotinum abounded, but there wasn't an alien death beam weapon that the galaxy's most unkillable squad wasn't prepared to throw a ton of plastic explosives, an improvised rocket, or a prototype space vessel at. There were occasional detours into softer fare, but generally the show stayed just a bit more on the "sci" part of its sci-fantasy flavor.
  
  And then Seasons 9 and 10 happened. The traditional villains of the series (all of them) are largely set aside to make room for a new super enemy, a race of ascended Powers That Be who feed on the worship of their followers. The new technologies become much more inscrutable and have a Magic from Technology vibe to them, particularly in terms of aesthetics - technowizards are everywhere and SG-1 has to try to track down the one and only Merlin—sorry, "Myrddin"—in order to stave off the overwhelming assault of their nigh-omnipotent new opponents, who are cheating their way around their own divine rules, and their massive superweapons. It was all a bit silly in a self-serious kind of way, and before it was done the show had not just Jumped the Shark but done so on rocket skis, and the popularity and ratings declined sharply.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series fell into this with the infamous Season 3, when Gene Roddenberry stepped away from the show and allowed producer Fred Freiberger and script editor Arthur Singer, neither of whom knew anything about the series, to take over. In retrospect, the season isn't regarded as too bad in comparison to some of the weaker seasons of the latter shows, so much as it features a lot of average, forgettable stories while being dragged down by two episodes regarded as So Bad, It's Good, one regarded as just being terrible, and one that really hasn't aged well.
  • While Star Trek: The Next Generation managed to drag itself out of an early Audience-Alienating Era by around the second or third season depending on who you ask, many fans feel that it fell back into the Audience-Alienating Era in its seventh and final season. The writers were running out of ideas, resulting in many bizarre and technobabble-laden plots with an odd focus on previously-undiscussed relatives of the main cast, which was compounded by the new showrunner demanding more episodes focusing on Dr. Crusher and Troi, despite those being the two characters the writers had always had the most trouble dealing with. It didn't help that Executive Meddling closed off the two most obvious story arcs for the characters - the implied Unresolved Sexual Tension between Crusher and Picard, and the romantic history between Troi and Riker - resulting in the former getting a very perfunctory subplot in one episode and never being mentioned again, while the latter was spurned in favor of pairing Troi with Worf, with the subject of her and Riker not being revisited until years later with Star Trek: Insurrection.
  • For a brief time on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Odo had his powers taken away by the Founders, as one of those vehicles-for-exploring-the-human-condition that Trek is so fond of. In this case, it didn't turn out well; Odo got his powers back in a very contrived way and the whole incident was referenced precisely once (in the very next episode) and then never again. This came about during an effort late in Season 4 to make major changes to the characters, with Sisko's girlfriend being imprisoned, Dukat becoming a terrorist, Worf being dishonored again, Quark also getting cut off from his people, and Kira first getting into a relationship with the First Minister of Bajor, then becoming a surrogate mother for the O'Briens' baby. As it turned out, every single one of these changes misfired badly with the fans, and Kira's becoming a surrogate mother was the only one that wasn't undone by halfway through Season 5 - and that was because her actress, Nana Visitor, was actually pregnant during production, which is why the arc was included in the first place. She delivered during production of a Season 5 episode, and the plot was fairly quickly wound up thereafter.
  • A large portion of the fanbase considers everything done in the Trek franchise after Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air to be a lengthy Audience-Alienating Era that they loudly clamor for the franchise to emerge from. Others consider the Audience-Alienating Era to have lasted from around the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine until the release of either Star Trek (2009) or Star Trek: Discovery. And that's before you get to those who consider everything after the death of Gene Roddenberry in 1991 to be a permanent Audience-Alienating Era. Depending on what exactly one's view of what Star Trek should be, there's a lot of debate around this subject.
  • The franchise's approach to musical scoring from 1990 (around the beginning of The Next Generation's fourth season) until the end of Enterprise in 2005 was its own isolated Audience-Alienating Era. This began when executive producer Rick Berman fired composer Ron Jones (who most notably, wrote the music for the famous "The Best of Both Worlds" cliffhanger) for writing music that Berman thought was too "flamboyant" and distracting from the acting and writing. So, for about the next 13 years, all Star Trek TV music was that bland wallpaper of generic chords. The problem was that the "music" was reduced to being "tension strings" between commercials, and a "swell in suspense" right before a commercial.
• Supernatural:
  • Season 9 had a subplot where Castiel lost his angel grace and was turned into a normal human. Not only was this a retread of a story they'd already done in Season 5, the writers didn't seem to have any idea how to keep the De Powered Cas involved in the main plot, so human Cas episodes largely featured him bumbling around making a fool of himself and trying to get laid until the Monster of the Week showed up to torture him. Thankfully, the arc only lasted nine episodes.
