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  • The Amazing Race has two groups of fans—those who believe that This Is A Race (and prefer intense competition between the teams), and the Call It Karma fans (who watch to see teams they like). They generally get along at the beginning of a season, until something sets them off and the flame wars carry on for the remainder of the season. Arguments about team selection and how the courses should be planned out can get pretty heated as well.
  • Beforeigners: The series has two groups of fans. Group one thinks it's a nice cross of Buddy Cop Show and Fish out of Water comedy. Group two thinks it's an arc-driven drama about Alfhildr's time travel hijinks. The overlap is non-existent, and the flame wars when season 2 came out were epic.
  • Dark Angel had such a major Retool between its two seasons that they are basically two completely different shows. Fans of the first season have one set of heroes, villains, central themes, and canon; fans of the second have quite a different set with shocking little overlap. Jensen Ackles is an especially polarizing figure even in the tiny sect of the fanbase that enjoys both seasons.
  • Degrassi has a fandom divide between the 'original cast' (Seasons 1 to 7) and the 'new cast' (Seasons 7 to present). While the general rallying cry of the former is 'the Show should have ended when J.T. died', the issue has very little to do with the character. The former believes that the latter cast are poorly hidden copies, the latter believes that the new cast is a superior second attempt. Both sides do generally agree Seasons 7 and 8 sucked.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Every era of the show receives a degree of this with some fans who love it while others hate it. Arguments rage over whether the Classic series or the Modern revival is better. Fans of the Classic series prefer the lack of melodrama and more traditional sci-fi feel while fans of the Modern series prefer the greater emphasis on character development and long term arcs. There are also disagreements regarding more specific eras. For instance, Classic Who fans are divided on whether the 60s or 70s are the best decade (with the 80s being a much rarer but not nonexistent pick), while New Who fans can't agree on whether Russell T Davies or Steven Moffat is a better showrunner (with Chris Chibnall similarly being a much rarer but not non-existent pick). And then there's the debates over which incarnation of the Doctor is the best (and the worst).
    • The decision to Gender Swap the character in 2017 led to the most extreme broken base scenario in the franchise's history, with fandom evenly split between those applauding the idea and those who announced they were divorcing themselves from the franchise.
    • "The Timeless Children" doing a massive retcon of the Doctor's past; namely counting the faces seen in "The Brain of Morbius" as past incarnations of the doctor, which itself was retconned out when the 12 regeneration limit was established. Their relationship with the other Time Lords also got changed, which absolutely infuriated many fans for needless retcons, while greatly enthusing others for changing thing up.
  • Game of Thrones: The divide didn't show up until after season 4. There was many points of contention, but to name just a few;
    • Dany's downfall is extremely controversial among the fandom. One group of fans believe despite its botched handling it was actually fitting. Dissenters are not completely sold on that, saying it was contrived. With some even saying Daenerys was a victim of bad Moral Luck. Some just don't like her arc regardless of the show's (or George R.R. Martin's) intentions. Stannis' downfall was almost just as controversial and divisive for the same reasons.
    • After a while, opinions begin to split over Ramsey Bolton. He's viewed as a good Love to Hate villain by some, while others started to think he was becoming an annoying Invincible Villain.
    • Same with Cersei Lannister; people loved her staying around for as long as she did, while others thought she stuck around far too long and shouldn't have been the final Big Bad. That doesn't even get into how people feel about the way her story ended.
    • The Long Night is also controversial. The way it was shot makes it hard to see for some, while other claimed that it looked fine. Then there's the fact the White Walkers went down as easy as they did was seen as anticlimactic. Especially since they didn't even make it out of the north, with some thinking they would be the bigger threat. Others felt that the WW didn't have enough characterization to be the final threat, unlike say Cersi for better or worse.
    • Whether or not Olly was a sympathetic character or not. Many hate Olly, while others say his haters don't get the character's nuance. There's middle ground with some people saying Alas, Poor Scrappy, thinking it was a case of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character. Some just don't like the fact Jon killed a child.
