Note: This article lists examples which take place within fandoms; not the TV Trope's opinion as to whether a change is for the worse. TV Tropes doesn't have opinions. The focus is on over-reaction about minor changes.
Game Shows:
- Family Feud has undergone this several times.
- During the Ray Combs era, there was some complaint of this when the Bullseye round was introduced. Tacked onto the beginning of the game, it dragged proceedings down by having contestants guess quick questions to put more money into their Fast Money bank. Due to slumping ratings, a number of Celebrity editions ensued, and original host Richard Dawson was brought back in an attempt to save the show. However, Dawson was very well past his prime, looking tired and overweight and lacking the wit of his earlier days. Combined with a cheap digital board, a reduction of family teams to four members, and repeated cancellations due to the OJ Simpson trials, Feud was off the air again in a year.
- The survey questions, progressively since the current version began in 1999, but especially since Steve Harvey took over in 2010, have become increasingly Hotter and Sexier. The point of contention was pedestrian questions such as "Name something that a clown takes off after his show ends" becoming "Name something a woman would take off a clown before having sex with him." While outrageous answers have always been possible with even the most mundane questions, they are regular occurrences on virtually every episode of the Harvey era. Not to mention all those questions having something to do with Steve himself.
- For many years, Wheel of Fortune had a $10,000 cash prize on the wheel which was notably hard to get since its wedge was one-third the width of the rest, with a skinny Bankrupt on each side. This was replaced with a $1,000,000 wedge, which is part of a very convoluted Double Unlock schematic to win $1,000,000 in the Bonus Roundnote .
- Another hated change is the increase in Prize Puzzles, which have often led to contrived-sounding solutions and Golden Snitch scenarios (typically, whoever wins the Prize Puzzle wins the game).
- The Express Wedge, introduced in the early 2010s, has also been criticized. If a player hits it and calls a consonant in the puzzle, they have the option to either continue the round normally, or keep calling letters until they solve the puzzle—with the penalty of going bankrupt if they either call a wrong letter or give an incorrect solution.
- A season of American Ninja Warrior got a lot of flak from fans due to changing the format of the third round elimination from eliminating based on performance to a more typical reality TV-based elimination (complete with teams and voting), believing that it goes against all that Ninja Warrior is about. The idea of boot camp itself, however, is much better received.
- While some particular series of Big Brother made rule changes or schedule adjustments, many that really caused this reaction was the eleventh season of the Canadian edition:
- The removal of the feeds in favour of "Digital Dailies". The live feeds are very much the draw - regardless of how often they'd go down in the Canadian edition. "Digital Dailies" had fans concerned that they would manipulatively edit this particular aspect of the show, leading to even hardcore fans & journalists confused at events happening in the house.
- Said "Digital Dailies" were also only available via online. While plenty of people watch via browsers, this meant that people could not easily tune in or record the "After Dark" and browse it.
- The changing of the episode schedule to Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. This meant casual viewers would have to dodge spoilers and Tuesday's episode would be five days behind the actual events of the house, whereas those who followed the "Digital Dailies" found little to no reason to watch the broadcast episodes as the schedule* meant that they knew everything by the Tuesday episode.
- Some fans touted this reaction once Drew Carey succeeded Bob Barker on The Price Is Right. As was said, "Those hardcore fans won't be happy with anything unless they go back to the way it was 20-25 years ago." The same cry rang out as Season 37 (the first after Roger Dobkowitz was kicked out) progressed, which to be fair was justified. Seasons 37-38 and the audition period of 39 are generally considered by fans to be the show's Audience-Alienating Era.
- The attitude of the hardcore Price fanbase spread to the GSN revival of Pyramid when it was announced that Mike Richards, the producer of TPIR who is blamed for "unpopular" changes, would be the new host. Anyone would be doomed to comparison to Dick Clark, of course, but there were people who swore they'd never watch the new series just because of their feelings about Richards and TPIR. As it is, The Pyramid has proven to be one of the better game show revivals of the post-1980s world. Though there are parts of the fandom with nitpicks, such as the classic theme being reworked... in post-production, as the classic 1982-91 version had been the one used during tapings. These complaints quickly faded when The Pyramid uneventfully died after only one season, only for ABC to provide a well-received revival in 2016.
- Almost any game show revival or revival attempt by Fremantle Media (previously Pearson Television and All-American Television) since 1996 can fall under this category... especially Match Game, Card Sharks, and Temptation. Even Family Feud took about seven years to find its footing amid mediocre hosts and broken rules (from the Louie Anderson era to the first Richard Karn season, the family with the most points won, making Round 4 the only one worth winning). Game show fans can be infuriatingly hard to please, but in this case, they had a point.
- Jeopardy!:
- The 1997-98 season not only abandoned the legendary Jeopardy! Thinking Music used since 1964 and the synthesizer
theme used since 1984 (remixed with bongos in 1992), but saw the first use of clues read by celebrities, as well as even more punny categories and travel shows than ever before. There was also the removal of podium microphones. - Prior to this season, the Tournament of Champions (and Celebrity Jeopardy!), Teen Tournament, College Championship, and Seniors Tournament were respectively held in the sweeps periods of November, February, May, and July.note
- Starting in the 2000-01 season, players no longer walked onstage in their introductions, and the Teen Tournament winner was no longer invited to the Tournament of Champions.
- The 2001-02 season introduced the "Clue Crew", a group of Lovely Assistants who present even more video clues, the doubling of clue values, which some believe is unfair in regards to ranking all of the show's top money winners, and Alex Trebek shaved off his iconic mustache.
- The 2003-04 season removed the 5-game limit for winners, which led to Ken Jennings' 74-game winning streak lasting into the next season.
- The 2008-09 season removed the classic "clue pop-in" sound, and after a season without any popping-in effect, was replaced by another sound effect in the 2009-10 season.
- Some also complain that the show has gotten easier over time, thus overlapping with It's Easy, So It Sucks!. To be fair, this one is very much a Justified Trope; anyone who's watched the show for a long period of time is pretty much guaranteed to find it gradually easier to play along because they'll constantly be learning from it.
