10 Recent TV Shows That Failed Hard (But Should Have Been Great)
1. Vinyl
After Terence Winter and Martin Scorsese collaborated on the hugely successful show Boardwalk Empire and the movie The Wolf Of Wall Street, HBO managed to land the duo’s alluring next project.
It was a TV show that charted the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ era of the 70s New York music scene, with Boardwalk stand-out Bobby Cannavale taking the juicy lead role of a record executive struggling with cocaine addiction while he attempts to save his record label.
Well, despite Scorsese’s reliably bombastic directorial style displayed in the pilot, the show stumbled almost from the get-go - still, it had the potential for improvement. As the season crept on it was clear things weren’t going to improve, in fact, they only got incrementally worse.
Cannavale's character was erratic and wholly unsympathetic, with his plot arc more annoying than compelling. Olivia Wilde’s sulky trophy wife didn’t fare any better. These were the weak anchor points in a myriad of overindulgent flourishes, plot threads that went nowhere, and genuinely pat writing from the usually brilliant Winter.
It was a train-wreck, but not a glorious one even - it managed to be boring more than anything else, resulting in a disappointing and expensive failure that basically forced HBO into a regime change.
What did you think of these TV shows? Any others you'd add? Let us know down in the comments.