    • The treatment of the Tyrells. Some people like it, thinking it fleshes out Margaery Tyrell more and shows more of the political intrigue. Others think the added Tyrell scenes, especially in S4 and S5, aren't that important to the overall plot and are pandering to the base. Then the scenes of Margaery sexually manipulating Tommen are very contentious due to Tommen's unclear age (especially as he continues acting like a child) making Margaery seem like a sexual abuser and sexual predator, especially as their relationship in the books is non-sexual due to Tommen's age. And while the Tyrells are important to the plot, some people think their emphasis is annoying as it takes too much time away from other significant characters, such as Stannis. Then there's their Adaptational Heroism, taking away a lot of the moral ambiguity of the books.
    • The Red Wedding was so shocking it put a huge segment of the fans off. Similar to how people were put off by the death of Glenn Rhee from The Walking Dead. This was also when people started to say the show was becoming shocking for the sake of being shocking and was veering into "Too Bleak, Stopped Caring". On the other hand for some this is what sold them on continuing the show.
    • On a lighter note, there's also a divide over the sword and sorcery stuff vs the political intrigue stuff. Exemplified by the arguments over how the White Walkers should fit into the grand scheme of things.
  • Guardian: The Lonely and Great God: Some fans ship Kim Shin and Eun Tak. Others are too uncomfortable about the age difference — especially since Eun Tak is a teenager and Kim Shin is over nine hundred. Then there are the fans who don't like the age difference between the characters but think it doesn't really matter because Eun Tak's actress is older than her character.
  • In Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, Hurricane Gokai-Oh spamming in the summer episodes (ends right before the Go-onger tribute, where Machalcon took Furaimaru's stead) is either received well by some fans because of the Pirates-Ninja factor or too repetitive and spotlight-hogging for the others.
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O: Zi-O remains a divisive season among Rider fans. It's either a spectacular tribute to the Heisei Era of Kamen Rider with an endearing cast of characters and creative concepts that doesn't let canon bring it down or it's so tunnel-visioned on its tributes that its incomplete characters and sheer amount of plot lines that go nowhere cause it to buckle under the weight of its legacy and implode. That's not even getting into its finale, whose re-establishment of Kamen Rider as a segmented Multiverse is either a Timey-Wimey Ball-untangling Cosmic Retcon or an All for Nothing spectacle that needlessly muddles already-downplayed crossovers and cameos.
  • Kamen Rider Zero-One: Hoo boy, the Workplace Competition Arc is a doozy. While most agree that the Arc was (at least on-paper) an interesting way to introduce Aruto to how cut-throat the business world can be and that it went on for way too long, the divisiveness stems from how far the good outweighs the bad. Detractors see the arc as taking the idea way too far - being an over-bloated spectacle that allowed Arc Villain Gai Amatsu carte-blanche for a whole third of the show, tap-dancing past Willing Suspension of Disbelief on so many occasions while all but getting away with it that Aruto (who spends most of the arc getting effortlessly ragdolled) was hard to root for in comparison. Those that like it spin this for the positive - emphasizing the importance of Aruto receiving a wake-up call while in addition getting annual berserk form Metal Cluster Hopper out of the way through Character Development for Is. Secondary Rider Isamu's interesting Mind Control side-arc, Kamen Rider Thouser's well-received fighting style and the token Humagears of the arc being fine meme-material also generally come up in the arc's favor.
  • Malcolm in the Middle: The Series Finale. Malcolm gets offered a lucrative job that would allow him to skip college and become rich. Lois and his family force him to pass up the job because in Lois' words "Malcolm needs to actually crawl and scrape" to actually be a good person. The big divide is whether people feel that Lois was actually right or if she was once more being a Control Freak who refuses to accept responsibility for her lot in life.
  • The Mandalorian:
    • There's been quite a divide on whether or not Season 2 is an improvement or step back compared to Season 1. The former camp prefers Season 2 for its stronger sense of pacing and cohesive narrative flow. While detractors feel that tying the show closer to the franchise's myth arc not only creates Continuity Lockout but strips the show of its identity being a Western that takes place in the Star Wars universe but is divorced from the Skywalker Saga.
    • Whether or not Din Djarin should've become Mandal'or. Since he never wanted to rule Mandalore, some viewers feel proud of him for passing on the responsibility to someone passionate for the cause. Other viewers argue that whenever he united disagreeing people against a shared concern (such as Freetown's population and the nearby Tusken tribe against the Krayt Dragon), he showed leadership potential that the writers ultimately squandered. Additionally, fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels can't agree among themselves if Bo-Katan Kryze deserves a third chance to rule Mandalore.
