Fan Disliked Explanation / Live-Action TV

• The Battlestar Galactica finale reveals exactly what year it is and what's up with the "head people". Since it all amounts to a literal Deus ex Machina, many fans wondered if they even needed to know. On the other hand, it did leave the nature of Kara Thrace up to viewer interpretation.
• Better Call Saul:
  • While fans tend to regarded as a great prequel, some fans took issue with the series only happening 6 years before the events of Breaking Bad as a lot of fans prefer to believe Saul and Mike were experts with many years of experience on the criminal world before meeting Heisenberg.
  • Some fans were unimpressed that Saul's Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy criminal connections were shown to be from a little black book he purchased from Dr. Caldera in Season 6, when it seemed those connections were being created organically through his Burner Phones business and criminal law practice, making him seem less like the expert in the criminal underworld he looked like in the original series and more like a guy that simply got lucky to buy the book at the right time.
• Dexter: The final arc heavily hints that Dexter's homicidal tendencies might have been sustained, or even heightened, rather than treated, by the Code he's been taught — it turns out that a certain psychiatrist was obsessed with the concept, after failing to treat her own, truly homicidal, son. Even so, in the finale, Dexter decides he is a monster after all and goes into exile.
• Doctor Who:
  • Robert Holmes was responsible for some of these back in the Classic days:
    • The implied explanation for why the Second Doctor and Jamie look visibly older, and for how Jamie knows who the Time Lords are (when he was told about them in his final story) in "The Three Doctors", "The Five Doctors" and "The Two Doctors", resulting in the events Fan Nicknamed "Season 6B", is still fairly controversial. Holmes’s plan states that the reason the Doctor can't control the TARDIS is that the Time Lords had been piloting it for him with him as their agent, and after his capture at the end of "The War Games", the Time Lords cut him loose and let him take the fall. This is mostly disregarded by fellow 70s creative Terrence Dicks stating that instead of being exiled to Earth, the Doctor was recruited as an agent for the Time Lords, with Jamie having been brought back to aid him, which is more generally accepted.
    • The Time Lords were introduced as a Crystal Spires and Togas civilization of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who were "cosmic Buddhists", believing in non-intervention except for occasional, inscrutable actions made from a point of omniscience and taken for the greater good (such as their use of both the Third and Fourth Doctors as Boxed Crooks). Robert Holmes felt this was boring Black-and-White Morality that didn't fit his own worldview, and, Watsonianly, didn't jive with a few throwaway lines made by the Fourth Doctor (like complaining the Time Lords didn't want to sully their "lily-white hands"), and Retconned them irreparably into a Decadent Court made up of ritual-obsessed old bureaucrats of average intelligence wearing silly hats and backstabbing each other while the poor starve. The fandom at the time was quite outraged, although the benefit of hindsight has made the decision (and the story) much more appreciated. Notably, neither Russell T Davies nor Mark Gatiss liked this conception of the Time Lords and what we see of them during RTD's tenure is a great deal more godly, although not particularly sympathetic.
  • "Pyramids of Mars" revolves around Sutekh requiring the Doctor to use the TARDIS due to the controls being bonded to him, even though other characters had used the TARDIS in other stories (prominently, Susan and Jo). Holmes suggested to fans that the Doctor may have been lying, but since Sutekh was previously shown to be able to completely read the Doctor's mind, this doesn't seem very plausible.
  • Many fans find the New series' explanation of the Master's turning towards evil (a pattern of pounding drums playing in his head all his life) to be unsatisfactory for many reasons — none of the previous Masters ever suggested it, and any explanation could only ever be disappointing after thirty-six years of speculation. However, the fact that the explanation was an Actor Allusion to John Simm's Caligula (obsessed with the sound of pounding hooves in his head) and employed a lot of Timey-Wimey Ball strongly suggests the explanation was intended to be limited to Simm's incarnation only — the succeeding Gomez incarnation hasn't mentioned drumming at all. The Simm Master in his appearance in "World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls", after resolving his issue with the Time Lords, completely abandons the drumming as an element of his character and is written (by Steven Moffat) more as an arrogant Delgado-Master-type character (apart from the drumming Leitmotif still appearing along with him).
