It’s rare for a series to start brilliantly, continue on that trajectory, and then stick the landing.
It’s why you typically hear those same TV series when people talk about the greatest of all time.
Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Sopranos, Seinfeld, and Mad Men—these series stayed consistent and kept audiences engrossed from start to finish.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case across the board.
More than likely, a series never finds its footing or lives up to its potential. Or it’s inconsistent at best, with a sluggish start and better finish.
And sometimes a show starts wonderfully, with acclaim and devotion from fans, only to stumble somewhere along the way and never truly recover.
There are several series like that, and we’ve compiled a list of a few of the most egregious. Those shows that were so good until they just weren’t.
Please look at our list below, and make sure you drop your thoughts in the comment section! There are lots of shows out there, so let us know if we missed any!
Empire
There’s a joke that everyone missed an Empire episode and never returned. And the funniest thing about that joke is that it’s true.
When Empire premiered on FOX, it was one of the biggest hits of its time. They had movie star leads in Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, alongside a talented cast of up-and-comers who gave credence to a dysfunctional family knee-deep in the toxicity of the music business.
The series peaked in its first season with compelling storylines that touched on abuse, homophobia, mental health, and many other topics.
They also had an exhilarating soundtrack of songs, and some cast members even went on the road to perform for the fans. (Think of those Glee concerts that used to take place but on a smaller stage.)
The bottom line is Empire was a cultural phenomenon, but they struggled to keep that first season momentum up through the rest of their run.
Cast turnover in subsequent seasons didn’t help, and the real issues began during Season 3 when the magic ran out. The shocking stories that were once a staple became predictable and cringeworthy.
By the time Empire limped to the finish line in Season 6 amidst a scandal with one of its cast members, ratings were nowhere near what they once were, and many people weren’t even aware the series was still on.
If you stopped watching after one of the earlier seasons, you saw the best Empire had to offer.
True Blood
Based on the Charlaine Harris book series, True Blood was a damn good show when it first premiered.
Sookie, Bill, Eric, Jason, Tara, Sam, Lafayette, and so many others created an entertaining look at life in the Deep South, where vampires roamed free and existed on synthetic blood called, you guessed it, true blood.
The best seasons of the series had the best villains, and the first three had tremendous villains, from Rene Lenier to Maryann and Russell Edington.
But Season 4 was the beginning of the end, and if we’re being honest, the series just got a little bit worse each season.
Season 4 had a weird time jump, Eric with amnesia and only concerned about Sookie, Bill as the King of Louisiana, and a bunch of side plots that weren’t interesting.
Each season got more convoluted than the last, and even the Sookie/Bill/Eric/Alcide love square couldn’t save it. The various time jumps didn’t help, especially during Season 6, which saw Sookie committed to Alcide without us seeing any of the buildup to that decision. We were just dropped into their relationship.
Seasons 1-3 are solid and easily some of the best fantasy horror television you’ll see, but from there, things took a nosedive, leaving fans to wonder what the hell happened.
Elite
Now, you could say this one doesn’t belong on the list because it’s still airing, but it’s impossible to imagine this series ever reaching the heights of its first three, and for that reason alone, it deserves a spot on the list.
The first season of Elite is almost perfect. The cast had tremendous chemistry, and the mystery of who killed Marina and the various relationships and clash of personalities and lifestyles made the season a must-watch.
From there, with increased popularity, the series continued to cruise for two more seasons, losing some cast members and gaining new ones but keeping the early seasons’ mysteries, surprises, and lively personalities intact.
But Season 3 saw the core group of students start to fracture, with Polo dead and Carla and Lu moving on.
The new crop of characters brought in is a phenomenon that continues each season, but they’ve never been able to capture the essence of what made that first season so memorable.
Scandal
Scandal started red-hot with a promising premise, a strong cast, and positive word of mouth. The Shondaland series rolled out fascinating episodes weekly, with shocking developments and steamy scenes that had everyone talking.
The series may have peaked in its second season with the stunning reveal that Olivia Pope and a group of wily politicians stole the presidential election for Fitzgerald Grant.
The series was never hotter than during this time, before Jake, B613, Eli becoming the big bad, and the monotony of Olivia and Fitz’s off-on relationship.
Everything from Season 3 onward never reached the heights of the second season. It’s almost as if they bit off more than they could chew.
While the series continued to provide entertainment, each passing season became mudded and often confusing, resulting in a final season that many fans would like to forget.
To this day, the series finale remains an unfortunate coda to what was once the most talk-about show on television.
L.A. Law
For those of you who missed this legal juggernaut in the ’80s (so, almost all of you), it’s now available on Hulu.
It’s a great experience and well worth the watch — to a point. Watching the show on streaming is an excellent reminder of how different TV was when streaming was unavailable.
The first five seasons of LA Law could be included in the best TV ever produced. Complex characters handled the biggest legal challenges of the day and were put through emotional and moral wringers.
Unfortunately, the contracts of its most valued stars — Harry Hamlin, Susan Dey, and Jimmy Smits — were up at the end of Season 5. Although they were wrapped up in significant storylines that closed it out, those stories collapsed in on themselves that summer.
Watching it on Hulu gives you whiplash. Nothing makes sense, as Season 6 premieres without much (unwelcome) exposition. Now, that’s not to say there isn’t some value in continuing the show, but it is remarkable how quickly a show can pivot quality-wise to something based on cast alone.
New Amsterdam
It feels like every decade, there’s that one medical series that is critically acclaimed and a fan favorite, too. When New Amsterdam debuted, it fit the bill, providing saccharine storytelling that left you misty-eyed and feeling fuzzy.