    • Viewers' opinions on Season 3's looks at Coruscant under the New Republic can vary, depending on whether or not they want to consider the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy canon. Those who do enjoy the looks as well-performed worldbuilding and setup for the rise of the First Order. Others see them as overly-long and depressing, if not outright boring, distractions from Mandalorian affairs.
    • Whether or not Din Djarin should've abandoned his tribe's rule to never let a living thing see him without his helmet after Season 2. Some fans believe that in order to reinforce the lesson that Mandalorians can practice whatever form of their religion they want, the helmet rule should never completely die off, especially since Din looks uncomfortable whenever he unwillingly shows his face to someone else. Others believe that after the instances of Din exposing himself out of love for Grogu, he reverses too much of his character development by atoning for his violation of the helmet rule. The latter camp also includes viewers who feel that they can't emotionally connect with Din without seeing his face at least Once a Season.
    • Din Djarin getting Grogu back in between Seasons 2 and 3 — some people like this because it means Din Djarin gets to be Grogu's father, we get to see more plots about him (such as whether he should be a Jedi or a Mandalorian) and that if Grogu had left the show, that would have been sad. Others, however, think it's either a cash grab, annoying that people need to watch The Book of Boba Fett to find out how he got Grogu back, or wastes potential.
    • Fans are divided on whether Grogu should learn to talk. Some say he should, since it would be interesting character development, and it would be a good follow-up to things like him making noises occasionally (most often "patoo") and adults pointing out he can't speak and so can't say the Mandalorian Creed. Others, however, think that Grogu would be less cute if he could speak, and fear that he would say things they didn't want to hear him say. The people who think Grogu should speak are divided on whether he should talk like a normal person, like a young child, or like Yoda.
  • Moon Lovers: Some love it for its romance and likable characters, while others hate it for its mediocre, slow-paced story, acting (especially Baek-hyun's, which both haters and fans agree is bad), or for being an unfaithful adaptation of the novel and/or being completely different to the original show that it's based on (Scarlet Heart).
  • Mr. Queen: Some fans like how the series ends. Others are furious with it because it means everything Bong-hwan did was All for Nothing.
  • Nowhere Boys: Replacing the original Nowhere Boys with the New Nowhere Boys in Season 3. Some thought it was the right time for the old cast to step aside and let others have a shot, while others were turned off by the departure of characters they had grown attached to.
  • Princess Agents: The infamous cliff-hanger ending. Some viewers absolutely hate it while others think it's a fitting end.
  • The Rise of Phoenixes:
    • The series doesn't stay close to the book. Because of this the fandom is divided into those who've read the book and are angry the series wasn't a more faithful adaptation, those who've read the book and think the series is good anyway, and those who haven't read the book and don't know what the other groups are talking about.
    • The ending. Unlike the book, which has a relatively happy ending, the series has a Bittersweet Ending. Some fans don't mind this while others absolutely hate it.
  • RuPaul's Drag Race:
    • The show has so many fan divides, it has its own Broken Base and Base-Breaking Character pages. We hope you have all day.
    • This may surprise casual- and non-viewers, but the show itself has caused a broken base within the drag scene and the LGBT community. It has its obvious die-hard fans, but its critics point out two chief complaints:
      • Uninclusiveness. RuPaul has made several controversial statements towards transgender people over the years, as well as the fact that he doesn't allow post-op trans women, drag kings, or bioqueens (cisgender women who perform female drag) to compete on the show. The usual retort is that limiting the competition to men and pre-op trans women helps maintain an even playing field, which has led to many a debate over the very definition of drag, as well as whether or not one can watch the show to enjoy the contestants without necessarily agreeing with RuPaul (the show has since softened its stance on who is allowed to compete).
      • Over-saturation. Older queens bemoan the fact that the scene is now flooded with young people who grew up watching the show and have underestimated how much work goes into drag and how little most gigs pay, and others miss the pre-Drag Race days when drag was still an underground subculture, since people are now attending shows without knowing anything about the culture or audience etiquette and expecting the performers to look just as polished as the queens on TV. The usual retort is that gay clubs need the businessnote . The increased interest in drag from the show has been a boon for many clubs, even if that means dealing with the occasional ignorant patron.
