creekdipper

Since a lot of my pet peeves have already been taken, here's a couple regarding some older shows:

Combat!: The "stars" of the show were Vic Morrow (as Sgt. Saunders) & Rick Jason (as Lt. Hanley) & they kind of alternated in the lead roles. While the Hanley episode were good, every kid I knew wanted to see Sgt. Saunders & the squad weekly.

Rat Patrol: The sameness of the scripts & the fact that lightly-armored jeeps don't stand up to Tiger tanks too well in real life.

Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The decision to go to campy scripts in the third season to imitate the success of Batman. The show never recovered.

Bonanza: The heroes almost never married (or, if they did, the wives quickly came to an untimely end). Four grown men, none able to land a wife (or, in Little Joe's case, keep her breathing). Heck, Ben had gone through three wives (all whom died, of course) and was still seeing women...one would think that at least one of his boys would have settled down. (Of course, this 'flaw' is true of most shows since it leaves open the possibility for continually-changing romantic scenarios for the leads).

And, in more recent flawed shows:

Almost all of David Kelly's productions, which were often ruined by his insistence on preaching to the audience every other week.

the big train

The title of How I Met Your Mother.

It feels like the producers are under pressure to advance the story of the mother because people can't understand the concept of the words "how I met" and expect to see her in the third season rather than the last episode.

Double_Oh_7

How about the fact they had a clip show almost every other week. Lazy.

Double_Oh_7

Then you missed the whole point of the show.

whoopdido

All the characters, with the exception of Jerry, changed drastically throughout the series.

Kramer went from a complete recluse who never left the building for 10 years to a womanizing guy with a million friends and schemes and always seemed to be out doing things.

George went from just kind of a lovable loser who couldn't get a date to kind of a psycho who could go off at any moment...in later episodes...starting with Susan, he was also much better at finding women to go out with him.

Elaine went from kind of an innocent, likable girl, to a mean-spirited, selfish almost bitch.

Still my favorite comedy of all time, but the change in the character's personalities was very drastic throughout the time it was on the air.

Michael Corvin

I've only seen a handful of episodes but it seems like the creators painted themselves into a corner with the title. I've read that they want the reveal in the series finale, but why? They could easily show the early year(s) dating off/on up until a wedding, pregnancy, etc.

GeorgeP

Some older shows here...

The Incredible Hulk: no resolution of the Jack McGee character arc. Jack Colvin appeared in one "Hulk" TV movie after the series was over and that was it, having no further clue as to the Hulk's identity.

I heard that Bill Bixby died before his attempt at closure could follow through, but we'll never know now. Frustrating, and it put a sad pallor over an already melancholy series--especially considering the ignorance of the McGee character in the TWO "reboots."

Cheers: Two words- Shelley. Long.

Maybe there are some Long fans on here who will insist that it was just the way her character was written on the show, but either way, I found nothing at all enjoyable about Diane Chambers when she was not comic relief. She wanted so much to be taken seriously but acted like a complete spoiled brat when she was. The series really opened up and was much more enjoyable after she left.

Frasier: The "open-ended" resolution.

You didn't mind such an ending with Cheers because Frasier was such a worthy, immediate follow-up--but even then the series gave the Cheers regulars some closure, like with Cliff's birthday party.

Here it is nearly five years after the series finale, and still no follow-up even in the same league with those two shows. None of the actors really show up in anything decent (Kelsey Grammer in particular is floundering) and audiences are left without characters so witty or well-rounded to watch anymore.

I know we see Niles and Martin re-marry, but Frasier is still just kind of left out there, and so was Maris for that matter (Roz to a lesser degree). IMHO this is a series that needs a reunion show just to tie off all the loose ends.

Arrested Development: Still no movie. Maybe this year?

Jadzia

I think they only painted themselves into a corner during the first episode when the kids said "Aunt Robin?" - which basically negated any drama or speculation that Robin could have been the mother. It made their romance seem doomed throughout the series, so they should have left the line out so we still wondered if she could have been the mother.

Groucho

Better than Friends 2.0, I suppose.

rw2516

Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea(1964-68). Set in the near future(late 1970s) yet you only saw cars from mid-60s.

the big train

But it's not supposed to be about that stuff. It's just Ted's excuse for telling his kids all these stories. The stories don't need to be related to the mother in any way because it's all about how Ted got to that moment when he met her. Or, in Ted's words: "every moment in a man's life is like a dot in an impressionist painting."

Michael Corvin

Right, I get that, but with such a premise you are really stretching yourself by the third or fourth year. Just an opinion of course. If the show is still successful at that point there's no harm in expanding the scope of the show beyond a simple one line pitch from 4 years ago.

Norm de Plume

I agree. They had a few too many of those "Oh, remember when..." episodes, some of which were two-parters.

Brent L

Arrested Development - It is my favorite show of all time. If it had a single flaw, it was that it did too great of a job on building up jokes from one episode to the next. As the series went on, it was harder and harder for new viewers to "get" all of the comedy that us faithful AD viewers loved so much about it.

Charlie Goose

In Friends, Joey started out as a likable guy, with average intelligence. He ended up as a near-idiot. Same with Homer Simpson.

Groucho

Lots of shows: Buffy, Star Trek, X-Files, etc -- have an over-zealous fanbase that alienates casual fans. I'll admit that this tends to turn me off of those shows even if I like them.

Draven

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Negating the entire concept of the "vampire=evil" that was the cornerstone of the series by keeping Spike around. They already had the exception with Angel that fit in the canon just fine (he was "cursed") and fucked it all up with Spike and his chip. If you really thought about it, all of the vampires that Buffy killed over the years could have been rehabilitated by the Initiative. That was a HUGE change to the mythology that was just glossed over.

LOST: Once they moved away from the whole "based in reality and science" world into the stupid crap they did this season, that show went from "MUST WATCH" to "Oh, I suppose we could watch LOST". The creators always said the "they are dead and in purgatory" theories weren't possible, but they've made the actual explanation just as far-fetched. It's sad.

WallyOPD

It's odd how that works for me. Some shows I've never seen (like Buffy and Angel) I'm excited about by the hype from their fanbases. Others (like X-Files and Lost) I'm extremely turned off by, even though I think I would like them if I gave them a shot.

Goat3001

Introducting a new character (the mother) to a group that already has great chemistry would most likley kill the show. We've seen that happen way too many times. The show is a sitcom. They spend a few episodes in the season progressing the overall story arc of the show but the majority of episodes are just the group in comedic situations. Maybe they'll stretch themselves out too thin in the long run but this show won't be around for too much longer as it is (2-3 seasons left).

Double_Oh_7

It seems the producers always assumed they would end the show on their terms. They never considered they might be close to cancellation and have to accelerate the "met your mother" part when they were on the bubble last season.

rabbit77

I hope that doesn't include the training episode.

PopcornTreeCt

Lost - all of season 3 pretty much.

The Office - getting rid of Karen, turning Jan Levinson from a strong career-orientated woman to a sex craved lunatic

Heroes - everything after season 1

superdeluxe

X-files:

Never wrapping up the Mythology in a good manner.

Keeping the show going after season 7. While season 8 I felt was stronger than season 7. They should have just killed it after David Duchovny left.

LickTheABCs

Gilmore Girls - Luke has a daughter? Please..
Smallville - Pretty much everything at this point.

clckworang

All right, I feel the need to jump to the defense of at least one of the members of that Frasier cast. Maybe most of them haven't showed up on anything decent, but John Mahoney was excellent in this season of In Treatment. Great show! I would say it's definitely better than decent.

As for Arrested ... I agree! Where's the damn movie already?!