10 Television Shows That Hated Their Own Fanbases
5. Pretty Little Liars - An Audience Too Smart For The Writers
By the end of Pretty Little Liars' 7-season run, there were lots of issues. Questions left unanswered, plot holes left unfilled and clues left on the cutting room floor in lieu of shocking twists. The latter pretty much caused all the other problems, and it's all because of the writers desperate need to be smarter than the fans.
The first 5 seasons somehow managed to get away with the ludicrous story, including the fact that 47 episodes all take place in the span of one month (work that math out). But the A reveal in season 6 finally put the nail in the coffin.
You see, fans of Pretty Little Liars were dedicated. They spent countless hours watching the show, picking apart every clue and then going online to share theories with each other. Leading up to the reveal, every clue had been cross-referenced and dissected to the point where fans knew more about the show than the showrunner and writers did, and they had a pretty good idea of who A was.
The writers did not like that! They'd written themselves into a corner and had no way out, they desperately wanted to outsmart their audience over everything else. So they created a nonsensical, plot-hole-heavy and downright offensive A reveal.
And when fans called them out on their truly terrible efforts, pointing out how it literally did not make sense timeline-wise, the showrunner attempted to gaslight them into believing they hadn't watched what they thought they had. It was a narcissistic mess.