10 TV Shows Ruined By Their Own Popularity

7. Homeland

The first season of Homeland is one of the best runs of TV out there. With its central is-he-isn't-he plot about former-POW Nicholas Brody's status as a turned terrorist giving way to a myriad of interlinked personal dramas, it was tense to almost painful extents. Never has product placement been used as brilliantly as Yorkshire Tea.

The original plan for the series as a whole was to focus on the adventures of CIA agent Carrie Mathison, but the popularity of Damien Lewis' Brody proved too strong. Originally intended to be killed off in the Season 1 finale, the writers opted to keep him alive for much longer, creating a whole new convoluted story to star him.

While the second and third series weren't really bad television, they lacked the spark of the first as the Carrie/Brody relationship once again went through the motions. The Season 3 finale saw Brody killed, convicted of a crime he didn't commit. And with that horrible, almost unbelievable scene we can reflect that had the producers not succumbed to the show's popularity we could have reached this narrative point two years ago.