Its premise tapped into something that resonated with viewers at large, particularly with the general malaise, frustration, and distrust toward the U.S. Healthcare system.
New Amsterdam fed us what, more often than not, feels like a delusion about a system that can change within many doctors led by the optimistic Max Goodwin.
The first season was wonderful because of that, so much so that the series got an automatic three-year reveal. It was as if there was a deep understanding of this series’s importance, its long-lasting impact, and so forth.
And while the sophomore season had some bumps here and there, it was still a solid offering. However, the transparent attempt to cover every conceivable “hot button” issue via some form of healthcare had Max’s idealism venturing into toxic positivity and unrealism.
Attempts to cover things like the Black Lives Matter movement, and poorly, made the series political for the sake of it without actually having anything of value to say.
The nail in the coffin was the series finally putting fan-favorite couple Sharpwin together and then utterly ruining their relationship by having them take off to London for some unfathomable reason.
Their relationship fell apart as Max got stood up at the altar of their surprise wedding in New Amsterdam, on the rooftop, during a hurricane.
By the time we got the complete denigration they did to Helen Sharpe in the fifth season and the horrendous storytelling of the fifth season that had most of the actors phoning it in, it was torturous to continue the series.
In the Dark
When In the Dark broke onto the scene it felt like something refreshing and new for The CW. Led by an impossibly gorgeous Perry Mattfeld as the polarizing hot mess that is Murphy Mason, the series was truly unique in concept and execution.
The first season was great. We followed a blind Murphy and her trusty seeing-eye dog, Pretzel, through a murder investigation into one of the few characters we’d come to learn who genuinely loved the complex woman.
In the Dark was a dark comedy throughout, wading into crooked cops, the criminal underbelly of drug dealing, and murder. It was a fascinating look at how relatively decent people could descend into immorality.
By the third season, the shenanigans Murphy and the gang got into were getting so insanely ridiculous that one was well past having to suspend belief. Things fell apart when Murphy’s best friend, roommate/enabler, and hater, Jessica, disappeared.
By the time the truth behind Jessica’s disappearance was brought to light, the series had reached a point of insufferable, and the final season was nothing short of an unbearable shit show leading to one of the worst series finales in existence.
Nashville
When Nashville premiered on ABC, it captured hearts with well-acted storylines and soulful songs.
It appealed to many viewers because, with three main couples (Deacon/Reyna, Gunnar/Scarlett, and Juliette/Avery), one of their stories appealed to them.
Whether it was the star-crossed lovers trying to reunite, the screw-ups trying to bond, or the couple who bonded over tragedies, there was something for everyone.
While the drama was the pull, the duets on the show also drew viewers in. Initially, we were crushed when ABC canceled the series and relieved when CMT saved it, but now we wish it ended in Season 4.
If it had, we wouldn’t have had to endure Rayna’s death, Scarlett’s miscarriage, or Juliette joining a cult. Only Deacon received layered storylines in the last two seasons.
Game of Thrones
This may be a controversial entry because Game of Thrones is a must-watch series that some will say is one of the best of the 2010s.
HBO series have a history of being really good, and the first seasons of Game of Thrones are genuinely excellent. From Ned’s death to the mother of dragons and ultimately one of the most shocking episodes of all time in Season 3’s The Rain of Castamere, the series was appointment television.
While death was rampant, cast members were coming and going, and storylines were constantly in flux, the series remained relevant and intriguing.
Long breaks between seasons didn’t deter fans from salivating for new seasons. And even now, some five-plus years after it ended, starting a re-watch or diving into the series for the first time will result in long binge sessions because the series is just that addictive.
But the final season, which came out nearly two years after Season 7, felt rushed from the jump and just got increasingly worse as the season went on.
The battle at Winterfell has its moments, but the lighting of the episode is still mocked to this day, and the White Walker conflict failed to live up to the years of buildup.
From there, Daenerys’ destruction of King’s Landing was unsatisfying at best, and Jon then subsequently stabbing Daenerys felt like a stab to all of our hearts, even if she was a far cry from the character we’d come to know at that point.
Perhaps, the icing on the crap cake was Bran becoming the king of the Seven Kingdoms. No shade to Bran, but it just was not the ending anyone wanted.
Game of Thrones will always remain a good show, but it lost its claim to great when it put out those final six episodes to close things out.
Picket Fences
This show aired in the early 1990s and was the first major show produced by David E. Kelley, fresh from his writing for L.A. Law. It’s often unfairly compared to Twin Peaks because it takes place in a small town where strange things happen.
However, it’s more of a lawyer/family drama, and some of the drama comes from weirdness, especially in the first season.
The idea is that Rome, Wisconsin, is a small, Midwestern town that seems idyllic on the surface, but all sorts of crime and unethical activity are happening behind closed doors.
The show addressed social issues of the time and was ahead of its time in many ways until it was ruined in the final season.
Picket Fences was always on the bubble, and the third season finale felt like a series finale (ironically, it aired on CBS in the spot that Blue Bloods has dominated for 14 years).
The town was in shock after the priest was murdered in the confessional after resisting a mugger’s demands, and the episode ended with a pageant where the characters celebrated the unique nature of their town.
Fans were thrilled to learn it was coming back until it did. Season 4 was written by entirely new writers, who turned it into a generic, boring, and disappointing family drama that was more like a soap opera than anything else.
The series wrapped up with a stupid, unnecessary series of weddings (and Tom Skerritt’s character having liver cancer).
It should have ended the season before, which would have been a brilliant and uplifting ending that actually fit the show and its premise.
