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alt title(s): Season Decay 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.
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.
Note that examples have to be specific seasons, otherwise is just becomes " Jump The Shark but you're allowed to add examples".
Examples
Anime and Manga
- 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 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 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.
- Supposedly the whole Cross Fusion business came about as a result of Executive Meddling, as the show's Axess timeslot onward was right before an actual Sentai show, and having resources and budget being shifted around to The Movie, not to mention incorporating said movie into the plot of the TV series itself, was probably responsible for the mostly abysmal art and a story that didn't know what to do with itself. That still doesn't excuse them for throwing out the entire purpose of the series, however.
- 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.
- A condition which continued into the second season, with the addition of an Adaptation Decay epidemic that discarded almost every aspect of the game it was purportedly based on, up to and including The Rival becoming the polar opposite of his game self.
- 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.
- 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.
- One could argue that the backlash towards DOMA stems from the lack of Bakura and loss of the protagonist as their personal flawless Jesus once he actually did something wrong like a normal person. One could also argue the KC Grand Prix qualifies as its own rot since, after the events of Battle City and DOMA, an angry German doesn't feel like much of a threat. It's mostly just an excuse to have Kaiba flouncing around being awesome for 15 episodes.
- 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...)
- The Wallflower becomes increasingly formulaic after the 15th volume or so. When the author starts raving about her cat and sending the gang off to random places so the natives can be surprised by Sunako-chan, you just know it's not going to end anytime soon. It would have been wiser to let the main Odd Couple's Romance Arc progress beyond Aw Look They Really Do Love Each Other around the 12th, instead of the Sahara-sized deserts of filler
 we're receiving.
- Zero No Tsukaima has generally been thought to have gotten worse each season. The first season followed the novels better than the second or third seasons did. Not to mention that each season seemed to simply drop more and more into just being fanservice.
- With Digi Mon, it's either the second season (Digimon Adventure 02) or the fourth (Digimon Frontier.) Your Mileage May Vary.
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.
- Yes and no. There were three Spider-Man comics. At the same time as BND, two of these were cancelled, and instead the other one (Amazing Spider-Man) was scheduled for three times a month. This increased total number of issues sold per month in a way unrelated to story content (since extra issues of Amazing, a higher-selling title, replaced the lower-selling titles). Per-issue sales for Amazing went down. Source.
- 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.
- A number of fans of the book have noted that, after Ian Flynn and Tracey Yardley became the new creative team in issue #160 (and tied up as many of the storylines Left Hanging by the previous writers as they could), the overall quality of the book as started to recover.
- 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.
- The "Reads" arc of Cerebus, largely due to consisting mostly of an extended Author Filibuster.
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. Either way, book 11 was a significant improvement, resolving several plots and paving the way for the final book with, by WoT standards, barely any padding at all.
- 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 "Strong as ever", "below the excellent quality of the previous books" and "dull, boring crap that goes nowhere". This arises from a shift in focus to newer POV characters, whose plots some consider to be cases of Trapped By Mountain Lions, and the story being essentially chopped in half, with a lot of the more popular characters being left out completely.
- Depending on what kind of Harry Potter fan you are, it may be the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh book.
- Or the first, second or third. Or none at all.
- Stephen King's The Dark Tower: was it with the non-sensical introduction of Stephen King himself as a character in book five, or did the rot set in as early as book four, with its overly long and meandering flashback sequence? Whichever it was, it only goes downwards from there.
- Naked Empire, the eight book of the Sword Of Truth series, is commonly thought to be the weakest part of the series by even people who like it as a whole. Yes, this is the book with evil pacifists. Afterward, the series gains back some of its momentum in the three last books.
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.
- That's one I haven't heard. More common candidates are Season 3 (sudden romance plots, no sympathy for Wes even after everyone knows he was manipulated, the "champion" thing) and Season 5 (Cordy off the central cast, Spike on it).
- 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.
