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Yami Bakura: Hey, wait a minute. If these are all the Yu-Gi-Oh villains, then where are those stupid motorcycle freaks? You know, the ones from Season 4?
Marik: You mean the season nobody liked?
Retrospective opinion that every long running series has one season considered the worst or weakest for whatever reason by a fan majority. This might in fact be tied to the dislike of a specific arc, but can also befall episodic shows. In some series, a new director takes over and pulls the series in a different direction; this can give the impression of Seasonal Rot to those who liked the old way, but may also bring in new viewers who prefer it like this.
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Perhaps related to Jumping The Shark, although the changes can be somewhat subtler and not so much permanently wreck the show as lightly alienate a noticeable segment of its viewers for a while. This hopefully gets fixed at the end of the bad season, when writers aren't as stuck in their created plotlines which have taken their course, and have time for everyone to reflect on them. Dis Continuity can result when fans choose to ignore said seasons.
A cynic would say that every series will eventually succumb to irreversible and progressively worsening Seasonal Rot if it runs long enough. Better series might have several years at the beginning of the run where each season seems to be better than the last, but sooner or later they will decay if they don't end.
One reason that Too Good To Last series are so fondly remembered is that they never lived long enough for Seasonal Rot to set in. The reverse of Growing The Beard and Surprisingly Improved Sequel; it can segue into or from either one other at times.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Sixth season, via Creator Breakdown. Possibly the fourth or seventh season. Fans argue.
- Angel: Season four, chiefly due to Cordelia's Character Derailment, and the increasing prominence of Connor.
- Xena Warrior Princess: Fifth or sixth season. Fans argue.
- Star Trek:
- original: Third season
- Next Generation: First season, which tended toward the Anvilicious. Season two, while generally considered an improvement, isn't very well liked either; Dr. Pulaski was meant to be The Mc Coy, but she came across as cold. Some of the later seasons may have descended back into Seasonal Rot, though it's hard to get any agreement of which ones. The show really took off starting with the third season, displaying a case of Reverse Seasonal Rot in that the show actually started poorly and rose in esteem later.
- DS9: Seventh season, though this is contested.
- Damn straight this is contested. Usually it's one guy saying the seventh season was bad and everyone else asking what drugs he's been on.
- Voyager: Depending on who you ask, either everything before or everything after the fourth season. Who drives you crazier, Kes, or Seven of Nine? Do you prefer disposable shuttles, or the Delta Flyer?
- Enterprise: It reverse rots from the time the Xindi attack on up.
- The West Wing: Everything post-Aaron Sorkin, but mainly the fifth season.
- Babylon 5 has been likened to a sandwich; the best parts are the middle three seasons.
- Season Five, however, has a note that it 'recovered momentum', once the plot gets going. Originally, the last three episodes of season four were going to kick off Season 5.
- Red Dwarf: Either the sixth, seventh, or eighth series; which one qualifies best, or rather worst, as the seasonal rot depends on who you talk to.
- Sliders: Universally, season three, during which Maggie was introduced, Professor Arturo had a Bridge Dropped On Him, and Quinn Mallory ceased being the genius he once had been. The debate is how much the show recovered, if at all.
- Doctor Who: Original: 24th and 25th seasons.
- 23rd and 24th, surely? Whereas season 23 is almost as derided as 24, this troper hasn't seen too much grousing about season 25 — except for people who just can't abide Sylvester McCoy, that is.
- The Avengers: Original: Sixth series, though this is a bit unfair as the first series was lost after transmission save for two episodes.
- X-Files: The ninth season, though some consider the Seasonal Rot to go back further.
- John Cleese was perfectly aware of this (and meeting audience's inflated, unmatchable expectations) when he created Fawlty Towers, a popular British sitcom that only lasted two series of six episodes each. He decided against making further episodes because he knew that anything he would've written after it would not meet the expectations of the viewers. This also explained why he left the Monty Python troupe before the final season. Which is pretty much the reason Dave Chappelle quit Chappelle's Show.
