It's always a shame when a once beloved show falls out of favor, but for whatever reasons, the recent spate of mainstays disappointing or boring me has been more irksome than usual. I've broken up with shows in the past (Heroes and Grey's Anatomy were some of my more vitriolic recent break ups), but the shear volume of disappointments lately has been really depressing.
Here are some (though sadly, not all) of the current shit list occupants:
GOSSIP GIRL
It pains me to put Gossip Girl on this list, but what can I say? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any die-hard fan who hasn't been let down by the current season.
Where this used to be the very top of my very top tier, it is now teetering at the bottom of my third tier. This season started off a little shaky, but still enjoyable. Then the show went on a 4 month hiatus. Now my interest seems to be taking a 4 month hiatus... I have heard that the show is on an up-tick after several discouraging episodes, but I'm just not sure I have the strength to even get caught up. I currently have the last 4 or 5 episodes saved on my DVR and can't seem to motivate myself to watch them. Rather, I've been opting to re-watch other shows. And not even top tier shows at that... Why am I forsaking GG specifically?- Chuck has been defanged. The whole beauty of a character like Chuck is that he's and uncompromising asshole. That's the whole point of a bad boy. He did as he pleased and pretended not to care what anyone thought. He was ruthless and debauched and malicious and wonderfully perverse. Nowadays? He's unbearably pedestrian. And mopey. The devilish glee with which he tortured his friends and enemies is gone and a new sad-sack version of Chuck has taken over. Getting him and Blair together could have been awesome, but instead, it basically ruined them both. I understand that this is a largely unavoidable pitfall of serialized TV. How long exactly can you have a character be the same bastard he's always been? For a character to remain interesting, he or she has to evolve. I just wish Chuck had evolved in a less depressing and untenable way. I hear a return to form is on the horizon and it's no shock to me that this will likely coincide with his and Blair's break-up.
- On a related note, Blair has gone from devious to annoying. The unfortunate decent of Chuck and Blair is due in very large part to the pair of them officially hooking up. As is so often the case, the tension was lost and the writers didn't know what to do with the new dynamic. So what did they come up with? Well, as discussed, Chuck became a mopey, sensitive snooze-fest and Blair? Well, apparently they decided that "weak" and "annoying" were the buzz words for Blair's new life. She was largely defanged as well and it gave her very little to do. Without having a high school to terrorize, she was basically lost. Neither she nor Chuck was left with any real purpose or direction, so Blair ended up turning all her energies on ridiculous and irritating pursuits, many of which involve whining at Chuck. Truth be told? It's been so long since I've jumped right into the show that I'm kind of forgetting where we left off... Last I remember, Blair was moralizing to everyone on the planet and trying to run their lives in completely pointless ways. I miss the badass queen B who ruled with an iron fist... With both Chuck and Blair reduced to pathetic shells of their former shells, the primary reason I watch the show basically imploded.
- I've seen so many combinations of couples that I simply don't care anymore. Serena and Dan. Dan and Vanessa. Vanessa and Nate. Blair and Nate. Nate and Jenny. Jenny and drug dealer guy. Lily and Rufus. Lily and Bart. Serena and Tripp. Serena and Nate. Back to Serena and Dan. Oh, holy hell, I stopped caring 18 relationships ago! When everyone is with everyone else from one week to the next, there's no suspense and very little payoff. Chuck and Blair were always the main reason I watched the show and now that they've lost my interest, the rest of the cast simply can't make up the gap.
- Gossip Girl herself doesn't really seem to matter anymore... This show used to be about the fact that there's no such thing as privacy. Gossip was used as a tool, a weapon, and a constant stream of entertainment. Now that they're in college? Not so much... I can't remember the last time Gossip Girl was even a key aspect of the main plot. She's been reduced to nothing but narrator and that kind of undercuts a show called Gossip Girl...
