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Show
- Alas, Poor Scrappy: Lisa was not well-liked but it was still difficult to hold it together when she died, especially because of the effect it had on Nate, who never really recovered.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: There is some debate as to whether Nate really loves Brenda (and is too immature to properly deal with his feelings) or whether he just stuck with her (and came back to her) because she's the first woman he didn't almost immediately get tired with. Of note, Alan Ball claimed that if Nate actually lived he would've eventually come to his senses and gone back to Brenda (or alternately his relationship with Maggie would quickly fizzle once Maggie finds she cannot live up to his expectations), Brenda certainly loved Nate (He was one of only fournote serious relationships, she stopped dating after they broke up, she forgave his two instances of adultery and tried to make their relationship work, she not only took him in but basically adopted his daughter), and Brenda claimed (after they broke up and after he died) that Nate didn't love her really (although this may just be denial).
- Anvilicious: The political jabs at Bush and the Iraq War in season 5 are heavy handed and out of place, Writer on Board not-so-subtle, especially since Claire was pretty much apathetic about this kind of things and the external world in general.
- The writers nonetheless try to make these political jabs funny, for instance Claire makes Ted promise that if America ever declares war on Iran or something and reinstates the draft, he will move to Canada.
- Prior to this, in the Season 3 premiere one of the things Nate sees whilst on the operating table is him at Thanksgiving dinner with his family, around the year 2000. Nate is complaining about how George Bush stole the election. David counters that if Nate didn't want to see Bush in office, he shouldn't have voted for Ralph Nader.
- The writers nonetheless try to make these political jabs funny, for instance Claire makes Ted promise that if America ever declares war on Iran or something and reinstates the draft, he will move to Canada.
- Award Snub: The show was heavily buzzed about in its first year, and was thought to have enough critical support to unseat The West Wing for the Best Drama Series prize in 2002. Unfortunately (and despite being in contention for both Seasons 1 and 2), it came up empty-handed, and would continue to lose from that point forward. Its final season failed to even receive a Series nomination.
- Many fans were saddened by the fact that none of the show's main cast members could win Emmy Awards. The largest outcry would've been for Frances Conroy, who had enough momentum to win a Golden Globe for the first season. Oddly enough, this came in spite of the fact that the SAG Awards gave it the prize for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series on two occasions.
- Awesome Music: The Grammy and Emmy-winning theme tune is by Thomas Newman, of Finding Nemo and American Beauty fame. Like much of his music, it will send shivers up your spine.
- The original scoring for the series itself is by Richard Marvin, which sadly has never been publically released.
- Diagnosed by the Audience: Arthur Martin seems to show signs of being on the autism spectrum. An obsession with order, systems, technology, an aversion towards physical intimacy, running through statistics and rules for comfort, and generally displaying peculiar and almost childish behavior.
- Harsher in Hindsight: In the Deadly Distant Finale where David and Keith get married. On the DVD Commentary, Alan Ball said this would take place in 2009 because he thought same-sex marriage would be legal in California by then. Jump forward to November 4, 2008
....- Although, the specific year is never actually mentioned in the epilogue, so the viewer could easily imagine that it took place either before 2008 or after 2014 or whenever.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Meta-example with Michael C. Hall aka Dexter and the psychopath arc. Retroactive Recognition makes it almost ironic. During one of his final visions he is in full slasher attire and it almost looks like a Call-Forward or a parody of his next major role, in fact Michael C. Hall has called the dream sequence in which David puts a gun in Jake's mouth the moment that Dexter Morgan was born.
- During his breakup with Keith, David briefly dates a Ben, a geeky lawyer played by Adam Scott. Looks like those gay thoughts weren't just thoughts.
- Jerkass Woobie: Brenda, during her sex addiction. She cheated on Nate and unlike Nate's cheating on her (which he did because he was vulnerable and had just had a seizure), she did so purely for pleasure. But she's sympathetic because she really can't help herself and she really does love Nate. Also she had a point, she and Nate had a casual sexual encounter three hours after they'd met. There's absolutely no reason to expect she would change just because they were going out. Also, double standards. The fact that she cheated with more guys doesn't change the fact that he cheated first.