  • The new series made several references to the "Shadow Proclamation", which was apparently some sort of law that nearly every alien species obeyed. Fans speculated on the origins and nature of the Proclamation. Near the end of Tennant's run as the Doctor, it was revealed that the Shadow Proclamation is "a posh term for Space Police". So apparently the Proclamation is not a law but an organization, or if it is a law then there is apparently an organization of the same name which enforces the law. This is a bit like being arrested by "The Constitution" or something.^note It's less of a stretch to those of us who grew up in the age of "The Warsaw Pact". It didn't go over very well with fans, and the Shadow Proclamation has barely been mentioned since the Reveal. Russell T. Davies stated the original idea for the Proclamation's appearance in "The Stolen Earth" was to include a large Star Wars prequel-style senate consisting of every single major known race in the galaxy, but going over the budget forced them to scale it down to what was essentially nothing more than a secretarial lobby.
  • In "The End of Time", the Tenth Doctor gives a speech about what regeneration is, in which he explains it as being a death, where "some other man" saunters off. Many fans objected to this, pointing at situations where other incarnations had considered it a rebirth, a healing, or a second chance, and thought the speech was a preemptive attempt to guilt-trip fans into considering his yet-to-debut successor a Replacement Scrappy. Later Eleventh Doctor episodes write this off as "ego problems" and the Twelfth Doctor calls regeneration "Man Flu" in "Hell Bent".
  • Davies also claimed that averting this trope was the reason the Last Great Time War was never shown onscreen, as they felt that no matter how spectacular they made it the war would always seem anticlimactic to at least some fans. Successor showrunner Steven Moffat, however, thought he could do it justice and had the Time War appearing and playing a major role in the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor"; many fans disagreed.
  • Many fans objected to River's revelation that the characteristic TARDIS dematerialisation sound was the result of the Doctor leaving the handbrake on in "The Time of Angels". Not only does this make the Doctor look like an idiot (although the idea he doesn't really know how to fly the TARDIS has been established for decades), but it fails to explain why other TARDISes make the same sound. Word of God is that River was probably just winding him up.
  • In "The Armageddon Factor", we meet a Time Lord named Drax who knew the Doctor before he got his doctorate and calls him Theta Sigma (or Thete for short). There's nothing in the story suggesting this is a nickname, but the fandom quickly decided it was and this became Ascended Fanon nine years and three Doctors later in "The Happiness Patrol" (and also in a Sixth Doctor Gamebook). Because we're not supposed to know what the Doctor's name is, and it definitely isn't just a couple of Greek letters.
  • "Heaven Sent", in which the Doctor can only get temporary escape from the Veil by confessing truths he never has before, has him admitting that contrary to his usual claims, he didn't leave Gallifrey in the first place because he was bored. Rather, he was scared of... something. No subsequent story has revealed what that was of yet. Thing is, after 50+ years fans came to accept that despite many teases, especially in the new series, the Doctor's backstory, real name, etc. will never be revealed in full because it would never live up to what they've seen him go through on his adventures. Thus, they were perfectly happy with him leaving Gallifrey "just because".
  • The most recent example of this trope, and the biggest since "The Deadly Assassin", came in Series 12's finale "The Timeless Children"; not coincidentally it also involves Gallifrey and the Time Lords. (deep breath) The Doctor is actually a "Timeless Child" from an unknown world and species, whose infinite regeneration ability was genetically spliced into native Gallifreyans to create Time Lords, and has lived countless lives prior to the First Doctor's, all memories of them being mindwiped by the Time Lords to cover both their origins and the Doctor's work for a secret organization. While this did serve to explain a Continuity Snarl in the Fourth Doctor story "The Brain of Morbius", it also ripped huge holes in the established continuity of the franchise to, as of that episode, little dramatic purpose. As it looks to be central to Thirteen's Myth Arc, the full weight of this theoretically will be central to Series 13, and may in time subvert the trope if fans (at least those who haven't sworn off the show as a whole) come to feel it is fully justified. However nothing was ever done to follow up this plot during the rest of Thirteen's tenure as the Doctor leaving it unlikely that it will be followed up anytime soon.