- Another major complaint is that the writing has gotten too convoluted and "cutesy", with clues often trying way too hard to "tease out" the right answer by way of wordplay. Other clues seem to be written too vaguely, leading viewers to question whether or not another response might be acceptable. The decline in clue quality is often thought to have started when longtime clue writer Steven Dorfman died in 2004.
- The 2014-15 season removed the co-champion rule, where players tied for first place could each return the next day to play. All ties are now decided by tie-breaker questions, which first happened on March 1, 2018.
- In 2020, Alex Trebek died at 80 years old. As of this writing, some of the guest hosts brought in for 2021 have been... less than well received.
- In Season 40 (2023-24), the producers put in a new rule (since reconsidered) which required players to say the entire category name with each new pick from that category—e.g. if the category was "Lou Gehrig's Consecutive Games Streak," in previous seasons, you could just say "Lou Gehrig" and it was counted a valid selection. The new rule that required players to say the whole category title has led to complaints of, for one thing, clues being left on the board when time ran out in a round due to how long it took to say the category name, especially for the long and wordy category names.
- The 1997-98 season not only abandoned the legendary Jeopardy! Thinking Music used since 1964 and the synthesizer
- Telly Addicts was a popular British quiz show in which two teams of four sat in comfortable sofas and armchairs to answer nostalgic questions about vintage television asked by Noel Edmonds from another comfy armchair. The rounds were changed on a regular basis, but the show kept going in this same basic format for 12 series. Series 13 saw the comfortable furniture replaced with awkward-looking chrome stools and Edmonds and the contestants running pointlessly between the different cheap-looking sets the different rounds were based in to play games with a tenuous TV connection. There was no series 14.
- Countdown got this when Rachel Riley replaced Carol Vorderman as hostess. Also to some extent when Des Lynam replaced Richard Whiteley as presenter after Whiteley died.
Children's shows:
- Many fans of The Good Night Show will say this about Season 6 and the You and Me Tree.
- * iCarly and its change in focus from comedy to a five-part romantic arc for the Sam/Freddie pairing has been called this. The horrible ratings (bottom five out of 40 episodes with ratings information) for the 3rd episode (it was beaten by Victorious) would seem to confirm the wider audience thinks so as well.
- The 1999 version of ZOOM was hit with this pretty hard in its final season, in which among other things, the kids would no longer introduce themselves, the theme was remixed, the credits contained different footage, the set was slightly different, and there was a new outro where the ZOOMers would come out and say, "That's the end of our show!"
- Season 3 had previously changed a lot of things but didn't fare quite as badly, likely due to the fact that the second season didn't quite live up to the first and lowered expectations somewhat.
- In 2015, The Sunny Side Up Show made the move to a city apartment from the Sunshine Barn, changed its name, and added a few new segments and shows to its schedule, dropping a few old ones.
- By its very nature, Sesame Street has to be constantly changing and evolving, as it's a non-profit show intended to be educational for preschoolers. The trouble comes when a viewer grows up and tunes in (often with their own kids) and finds out that the show isn't a carbon copy of what they grew up on and loved.
- Old-time fans are not fond of the newer intro.
- In Season 30 (1998-1999), Elmo received his own quarter-hour segment, considerably slowing the breakneck pace and kitchen-sink randomness of the show's structure. After Season 42, it was no longer part of the show and was missed by many kids who grew up on it. However, it should be mentioned that the now Periphery Demographic absolutely hated it when they first added the segment.
- When the show's format was changed in Season 33 (2002), some older fans felt alienated.
- The show having letters and numbers as its sponsors being downplayed.
- Around Season 40, it was declared that no sketches filmed before 1990 would be included in modern episodes. This essentially obliterates the presence of Jim Henson, Richard Hunt, and Joe Raposo from the show.
- After Jerry Nelson’s passing in 2012, many fans just cannot get used to the Count’s new voice actor, Matt Vogel. Jerry Nelson was much smoother, while Matt Vogel’s voice sounds a bit forced (plus, it's the same voice he used as Constantine from Muppets Most Wanted).
- Also, while not to the extent as his Kermit, there are those who think he sounds a bit too low energy and deep once he fully took over as Big Bird.
- Season 46 is the biggest game-changer in the show's history. A move to HBO, reduction to a half-hour format, and the mission statement "fewer puppets, fewer parodies", which has made adult fans upset in particular. This is a reaction to changing demographics (fewer stay-at-home parents means less than 30 percent of children now watch Sesame Street with their parents, making Parental Bonus far less important to the show). This coming on the heels of several high-ranking performers leaving the show with varying degrees of grace hasn't helped. In the same season, Elmo's World returned, but was shortened to seven minutes to fit the half-hour timeslots. Sesame Street fans who were in favor of the segment weren't pleased, as some of the cuts in the segments were easily noticed by viewers.
- The Noddy Shop got this from fans of Noddy's Toyland Adventures because fans felt the segments were too Americanized for their taste and that the new toy store segments took up too much time.
- Many fans of Winx Club were not happy about the changes made to Fate: The Winx Saga, including but not limited to:
- The Darker and Edgier tone, with the series confirmed to have a TV-MA rating.
- The dull, desaturated outfits/colour scheme, in contrast to the cartoon's bright and vibrant style.
- Musa and Terra (Flora's replacement) being played by white actresses when Musa is East Asian (inspired by Lucy Liu) and Flora is Latina (inspired by Jennifer Lopez) in the original series.
- The removal of Tecna, Flora, Icy, Darcy, and Stormy from the main cast.
- Musa's Adaptational Superpower Change from being the Fairy of Music to the Fairy of Minds.
- The fact that the fairies will not have wings and there will be no Transformation Sequences. This may have been to prevent spoilers.
- The Darker and Edgier tone, with the series confirmed to have a TV-MA
- Donkey Hodie got this reaction from fans of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for being nothing like the show it is based on.