- Memetic Mutation: My arm is numb. Numb arm. Numb arm, narm, NARM--
- Narm: It's the Trope Namer. When Nate gets suddenly paralysed, he repeats: "numb arm, numb arm, num arm,... narm..., narm..." before sputtering and fainting. Maggie's rather wooden reaction didn't help much either. Other than that, the show was rarely narmy.
- Retroactive Recognition: Plenty of then unknowns have made their way onto this show either in supporting roles or bit parts. Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, Dean Norris, Sandra Oh, Adam Scott, Anna Gunn, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Sarah Rafferty, David Hornsby, Josh Radnor, Jim Beaver, Ken Davitian and Nicholas D'Agosto are just a few.
- Romantic Plot Tumor:
- Nate and Lisa
- Ruth and George Sibley.
- The Scrappy: Lisa. The Clingy Jealous Granola Girl Housewife and tedious Romantic False Lead. A waste of perfectly good Lili Taylor.
- Claire's boyfriend Russell went from being The Woobie (intelligent, witty, dorky guy who deals with problems with his own sexuality) to being The Scrappy (pathetic loser who tried to weasel his way into partial credit for Claire's collage/photos as a way of weaseling his way back into Claire's life) pretty quickly.
- Seasonal Rot: Season 3 is the first season that started dividing fans, mainly for basically drawing out Nate's Wangst about his mostly forced marriage with Lisa and basically leading to a season long "When is Nate going to break-up with his Romantic False Lead?" arc that swallowed up most of the screentime at the expense of other characters. Also some started getting annoyed with the opening-each-episode-with-a-death trick, thinking the show was becoming increasingly predictable and schematic.
- Season 4 was thought by many to be the worst season and even the creators hinted they shared that sentiment, as the character's stories were becoming increasingly redundant and out-of-whack, or using over-the-top gimmicks to sustain interest. That led to ensuring season 5 was indeed the last one, and the show once again became more focused and purposeful, and gave a relatively satisfying tying-up of various loose ends and character's story arcs.
- Special Effects Failure: When the house gets burned down in the second episode, the flames visible through the windows are obviously CGI and don't look real at all. In addition, its very obvious that in the many scenes of characters talking to each other through a doorway that the person on the outside is being shot on a green screen.
- The Woobie:
- Nate. He can't seem to find happiness. Also it was pretty rough for him to be stricken with such a fatal brain condition and even rougher to die so young from a recurrence when he thought that he was perfectly fine.
- Ruth. Oh, Ruth. That scene when she was eating dinner alone...
- David, most of the tragedies happen to him, mainly, being kidnapped. That was painful to watch.
- Claire too, finding out her father is dead while on crystal meth, dating a criminal and a sociopath, from having her inability to orgasm being broadcast, or finding out she's pregnant and her child's father is having sex with her teacher.
- George becomes this after the flashback to his childhood. His mother committed suicide with him in the house (and made him hold her hand as she did it), which unsurprisingly messed him up. His mental break-down is heart-breaking as well.
- Arthur. Especially the scene where he's recording a voice message for his nephews on a tape-recorder. The final line of him encouraging them to get an e-mail address so that they could keep in touch more easily is heart-wrenching. Do they even answer him? Ever? Poor, poor lonely Arthur.
- And then he's accused of leaving Ruth and George packages of faeces when he didn't even do it.
- Brenda's difficult childhood earns her some sympathy from the get-go, but the Jerkass in Jerkass Woobie outweighs it in her character for some viewers. Then comes along season 5, when after years of wanting to be a mother, she loses one pregnancy, gets pregnant again, learns the child might have problems at birth (to which Nate unsympathetically suggests she gets an abortion, and seems offended when she won't consider it), then gets both cheated on and dumped by her husband right before he dies. A Trauma Conga Line makes it hard not to pity her.