• Firefly: "The Shepherd's Tale" comic was dedicated to exploring the Mysterious Past of Shepherd Book, whose backstory was hinted at somewhat less-than-subtly but never revealed on the show itself. Now, it was pretty well-known that he'd been quite senior in the Alliance military or police^note at least to the audience; how much the rest of the crew knew or suspected is a matter for conjecture, but the twist? He'd started out as a spy for the Browncoats, making him Good All Along... and Jossing the fanon that had him being a disillusioned former patriot. The fandom were, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit disappointed.
• Friends: The One With The Truth About London expands on the events that lead up to Monica and Chandler's hookup in a way that neither fans nor the writers were particulary fond of. Back in Season 4 when they had their one night stand, it was implied that they ended up having sex because Chandler was conforting her after her mother awakened her insecurities over whatever she will be able to get married and one thing lead to the other. But in the The One With The Truth About London is revealed that Monica simply went to the room drunk with the intention to have sex with Joey and that since he wasn't there she choose Chandler instead. This is often ignored not only because is a much less sweet way to kickstart their relationship but also because some fans felt that it was Out of Character for Monica to want to have a one night stand with one of her close friends, no matter who he was, simply for being a bit sad.
• In a bonus commentary video to The Last of the Starks, a Season 8 episode of Game of Thrones, showrunner David Benioff explained that Daenerys "kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" to account for her and her dragons' improbable sudden blindness when they're suddenly sniped by ballistas from the Fleet, resulting in much escalating conflict and misery... a Fleet that they most definitely could have seen and avoided from miles away, as they flew and surveyed the clear sea from the clear sky. The statement rapidly became widely mocked by many fans as a nonsensical Hand Wave that (poorly) attempted to disguise an obvious Plot Hole, even veering into Voodoo Shark territory.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Lobster Crawl gaves us one of Barney's biggest moments of Character Development by having Barney burning out the Playbook, showing his womanizing days were over, granted a later episode revealed it was part of a ploy to give a Wacky Marriage Proposal to Robin, but even then the episode makes an emphasis that the gesture was true. Then a later episode revealed that there were actually two Playbooks and the one he burned was a decoy. To many fans and critics this threw away one of Barney's most humanizing moments for the sake of having the plot of one episode going, not helped by the Playbook being destroyed again anyway
  • After 8 years of Wild Mass Guessing and Epileptic Trees around the Mother's identity. It turns out her identity is a completely new character that never appeared before! It became subverted, however, once the Mother became a beloved character in her own right, but you will still find some fans disappointed that so many years of speculation were All for Nothing.
  • The Grand Finale finally revealed why Ted's story was taking so many detours to get to the part where he actually met the Mother, which infamously lead to one of the biggest Audience Alienating Endings on television history. Robin and Barney divorced three years after the events of the series, Tracy (a.k.a. the Mother) is revealed to have died in 2024, and Ted and Robin have rekindled their relationship between that, and Ted is telling the story since the point he met Robin because he wants his kids blessing to start dating her again, basically negating a lot of Barney, Robin and Ted's development for the sake of Ted getting with Robin after 9 seasons of deconstructing their relationship and ultimately showing them as incompatible. This was so hated that an alternative ending was created just for the sake of ignoring this part of the ending even if it still keep some of the more controversial parts of the ending like Barney and Robin's divorce.
• The Mandalorian: According to Jon Favreau, Din Djarin could never rule Mandalore after struggling with the Darksaber in The Book of Boba Fett. Although this could be chalked up to Moff Gideon intentionally battling him so Bo-Katan couldn't win the Darksaber, fans who spent The Mandalorian's Series Hiatus endorsing Din as the Mandalorians' new leader have countered that he could've mastered the saber if he used it in more than two Mandalorian chapters and didn't give it back to Bo-Katan.
• The Mentalist: The series' long-elusive Arch-Enemy, often outsmarting the already superhumanly intelligent hero, eventually turns out to be just a rural sheriff with friends in high places.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • WandaVision: The Reveal that the fake Pietro/Quicksilver was Agatha's "husband" Ralph Bohner went over very poorly with fans who either were expecting Pietro to be the X-Men Film Series version of Quicksilver (since he was played by Evan Peters and acted like him) or expected "Ralph" to be a demonic entity, like the show had been greatly hinting at. That both Pietro and Ralph's identities had been built up as a great mystery only for the payoff to amount to be the punchline to a dick joke fell very flat.