- The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss: Due to focus group testing (according to a Defunctland interview with Craig Shemin and Stephanie D'Abruzzo, a focus group thought the show was somewhat for younger kids in its first season), the show was moved to Nick Jr. and Season 2 completely changed its format; it also retconned elements previously established in the Dr. Seuss books (for example, Yertle the Turtle's goal to be king, established in the book of the same name and Season 1), as well as flanderizing characters like the Cat in the Hat (who became a nurturing and playful host), adding a bird named Terrence who worried and nitpicked a lot, and having the Cat in the Hat take up way too much time. The show ended after its second season in 1998 without any announcement or warning whatsoever.
Other television series:
- A common complaint with the 2015 revival of Creature Feature on WTOG-TV in Tampa — a Horror Host showcase in the vein of Svengoolie hosted by Dick Bennick as "Dr. Paul Bearer" — is that the revival shows movies which don't fit the horror genre, unlike the original's focus on low-budget horror movies. (Richard Koon, Bennick's replacement as Dr. Paul Bearer, has been more warmly received due to his good impression of Bennick's character.)
- Some say this happened to Whose Line Is It Anyway? when it moved from British to American TV. Common reasons given include the changing of hosts from Clive Anderson to Drew Carey, the appearance of more celebrity guests (especially Richard Simmons), and the fact that Colin and Ryan were in every single episode (and Wayne was in most of them as well) instead of taking more risks and shuffling the cast around more, as they did in the earlier British seasons.
- A lot of fans decided they hated Mock the Week when Frankie Boyle left. On the official Facebook page for the show, comments are still in the vein of "OMG WHERES FRANKIE IT SUX WITHOUT HIM".
- This has happened to Doctor Who multiple times. This is a series that's had many complete turnovers in the regular cast - including, of course, the lead actor - and over a dozen different showrunners with wildly varying approaches. Years before the new series debuted, there was a running joke on one of the online discussion groups that the series was ruined when they added the time-travelling alien to a perfectly good show about a policeman walking through the fog and hearing a strange noise. When the new series was in production, fans found lots of things to complain about, one of the most infamous being the enlarged TARDIS windows. The series itself eventually made fun of this point, with a character commenting that the TARDIS can't be a real police box, because "the windows are too big". New Doctor, new companion, new TARDIS exterior and interior, new sonic screwdriver, new showrunners. Matt Smith received a fair amount of hate just for not being David Tennant, and Peter Capaldi likewise for not being Smith, though to some extent this has happened to every new Doctor since William Hartnell first left the role (it's just been amplified due to there being more outlets for expressing opinion). There's also the hate over the increasingly romantic and sexual nature of the Doctor's relationships with his female companions (which both upset earlier fans who don't want romance in the show, and introduced some vicious Ship-to-Ship Combat about which companion was the ONLY one he REALLY LOVED). There's the theme tune which, when it became very orchestrated from 2005 on, many fans decried that it had lost its original electronic feel. The show is apparently Ruined FOREVER for everybody. Lampshaded way back in the day: "Oh, I see you've been doing the TARDIS up a bit! I don't like it." (The gag was repeated in the 50th Anniversary Special.) Any changes to the status quo (something done with regular frequency in the revival) also raises fan ire, especially if it violates "fanon" (fan-created canon assumptions). Many fans preemptively took this attitude towards the increasingly-mooted idea of the Doctor someday changing genders...
- And that gender-swap finally came with the announcement of Jodie Whittaker in the role of the 13th Doctor after Peter Capaldi bowed out in the 2017 Christmas special. Complaints range from that it "ruins the show" for some reason to "it's to appeal to the SJWs and Feminists" amongst other things.
- It's fair to say that many fans who were brought up on the original cheap 'n' cheerful production values prior to the '90s hiatus found the New Who revival hard to get into: complaints include it's being too perfectly glossy and Americanised, too over-intellectualised, too long, not on on early Saturday evenings in nice half-hour-long serial chunks like it ought to be...
- Our Miss Brooks: The controversial final (1955-1956) television season. Marriage to Mr. Boynton has always been her series goal. Executive Meddling saw Miss Brooks take a new job teaching at a private elementary school when Madison High was suddenly ordered torn down for a new freeway (somehow Madison High had ended up in Los Angeles after always previously been in the Madison). Miss Brooks found herself chased by the school's gym teacher. The new format was unpopular among show fans, and even Eve Arden herself. Mr. Boynton was brought back toward the end of the season in response to popular demand, and the last few episodes saw Miss Brooks pursue him as of old.
- Canon Discontinuity is at play here. The events of the final television season were ignored on the radio season, where Miss Brooks continued at Madison as per normal. The program ended with a theatrical series finale that, again, ignored the final television season, and concluded the story at Madison High School (which was in the City of Madison and definitely not in Los Angeles!).
- Many fans of Skins hated the second-generation cast. Your mileage may vary on that one, as the second generation is still beloved by many. Then there's the third generation...
- Downton Abbey:
- Fans' general responses to the second season. Some elements of the series are altered drastically with the advent of World War One, although a great deal remains the same which, in turn, has spawned an outcry from other portions of the fandom who protest that the narrative glosses over or speeds by too many major global events to be considered realistic. Sadly, this is an unfortunate but unavoidable side-effect of setting a drama series during a time of extreme social and political upheaval.
- Series 3 with the deaths of main characters Sybil and Matthew, though the latter was helped by being a complete case of Real Life Writes the Plot: the actor wanted to leave, and since there was no way they could sell Matthew and Mary splitting up after their growing romance had been such a major story element, killing him was the only option.
- Many Knight Rider fans have a bad habit of becoming homicidally enraged at any changes from the original source material in the various Revival attempts of the series, even such changes as would be necessary to compensate for the fact that (a) it's no longer 1982-86 and (b) the Pontiac Trans Am has been out of production for several years. A new revival premiered in February 2008 and, months before, fans had already taken note of several dozen reasons it was sure to suck. Of course, it did eventually turn out to suck anyway, but that doesn't make it right.
- The 2003 "re-imagining" of Battlestar Galactica, generally considered excellent Adaptation Distillation and Darker and Edgier done right, was met with a lot of backlash by fans of the 1978 original.