  • On a larger scale, Seasons 1-5 are generally regarded as good, setting up the universe and the main cast of characters and gradually increasing the scope of the conflict before ending with a satisfying conclusion to the show's initial Myth Arc. Seasons 6-10 are regarded as a series of lackluster attempts to reinvent the series in the Post-Script Season era, with a glut of discount bad guys after already having worn out the Sorting Algorithm of Evil and endless contrived drama between the Winchesters. For some reason, Seasons 11-15 are much closer in quality to the former, perhaps because the series had been running for so long by that point that the showrunners and actors felt comfortable just letting it ride itself out, along with presenting believable threats again by bringing back the Archangels and introducing the Primordials.
• Because of its very long tenure (late 1980s until late 1990s), it was inevitable that the ABC network's two-hour (8:00-10:00 p.m.) "TGIF" sitcom lineup would hit a few speed bumps.
  • The decline began in the 1991-92 season when two mainstays of the lineup since the beginning changed timeslots. Full House moved to Tuesdays and stayed there for the remainder of its run, while Perfect Strangers moved to Saturdays at midseason to anchor a failed comedy block intended to capitalize off of TGIF's success. The latter show returned to Fridays for its abbreviated (six-episode) final season the following year. Said circumstances left Family Matters as the block's flagship program. Numerous new shows were test-run, a few of which (Step by Step and Boy Meets World most notably) became huge favorites but most of which were gone within a year or so. Even Family Matters itself began to suffer, as Steve Urkel went from being the sitcom's Breakout Character to being practically the sole reason for the show's existence, with plots tailored around his various "wacky" inventions. And then Toilet Humour started creeping in, and then ethnic humor... and it was all downhill from there. By 1996, TGIF was little more than a random generator of broad farces, often with ridiculous fantasy themes (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Teen Angel...), that would have been more appropriate for the '60s than the '90s. A crossover arc late in the lineup's run only served to demonstrate how blandly interchangeable the shows had become.
  • In 2001, with their purchase of Fox Family, Disney decided to move TGIF to the newly-branded ABC Family. ABC Family was intended by Disney to broadcast same-week repeats of ABC shows, but their lineup was minimal because they only had the syndication rights to Disney-produced shows, so the new TGIF was cobbled together from original series State of Grace, reruns of According to Jim, and (of all shows) Alias. This experiment only lasted one season, and ABC has only brought back the TGIF brand twice in the years since (the first was between 2003-05 and the second was during the 2018-19 season).
• The middle part of the second season of Twin Peaks: the episodes following the resolution of the Palmer case and predating the introduction of Windom Earle suffered from the lack of a single driving plot, with many of the individual character arcs at the time also being either cliched (James' subplot, which simply repeated every possible cliched noir trope without subverting or twisting them in any way) or just too silly (Nadine believing herself to be a teenager, Ben's Civil War obsession).
• Season 9 of Two and a Half Men, produced following the public meltdown and departure of Charlie Sheen, is largely considered this due to much worse writing and extreme Flanderization: Alan becoming more immature and an even bigger mooch, Jake smoking pot and becoming even more stupid, Rose becoming more of a bitch, Lindsay becoming crazier, and Berta being the only character who stayed consistent. The tone is completely different, there's a much greater emphasis on Toilet Humour, and Charlie's replacement Walden is little more than a rich and more immature version of Alan and his interactions with the other characters feel very forced and unnatural. The remaining seasons improved somewhat by retooling the humor in a way that clearly took inspiration from The Big Bang Theory (which at least was more appropriate than the toilet humor, given that Walden was meant to be a technology mogul), but it never again reached the levels of popularity it had in Seasons 1-8, and eventually ended with a widely-reviled finale that mostly just took potshots at Sheen.
• Ultra Series:
  • It's commonly agreed the 15 years between Ultraman 80 and Ultraman Tiga (about 1981-96) was an abysmal time for the franchise, with only cheap movies or foreign spinoffs being made and none of them really garnering much interest or praise. Perhaps the sole exception to this rule is the Australian-produced Ultraman: Towards the Future, which has been viewed as being a surprisingly good entry in an otherwise quiet era for the franchise.
  • In terms of special effects quality, the consecutive series of Ultraman Ace, Ultraman Taro, and Ultraman Leo are seen as the low point for the franchise. While all three are well-liked shows, with most praise being levelled at the writing, as well as a selection of stand-out monsters that have gone on to appear throughout the rest of the franchise (such as Vakishim in Ace, Tyrant in Taro, and Nova in Leo), the special effects are somewhat cheaper and shoddier than in previous series. A lot of it can be attributed to the fluctuating 70s economy - this being prior to Japan's bubble era - and the 1973 Oil Crisis hurting Japan. The effects improved immensely with Ultraman 80, but soon after the franchise was put on hiatus as mentioned above.