Band
- Americans Hate Tingle: In the US, their following, for a long time, was inconsistent at best and they're often (though not nearly as much today as their past) the subject of no small amount of derision. In Europe, on the other hand, they've got a far bigger and more loyal following. This fact is supported by Chris telling fans who message him about a US tour that they'll tour there again "when the time is right", as practically all of their shows in recent years have been in other continents, mainly Europe, meaning that he himself may be aware of this.
- Audience-Alienating Era: The True Carnage-Bringer of Blood period is viewed as this not only by the band's fans, but by the death metal fandom as a whole.
- Most of the people that hate the band will point immediately to the Graveyard Classics albums, particularly the second installment, which even the band's most diehard fans refuse to defend.
- How bad is it exactly? AC/DC themselves hated the album so much that they had it legally banned from distribution both digitally and physically.
- While not all reviews were bad, Nightmares of the Decomposed is easily the band's worst-received album in recent times, with the general consensus being that Chris sounds the most tired and deteriorated he's sounded in years if not ever, dragging down an otherwise decent effort - even the band's most devoted fans have a hard time defending his performance on the record. It's to the point that many reviewers have suggested that Barnes either gets his voice back together or the band may fall off soon. Many have unfavorably compared it to that of records such as St. Anger, The Unspoken King, and Illud Divinum Insanus in terms of overwhelmingly negative fan feedback.
- "Zodiac" from said album is widely considered by fans to be the band's all-time worst song, with a staggering 66% dislike-to-like ratio on its official upload. Bizarrely, Chris himself considers it his favorite, though it's possible he only said so to troll people in response to it's overwhelmingly negative reception - however, this is unlikely as he still stands by this opinion to this day.
- Most of the people that hate the band will point immediately to the Graveyard Classics albums, particularly the second installment, which even the band's most diehard fans refuse to defend.
- Cliché Storm: Their lyrics, which cover basically every death metal cliche you can think of. Zombies, gore, sex with the dead, killing people, monsters, you name it, it's all there in one way or another. Not that this is a bad thing, though.
- Fandom Rivalry: With Cannibal Corpse. You'll often find death metal fans arguing constantly about which band is better, not surprising considering Barnes' involvement with Cannibal's most famous material.
- First Installment Wins: Quite a few death metal fans still consider Haunted to be their best work. This also applies to their next two albums Warpath and Maximum Violence to an extent, as they are along with the former some of only a small handful of their records that even non-fans can agree are good.
- Funny Moments: Chris reciting the lyrics for "Feasting on the Blood of the Insane" in spoken word poetry style over a calm background as a joke on the Metal Shop radio show in February 2015.
- Guilty Pleasure: How most people who enjoy the band unironically view them. This is primarily due to Chris's infamy as both a sometimes questionable person and an extremely inconsistent vocalist, much of which overshadows whatever merit their music has.
- Memetic Mutation: Chris' signature ear-piercing screech, complete with its own video dedicated to it. Many death metal fans have affectionately dubbed it as the "EEEEEEEEEEEE" sound.
- There is now a second video.
- A third has now been made.
- There is now a second video
- Narm: The infamous "MUTHA'FUCKIN' DEATH" line from "Ugly".
- From the same song: "I hear your screams ... screams ... screams ... screams ... screams ... screams ... screams ... screams ..."
- The pig-squealed bridge of "The Day the Dead Walked" is very hard to take seriously, since it's the only time in the band's entire discography that Chris uses his above-mentioned screeched vocals for an entire vocal line.
- While Barnes' vocals on "Amputator" off of Nightmares of the Decomposed were absolutely savaged when the song was released (as his vocals had deteriorated so much that no amount of studio magic could doll them up), his final scream of the song's title was the target of particularly intense mockery. It barely even qualifies as a high - Barnes sounds more like he's squeaking it out because his voice is too badly damaged to do a proper shriek or even a pig squeal. Whether this is true or if he just didn't give a shit, it's still jarring and ridiculous-sounding. That being said, the first single from their next album 4 years later had a very well received vocal performance from him upon its reveal, so God only knows what caused his voice to sound that way then.
- It's worth noting that even fans and the band's other members find his squeal weird - numerous clips exist of the band performing live where some frontrow patrons and bandmates are clearly seen chuckling when he whips one out.