- It was even met with backlash by original cast member Dirk Benedict, who wrote a rant on how changing his Loveable Rogue character Starbuck into a woman (and thus making the character something other than Han Solo) had somehow destroyed the character and ruined the show forever. Benedict has railed on record numerous times about the "feminization of TV", and suggested once that if The A-Team were to be made now it would be called "The Gay Team". What can be inferred from that combined with his love of very large cigars is debatable.
- Not everyone was happy about Boomer becoming a woman either. Also, he was changed from a nerdy but competent and professional commander with an afro to a Hero with an F in Good and a Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
- The antagonist, The Cylons, were unreasonably hostile, clumsy but devious Mechanical Aliens who may have justifiably destroyed their organic overlords but didn't know when to stop and have very unjustifiably reduced the Caprica civilization to a couple of boat fulls. The reboot changed them into man-made monotheistic robots who decided the mass murder and enslavement of all humans was preferable to simply telling people what the issue was. Also, their rank and forms have completely changed, with some of them even having human bodies!
- The new show is a little more scientifically accurate and the scale much more realistic. At the same time, scale is also reduced thanks to aliens being gone. The only possible conflicts outside of "environment" some combination of human and or cylon. This has the side effect of making the show much more political, more of the individual characters two-faced and the crews as a whole a lot less tightly knit.
- The old show did get its laser weapons right, by having their projectiles travel faster than bullets, albeit somehow adhering to A-Team Firing anyway. The reboot made the combatants better shots but also switched to plain kinetic firearms.
- It was even met with backlash by original cast member Dirk Benedict, who wrote a rant
- Billy the Exterminator: The Canadian season is this for fans who enjoyed the family & office banter. Billy's assistant Bea just isn't as entertaining as Billy's family, and since it is only her and Billy, the scenes at the office are very dull and boring compared to the Louisiana seasons.
- The Dresden Files made a lot of (author-approved) changes when it made it to TV. Interestingly, it was the little changes that got lambasted the most: Harry Dresden no longer wore a trenchcoat (they didn't want him looking like an Angel ripoff) and didn't drive the same car (while it might look good in text, a 6+-foot man can't drive a compact; it just doesn't work) and they changed his staff to a hockey stick to try and "hide" the fact that he's a wizard (kind of strange for someone who advertises in the yellow pages). At that point, it's not a cosmetic change but a completely different character with the same name.
- Stargate Atlantis has a fandom that's divided between froth-at-the-mouth fans who enjoy the show and froth-at-the-mouth ex-fans that decry all of the advances made in Season 4. Stargate forums aren't happy places to be anymore...
- The franchise fanbase had people who liked or simply didn't mind the new direction Stargate Universe took. Then there were people who, at seemingly every new mention of Universe, were ready with "This isn't the Stargate I grew to love!" or "I want Atlantis back!" Of course, there's also those "OH GOD! That's it! I'm not watching it." people. While it's not necessary to watch a show to complain about it, it does help. This isn't the same show as SG-1 or Atlantis, nor is it supposed to be, but there are people who will hate it for not being SG-1 or Atlantis
- ...and then Universe was canned due to bad ratings, but not before being retooled to roll back much of the new direction. The showrunners promoted season 2 by saying that they fixed the serious problems with season 1, so perhaps the viewers who thought season one was flawed television in real time had reason to stop watching.
- Season 9 of Stargate SG-1 got a lot of flak at the beginning for even continuing on after the Goa'uld were defeated at the end of the previous season, and coming up with a new main villain — not to mention O'Neill leaving the show and Mitchell joining as the new leader of SG-1. Carter being temporarily absent from the show for the first five episodes didn't help matters, either. The changes were so extensive that the Powers That Be had actually considered changing the show's title to "Stargate Command" and treating Season 9 as the first season of a new show — and it's possible that if they'd done that, the changes might have actually been better received.
- Anything from Super Sentai ported to Power Rangers that isn't 100% true to source is grounds for gasping and fist-shaking. Admittedly, some of it is worthy of decrying, but getting in a tussle because the heroes don't say "Henshin"? Or that they don't have the same morphers? Check out Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, and you'll have numerous people hating it because it's not Japanese. Amusingly enough, Dragon Knight was imported back to Japan, and they loved it.
- On the flip side, when Dragon Knight was first announced plenty of Japanese fans were dismissive at the idea of an American Kamen Rider show, as demonstrated by a fancomic where Kamen Rider Decade crosses into the "World of Dragon Knight" and encounters characters who act like they were ripped from the most hackneyed 80s Saturday morning cartoon. Then the show actually came out, and they liked it so much that it got a Japan-exclusive sequel novel.
- Power Rangers and Super Sentai have their fair share of complaints towards their format shifts on their own. There are people who are under the mentality of First Installment Wins; that everything after MMPR pales in comparison, people who think that the Post-Zordon Era pales in comparison to everything from before or isn't "canon" (including Jonathan Tzachor), people who hate the Disney seasons compared to the previous Saban seasons, people who don't like the Neo Saban Era, and people who go by which showrunner they prefer. Sentai tends to vary by the season, as the motifs, season writing, characterizations, and comparisons to previous great seasons can make people not like the current seasons for whatever reason.
- Kamen Rider Hibiki was ruined in the eyes of execs due to the fact it had a female rider on TV (Femme was officially the first female rider, but Shuki was the first to appear on TV), something that is considered "taboo" with Kamen Rider (most females who had to transform had to rely on an "anybody can use Transformation Trinket or is a rubber monster"). Needless to say, among the things the execs associated with the failure of the later season of Hibiki was a female rider.
- Kamen Rider has a parody in the comedic net movies for the 40th-Anniversary movie. Kamen Rider 1 delivers a speech in which he says that the younger Riders who aren't "real" Kamen Riders because they aren't tragic cyborgs and none of them (save Hibiki) has undergone Training from Hell, unlike the classic Riders. He gets hustled away from the podium while still ranting.