• The Walking Dead:
  • After a widely-acclaimed first season that was hailed as one of the best shows on television, season 2 was seen by many fans as a Sophomore Slump. With Frank Darabont having left the show, the new show runners and writing team were still finding their footing, and in the first half of the season especially, the show was accused of spinning its wheels on Hershel's farm. Fortunately, things picked up again by the end of the season, both critically and commercially (with "Beside the Dying Fire" receiving a massive viewership boost), and while Seasons 3-5 are not without their flaws, they have since come to be viewed as the show's Golden Age.
  • From Seasons 6-7, the show's ratings continued to climb, though the show was marred by frequent criticism of numerous cliffhangers and fakeouts, long stretches of meandering plot that only get it together for the season finales, and the generally cyclical nature of the series, in which the group encounters a new villain, defeats him, and repeats the formula. This led to an infamous cliffhanger at the end of Season 6 that would bring the show's highest ratings - and begin a ratings tailspin it would never recover from, as the resolution of said finale (motivated by the introduction of Negan) led to accusations of a Cliffhanger Copout. The subsequent seasons (7 and 8) would lead to accusations of Filler regarding the Savior War, wheel-spinning regarding several factions, and a number of controversial writing decisions that led to the departure of several characters. AMC took note of this ratings slide, and by Season 9 replaced showrunner Scott Gimple with Angela Kang, did a Retool on the show (the first few episodes of the ninth season remove a severely-wounded Rick from the show completely, and skip the action forward five years) and shook up the cast while introducing a new villain in the form of Alpha (Samantha Morton).
• Apart from the Ending Fatigue that plagued Seasons 5-7 of The West Wing after the departures of principal character Sam Seaborn, writer-of-almost-every-episode Aaron Sorkin, and stylistically-influential director Thomas Schlamme, Season 5 was especially derided for being just plain bad and having terrible storylines. One of the worst of these was a contrived character arc for Josh Lyman that relied on simultaneously making him into a complete moron and having all his friends inexplicably distrust him in order to set up a "hero rises from the ashes" story that failed miserably since it was never wanted or needed in the first place.
• For fans of scripted series, two eras are held to be Audience-Alienating Eras for television as a whole, at least in the US:
  • The first is The '60s. The first "Golden Age of Television", when TV aimed more upmarket at the early adopters of TV sets, sputtered to an end in the late '50s for various reasons: the quiz show scandal casting a dark shadow over what had been seen as a fairly highbrow genre, increased Executive Meddling in response to the scandal (which had been the result of executive producers and advertisers enjoying free rein and no oversight over shows), and most importantly, widespread adoption of TV sets causing networks to aim downmarket at the rapidly-expanding new audience in order to chase the highest ratings. As early as 1958, the Peabody Award committee lamented what they saw as the declining quality of programming, and in 1961, FCC chairman Newton Minow delivered his famous speech "Television and the Public Interest" lambasting the "vast wasteland" of cheap schlock that he thought TV was devolving into. The '60s were the decade when the terms "idiot box" and "boob tube" entered widespread use to describe television, a time when derivative sitcoms, Westerns, adventure shows, and variety shows dominated the airwaves; years later, such shows would be remembered primarily as kitsch. The study of demographics in the late '60s caused TV to move upmarket again, and while the networks arguably went overboard in doing so as they swung hard against the trends of the past decade, The '70s were the era when television started to once more be taken seriously by critics.
  • The second is the early-to-mid 2000s, the decade when Reality TV first became a serious phenomenon. While the era still produced a great many well-remembered scripted series on both the broadcast networks (Lost, 30 Rock, The Office (US)) and on cable (Battlestar Galactica (2003), The Wire, The Shield, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), it seemed that not a day went by when a scripted show risked getting Screwed by the Network in favor of a cheaper-to-produce reality show. The decade is littered with innumerable promising shows that barely limped to the end of their first seasons, as well as specialty cable networks that underwent severe Network Decay as they tried to chase the reality TV dollar. This turned around in a big way starting in the late '00s when cable networks led by HBO, FX, and AMC, as well as the streaming service Netflix, started premiering critically-acclaimed hits that demonstrated that scripted series still had a lot of life, to the point where The New '10s have been called a second Golden Age for television; the main concern now is that there are too many great shows for the average viewer to keep up with. It helped that, around the same time, reality TV started falling into an Audience-Alienating Era of its own (see below).

Non-Scripted Series

• America's Funniest Home Videos, in the short-lived era after Bob Saget's departure (1998-99) when it was hosted by John Fugelsang and Daisy Fuentes, then the era after that (1999-2001) when it was relegated to a series of one-offs with various Guest Hosts before Tom Bergeron took over in 2001. The 1998-99 attempt at a hipper look and feel didn't land, and host banter and miscellaneous filler came at the expense of the actual clips. Fugelsang is just plain not remembered as a host; not even the show itself has mentioned him in retrospectives. However, in a reversal of Franchise Original Sin this was the era when Trace Beaulieu and Josh Weinstein (veterans of Mystery Science Theater 3000) joined the writing staff and revamped the banter and actual video commentary to significantly funnier effect; notably they remained with the show through Bergeron's early seasons.