- Actually, Cleese left Monty Pythons Flying Circus because he was sick of his writing partner Chapman's alcoholism and refused to work with him.
- Monty Pythons Flying Circus: The final season; Cleese was right, although it may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy, given that one of the frequent criticisms was that John Cleese was no longer in it...
- No, the mythical Cleese that left because the quality went downhill was right. The Flying Circus first started going off the rails sometime in the third season; the Cheese Shop sketch is one of the few good things about that season. There was no fourth season.
- 24: Fourth season; quality went back up significantly in the fifth season, but Seasonal Rot came back with a vengeance in the sixth.
- While not every fan of the prison drama Oz agrees that the final two seasons were the worst, it's hard to argue against the fact that storylines became increasingly outlandish and implausible during the show's final years, which involved, among other things, accelerated aging drugs, a dog-training program in a maximum security prison, a prison guard being signed by the NBA, and one character apparently gaining psychic powers, which he uses to win the lottery. This all in stark contrast to the gritty realism of the show's early seasons.
- Smallville: While the fourth season brought us Impulse and Krypto, it's primary plot was magic stones and reincarnated witches. The writers clearly didn't know where they were going and way too many conspiracies made it hard to keep track of where it had been, especially with Jason and his mother, whom the writers couldn't decide if they were working together or apart, or if they wanted Lana alive or dead. It also had a butchering of Mxyzptlk preventing a more traditional (i.e. having any qualities even remotely resembling Mxyzptlk) version from showing up in the future.
- Lost has had this, although the matter is debatable. What's known for sure is that season 2 lost many viewers because of an overly high Claremont Coefficient. The first six or so episodes of season 3 (the "pod") were widely panned. Fortunately, now that the series' end has been mapped out, season 4 has started expanding the context of the story and tying together some of the various loose ends.
- Power Rangers: The fans near universally hated Turbo (season 5), and the show may very well have been canceled if the Crisis Crossover season Power Rangers in Space hadn't picked up the slack and won everyone back over.
- Wild Force is pretty hated too.
- Season three of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica.
- The last couple seasons (starting point depends on the viewer) of MacGyver aren't viewed as favorably as the first couple seasons due to the Genre Shift of the show. By the last season, it was practically little more than a soapbox for the major issues the writers viewed as important. Most of the elements that made the show successful toned down or phased out in favor of Anvilicious issue-of-the-week episodes.
- The fourth series of the British series Teachers. The surrealism that had always bubbled under in the earlier series before coming to the fore in the third series got a little too out of hand, the dramatic elements almost entirely vanished, as did most of the better characters, to be replaced by pale imitations. One of the standout characters in the previous series had been Bob, a lovable loser, but for the fourth series he was flanderized into a Butt Monkey with a cheating Thai bride completely unaware of his status as the Butt Monkey. It might actually be possible that this is the way it always was, but we only noticed when the plots went downhill...
- Batman: Despite the stereotype, this series' first season had fairly good balance of drama and farce, but the subsequent seasons lost it with the Season 2 become primarily ridiculous while Season 3 was both embarrassingly cheap and ridiculous.
- The Los Angeles season of The Apprentice. It would have probably been fine if the location was the only thing that changed. Instead, we saw former viceroys Carolyn and George replaced by Trump's children, the week's losers having to live in tents, the winning Project Manager staying PM until a loss, said PM getting to sit in on boardroom elimination discussions, an entire team getting immunity for a week and as a result the losing team being split into two groups that had to compete against each other, and the final challenge pitting two teams of two instead of just two finalists. This resulted in a winner that never served as Project Manager. This led to poor ratings and a near-cancellation (it was brought back as a "celebrity" edition).
- Season two of Heroes. Half the characters had boring storylines, and Maya Herrara. Cut short by the writer's strike, and acknowledged by the writers as inferior to season 1.
