12 Hugely Disappointing Seasons Of Beloved TV Shows
Well... they were beloved anyway.
With the likes of Breaking Bad, The Wire, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Peaky Blinders and many, many, many more truly incredible shows filling the small screen over the past decade, it is easy to argue that television is actually better than cinema right now. It's certainly more consistent in terms of quality - well, mostly.
A new season of a beloved TV show is more or less akin to a blockbuster event these days, with the bigger budgets, bigger names, and bigger stories all making these shows incredible, highly-anticipated events. Much like blockbusters, the follow-up seasons can also prove to be major disappointments; this doesn't happen as much as it does with Hollywood film franchises, but TV shows we love do still let us down quite a lot.
These following seasons simply didn't live up to the hype or the previous high standards which made them so anticipated in the first place. Not all of these seasons are even particularly bad, but they did ruin much of the goodwill these shows had earned. Come to think of it, some of these series haven't actually bounced back yet.
12. South Park Season 20
South Park is arguably the best cartoon of all time (sorry Simpsons) and has served up pure comedy gold for over 20 years, but recently the show has been less consistent. Season 19, which told a serialized story, was brilliant and felt like the start of a new golden age for the show, which is why season 20 was a major disappointment.
Where season 19 told an interesting story while also allowing each episode to stand on its own, season 20 took the serialization a bit too far. It's far from the worst season of the show, but it was the most disappointing.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker wrote the season assuming Hilary Clinton would win but when Donald Trump (Mr Garrison) was elected, they had to hastily rework the story and the last few episodes felt unfocused as a result, with many story-lines not even being properly resolved. There were other issues as well; it was too focused on mocking Trump, it was often bloated and lacked enough balance between action and comedy. Also, what the hell was up with Cartman being so nice?
Stone and Parker have expressed regret over this season and returned to the more gentle serialized style of season 19 for the next run of episodes. Season 21 worked out overall, even if it wasn't the strongest season of the show's run, so thankfully South Park is more or less back on track now.