• The Amazing Race: Family Edition is largely if not universally loathed by fans. Four Racers instead of two, almost entirely limited to the continental United States because of the family gimmick and the inclusion of some very young children, which also limited the tasks.
• At The Movies underwent a significant retool between 2008-2009, where — following the departure of Richard Roeper as host and Roger Ebert as producer, ABC hired Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons as the new co-hosts, along with revising the show's branding to appeal to a younger audience. This "Ben & Ben" era had the opposite effect — many of the gimmicks like celebrity interviews and opening nights were seen as unnecessary padding, and the chemistry between Mankiewicz and Lyons was nowhere near as interesting as their predecessors. Lyons in particular was widely criticized (including by Roger Ebert) for his lack of knowledge in film criticism and having no background in the field, instead focusing on delivering marketable critic quotes during his positive reviews for promoters to use for advertising (combined with the fact that Lyons was primarily a celebrity news reporter, this, combined with his tendency to get publicly chummy with fellow celebrities, was widely seen as him trying to elevate his own brand, a serious conflict of interests with the show). Ratings took a nosedive and the two Bens were fired after one season, and while the two hosts were replaced by the more-respected A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips, this wasn't enough to save At the Movies, which was cancelled in 2010.
• The Daily Show is usually held to have fallen into one after Jon Stewart left in 2015. His replacement Trevor Noah caused a Broken Base among fans, and more importantly, most of the supporting talent (John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Larry Wilmore) left around the same time that Stewart did and launched their own shows, some of which (most notably Oliver's Last Week Tonight and Bee's Full Frontal) are considered to be the true heirs to the Stewart-era Daily Show by fans. Noah eventually found his footing circa 2017, however, as he sharpened his focus rather than trying to imitate Stewart's style of comedy, with the show seeing its ratings spike both on television and especially on YouTube.
• The Eurovision Song Contest has had its fair share:
  • The earliest years of the contest (from its inception through, depending on one's perspective, either the mid-'60s or as far in as ABBA's 1974 win for Sweden, but definitely all of the '50s) are generally seen as this by Eurofans, with most of the entries considered very old-fashioned and dated. The vibe is completely different to what people generally associate Eurovision with, being very formal and dressed-up. Particular songs and artists have been seen as exceptions, particularly the late Lys Assia (the first-ever Eurovision winner, who remained an active member of the Eurovision community until her passing in 2018) and, of course, the worldwide smash "Nel blu dipinto di blu," Italy's 1958 entry.^note (For Americans, this is the one Dean Martin covered half in English as "Volare". Domenico Modugno's Eurovision original is all in Italian.) (To that point: while the 50th Anniversary special from 2005 didn't do much more than cursorily mention the '50s, "Nel blu dipinto di blu" still ended the night being declared the second-best Eurovision entry of all time, only behind "Waterloo").
  • 1981-84 is generally looked upon this way. The contest was experiencing growing pains, with an even split between countries trying to be more current and others stuck in their ways. The winning entries were less successful on the pop charts (save for 1981 and '82) and countries became steadily less interested. It took a strong contest in 1985 and the victorious return of Johnny Logan in 1987 for people to start taking notice again, and even then Eurovision's esteem wasn't quite what it once was.
  • There's a Broken Base on whether the mid-90s count as this. On one hand, the influx of former Soviet/Warsaw Pact/Yugoslav countries meant for a more diverse lineup than ever, with the songs generally getting more experimental and interesting rather than constantly following the "Eurovision formula." On the other hand, this was the era of the controversial relegation system for countries with poor results, and fans were getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of success modern-sounding entries had compared to folkier, more atmospheric ones. Not helping matters were a series of wins for countries that either spoke English or skirted the language rule as much as possible (Ireland's hat-trick of victories from 1992-94, then Norway winning with a Celtic-flavored song that had very few lyrics, then another win for Ireland, then a win for the United Kingdom). Ireland scoring yet another win in 1996 while the United Kingdom's contemporary techno number and international hit "Ooh Aah...Just a Little Bit" only finished eighth was greeted with consternation from fans, leading to the small-scale introduction of the televote in 1997, then its full adoption in 1998, which coincidentally led to two very contemporary songs in the top two slots. This seemed like a good move at the time, but it would soon lead to...