- Desperate Housewives: Season two or three. Fans argue.
Anime
- Pokémon: The majority of Johto, though Hoenn and Sinnoh also take criticism for dragging on far longer than necessary.
- Rockman.EXE Stream, the fourth season of the Mega Man NT Warrior anime adaptation. Looked down on for turning the Mons on the internet premise into what was basically a Sentai show revolving around an ever-growing team of main characters with the ability to turn their Navis into super suits. The transition started with the previous season, but at least that mixed those segments in with segments that, um, actually
focused on included Mega Man.
- Also because "Mons on the internet" was originally called Digimon.
- Not to mention, the main villains' (Duo and Slur) status as Villain Sue and Karma Houdini was quite annoying.
- If you apply the concept to just the video games, Megaman Battle Network 4 is
perhaps the worst in the series.
- The Mega Man Star Force anime had this to a lesser degree in that there was virtually no plot in episodes 31 on until the end of the first season. So it was more like half-seasonal rot.
- The Megaman Battle Network anime also ran into this during its second season. First it threw in a ridiculous amount of filler before remembering it had a plot, then it wrapped up the plot before the season was even over, and then it filled out the rest of the season with more filler because they had literally run out of plot.
- The last episode was particularly notable for this, being a blatant Shout Out to Ghost Busters and famously comprising of, to quote a fansite, "twenty minutes of filler, a minute of eyecatches, and the entire plot crammed into the ending theme." To say nothing of the episode a few earlier that was a rather gimmicky race...
- The video game series itself is perhaps even more guilty; depending on who you talked to, the "seasonal" rot began either with the fourth or fifth game, but definitely while the series was still on the NES. Only with the latest entry of the series, Mega Man 9, is the series considered to have climbed out (incidentally, it returned to a "retro" 8-bit presentation). The Mega Man X series is almost universally regarded as entering seasonal rot after X5.
- Yu-Gi-Oh GX, after a Mind Screw of a third season (which still proved to be entertaining and well-written), had the abysmal fourth season, which tried (and failed) to top the Mandatory Twist Endings of the previous season, and supposedly explain away the loose ends from the first season without actually doing so. The fact that they made the main villain a secondary character's Superpowered Evil Side with a ridiculous agenda didn't help matters any.
- On that note, the original {{Yu-Gi-Oh!}} anime is said to have peaked at season 3 and took a sudden crash and burn when the aforementioned season 4 filler begun. Reasons for this include: trying to out-Epic the previous season, giving a random Monster Of The Week the ability to use a God Card, Brainwashing an established self-sufficient female character into a whiny villain, giving Yami Yugi Wangst by stealing regular Yugi and causing him to spend half that season yelling "AIBOU!", creating disgustingly huge plot holes (Duel Monsters was created 10,000 years ago in Atlantis! Also, there's a world of Duel Monsters spirits), and a final duel that borders on the ridiculous where Kaiba loses (gasp) and the Big Bad and Yugi try to one-up each other on Infinite attack power. The next filler arc, despite not having much in the way of new interesting characters, was seen by most fans as decent, but then came the nonsensical Memory World Arc. And that was CANON.
- Let's put it this way. In duel-based Yu-Gi-Oh Fan Fic, it's a common problem that you will, in the end, be copying a season. If your story looks like Battle City, KC Grand Prix, or Memory World, people take it in stride. If your story looks like DOMA, people start readying Torches And Pitchforks.
- Digimon Frontier. If this editor had to try to guess a reason, she would probably say that the lack of partner Digimon (The children themselves became Digimon) led to a host of other problems in plot and characterization. If Digimon Savers is any indication, it seems that the writers probably agreed.
- Akazukin Chacha. The second season (of three) is best not watched. Or, at least have the remote handy to fast-forward through the several minute long transformation sequence sequence (yes, multiple in a row...)