- Deep Space Nine: Season three is distinctly weak, due to two factors: the departure of Peter Allan Fields (who was responsible for the first two seasons' best writing), and an increasing reliance on Ferengi-centered comedy episodes. It was back on its feet by season four, though. Season seven receives this accusation by some fans due to (allegedly) lower quality stories and Ezri Dax.
- Voyager: Depends who you ask, but Season 2 is frequently chosen. It contained some of the show's least popular storylines (with fans and eventually writers) and famously led longtime Trek reviewer Tim Lynch to stop watching. The show improved steadily from here, beginning by leaving Kazon space behind.
- 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 gets this a lot.
- Either the sixth, seventh, or eighth series; which one qualifies best, or rather worst, as the seasonal rot depends on who you talk to.
- While fans differ as to where it began exactly it's generally agreed that the period in between Series 3 and 6 was its peak, with the rot starting depending on personal impression. However the rot became obvious after Rob Grant and Doug Naylor split. With Doug Naylor choosing to revive the series and turn it into a comedy/drama with no studio audience for Series 7 and a new Kochanski and getting the backlash that followed. Despite returning to a pure comedy format and shot in front of an audience for Series 8 the response was similarly poor.
- 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 seasons 22 and 23. Season 22 introduced the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and with that a lot of problematic storytelling. Season 23 is derided as much as season 22, possibly due to it being mindscrewy. Season 24 gets this from people who can't stand the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) although his first season is found to be poorer than his later two. Really, the show seems to be called on this one with every season, with symptoms ranging from regeneration to shifts in tone by new production teams to questionmark lapels appearing.
- 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.
- Monty Pythons Flying Circus: John Cleese left the show after the third season. Without his rigorous quality control, the fourth season, renamed simply Monty Python, was a mess.
- 24: The fourth series of the show is markedly different from the preceding three seasons; Jack is effectively deposed as head of CTU operations, the building itself has undergone a makeover, and just about everyone from the previous season is gone without explanation. They've been replaced by an ineffectual boss who's holding her schizophrenic daughter in the CTU medical wing, a portly computer tech suffering from a nervous breakdown after learning that his mother will die from radiation poisoning, and an obvious mole who treats everyone around her like crap. It's not surprising that, by the end of the season, almost all of the major surviving characters from the series were brought back into the fold. Alternately, season six starts out promising, and then becomes mired in a complex family drama and plot points ripped haphazardly from previous episodes.
- 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, its primary plot was magic stones and reincarnated witches. The writers clearly didn't know where they were going and way too many conspiracies made it hard to keep track of where it had been, especially with Jason and his mother, whom the writers couldn't decide if they were working together or apart, or if they wanted Lana alive or dead. It also had a butchering of Mxyzptlk preventing a more traditional (i.e. having any qualities even remotely resembling Mxyzptlk) version from showing up in the future.
- Well, in their defense, it would be hard to introduce an omnipotent fifth-dimensional imp into a "realistic" show. Although I agree that that was pure butchering.
- 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 large Kudzu Plot. The first six episodes of season 3 (the "pod") were widely panned and turned off alot of fans (who would then go on to miss episode 7, "Not in Portland", considered one of the show's finest, and the nearly unbroken line of incredible episodes that followed it). Fortunately, 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 In Space hadn't picked up the slack and won everyone back over.
- Wild Force is pretty hated too.
- Mystic Force as well. All three of these can be seen as interesting cases because, though they each have multiple individual reasons they're so hated, most of the hate is particularly due to one specific character (Justin, Cole, and Nick respectively).
- Scrubs. Many fans say that season 5 was the beginning of its downfall as Flanderization occurred. JD went from being a little emotionally needy to a whiny man-child and Elliot became every negative stereotype about women instead of her usual neurotic but lovable self. Arguably, later seasons began to grow back the beard. Fans argue.
- Season three of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica.