  • Seinfeld:
    • "The Finale", oh so much; love the continuity or confused by it. Or just plain don't like seeing the show end on such a downer that vilified the cast.
    • To a lesser extent, the original version of "The Betrayal". Fans either like the backwards narrative, or hate it. There is another version that puts the events in order, however.
    • Not as much as the series finale, but while fans generally agree on the best episodes/seasons there's some disagreement over the quality of the seasons following Larry David's departure from the show (Seasons 8 and 9) when the show became less realistic and rooted in the sort of "social manners" humor Larry David is known for.
    • Susan's death in "The Invitations" is one of the most controversial moments in the series due to Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer's uncaring reaction. Some believe that this moment is hilarious, others believe that it's tasteless. It was so divisive that it had that effect on people involved in production: George Steinbrenner actually filmed a cameo as himself for that episode but demanded to be edited out because he thought killing her the way they did was so tasteless he didn't want to be involved with the episode.
  • Sesame Street:
    • During the Turn of the Millennium, Elmo and, to some extent, Abby, got the most screen time than the other characters. This peeved some adult viewers, finding Elmo and Abby too cutesy and wanting to see more of the other characters, while other adult viewers thought that it was good to focus on two 3-year-olds since that's how old a lot of the child audience was, and that the two were adorable. Eventually, the show found a happy medium, still giving Elmo and Abby lots of screen time but giving the rest of the cast their time to shine as well.
    • In the earlier episodes, Cookie Monster as "Alistair Cookie" smoked a pipe, while later episodes changed it to a bubble pipe. Some viewers saw this as blatant censorship, while others just saw it as a sign that times were changing.
    • Introducing characters just to talk about some hot topic or other (like Julia for autism, Karli for foster care and later addiction, Danny for asthma, Kami for HIV, and Lily for homelessness). Some viewers saw this as too PC and soapboxy, while others lauded the show for its progressiveness, and a third camp felt the intention was noble but the characters themselves were bland and one-dimensional and it was a bad way of doing representation.
  • Star Trek has had this happen several times, to varying degrees, and while time has healed some wounds, others have only gotten deeper.
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation is now regarded as the most worthy of follow-ups and in many ways as essential a part of the franchise as the original. This was decidedly not the reaction of Trekkies upon its initial announcement and release. The idea that you could just create some new show with a bunch of nobodies and slap the label Star Trek on it was offensive to them, and they let people know it by flooding newspapers with angry letters to the editor. Entire articles were written about the angry reaction fans had to the series even existing. To a degree, most of these fans have come around, and those that haven't seem to have understood their opinion is well in the minority.
      • To be fair, TOS had an unprecedented longevity for a TV show following of its time. It's pretty easy to slap a label on a show and claim "it's just like that." That it took time for TNG to earn its reputation is a testament to both series.
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine committed the unpardonable sin of not being created by Gene Roddenberry, which at the time had Roddenberry's acolytes up in arms at the very idea. Nowadays that's less controversial, but some still have issues with the fact that it didn't take place on a Starship, rendering the franchise title meaningless (these complaints were somewhat mitigated by the later arrival of the Defiant), or the perceived Darker and Edgier approach, which many said was against the spirit of the franchise. There were also, unfortunately, those who didn't appreciate the racial background of the central character.
    • One could almost suggest that Star Trek: Voyager got off light, as a majority of its complaints came from its later seasons, when episodes like "Threshold" and "Demon" convinced many that it was simply substandard from a quality viewpoint. But when it was announced that the captain would be a woman, Paramount received death threats.
      • Voyager also gets this with individual episodes, the most common being "Scorpion", "Equinox", and "Tuvix", where Janeway (the aforementioned captain) makes an alliance with some evil cyborgs called Borg, goes vigilante on another spaceship captain who kills aliens for fuel, and splits Tuvix back into Tuvok and Neelix respectively. Fans of those episodes will claim that desperate times called for desperate measures, while detractors see the actions as woefully immoral.
    • Star Trek: Enterprise hemorrhaged viewers in its first two seasons, mostly because fans thought the writing and characters were vastly subpar, but also because they believed the series to be an attempt to reboot the entire franchise, with Rick Berman and Brannon Braga deliberately attempting to topple Gene Roddenberry. Others accused them of actively trying to kill the franchise, for whatever reason.