Manga
Comic Books
- Spider Man comics were consistently popular and well-received for over 30 years until the Clone Saga of 1994-1996. The storyline initially attracted new readers, but by the end, critical and fan response was so negative that the Spider-Titles had to be cancelled and rebooted. The negativity was largely because the Clone Saga JUST. WOULDN'T. END.
- And yet again With One More Day/Brand New Day
- Despite the near universal agreement of the badness of those two comics, Spider-Man is actually seeing an uptick in sales.
- While every writer to hit the X-books has his (or, rarely, her) detractors, it's widely agreed that Chuck Austen's two-year run on Uncanny X-Men represents an all-time low.
- Depending on who you ask, the seasonal rot for the Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog series started either after issue 50 (the appropriately-titled "Endgame" arc), or after the Bem/Xorda arc (starting the comic's Planet Of The Apes Ending and several characters' derailment, especially Sally Acorn's Chickification). Exactly how long the Seasonal Rot lasted (or indeed, if it ever did end) also depends on who you ask.
- This seems to be happening with the "second season" of Spider Man Loves Mary Jane, since the writer and the artist both left and they subsequently hired new people. The writing and art style shift is...jarring, to say the least.
Literature
- The tenth book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series falls under this due to excessive use of Padding and Purple Prose. Most fans see some manner of seasonal rot setting in anywhere between books 4 and 9 already, but it's disputed where it really went downhill.
- The fourth book of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, A Feast for Crows, is regarded by fans as anywhere between "below the excellent quality of the previous books" and "dull, boring crap that goes nowhere".
- This is what happens when you split one book into two, and then put the focus on all of the least interesting characters (excluding Jaime Lannister) in one book.
- Depending on what kind of Harry Potter fan you are, it may be the fifth, sixth, or seventh book.
Western Animation
- Spongebob Squarepants: Season 4 (post-movie). The first three seasons and movie were great, but the fourth season had characters get dumber or become caricatures of themselves, Idiot Plots ran rampant, and Spongebob's voice got several octaves higher. The fact that creator Stephen Hillenburg wanted to end it after the movie, but Nickeloden wouldn't let him might have something to do with it.
- The fourth season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
- Whether Season 2 of Robot Chicken counts is grounds for a fight. Those arguing its badness point to the sudden spike in Refuge In Vulgarity and Overly Long Gag abuse.
- Justice League: Another case of Reverse Seasonal Rot. The first season is considered to be of a much lower caliber than Season Two or the followup series Unlimited. Bruce Timm admits that he and his crew played it a little too safe, and that Dwayne McDuffie's involvement from Season Two onward dramatically improved the quality of the series.
- The third season of Danny Phantom, mostly due to Vlad's egregious Villain Decay. Many of the plots (mostly from Vlad's end) were left unanswered in favor of one-note baddies and filler, and nearly every character sans Danny going through terrible Flanderization.
- Winx Club, season 3, what with various plot points that went nowhere and stuff.
- Drawn Together, the first half of Season 3, when the show became too dark for its own good.
- The final two seasons of Dexter's Laboratory were made after the show was Uncancelled but without Genndy Tartakovsky or a lot of the rest of the creative cast. The plots were much worse, the art and animation was entirely different, and most Dexter fans just like to forget they ever happened.
Webcomics
- Sluggy Freelance lost a vast majority of its readers during the massive plotline known as Oceans Unmoving, mainly because the plot's only relevance to the series was showing what happened to BunBun after Holiday Wars. It took what should have been a a very short, sweet explanation and turned into into a one year plotline that constantly stopped the action because it had to cram in as much exposition as possible about the cosmology. For many people, the comic never recovered from it. For the rest, they like to just pretend it never happened.
- Others found it a fairly interesting change of pace that had a lot of wasted potential. Unfortunately, forcing it upon the readers with only a tangential relation to the rest of the canon was not a smart move on Pete's part.
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