- Kamen Rider Wars. The original Kamen Rider dismisses the Heisei Riders for being punk kids who lucked into their Transformation Trinkets and don't fight evil the "right way", saying they don't deserve to be called Riders. Not only were the fans were upset at this change in Takeshi Hongo's personality, but so was his own actor, Hiroshi Fujioka himself. So much so, in fact, that he co-wrote the movie Kamen Rider 1, where Hongo is a much friendlier character and has immense respect for the Riders who came after him.
- The Discworld TV adaptations. Many fans loved them, but there were some criticisms that Teatime should have been more obviously insane and less obviously insane in the same discussion. But Hogfather got off lightly compared to The Colour of Magic where, in addition to Rincewind being "too old", the creators committed the ultimate sin of getting rid of the aeroplane scene (a totally unnecessary sequence in which most of the comedy occurs inside Rincewind's head in any case). The fact that Terry Pratchett had approved these changes was claimed as evidence he doesn't understand his own books.
- And then there was BBC's adaptation of The Watch, which, as far as 99.99% of fans are concerned, is this trope personified.
- Legend of the Seeker got oodles of this from fans who object to, among many other things: changes to Richard's relationship with Zedd, moving Richard's father's death to after he meets Kahlan, and changing the main villain's hair color. Indeed, it got so much of this that the outcry and negative press from the They Changed It, Now It Sucks! crowd is sometimes blamed for killing the TV show after the second season. What fans fail to realize is that airing the show in a format truly faithful to the books would've been nearly impossible on network television. Many complaints, like the overall Hercules or Xena tone of the show and others, are perfectly valid...but when you're adapting a series as filled with violence and adult situations as Sword of Truth for basic cable, a Pragmatic Adaptation is the best you're going to get.
- MST3K was accused of this with every cast change, especially when Joel left. One story told in their Amazing Colossal Episode Guide was about a viewer who sent in a yards-long, computer-printed banner reading "I HATE TOM SERVO'S NEW VOICE" after Josh Weinstein left and Kevin Murphy took over Tom's controls in Season 2. The crew hung the banner up in their offices, amused more than anything at the idea that somebody went to the trouble and expense of producing this massive missive instead of just sending a letter. Who knew that these days, ventriloquism could be such Serious Business?
- Because of copyright issues, Iron Chef had to change the music. Some people refused to watch the show afterwards because "it's not the same without the Backdraft music".
- The CBS Evening News post-Walter Cronkite, particularly as Dan Rather's tenure coincided with increasing ratings declines and the infamous Bush documents scandal. Cranked up to eleven with the further declines under Katie Couric, but it seems to be getting better under Scott Pelley.
- Star Trek with each new project.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation dared to have new characters, because the universe wasn't big enough for a captain not named Kirk.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is about staying in one place? It relied on its characters and a coherent story instead of the weekly Negative Space Wedgie.
- Star Trek: Voyager: A woman as captain. This one got death threats sent to the studio.
- Star Trek: Enterprise got this by countering fanon that Spock was the first Vulcan to join Starfleet and that Starfleet didn't encounter Klingons until the early 23rd century.
- The remastered Star Trek: The Original Series attempts to update the special effects. Those who balked at the changes can still watch the original versions on the same Blu-Rays.
- Star Trek: Discovery. Fans complained that the modernized visual aesthetics diverge too much from previous series, the Klingons have been altered too greatly, the lead character isn't the ship's captain, the series is serialized rather than the standard episodic structure, and the show focuses too much on large-scale action and warfare rather than exploration and diplomacy.
- Star Trek: Picard: As an action-adventure series, the show is the largest departure from the franchise's roots to date. It also continues the trend of making the setting Darker and Edgier than shows that came before, with the Federation now being changed from an enlightened, post-scarcity utopia to a flawed society featuring poverty, drugs, and political corruption. All of these changes have made it very polarizing in the fanbase.
- Saturday Night Live has been accused of sucking because of its small-scale and large-scale changes in cast and crew. Due to the show's cyclical nature, the cast has been rotating ever since Season 2 (when Chevy Chase was replaced by Bill Murray). The accusations still exist today, ironically with fans claiming that the show needs a cast and crew overhaul, only this time with more talented people — whatever that means to them. While most of these accusations can be chalked up to certain fans overreacting, some are controversial within the fanbase (like the near-universally panned 1980-81 season which resulted in most of the cast being fired, and the 1994-95 season which was hit hard by Phil Hartman's departure; backstage tensions between writers and cast members; thin and humorless sketches heavily based on Ho Yay, Vulgar Humor, OverlyLongGags, and the O. J. Simpson trial; and cast members that didn't gel well with others). Step into any online thread discussing the show (or better yet, read some of the show's complaints on any comment section on NBC's SNL web page) today, and you'll usually find someone complaining about how the show was "better five years ago" or "hasn't been funny since [former cast member] was on the show."
- SCTV (the Canadian equivalent of SNL) drew fire from viewers when the show moved from its Sunday-night slot on NBC (where it was competing against SNL) to the Cinemax pay cable channel for Season 4. The show petered out amid criticism of most of the cast having left (along with most of the most memorable characters) and was canned for good afterward...never mind that the entire reason this move happened was because of Executive Meddling on the part of NBC.
- When Degrassi: The Next Generation changes seasons, they change the opening credits theme. No matter how they change the opening credits fans decree it's wrong. When for the most part the themes aren't that separated from one another (same words, different singers/melody). With the exception of two seasons that completely draw away from the standard opening setup, they're mostly the same...but each season starts with a fan outcry to begin World War III over it.
- When they replaced Linda Hamilton's character Catherine in Beauty and the Beast, some fans didn't take lightly to that.
- The television adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple novels can receive this treatment, although not without good reason. In particular, the Marple adaptations starring Geraldine McEwan have been known to take great liberties with the original source material, adding in plots and characters which were not present in the originals. Conversely, the Poirot adaptations starring David Suchet have generally remained faithful to the novels, but they've also made certain changes in style, setting, and approach (the stories all take place in a general Genteel Interbellum Setting rather than across the period of 1916–70 as with the originals) that have come under criticism. In particular, the adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd came under fire for this; the original does, however, hinge on a narrative technique that is rather more difficult to replicate in live-action. The narrative technique, which is in fact what was remarkable at the time, would be difficult but not impossible in television. But along the line the production also changed characters and situations for no discernible reason at all, except perhaps, adding a bit of action.