  • The 2000s, an entire decade that tarnished Eurovision's reputation. While viewership was still high and more countries kept joining, the issues with mostly relying on a public vote became clearer and clearer: countries that were neighbors or had a significant diaspora/immigrant population in another country were disproportionately rewarded. Obviously, this wasn't usually enough to win, but the fact that the votes were becoming increasingly predictable if you had a cursory knowledge of geography was frustrating. On the flip side, whether by lack of motivation or (if you ask them) being at a disadvantage due to not having as much of a diaspora or as many neighbors, a load of Central and Western European entries entered a collective Audience-Alienating Era^note (to name a few: Austria (to the point that they withdrew until 2011), Belgium, France, Germany (starting around 2005 and briefly interrupted in the early 2010s), Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden (starting around 2007 until Eric Saade in 2011), Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) that only a few have managed to recover from and further solidified Eurovision as a joke and a popularity contest in Western Europe. It wasn't until the re-introduction of the juries in 2009 to balance out the televote's biases ^note (the EBU attempted to balance things out in 2002 when the issues with the televote started to become apparent by allowing countries to choose between using a televote, using a jury, or doing a 50-50 split between each, but it backfired when the countries using juries and 50-50 were clearly exchanging points with each other, leading the EBU to switch back to all-televote the following year) that the contest slowly but surely began to Win Back the Crowd, and the 2010s have gone on to become much more of an open field for countries that hadn't previously been seen as standing a chance.
• Family Feud had one that lasted nearly two decades:
  • After the show came back on the air in 1988 with Ray Combs hosting, the Audience-Alienating Era began in 1992 with the addition of the Bullseye round at the front of the game, where families competed to play one-question rounds to build up their Fast Money bank before playing "regular" Feud. Soon after, the daytime version was cancelled, airing in repeats until the following Fall. This was also the time where the syndicated version saw an uprising of celebrity specials and weird gimmick matchups (Priests vs. Rabbis! Baywatch Cast vs. Real Lifeguards! Doctors vs. Malpractice Attorneys! Priests vs. Rabbis again!). Combs was let go after the 1993-94 season, with original host Richard Dawson (who helmed the show in its original 1976-85 incarnation) coming back. However, Dawson was clearly in far worse health than when he had last hosted, as he had gained considerable weight, his voice was softer, and his wit had been dulled. This version also had two format changes, as family teams were shrunk from five to four members, and the Bullseye round was shrunk into a similar round called Bankroll, which helped with the flow of gameplay but also diminished cash payouts. With the O. J. Simpson murder trial pre-empting the series in most markets, this Retool lasted only one season. It's also been suggested that Combs being let go from the show was one of the factors behind his 1996 suicide.
  • The show returned in 1999, at which point the Audience-Alienating Era reached its peak. A brand-new, modern set was created and the new host was Louie Anderson, whom many derided for his slovenly appearance, raspy voice, and seemingly bored demeanor. Plus, the game structure was tweaked to an extreme Golden Snitch: three single-point rounds and one triple-point round with only one strike, and no returning champions. The only good thing that came out of this was the doubling of the Fast Money prize to $20,000 in 2001, something Anderson actually advocated. His replacement was Richard Karn, who - despite seeming far more enthusiastic and friendly than his predecessor - displayed exceptionally poor comedic ad-libbing and quickly resorted to shouting the exact same catchphrases ad nauseam ("I'M DOUBLING THE POINTS!"). Though Karn's tenure saw several improvements in appearance and format (reinstatement of returning champions, a variant of the "classic" scoring format, a new set, and even - briefly - a rearrangement of the theme song which was used in the Combs era), Karn's hosting style quickly became unbearable.
  • The Audience-Alienating Era finally showed signs of slowing after John O'Hurley replaced Karn in 2006, as O'Hurley had already proven himself as a capable host on the 2000-02 version of To Tell the Truth. Depending on who you ask, it ended completely either when O'Hurley got more comfortable hosting or when Steve Harvey replaced him, bringing its ratings up to a level comparable to that of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. However, some longtime fans think that Harvey brought the show back into an Audience-Alienating Era, as the popularity of his Wild Takes whenever a contestant gave a lurid answer were being heavily enforced by the writers, causing the questions to become Hotter and Sexier as a result.
• Jeopardy!:
  • At the start of Jeopardy!'s 1997-98 season, the producers began videotaping celebrities, public figures (scientists, politicians, etc.), journalists, and prolific writers to deliver individual clues and, in less frequent cases, full categories. Many fans hate these clues because they tend to disrupt the flow of the game due to many of them reading at a very slow pace and/or containing way too many words. Not helping matters is when the video clues feature actors performing in-character.
  • However, it's more strongly arguable that Jeopardy! went full steam ahead into Audience-Alienating Era territory with the Clue Crew, a regular "feature" born in 2001. It's bad enough that the clues presented by these young assistants tend to eat up as much time as their celebrity counterparts. It gets even worse upon realizing that, if any member of the Clue Crew introduces a category, there's hardly any effort to speed the game up until after the crew's entire column has been cleared out.