- Never Live It Down:
- Barnes has made a few dick moves that most people still talk about today. Most famously is the incident with Travis Ryan, in which Travis had apparently been shit-talking Barnes due to his treatment of the supporting bands (Cattle Decapitation and Wretched) but later got sick of being treated poorly and confronted Barnes, which apparently led to Barnes punching him in the face and fleeing to the bus. It's unknown whether this actually happened or not, but sources state that Chris did indeed get physical.
- There's also the incident where after the end of a show where they played along Anal Cunt, Barnes set his roadies on Putnam, Anal Cunt's frontman, while he ran off. This prompted the creation of "Chris Barnes Is a Pussy". Six Feet Under's Facebook page was gently spammed with links to the song after the Travis Ryan incident, fourteen years after the song had been recorded.
- Chris claimed in 2019 that Thy Art Is Murder were "hacks" for calling their upcoming album Human Target, which happens to have the same name as one of the band's most popular songs. Needless to say, he got a bit of flak for this claim, with people stating that many tracks have the same title, even if said name isn't necessarily generic or overused, therefore making his claim ridiculous and even egotistical.
- Chris claimed in January 2022 that he despised what death metal had become in response to the Round Table event at Knotfest, and upon being asked to elaborate by Jamey Jasta, he refused despite being the instigator of the subject in the first place. His handling of the situation was mocked relentlessly by fans and news outlets alike, especially since he had only recently been riding off of his most maligned vocal performance in years on Nightmares, making him seem like one of the last people who should comment on such a matter. This culminated in the crowd chanting "fuck Chris Barnes" at Cannibal Corpse's then-latest concert.
- Nightmare Fuel: Regardless of how you feel about the song or Nightmares of the Decomposed in general, the music video for "The Rotting" is genuinely unsettling and disgusting. It depicts a room full of weapons... and horribly mutilated dead bodies, which decompose in fast-forward.
- So Bad, It's Good:
- Most of the fans who don't outright despise the Graveyard Classics albums see them as this.
- Chris' vocals on their standalone 2005 song "Dead and Buried" sound....really weird, to say the very least. Though given that it was recorded solely for their Greatest Hits compilation, combined with the fact that Chris is obviously not taking the music video seriously, it's fairly plausible that the song was intended as a joke.
- Even those who enjoy the band's music unironically often cite Barnes' vocals themselves as this. It's even become sort of a Bile Fascination for people who otherwise don't care for them to check out their albums upon release just to see if Chris will give a good or bad vocal performance.
- Tear Jerker: In April 2019, Chris revealed in a tweet that the reason he pushes his fans away from him when they jump on stage is because it makes him think about Dimebag Darrell's death and is afraid of risking the same thing happening to him. Knowing that he is usually open to his fans' support, it goes to show just how much the death of Dimebag affected him even almost 15 years later.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many Corpse-era Barnes fans would say this due to the lyrics being less gory and the music being slower. Not to say their lyrics aren't gory sometimes, though.
- Vindicated by History: They still have a few detractors here and there, but much of the criticism that plagued the early-to-middle of their career has pretty much died down by now. That was, until the months leading up to Nightmares of the Decomposed, the promo singles from which got a ton of flak for Barnes giving his worst vocal performance in years, with his half-assed shriek at the end of "Amputator" (detailed above in Narm) in particular receiving a lot of criticism.
- Win Back the Crowd: With their albums Undead and Unborn, it's generally agreed by death metal fans that Barnes is back in peak form. Crypt of the Devil has only won more people over.
- Torment, unfortunately, averted this when it received the worst reception out of all of the band's post-reunion material, with complaints primarily around Barnes' weaker vocal performance, especially after Undead/Unborn contained what many consider his best vocal work since his early days, and its overly polished sound. Nightmares of the Decomposed has fared even less favorably, and is generally considered to be their worst album in years if not ever.
- The singles from Killing for Revenge surprised many fans upon their release, with many hailing Chris's vocal performance on the tracks as a solid return to form.