THE OFFICE
My faith and adoration of The Office has been slipping for the past few seasons, but lately? It's been relegated to the very bottom-most spot on my list. Even below Gossip Girl. Because, whereas with GG, I'm still recording them and have the intention of someday actually watching them, I barely even record The Office anymore and don't even kind of ca
re if I never see episodes. I at least have some hope that GG will come back from its slump, but The Office has been hit or miss (mostly miss) for years now and I think I'm done. Every so often I'll catch and episode and while there are generally a few funny moments per episode, the past few I've seen have been so painfully unfunny that I didn't even finish them. It's hard to even remember what the episodes were about, let alone anything funny that happened in them. I was given quite a hard time when I first noted the slump in quality, but now, even longterm fans (oh, who am I kidding, especially longterm fans) have been forced to admit the decline. Some specific reasons it now mostly kinda sucks?
- Jim went from adorable prankster to managerial prick. Seriously, he suddenly became a real dick when he and Pam finally got together and it's not fun to watch. Even when he's pranking Dwight nowadays, it feels like he's just being an disdainful jackass. Thanks, but no thanks.
- Jim and Pam. That's pretty much the whole complaint. Wait. No. Jim and Pam and a baby. Oh, good lord, that's the way to make things better... You know, because bringing a baby onto a show always helps. [Sarcasm duly noted? Good.]
- It's not about the monotony of office life anymore. That was always the best part of the show and now? It's just one ridiculous hijink after another.
- Just about every character on the show is a cartoon character these days. You'd think that would make it funnier, but when there's no one who isn't clinically insane, the whole set-up falls apart.
- The show has been on for a really long time and the magic is gone. This is a problem for any show that's been on for more than a couple of seasons and The Office is feeling it. Bad.
HOUSE
This is kind of an interesting one... After the old ducklings were dismissed (except for Foreman, of course--because the secret ingredient in reinventing a show is keeping the lamest character around), the new ducklings started to drag things into the depths pretty quickly. I had largely lost all interest, but was still keeping up with the show. Barely. I would often fast-forward through the lamer storylines (13 + Parkinson's (or Forman) = where the hell 
did I put the remote?) and didn't seem to miss anything at all. The A-plots bored me even more than usual and the characters weren't holding my attention long enough to compensate. When the characters you actually care about only get 3 minutes of screen time a piece, it's hard to stay interested... But, in recent months, Foreman has been mostly marginalized, Cuddy finally got her groove back (the episode that focused on her was a refreshing change of pace and easily one of the best episodes in recent years), Wilson is getting more screentime, and Chase is back! It's as though the powers that be actually listened to my prayers! I'm not saying it's back in the top tier, but it has managed to pull itself up from no man's land to a respectable position in my second tier. Here's hoping this trend continues. If they could just get rid of the patient-of-the-week I think we'd have a top spot contender on our hands... Although admittedly, even the patients-of-the-week have been better. It's still the standard, tired conceit of yore, but I'm not fast-forwarding through as much of it...
PSYCH
Yet another show that it pains me to include on this list... Psych isn't in as dire of straights as other shows on this list (it simply moved from top tier to second), but it's headed in a direction that isn't encouraging. I think it's simply been on for too long. With the light-hearted tone and straight-up procedural concept, it's hard to really explore characters or dev
elop new ones, but I don't think this show has any other choice at this point. It's been the same old thing for way too long. Even the aspects of the show that I once loved have gotten tired and tedious. Shawn's cavalier, snarky barbs and crazy antics are falling flat after this much repetition and his and Gus' interactions have gotten completely stale. The most recent season started off with a bang, but the closing episodes left me underwhelmed. Add to the monotony the belabored will-they-or-won't-they relationship between Shawn and Juliet and the show is starting to fizzle. I'm not totally sure I even really care anymore. All the characters seem to have been boiled down into one-note cardboard cutouts of themselves so even when the writers try to give some depth or range, it seems artificial. I enjoyed the season finale quite a lot and hope it points to better things to come, but I'm not exactly brimming with confidence. I don't know what the show could really do to reinvent things, but they've got to do something or I fear I'm doomed to break up with this one. Here's hoping they get the spark back before my interest really starts to evaporate...
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