• The period in which Judge Jerry Sheindlin ^note (Judge Judy's husband and former New York City mayor Ed Koch's successor) presided over The People's Court (1999-2001) saw its ratings lag. One problem with the Judge Sheindlin era could be that he was too straightforward and matter-of-fact. While that may have made sense during the Judge Joseph Wapner ^note (who kept a low-key, serious "judicial demeanor", and spent a lot of the time discussing general legal concepts like "bailment for hire") era from the 1980s, where The People's Court was really seen as a way to both entertain and educate people about small-claims court, once Judge Judy hit the scene in the late '90s TV judges became "Tough Love" advocates and drama queens. In other words, now TV judges were expected to Freak Out, lecture, carry on, scold, schmooze, and second-guess the litigants. So when Sheindlin was replaced by Judge Marilyn Milian in 2001-02, ratings naturally improved significantly.
• The Price Is Right had two instances that are somewhat connected:
  • It started to get a little tired in Bob Barker's last few seasons: increasing senior moments from Bob, sudden insurgence of idiotic contestants, a butt-ugly set (it was recolored in a pink and blue motif for Bob's last seasons), and backstage drama that led to many models being fired and The Announcer Rod Roddy no longer appearing on-camera (which Fremantle notoriously tried to cover up). Rod's faltering health and subsequent death in 2003 led to myriad fill-ins, most of whom were perceived as subpar (the nadir being Daniel Rosen, who was extremely sloppy and unenthusiastic on-air; after members of fan forum golden-road.net voiced their disapproval, he also supposedly retaliated by astro turfing said forum with sockpuppet accounts praising him). Rod's successor Rich Fields was also seen by many as a Broken Base, as much of the fanbase had been pushing for Randy West instead.
  • Bob retired in 2007 and Drew Carey took his place, only to find himself continuing the Audience-Alienating Era for many, especially after longtime producer Roger Dobkowitz was unceremoniously sacked in 2008. Among other things, there were: a moment where a contestant bid on their Showcase to the exact dollar and Drew completely undersold the momentous occasion (he suspected that there was cheating involved; there wasn't), the prize pool getting a massive overhaul, pointless celebrity cameos (including one where Jack Wagner chewed the scenery so obtrusively that it appeared to distract a couple contestants into losing), and strange gimmicks (such as an episode where all six pricing games were Plinko). There was also criticism over Carey's hosting style in general, such as "comedic" Showcase skits that often demeaned Rich (to be fair, Drew now considers these a mistake), Drew talking way too fast and having fluctuating enthusiasm, and several instances where he screwed up the rules (most notoriously, the game Make Your Mark^note originally called Barker's Markers was retired due to this). Many other crew members were randomly let go under mysterious circumstances after Drew took over, including producers, directors, and even Rich, who was replaced by George Gray after another bevy of auditions (although it has been rumored that Rich's departure had nothing to do with the show proper, and George has proven to be less divisive in comparison). While some criticism of Drew still lingers, it seems that the show has largely emerged from its audience-alienating era as of The New '10s.
• Survivor has had several:
  • The first one was encountered around Seasons 3-5. Season 3 didn't do as well in the ratings compared to its predecessors, partly because the scorching heat of the Kenyan scrubland made it too hot for the contestants to do anything interesting besides sitting around all day, and the crew of Survivor were not any fonder of the season. Season 4 had a bunch of boring people and a Diabolus ex Machina that screwed someone doing very well in the game, along with the infamous "no-no" sandflies that irritated everyone (Word of God is that the show will never return to the Marquesas after meeting these bugs), and Season 5 was full of people who were outright irritating. They all had their moments, granted, but the show got better around Season 6.
  • Then there's Season 14 (Survivor: Fiji), with a cast full of dull people, a twist that resulted in a Can't Catch Up scenario pre-merge, only a couple of real moments, and even the host saying it wasn't very memorable. In all fairness to the producers, Jeff Probst mentioned that Fiji was supposed to be Cook Islands part two with a similarly racially segregated theme. Unfortunately, one of the 20 contestants leaving at the very last minute forced the producers to throw a new twist to the game they didn't plan to do.
  • Then from Season 18 (Survivor: Tocantins) to Season 27 (Survivor: Blood vs. Water), the editing would frequently be dominated by crazy, delusional, or arrogant jerkasses, leaving other tribe members invisible until their elimination. Oftentimes, the tribes' members made bone-headed mistakes or got too stressed to continue playing, giving the Creator's Pet an easy ride to the finals. On top of that, some of these seasons had twists that did nothing to add drama and suspense, especially the Redemption Island twist, which spent precious time on conflict between players who were already out instead of the ones still subject to the vote. The audience-alienating era finally ended with Season 28 (Survivor: Cagayan), which added more savvy players to balance the idiots, the emotional wrecks, and the jerkass camera hogs. The sole exceptions to this were Seasons 20 (Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains) and 25 (Survivor: Philippines).