- Generally considered Executive Meddling
- Although the first few episodes of that season were pure win. Once they departed from the 'epic battles with awesome scary robots' format to Ace Attorney IN SPACE.
- Generally, seasons one and two are viewed as being Battlestar in its prime, whereas the mediocre Season 3 and the escalating series of wallbangers (once it became clear that the writers had written themselves into a hole) that was Season 4 are the nadir.
- 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 Herrera. Cut short by the writer's strike, and acknowledged by the writers as inferior to season 1.
- Season three got arguably worse. The writers heard the complaints that season two was too slowly paced, and not enough twists. Their answer? A Random Events Plot and one Aborted Arc after another. Fans can no longer say it's predictable or slowly paced, but the result was even worse. Seems to be getting better with volume four though.
- Desperate Housewives: Season three, though part of this was due to the fact that one of the show's stars (Marcia Cross) was written out of the second half of the season due to her pregnancy. The season five time jump also gets points for seasonal rot as storylines such as Bree and Orson being new parents were aborted while the relationship between Mike and Susan once again got haphazardly derailed in order to drag out the "Will they or won't they" drama.
- Saturday Night Live - just about any season depending on who you ask, but the sixth season stands out as uniquely awful. The entire cast and writing staff left in 1980, but the network insisted that the show continue along anyway; new producer Jean Doumanian knew nothing about comedy, having been previously in charge of booking musical guests. As a result the musical guests were fantastic and the new cast and writers barely watchable. Finally NBC stepped in and fired not named Joe Piscapo and some kid named Eddie Murphy kid that was hired mid-season and was showing a lot of promise...
- The 20th season also stands out as particularly bad, partly as an inverse to the 1984-85 season when NBC brought onboard a slew of big name comics to try and keep the show going. While it had it's moments, the overall chaos of having a large number of egos behind the scenes pretty much led to a subpar season and a massive cast purge at the end of the season so that Lorne Michaels could rebuild.
- In a similar vein to SNL, Nickelodeon's All That was revived after three years with an entirely new cast, new writers, and, all and all, a whole new atmosphere. Many fans would rather it was left be.
- Season 3 of Supernatural: Executive Meddling lead to Bela and Ruby, the audience was always Anviliciously reminded that Dean only had one year to live, and the season premiere ("The Magnificent Seven") was too bright and shiny. Season 4 has been a grittier improvement, but Genevieve Cortese is generally reviled in her portrayal of Ruby throughout the fanbase, and many fans really miss Katie Cassidy.
- The Drew Carey Show began going downhill part-way through the fifth season, after Mrs. Louder mysteriously vanished without a trace, only to be replaced with new guest stars every few weeks. However, the last two seasons changed so much that the show was nearly unrecognizable. And unwatchable, judging from the ratings.
- Season 8 of The Amazing Race was a "Family Edition" which was utter crap, and even the production team later said that It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time but turned out badly. The intra-team drama invariably became parents yelling at kids, having children restricted international travel, teams of 4 also restricted international travel (as the show already requires a huge travel budget with teams of 2), the challenges had to be watered down for the families, and so on. The entirety of the race ended up taking place in North and Central America, and viewers watched families turning seemingly dysfunctional while being challenged to such difficult tasks like pitching a tent in exotic Pennsylvania. Thankfully, season 9 returned to the original format.
- seaQuest DSV stopped playing to its strengths in Season 2; the writers introduced a lot of weird sci-fi elements that were out of place on a submarine show. The Season 3 Re Tool did a lot to fix this, but it came too late to avert cancellation.
- Although still popular, many long-time fans of Seinfeld think that seasons 8 and 9 were notably different from the former ones. This is bcause the showrunner Larry David left the show after season 7, leaving Jerry Seinfeld as the new Executive Producer. With the remaining writing staff left to its own devices, these seasons featured faster-paced, "wackier" episodes with many references to previous episodes, and attempts at running gags. Characters also slightly de-evolved, specially George, and Kramer's stunts became ever increasing. Still, the series continued to enjoy ratings success and a tenth season was proposed, until Seinfeld declined.