- When the Australian Broadcasting Corporation chose to hire a new host for the popular gaming show Good Game, it meant they had to farewell longtime host Jeremy "Junglist" Ray. Fans erupted with emphatic disdain, spamming the forum with hate for the new host, Stephanie "Hex" Bendixsen, and crying that they would never watch Good Game again, or until Junglist came back. They started a Facebook page (since renamed with its cause given up) and a website (formerly at savejunglist.com, but that's been bought out by one of those spam search engine or domain parking sites). The cause was forgotten little more than a fortnight later. That doesn't stop the
Fan Dumb whining about how bad the show has become during every week's feedback board on their forum. - Human Target added two new main characters and changed the dynamic of the show in Season 2. This is not universally loved. At all. While new showrunner Matt Miller thought getting rid of Bear McCreary, bringing in Chuck composer Tim Jones, and increasing the amount of "needle-drops" in the matter of said show were good ideas, many fans disagreed strenuously.
- All things considered, HBO's adaptation of George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire into Game of Thrones has done far, far less straying from the source material compared to almost anything else on this list. Even three seasons in, the main plot and most of the side plots are progressing just as they should, though there have been increasing liberties taken each season, most of which are listed on the show's own page. Despite the fact that most of the changes are inconsequential, and the major characters are mostly just the same, the amount of nerdrage this has engendered could power a city. Regardless, there are certain things that were changed that people are more likely to agree on. However, some changes are hard to swallow for book fans: for example, removing The Reveal surrounding Tysha, Tyrion's dead wife gets this treatment, thanks to this putting a major part of Tyrion's backstory completely up in the air; is it still the way it was in the books, or was she really just a prostitute? This feeling has gotten worse, however, as Seasons 4 and 5 proceeded, with some storylines being cut, others being made up out of whole-cloth and significant characters either being sidelined, cut or even killed off.
- It doesn't help that the show has now far outpaced Martin's books in the storynote ; fans now argue about what the show does versus what they believe will/should happen in the books, leading to further base-splitting. Of particular note are factions who insist that Stannis is the ultimate king and therefore won't burn his daughter as a sacrifice or get killed; those who think that the series couldn't possibly end with something as "simple" as fighting off the White Walkers; and an even more extreme set who believe that the showrunners are actively out to hurt the fanbase and ruin the story.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: To be expected in a Tolkien adaptation. The creative liberties taken with material from the Second Age are usually deemed more tolerable, given the series' lack of rights and the sparse details known in some areas. Changes concerning established facts and events presented in LOTR are usually received with more belligerence.
- Even before The Wheel of Time aired on Prime Video, fans hit the roof once the casting was out. Rand isn't a 7-foot-tall beast! Moiraine isn't five-foot-nothing! But worst of all were those who had been assuming, thanks mainly to artworks based on the books, that the main characters were entirely white, and now they are being played by actors that are non-white. While this changes nothing at all about the characters or their respective journeys, plenty of fans have reacted as if this is an unforgivable change and that it signals further "deviations" from the books down the line.
- To a fan of this series, any alteration of the books is Serious Business and even suggesting that a character's name be changed can cause people apoplexies. The above fans insist that they aren't being racist; they just "know" the characters are white because of one line about a flower being "paler than (Egwene's) cheeks", plus the "fact" that the characters react to meeting the Sea Folk and black Seanchan like Tuon with wonder. This is actually not even true; the Sea Folk reactions were to their clothing and customs, not their skin, and Mat's only reaction to meeting Tuon was certainty that she was highly placed in "the Blood" because of her attitude and his shock when he found out that she was the Daughter of the Nine Moons. At not one point does he act as if he's never seen dark skin before.
- To add to the confusion, it's possible that the darker skin tones on the actors aren't even a change. Officially commissioned art aside (as if official art has never gotten things very, very wrong), many lines in the books refer to residents of the Two Rivers having darker skin and hair. The actors chosen are either light-skinned African Brits or of Aboriginal/Maori/Persian descent.
- Smallville was this to the Superman mythos. No matter what they did, it was inevitable that some faction of the fanbase would be infuriated by the writers' interpretations of the Superman comics. Inevitably, fans would accuse the writers of "not being true to the source material"...never mind the fact that the comics themselves have changed continuities/canon drastically over and over again. In general, the Smallville writers seemed to be going for a sort of mixture of ideas from all eras/versions of the Superman mythos (Lex living in Smallville was from the Silver Age, the Fortress of Solitude design from the Chris Reeve films, Brainiac being from Krypton was borrowed from Superman: The Animated Series, etc.). The thing is, fans of one era/version of the mythos would always be angered when another era/version was used as inspiration.
- The 7th season episode "Action" contained an in-universe example. An actress is almost killed during the filming of a comic book adaptation. Twice. Turns out there was a lot of online controversy over the fact her character is Spared by the Adaptation, and someone, apparently, is upset enough to try fixing it. One of the attempts is actually by rigging the scene where she is killed in the original material.
- Heroes Season 3 was regarded as a pretty good season...except for the fact that they killed off two universally popular characters in Daphne and Elle. Season 4 looked like it would have an example of changing something for the better by bringing back previously killed character Charlie, but proceeded to mess it up immensely.
- Survivor has suffered a LOT of this at the hands of fans. First, there are certain fans who automatically dismiss any season that took place after Season 7 (the season before All-Stars). This is due to the shift in editing on the producers part, where after Season 7 they started to focus more and more on the strategy of the players and "shocking" twists at the expense of everything else. According to these purists, everything from production values to the intro credits to just plain storytelling ability has gone down the toilet since then. In particular, the final three has been argued as not working as it was intended. Instead of making it harder for a dominant player to take another unlikable player to the finals and win the game easily, not only have two dominant players managed to drag along goats and win that way with a final three anyhow, giving the jury a third option on who to vote for has been said to give the jury the option of voting for players who could basically sit pretty and do nothing the entire game (as opposed to the moral dilemma usually faced by final two juries). Even people who enjoy the newer seasons have been turned off by host Jeff Probst's favoritism towards certain players from the most recent seasons, like Coach, Russell Hantz, and Boston Rob just to name a few.
