7 TV Shows That Went From Must-See To Completely Forgettable

A few months after Game of Thrones dropped in April 2011, the television world was hit by the next unmissable drama that people couldn’t speak highly enough of. Based on an Israeli series, Homeland’s premise, that of a captured US serviceman supposedly being turned by a terrorist organisation (but this only being believed by one CIA agent), was gripping from the off.

Damian Lewis and Claire Danes’ magnificent performances as co-leads Nicholas Brody and Carrie Matheson were convincing in pushing the ‘is he or isn’t he’ question and the combination of his charisma and her unhinged nature sewed doubts into what the true state of affairs really was.

Homeland’s second season was just as good as the first, quickly outing Brody’s true nature to the intelligence community as a whole and then unravelling whether or not he had indeed turned his back on his captors.

By the time the third season came around, however, Homeland was dipping into 24 territory (the show’s creators both previously wrote for it) and becoming more outlandish. Seemingly out of ideas for Brody, the writer’s decision to give him a redemptive suicide mission was questionable, particularly when its result (gaining Iran’s Deputy Intelligence Chief as a US asset) wasn’t even mentioned in season four.

Since then, each season has been a Carrie-led standalone story. Viewership and critical reception have dropped with each subsequent year and unlike its 2011-debuting brethren, Homeland will be going out with a whimper rather than a bang later this year.