  • Seasons 34-39 can be viewed as this with the exception of David vs. Goliath thanks to fans believing that the show has become too much about twists with many of those twists ended screwing over fan favorites such as Malcolm, Cirie, Devon, Jamal, Janet, and a lot of members from the original Malolo tribe out of the game.^note (Malcolm has to deal with the Mana/Nuku tribal council in which he could not prepare in advance, Cirie has to deal with advantagegeddon, Devon has to deal with the fire-making final four twist, many members from the original Malolo tribe were voted out simply because they didn't have the numbers since the first tribal swap, Jamal losing his vote for taking a note hanging from a tree even when most players would taken that note regardless, and Janet had her Idol nullified thanks to Dean who got an Idol nullifier through a freaking coin toss). Then, come to Season 38 where the entire post-merge would have been entirely different without the twist as the final juror and the actual winner of the season were people that were voted out pre-merge but ended up coming back to the game. It is not uncommon for many fans to fear that this show is becoming like Big Brother. Not to mention the cast for Game Changers, Ghost Island, and Island of the Idols has been constantly criticized thanks to the first season having questionable casting choices, the second season not having a lot of people making big moves and playing to win, and the third season having the infamous Dan Spilo incident and the way a lot of players handled the incident was not very well-received. Let's just leave the last one at that.
• While it's hotly debated as to whether any episodes of Top Gear following the departure of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May in 2015 are even worth watching - many fans having decamped to the trio's new show, The Grand Tour - nearly everyone seems to agree that the first season made without them was incredibly sub-par, with new lead presenter Chris Evans ^note (the former BBC DJ, not the guy who plays Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) being widely disliked, and the season adopting a tone much closer to the pre-2002 incarnation of the show. The following season, which saw Evans replaced by Matt LeBlanc, was at least seen as an improvement, but viewing figures remained barely half of what they were in the Clarkson-Hammond-May era.
• By many accounts, Wheel of Fortune (Jeopardy!'s sister show) has been in one from any of the following points depending on the version:
  • Daytime network (1975-91):
    • 1989: Pat Sajak stepped down from the daytime version to host The Pat Sajak Show (he's stayed with the nighttime version) and was replaced by Rolf Benirschke, a former football player who had no TV experience whatsoever. Despite being far more pleasant and solicitous than other "rookie" hosts of the era, he was very visibly nervous for most of his tenure, leading to a vast number of mistakes (including at least one confirmed instance of a contestant correcting him during a Teen Week). Making matters worse was the fact that Rolf took over while the show's announcer was disc jockey M. G. Kelly, who was derided by fans and even Pat himself for being overly mellow and constantly tripping over his words; this resulted in original announcer Charlie O'Donnell returning in 1989. Rolf lasted only six months before the network version Channel Hopped from NBC to CBS and the far more experienced Bob Goen became host.
  • Nighttime syndication (1983-present):
    • 1994-95: While this season does have some merit overall, it was also the season that introduced the notorious "Megaword" category, a target of derision from not only Sajak but also Lovely Assistant Vanna White and even the aforementioned Charlie O'Donnell. In this category, the puzzle was a long vocabulary word which the contestant could use in a sentence for an extra $500. The main point of derision for this category was the obscurity and difficulty of such words. Most notoriously, one round with the answer of OXIDIZED saw the Wheel change hands thirteen times before anyone managed to uncover a letter, with the round itself dragging on for an agonizing six minutes. Another round had a contestant ruled incorrect for mispronouncing PRISTINELY despite the whole puzzle being filled in, while at least two others (EROTICISM and COPACETIC) saw contestants buying incorrect vowels with only the E's unrevealed. Despite its short life, Megaword is still regarded to this day as one of the worst ideas in the show's history. This was only driven home on a May 2014 episode where a contestant was asked to name a category that the show no longer uses; the contestant in question jokingly asked Pat not to become upset, and Pat explained the category before saying that he "hated every moment" of it.
    • 2010 onward: A general No Budget feel, as the Bonus Round is often a contrived answer that seems to beg for a loss no matter what letters the contestants pick; Prize Puzzles, 1/2 Car tags, and Express becoming Golden Snitch-level Game Breakers; decreased enthusiasm from the studio audience (even taking into mind the show's use of a applause machine); poor puzzle writing in the main game (particularly the aforementioned Prize Puzzles, which often blatantly telegraph what the contestant will win); and increasingly sloppy editing/directing.