- This has been the attitude of quite a few CSI fans since Grissom left and was replaced by Ray Langston. Later inverted in the eyes of some, who feel that Ted Danson's arrival made things a lot better.
- Meanwhile CSI: NY fans weren’t all pleased with Aiden leaving in season one and to a lesser extent Stella leaving. Aiden’s was probably worse because a portion of the fandom hated her replacement, Lindsay.
- Highlander: The Series got this big time after Richie's death.
- Due South got accused of this by some after the switch of the Rays.
- Bones, at various times. Some fans started the ruined cries after Booth/Brennan happened onscreen and Brennan got pregnant. Some liked the early season Brennan who didn’t want kids better and some felt there was a bit of Shipping Bed Death when they finally got together. Fans also said this to a point when Zack left though the interns did gain their share of fans, and when Sweets died.
- Deadliest Warrior Season 3 was very different from the first two — the hosts were changed, the directing was different, the company that controlled the show was different, the scoring system was "updated", and the experts view everything about the warriors (they claim to view 100 "x-factors", one about the diet of the warrior). Many fans claim that the show is so different that it feels like an entirely different show altogether, and protested about these changes. Although Deadliest Warrior still had a large audience, the series was canned after this season.
- Elementary was boycotted even before the release from potential fans. A modernized retelling of Sherlock Holmes. Set in New York City. With a former Scotland Yard consultant, fresh-out-of-rehab Sherlock. And a female Watson who's not an ex-army doctor, but an ex-surgeon who lost her license after a patient died. Suffice it to say, the changes made to the story of Sherlock Holmes make people's fears understandable. Some of the hate is coming from the Sherlock fans, due to their preferences of the characters. some is also coming from fans of different adaptations: the Nigel Bruce version of Watson was unattractive, old and not physical, and the Basil Rathbone version of Sherlock wasn't a jerk, but at least cared for Watson. The Jeremy Brett version was rude to everyone, including Watson, and the David Burke version's nowhere near Jude Law and Martin Freeman.
- With the Mythbusters revival. Seriously. A large number of fans can't wrap their head around the Out-of-Genre Experience for just one season and the change of hosts and are calling it by this trope and would rather leave the show dead. Observe.
- Supernatural Season 4 saw a lot of this in the fandom with the introduction of Castiel and the angels. It happened again in reverse in Season 7 when they were taken out of the picture.
- Any time anything or anyone was added to or removed from the premise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show lost support from a corner of its viewing audience. A large portion of the fandom refused to acknowledge the comics as part of BTVS canon.
- True Blood's fourth season went through an enormous initial backlash by the fanbase for the unbelievable changes they made to the series' setting. For one, Bill Compton had killed one of the most popular characters, Sophie-Anne, and taken her place as monarch of Louisiana. To say the least, fans were none too pleased, as most had already grown quite weary with Bill midway through Season 2. Making matters worse, Eric of all people was turned into somewhat of a Woobie (the actual Eric, not Brainwashed!Eric), suddenly displaying ginormous devotion to Sookie. He even went as far as to offer his own life in exchange for Sookies, and abandoning Pam, his companion of over a century, when she panickingly tried to blow up Sookie to free Eric of his deal.
- The television version of Cadfael is an appalling example of Adaptation Decay completely altering characterizations and the entire force of the plots. And then there's the casting...
- The football-based show The Game (2006) suffered from this. Fans demanded the show return after it was cancelled when the third season ended. They moved the show to BET, much to the fans' joy. However, when the fourth season premiered, the quality in the writing wasn't as strong as the last seasons and the season finale met with a huge backlash. In later seasons, the main couple the show was originally about are no longer in the cast.
- New York Undercover was a highly popular cop show on Fox. It had the same theme as Law & Order and other themed dramas. However, what made the show stick out was that the two main cops were of different ethnic backgrounds — one African-American, the other Latino. Enter Season 3, where the show introduced an Irish cop to join the other two. This alone wasn't the problem, but as time went on the Irish cop became the main character and the two original cops were pushed to the background. As a result, many fans abandoned ship and at the end of Season 3, the show killed off the Irish guy and the Latino guy. They then retooled it for Season 4 into a show where the African-American and the Latina they'd introduced in Season 2 were part of some sort of elite squad. The only thing that remained the same was the fill music in transitions, which now seemed way out of place. It didn't last till midseason.
- X-Play: Name a change, fans protested it loudly. The move to Los Angeles, the set changes, the move away from the comedy sketches, the de-emphasis on the reviews and increased focus on news segments, the loss of the nameless announcer, the addition of Blair Herter and Adam Sessler leaving. And those same complainers were out in force to lament the loss of the show when it was canned in January 2013.
- Two and a Half Men lost a lot of fans in Season 9 after Charlie Sheen was fired (the circumstances of his firing being rather shady didn't help) and replaced with Ashton Kutcher. Many feel that while Kutcher is a good actor, his character Walden Schmidt just doesn't fit into the show very well at all. Many people also felt that the comedy took a turn for the worse, as it started relying far too heavily on Toilet Humor (one episode had Lindsay vomiting practically nonstop for nearly the entire running length) and the characters were all hit hard with Flanderization — Alan rivaled Charlie in terms of Jerkass behavior, Berta suddenly got a crush on Alan, Jake became a listless stoner, Rose became too mean, and characters like Judith and Herb weren't seen at all for whatever reason. The disappointment in the show is reflected by the sharp drop in ratings throughout the season after the premiere.
- WWE: From "Attitude Era" to "PG Era", no blood, no sexual content, no swearing, and John Cena.
- The BBC News channel came in for a bit of this since moving from Television Centre to Broadcasting House in March 2013. Some viewers didn't like the new open-plan newsroom because all the activity in the background was distracting.