- Season 2 of Veronica Mars: Not merely content to have an underwhelming Red Herring-laden season-spanning mystery (complete with Wall Banger resolution), it dragged several of Season 1's plot elements down with it (most notably Ret Connning the resolution to Veronica's rape storyline). Not to mention having Aaron Echols' hamfisted Karma Houdini-turned-Karmic Death. Season 3 is a bit of a Broken Base: Some consider it a continuation of the rot, others where the rot started, and still others considering it a rebound season (but not enough to save it).
- While still probably the best adaptations out there, the sixth and seventh seasons of the Granada Sherlock Holmes adaptations were marked by increasing (sometimes justified, othertimes... just weird) deviations from the Canon. This was mostly due to Jeremy Brett's worsening health, and the planned filming of the entire Canon was cut short by Actor Existence Failure.
- The Soup has gone downhill since somewhere in 2007-2008 when they started focusing almost entirely on bottom of the barrel reality shows and their contestants and not on odd things in scripted shows.
Webcomics
- Sluggy Freelance lost a lot 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. Others like to just pretend it never happened.
- Still 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.
- One more take: Oceans Unmoving would have been a great thing to release all at once, say as a book. It drew more resentment because it came at the expense of the regular cast, and the cool concepts weren't well served by a one-day-at-a-time schedule. People forget that a lot of Sluggy stories felt overlong and tedious at the time, but read well in the archives.
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 and Idiot Plots ran rampant. 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.
- There are some that find season four not half bad. Season five, on the other hand...
- The fifth season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Largely after the writers were given free reign contentwise, meaning we got a ton of overtly gross-out storylines with rotting corpses and severed penises.
- Robot Chicken suffered this when it went into nightly repeats, running the show into the ground in many fans eyes.
- 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, to the point that most Dexter fans just like to forget they ever happened.
- Powerpuff Girls- Similar to Dexter, many fans felt the show had gone downhill post-movie, relying a bit too much on cheap jokes.
- Fans generally hate the third season of Animals of Farthing Wood due to it being lighter in tone compared to the first two seasons which were very dark. Apparently darkness is good....
- Rugrats had a slight drop in quality after the first movie came out, the writers seemingly not being sure what to do with Dil. The second movie introduced Kimi and her mother, who evidently were too much for the poor writers, as they promptly switched from two shorts to three and flailed a bit before switching over to All Grown Up!
- South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, for reasons they have never adequately explained, greatly dislike the show's second season. Fans on the whole disagree.
- The flak Trey and Matt received from both fans and Comedy Central over doing the Terrance and Phillip season opener as an April Fool's gag (instead of resolving the Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut cliffhanger) might have something to do with it.
- Season six is another example, largely due to the backlash against Parker and Stone retiring Kenny and their plans for Butters being the new Butt Monkey being derailed by Comedy Central and fans literally rescuing Butters from the Scrappy pile. Needless to say, ever since that season, Parker and Stone have openly threatened to quit production of the show (to the point that Parker almost bailed entirely midway through season eight). The overall slide in quality combined with the show's right-wing subtext becoming more and more overt, has led to many wishing they had quit.
- Season 3 of Gargoyles. When the series' creator hits the Reset Button on an entire season (via the ongoing Gargoyles comic), you know things came off the rails in a big way. The introduction of
The KKK HYDRA The Quarrymen as recurring antagonists was merely the cherry on top.
- The Ren And Stimpy Show was great when John K. was in charge. But when Games took over, the quality of the show lowered, not to mention the quality of the plot and the animation. And after the horribly animated 'A Scooter for Yaksmas' aired, the show was cancelled. Nickelodeon is often tossed the blame for this due to pulling him from the show, however, they had fairly legitimate reasons for it.
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