    • Star Trek: Discovery: While this has quieted down to some degree (seeing as every Star Trek TV show has had some backlash upon its release); Discovery had a massively polarizing effect on certain groups of fans, while others lauded it with praise. Due to a number of factors, such as it being well over a decade since there was a weekly Trek series (with many forgetting how much they hated later installments just doing the same thing over and over), Paramount and Viacom's split ("can it even be Trek without Paramount's involvement?"), the entirely new production team that brought the project to fruition ("who are these nobodies, they don't even understand Trek!"), the involvement of Alex Kurtzman (considered nearly an Antichrist by fans who did not enjoy the rebooted film series), the improved visuals (it's a prequel to TOS, so to many it should contain the same cheese-laden 60's look), the serialized plotting, the "canon violations" (primarily retcons and fanon misconceptions), new makeup and look for the Klingons, focus on a character who isn't the captain (and, unfortunately, poor reactions to her gender and race), the fact that it's on a premium streaming service rather than ordinary television, introduction of profanity (something Roddenberry himself would have included had network standards allowed it) and perhaps most notably its being released roughly at the same time as another show that deliberately invoked TNG-era nostalgia, a very vocal section of the fandom declared it "not real Trek" and began online campaigns attempting to have it cancelled. In retrospect, even Enterprise has gained their favor compared to this.
    • Star Trek: Picard is argued to be too dark and to not show the hopeful future Roddenberry wanted, Star Trek: Lower Decks is often dismissed by older fans as lowbrow comedy that's antithetical to the spirit of the franchise, etc., etc. Needless to say, both of those series have their rabid fans as well.
    • For the franchise as a whole, some female characters (mainly Deanna Troi, Seven of Nine, and T'Pol) wear catsuits on the regular. Some viewers see this as too sexual, while others are okay with it. In a similar vein, Enterprise showing characters in decon in their underwear is either seen as too sexual or just neutral.
    • Another broken base the franchise has in general is whenever it tries to do comedy. Some people see the comedy as hilarious and, if it takes place during or just after a serious moment, as comic relief. However, others will see the comedy as too silly and out-of-place. Notably, the Deep Space Nine episode "Move Along Home" and the Voyager character Neelix are both divisive for their deliberate comedy.
  • Suburgatory fandom cannot decide whether the use of Snap Back and Status Quo Is God for Season 3, when the preceding seasons had a Wham Episode or two and as episodic as it seemed, there was a Myth Arc of sorts of being a Fish out of Water in Chatswin. Although it may not seem continuity-heavy, the decision to use Status Quo Is God still proves controversial now.
  • Ultraman Cosmos' reception in the West (Since it's very popular in Japan) is an odd example: The show itself falls into this categorynote , with fans either liking or disliking the show's kid-aimed tone shiftnote ; the movies, on the other hand, are considered some of the best by the entire fanbase and avert this trope.
  • Vacanta Mare has one of the most divisive fanbases ever in Romania. First there's the Stage vs TV rivalry, with many older fans claiming that they were better on stage, while many younger fans preferring the TV shows.
    • There's also the Dan Sava vs Florin Petrescu rivalry. Where once again, the older fans prefer Dan Sava and see Petrescu as a Replacement Scrappy, while the younger fans prefer Petrescu over Sava.
      • And then there's the Pro Tv vs Kanal D rivalry. Where some fans prefer the Pro Tv show and refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Kanal D shows while the more recent fans like the Kanal D shows just fine and may have never heard of any previous VM works.
      • The characters introduced on Tv such as Lila, Mitică, Romică, Frankfurt, the Godparents and Urinela can fall either into the The Scrappy or Ensemble Dark Horse depending on who you ask.
  • Whose Line Is It Anyway?: British version (presented by Clive Anderson) vs. American version (Drew Carey). Usually the debate revolves around whether or not Ryan, Colin, and Wayne deserved to be on every episode or whether the lineup should be mixed around more, or who is the better host. But fans will find ANYTHING to argue about, so the Britline vs. Drew's Line debates tend to get increasingly ridiculous — from whether or not (insert cast member here) is either a comedic genius or horrendously overrated, to which country's audience is better (either the British audience is too quiet or the American audience is too loud), to which musician is better at playing the Hoedown music, to which set is better, to which version has better fashion sense.

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