  • Secret Invasion (2023): This show indicates that the reason Nick Fury became such an important figure at S.H.I.E.L.D is because he had a secret network of Skrulls working for him ever since the late 90s, and they helped him accomplish missions he never could hope to complete on his own. Many fans aren't fond of this reveal, as it not only takes away much of Fury's mystique, but makes him seem even less competent in retrospect.
• Pretty Little Liars: After six seasons of mystery and false suspects, A is finally revealed to be Cece Drake, also known as Charles DiLaurentis, Alison's brother who had a sex change operation. This was a huge source of controversy, and some viewers said there were too many unanswered questions while others pointed out the Unfortunate Implications of the show's only transgender character being the primary antagonist.
• Ever since its introduction in the books of A Series of Unfortunate Events, the contents of the sugar bowl MacGuffin have been a huge source of debates with the fans. Handler himself gave implications as to the contents of the sugar bowl in interviews, but not everyone actually knew this, and he never gave any concrete answers. Well, when the Netflix adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017) aired its third season which revealed what was inside the Sugar Bowl, a way to make yourself immune to the Medusoid Mycelium, well, a surprising number of people came out and said this was Adaptation Decay. This is an exceptionally interesting case of this reaction, as the show's answer had been the most common fan theory all along.
• Lampshaded in Sherlock, where the writers knew some people would be disappointed by how Sherlock faked his death. Not only did they put in the following lines, but Anderson immediately points out a few flaws and questions if anything Sherlock just told him was the actual truth.
  Anderson: Not the way I'd have done it.
  Sherlock: Oh, really?
  Anderson: Nah, I'm not saying it's not clever, but...
  Sherlock: [flatly] What?
  Anderson: Bit... disappointed.
  Sherlock: [sighs] Everyone's a critic.
• True Blood: The final season revealed why Lettie Mae was so abusive towards Tara: when Tara was young, her father abandoned them, causing Lettie Mae to descend into alcoholism and take out her frustrations on her daughter. Considering her treatment of Tara over the course of the show, most fans found it hard to believe something like that could actually happen to someone. Not to mention that such an important event in Tara and Lettie Mae's relationship should have been mentioned in the previous seasons. If anything, it comes off as a lazy attempt by the writers to conclude as many character arcs as possible before the series finale.
• Twin Peaks: For the central plot of the show, the reveal that Laura Palmer's killer was her father was not only this for fans, but also for series creator David Lynch, who never wanted to reveal the answer to who killed her in the first place, but had to due to Executive Meddling. This reveal in fact contributed to the series' eventual cancellation.
• Watchmen (2019) spends most of its runtime deliberately keeping the audience in the dark about what Adrian Veidt's "prison" is, and how he got there. After seven episodes of buildup (with increasingly surreal imagery just generating more questions with every episode), some viewers were rather underwhelmed by The Reveal that it was a space colony on Europa, and Doctor Manhattan sent him there. Relatedly: that revelation also settled the question of what "life" Doctor Manhattan created after the events of the original book; not everyone found "a living ecosystem on Jupiter's moon" to be a satisfying answer.
• Later seasons of The X-Files had huge problems because of piling Myth Arc elements that were left unexplained or not addressed sufficiently, but one particular case was closed, and it was very anti-climactic. The fate of Samantha Mulder, Agent Fox Mulder's abducted little sister, was probably the biggest Red Herring of the series. Her abduction triggered Mulder's belief in the paranormal and motivated his career at the FBI and started the pattern of Guilt Complex. Mulder was tormented by her clones and doubles and statements that she's still alive. It was finally revealed that she had been abducted by the conspiracy who had collaborated with the aliens, horrible tests had been performed on her, and then she had lived with the Cancer Man's family. So far so good — fans always suspected something like this. However, when she was 14, she was "saved" by fairies or angels that made her body disappear, meaning that her corpse will never be found, but Mulder did see her ghost.

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