    • Another point of contention for the show in The New '10s was when longtime announcer Charlie O'Donnell died in November 2010, two months into Season 28. While it was understandable that this would require a rotation of fill-ins from other announcers, most of them did an especially poor job (despite most of them being genre veterans) except for Jim Thornton, who ultimately took over in 2011 and has been warmly received. However, there were eight weeks of episodes that Charlie had taped prior to his death but which hadn't aired yet, being scheduled for various points in the season, so the show made the unorthodox decision to dub him over with the fill-in announcers. While the show defended this as trying to lessen the sadness of hearing Charlie's voice so soon after his death, the fanbase largely found it disrespectful to his legacy. Even worse, after Jim became announcer, he was dubbed over all of the other fill-in announcers during that Summer's reruns (likely to avoid paying them royalties for reruns), resulting in some episodes being dubbed over twice.
• G4 seemed to pretend that the first month or so of Los Angeles-based X-Play episodes don't exist. The G4 Replay block of reruns skipped from the last San Francisco eps to the L.A. eps with the dark green set, completely skipping the early L.A. eps with the hideously bright-green set.
• Lisa Riley's run as host of You've Been Framed is usually seen as this, in part because her commentary wasn't considered to be as funny as that of the two hosts either side of her (Jeremy Beadle and Harry Hill), and also because her time as host coincided with the show tending to focus on clips of toddlers doing cutesy things rather than the accidents and bizarre incidents that the show was known for.
• The Game Show genre as a whole has had a few:
  • It wasn't just scripted shows that went to pot in The '60s, as the quiz show scandals understandably hit that genre hardest of all. Nuked from the airwaves in the early '60s as no network would touch them with a ten-foot pole, only a few low-stakes panel games survived, and it took over a decade for the genre to slowly crawl back. (Jeopardy!'s format of "give the answer, then have the contestants find the question" was born as a way around this.) Even the name of the genre changed: since "quiz show" was associated with rigged challenges, producers took to calling them game shows instead, while downplaying the knowledge questions in favor of word games and puzzles. The drought ended in The '70s as the producers Mark Goodson, Bill Todman, Jack Barry, and Chuck Barris led a revival of the genre, in what has since been called the Golden Age of the game show. This lasted...
  • ...until 1990, when the market reached a saturation point. Most upstart game shows that season were revivals, and most were met with Troubled Production. Notably, a reboot of To Tell the Truth blew through four hosts in only one season; one of Tic-Tac-Dough was so incompetent that it became a Franchise Killer; and Let's Make a Deal went over so badly with its new host that they actually dragged veteran host Monty Hall out of retirement in a failed attempt to save the show. The flooding of the networks was so severe that it killed the concept of a daytime game show for many years, leaving The Price Is Right as the last man standing on daytime network television until 2009. Any successes at this point were largely in nighttime syndication. Most of the survivors of this era that weren't Price, Jeopardy!, or Wheel were lighthearted cable fare like Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego or Supermarket Sweep.
  • At the Turn of the Millennium, the "big money" game show craze took off, thanks to the unbridled popularity of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was so popular that many other producers were quick to copy its tropes (dramatic lighting, bare-bones quiz format, ridiculously huge cash jackpots). Millionaire itself underwent massive Wolverine Publicity which, combined with the deluge of copycats, sent the genre into a tailspin. Millionaire went from a national phenomenon to a quietly-performing shadow of itself in syndication before finally meeting its demise in 2019 (not helped in that not one person won the game after May 2003), and overinflated jackpots quickly fell by the wayside.
  • The genre went through another around 2008 when Deal or No Deal became a smash hit. As with Millionaire, copycats abounded and the original's format wore thin, which the producers tried to cover up with gimmick after gimmick. There were also myriad terrible, poorly-planned shows in syndication, such as Temptation and Merv Griffin's Crosswords; the fallout was so severe that Game Show Network started airing televised poker and reality shows in an attempt to catch up with those then-hot markets. The game show field seems to have finally reversed as of 2016 onward, thanks to a popular block on ABC consisting of revamped versions of To Tell the Truth, The $100,000 Pyramid, Press Your Luck, and Match Game that are mostly back-to-basics and have been reasonably well-received.
• In the '90s and early '00s, Reality TV didn't have the reputation it has today for either lowbrow Point-and-Laugh Shows or glorified Soap Operas. When it first became popular, shows like The Real World, Big Brother, and Survivor were seen as interesting sociological experiments, especially when it came to exploring how castmates competed and plotted against each other, while American Idol added a novel Audience Participation twist to the classic Talent Show format. Then came the WGA strike of 2007-08, which left the networks scrambling to fill airtime and flooding the airwaves with cheap reality shows. While reality TV had a growing chorus of critics even before then, this was the tipping point for its reputation, which rapidly slid into the gutter. Once producers had figured out every interesting concept for a reality show that wasn't flat-out illegal to show on air, they began running the most commercially successful ones into the ground, producing variations on the same basic concept that always seemed more staged and gimmicky than the last. Old hits began faltering, with few new ones to take their place, while many people who, in the 2000s, would've become reality stars became social media stars instead. While the reality TV boom had television critics wringing their hands in the '00s, now it's mostly relegated to a small handful of cable networks.

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