Best of 2014: Disappointments range from ‘True Blood’ to ‘Elementary’
Yesterday, we started off our Best of 2014 series with an article that really highlighted some of the Most Underrated Shows of the year. Now, we’re changing course with the second category.
This is Most Disappointing Show, and we imagine here that the name speaks for itself. These are shows that we had big expectations for in 2014 to be something great, and have at least so far turned out to be frustrating more so than tremendous. Let it be known that we’re not necessarily saying that they are the worst shows of the year (there’s another category coming up for that); we just thought that they were going to be special, and they have instead turned out to be barely tolerable or something less.
We explained the entire system we’re implementing for this year’s CarterMatt Awards Series over at the Underrated Shows page, but a quick refresher here: Voting is open for each category for two weeks. Therefore, the winner here will be announced come Tuesday, December 16.
The Blacklist (NBC) – One of our favorite shows from last season, “The Blacklist” is in a major sophomore slump. They spent most of the season hyping a “twist” that was incredible transparent in Tom’s return. Also, we somehow still barely know the supporting cast, and the villains for season 2 have felt borrowed from other shows. We know that this series can do better. We’ve seen it. We even stopped podcasting about it just because we were running out of things to say.
Elementary (CBS) – While we never thought that this was the cream of the crop for crime procedurals, it was fun. So far in season 3, though, we’ve got no clue what in the world is going on here. Not having Sherlock and Joan working together all the time has basically rendered the show boring. In turn, the lower ratings are reflecting that.
Survivor: San Juan del Sur (CBS) – This is what happens when you come off of what may be one of the best seasons of the show ever, and then have a misguided twist, some poor casting (John Rocker and his girlfriend, who eventually quit), and then an outcome that seems to be eliminating the good players and fans of the show. The joy of “Survivor,” though, is that it will be back with hopefully a great season this spring. (Who knows? Maybe the next couple of weeks could also save it.)
NCIS (CBS) – It is still a solid show twelve years in, but when was the last time that you went to work the next day talking about what happened on “NCIS” the night before? This felt like the year of the show playing it really safe; maybe this was a response to all of the big changes in 2013, or maybe the show just doesn’t have that oomph to shock us now
True Blood (HBO) – We didn’t really think that the show was going to have that hard of a time ending things. Just make sure that Sookie had Bill … and then they messed that up. Seriously, for a premium cable show, why was this entire final season a complete hodgepodge of nonsense? While we didn’t like the ending of “How I Met Your Mother,” at least most of the final season was still good.