10 Times TV Shows 'Did Right By The Fans' (And Pissed Everyone Off)
Sometimes getting what you want isn't all it's made out to be.
Fan service is when a movie or TV show makes changes to deliberately appeal to a certain portion of their audience, usually the more hardcore or vocal element (especially on the Internet).
Now, you might think that decisions made in the best interest of the viewers would be a good thing - after all, they're the ones keeping the show on the air - but sometimes, people don't always know what's best for them.
TV history is littered with examples of showrunners or writers giving their audiences what they think they want, only to be met with major backlash. When superficial changes come at the expense of long-term storylines or character development or when a big network is seen to be caving to a relative minority of fans, that's when people start getting bad.
The following shows may not have died a death because of these alterations - and there would have been some people who didn't mind them - but on the whole, the perceived quality of these series was dented by decisions that were meant to have the exact opposite effect.
Showbusiness - it's a fickle world.
10. Delena - The Vampire Diaries
A major selling point of the early seasons of The Vampire Diaries - a show where a town full of insanely attractive people end up embroiled in a world of mystical creatures - was the tension between its three main characters.
Elena (Nina Dobrev) was in a relationship with vampire Stefan (Paul Wesley), but there’s just one problem - Stefan’s bad-boy brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder).
Damon did his best to upend his goody-two-shoes sibling's life, but it quickly became apparent that he had feelings for Elena too. Fans were desperate to see “Delena” get together, but when they finally did in the season four episode My Brother’s Keeper, it wasn’t what they expected.
The show became way less interesting once the tension between Elena and Damon had gone, as it became abundantly clear that the characters simply weren’t a good fit for each other. Despite initially calling for them to couple up, fans quickly turned on the pairing and longed for the days when they were simply flirting with each other instead.
The Elena/Damon relationship persisted in one form or another until the end of the show, so at least the writers didn’t bow to fan pressure a second time.