- BBC weather forecasts came in for criticism several years earlier when they dropped the old weather symbols. The maps used following the change were also criticized for using an angled projection of Britain that made the south of England look bigger in proportion to Scotland.
- Red Dwarf Series VII. At the time it came out in 1997, the show had been on hiatus for four years. Co-creator Rob Grant had left the show, but generally speaking, fans were expecting something in the style of Series VI. But then Chris Barrie only committed to appearing in half the episodes. Kochanskinote was also introduced as a new main cast member and adding a lady changed the dynamic a lot. And new writers were hired to co-write the scripts. And the old visual-effects model shots were replaced with CGI. And the show shifted away from its sitcom roots to a comedy-drama. Cue backlash. note
- Probably one of the most common instances of this trope involving several shows is music replacement. Because of the high price for rights issues when using licensed music, more often than not the home video versions of several shows as recent as the early 1990s will replace tracks with generic synthesized music in its place since it's a lot cheaper. Numerous shows have had this happen, such as Quantum Leap, 21 Jump Street, The Fugitive, and The A-Team, and as you can imagine fans of these shows and others were pissed. A long-term casualty of this was Married... with Children: because of Sony losing the rights to use the Frank Sinatra song "Love and Marriage" which had been the show's theme for its entire 11-year run, the season sets on DVD instead used a cheap knockoff of the theme instead.
- True Detective. Season 1 was widely acclaimed. Being a long-form anthology series, however, the second season saw a complete change in the cast and storyline. It wasn't as warmly received with critics and fans expressing hope that the third season would feature the original cast from year 1.
- Count Arthur Strong is a Sound-to-Screen Adaptation of Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!, but relocates the action from Doncaster to London and features an entirely different supporting cast, some of whom even get their own storylines independent of the title character. Some fans of the radio show (and of the original stand-up incarnation) were less than pleased.
- Nashville is getting hit by this hard post-Channel Hop and with the emphasis on younger characters (especially Maddie - never the most popular character to begin with).
- House of Anubis was hit with this before the third season even started, with the news that lead actress Nathalia Ramos would not be returning to the show. This, in turn, caused some fans to then complain that Eddie, the new main character, was ruined by having his bad-boy traits from the second season downplayed to make him more similar to Nina.
- Dracula (2020):
- Most fans of the novel weren't happy with this rendition of Lucy Westenra who is showed here as nasty, narcissistic, unsympathetic, promiscuous girl, bordering on some psychopathic tendencies.note
- Most fans of the novel weren't happy that Jonathan Harker was not just killed off, but also was made into undead himself and by inviting Dracula into the convent was made complicit in aiding the massacre of the nuns.
- Viewers of Chicago P.D., who were already reeling from Det. Erin Lindsay's departure and being replaced by Det. Hailey Upton, cried foul when Det. Alvin Olinsky was suddenly killed off over something that had absolutely nothing to do with the then-current main storyline. The cries repeated when Det. Antonio Dawson was Put on a Bus following a drug addiction that seemed to come out of left field. And now, with the series' focus on police reform as per producers' efforts to keep it in touch with the calls to end police brutality, fans are wondering if Sgt. Hank Voight will be the next casualty of this trope.
- The TV series adaptation of Dinotopia had so many changes from the world built in the books that fans and even the creator hated it. He hadn’t wanted book characters to be used, so original characters were expected, but no one expected so many changes to the worldbuilding when it was adapted.
- Ms. Marvel (2022) started an outcry with the Adaptational Superpower Change, as Kamala Khan is an elastic woman but the show gave her Captain Marvel's "nega-bands" and subsequent Green Lantern-like energy constructs. There were the possible justifications that Rubber Man powers are prone to Uncanny Valley and Special Effect Failure, powers not from a mutation are more relatable, or Kamala got a power set closer to her idol Carol Danvers, but the dissers still felt things were undercut by making her reliant on a magical object, eschewing Kamala's journey to accept her powers, and The Marvels have three characters (Carol, Kamala and Monica Rambeau) with the same abilities.
- Nightwatch (2015): Because Dan & Titus and Holly & Nick were so iconic throughout S1–S3, a lot of fans just didn't enjoy S5–S6 (where the aforementioned duos were no longer together) as much.
- The Eurovision Song Contest has been hit by this on numerous occasions:
- In 1997, when televoting was introduced (this was originally as a trial in five countries before being expanded in future years);
- In 1999, with a triple whammy of the orchestra being made optional rather than mandatory, countries being free to choose their language and the four biggest-paying countriesnote being immune from being relegated;
- In 2003, after announcing that the following year would introduce the first Semifinal to accommodate the number of countries that wanted to compete (a second semifinal would be introduced in 2008, due to criticism of 28 songs competing for 10 spots in 2007's final);
- In 2008, when the national juries - they were still used, but only as a back-up in the event of public votes not being available - started to be reintegrated; this year saw them choosing a finalist in each semifinal (the public votes were used for the top nine qualifiers, the jury votes were used for the tenth one, which was their top scoring song that had not qualified via the public votes; this was discontinued after 2010's contest). The following year saw the jury votes and public votes combined to create the country's points for the final, and was extended to the semifinals in 2010;
- In 2013, when the running order was no longer the result of a random drawnote and was instead created by the producers of the Contest;
- In 2015, when Australia was invited - this was supposed to be a one-off to mark the Contest's 60th anniversary but were then invited back the following year and are now an annual entrant and finally
- In 2016, when each country's jury votes and public votes would both carry equal weight and one set of votes would not affect the other. This came about after both the British and Irish votes saw their public's favourite entry receiving nil points in the overall voting in 2014.
- The Mandalorian:
- Season 3 received this criticism whenever it seemed like Bo-Katan Kryze would replace Din Djarin and baby Grogu as the main character, although ultimately it remained uncertain whether or not this change would last beyond the season.
- In the third season finale, the Armorer lengthens Grogu's name to, "Din Grogu." This ended up becoming the least popular of the Child's canon aliases, mainly because it implies that viewers spent years mixing up Din Djarin's first name and surname. (Stubborn viewers still do so, intentionally.)
