May 9, 2013

Greg's Top Ten Shows That Lasted Way Too Long (part 2 today, part 1 yesterday):

6. The A-Team: I know, it's total 80s blasphemy to say that The A-Team lasted way too long. However, those of you that recall the show's premise and ultimate demise might understand why this is on the list. The A-Team were a group of four men who were wrongfully accused by the U.S. government of crimes they did not commit. They were sentenced to prison even though the government was aware they were innocent. They escaped from prison and became soldiers of fortune. Simply put, they were pretty pissed at the United States government for turning on them and leaving them to rot in a prison. Then, all the sudden, in Season 5 they go working for the very government that screwed them over and are sent on secret CIA missions. Awesome. Just awesome. While we're at it, why don't we introduce a new annoying character, Frankie Santana, and make him a member of the A-Team even though he's not a soldier? Oh, wait, they did and chances are you don't remember him, right? That's because the A-Team was only awesome when it was a four-man team and became instantly forgettable the moment it grew to five. If you really want to get precise, you can pretty much say that the official episode the show went downhill was Season 4 Episode 16, when Boy George guest starred. Yep, Boy Fucking George guest starred on the A-Team playing the character of "Cowboy George" and my was Mr. T. excited to see him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cMfYDQ7RKg

Yeah, clean living Mr. T of the A-Team, who did a number of anti-drug spots in the 1980s, was thrilled to see Boy George, the coked out of his mind lead singer of The Culture Club. And so went the A-Team's credibility and Boy George's career aspirations. The A-Team lasted just one more season and The Culture Club never had another Top 40 hit after that little cameo.

7. Heroes: I think it's safe to say the first season was pretty awesome. The characters were interesting, the storylines were intriguing and the pace of the show was swiftly moving along in an exciting fashion. Most everyone who watched Season 1 couldn't wait to see what was going happen in Season 2. Then, after a long wait, Season 2 arrived and never got going. There were far too many characters being introduced, character development suffered because there were too many story arcs to follow and it seemed as though every single episode would use the same predictable and boring formula that got old very fast. Finish an episode with a seemingly huge cliffhanger, start the next episode by not answering a single thing from the previous episode, drag out a boring episode for 55 minutes, finish the episode with a seemingly huge cliffhanger. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. The first two or three times a show does that in succession it's interesting. When it happens for the duration of an entire season it becomes boring and fruitless. The fans lost interest. The show started trying to recoup the magic of the first season by continuously jumping the shark like when Sylar, the arch-nemesis of all things benevolent and kind, decided to turn good or Mohinder turning into a giant bug a la Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. It just got worse and worse. Maybe this show doesn't really belong on this list since it only had one awesome season. But if it ended like Firefly, waaaaaaaaaaay before its time, we'd all be still talking about how awesome Heroes was and geeks everywhere would treat Heroes creator Tim Kring with the same reverence Firefly creator Joss Wheedon receives.

8. Lost: I'll admit, I never really watched Lost. In fact, the only times I ever watched Lost was when my wife had it on. Each and every time I watched I was utterly confused which would make a lot of sense when one considers I didn't see the show from the beginning. However, when I ask the most ardent Lost fans how they would describe the show, most of them use the word "confusing" or some derivative. Would it be safe to say that the writers of the show never actually knew how to end the show and dragged things out to the point of madness because they didn't know what the hell they were doing? Maybe I'm not being fair here. After all, I didn't watch the show from the beginning and I certainly didn't watch the show with any regularity. But most fans I've spoken to found the ending to be a total cop-out that left fans wondering why they hell they watched for six seasons only to discover that (SPOILER ALERT) everyone was dead. It's almost like the writers had carefully crafted this massive puzzle and when they were about to finish it they had this one big piece that wouldn't quite fit so they crammed it in and fucked the whole thing up.

9. The X-Files: I think I stopped watching when David Duchovny decided to call it quits. Though I have to admit, when I did tune in for an episode in the post-Mulder era, I wasn't turned off by Robert Patrick's character John Doggett. But it just wasn't the same. When I think X-Files I think Mulder and Scully. I don't think Doggett and Reyes (Annabeth Gish). I think we all can agree that when the two most integral characters on a show decide to leave it before it ends, it cannot be a good omen. As a result, I never really watched many episodes past Season 7, right around the time Duchovny called it a day and decided to focus on infidelity instead of his acting prowess. Most fans tell me not to bother since very little really got resolved. I mean, let's be honest, the only way to end that show was for Mulder and Scully to have a glorious sex scene on an alien spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. Now that would have been a ratings bonanza!

10. Anything Kardashian: I make the rules here because it's my list and my blog. I could write a top 200 list of shows that shouldn't have lasted one episode. Every show featuring a Kardashian sister is so infantile and moronic that it makes me want to punch myself in the groin just knowing there are millions of people out there who tune in every week and contribute to the Kardashian family bankroll. I would rather drink a gallon of turpentine and piss on a forest fire than watch a full episode of The Kardashians. It's the most useless excuse for a television show and makes it perfectly clear to me why other countries of the world want to bomb ours into oblivion. I could lose less IQ points listening to Nickelback albums backwards than I could by watching a single episode of Khloe and Lamar. I mean, who the hell comes up with this crap? Remember when Bravo used to actually air smart television progams? Today it's littered with the TV equivalent of raw sewage: The Kardashians, Millionaire Matchmaker, Real Housewives of Who Gives a Flying Fuck. It's the single most worthless network on television today and makes me wonder how long it will take for our country to realize just how stupid "reality" programming really is and move on to something more thought-provoking, like watching Giada de Laurentiis' boobs while she cooks an omelette.