The 25 Worst Seasons of Great TV Shows

Everybody makes mistakes. It's sometimes hard to admit that in the age of overzealous Internet criticism and ardent fanboy defenses of any decent media that comes down the pike. No matter how bad it is to openly acknowledge, even the best shows can have down moments, or even down years. While some televisions shows, like The Wire and Arrested Development were able to make it through their run without a weak season, most programs, especially those that enjoy long runs, occasionally, and disastrously, run afoul.

Off seasons can happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a show loses a showrunner, other times they can't negotiate a new contract with the lead actor, and from time to time the story just comes to an end before the ratings and accompanying ad money are ready to call it quits.

When Groucho Marx said, "They can't all be gems," he was, prophetically speaking, talking about The 25 Worst Seasons of Great TV Shows. Or so we'd like to think.

Written by Brenden Gallagher (muddycreekU)

25. Parks and Recreation, Season 1 (NBC; April 9, 2009 - May 14, 2009)

We love Parks and Recreation, but even we have to admit that the show took some time to find its legs. We're not sure if it was too much Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), a truncated amount of episodes, or the need of the quirky cast to settle into a comfortable rythm with each other, but the first six episodes pale in comparison to the heights of later seasons.

Even show co-creator Greg Daniels was aware that Parks and Rec didn't roar out of the gate. Daniels said, "I think we were feeling that the first six episodes were like one big pilot, we shot it so fast. But we had plenty of ideas about what we wanted to do, and part of what takes time is learning how to write for and collaborate with the actors."

Luckily for Daniels and co-creator Michael Schur, NBC has allowed Parks to flourish despite relatively unimpressive ratings. Even those few, sad people who don't like the show have to acknowledge that it has taken huge strides since its shaky premier was percieved as little more than an Office ripoff. Comedy nerds will be forever grateful that, at the time, NBC didn't have anything to take its place along the lines of Whitney or Guys with Kids.

24. Felicity, Season 4 (The WB; October 10, 2001 - May 22, 2002)

Felicity features one of the craziest plot twists in teen drama history. While time travel is something that we'd expect from a sci-fi show, and is even downright run-of-the-mill on a program like Dr. Who, TV properties previously steeped in realism probably shouldn't employ it as a plot device.

Even worse, Felicity (Keri Russell) doesn't even do anything cool once she has the time travelling powers. She predictably uses her newfound abilities to engineer a relationship with a boy (after all, this was the WB) only to cheat on said boy one measly episode later. What an unfortuante ending for a show that saw its early seasons showered with award nominations for its acting, cinematography, and editing.

23. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 6 (UPN; October 2, 2001 - May 21, 2002)

Buffy's fifth season finale was one for the record books, but the events of that excellent episode created some serious problems its following season. The result was a sixth run that didn't quite fit the tone of a show that had built its reputation on its ability to shift focus from deeply earnest scenes to more light-hearted moments. Yes, Buffy's weakest season ended up earning more critical accolades than most of the other low points on this list, but fans still feel some discomfort with its somber events.

22. Prison Break, Season 2 (Fox; August 21, 2006 - April 2, 2007)

So, what happens on a show called Prison Break once the characters get out of prison? The long answer is complicated, but a short answer is "nothing nearly as exciting as when they were in prison."

Though the second season had some things going for it, there's a reason that the characters got sent back to prison at the end of season 2, only to attempt an escape once again during the following season. It's difficult to sustain a show once you remove the original premise. Many showrunners have attempted to keep a show going past it's logical conclusion, so you can't help but give the Prison Break team some credit for taking as daring a risk as taking the show beyond prison walls, even if it didn't work flawlessly.

21. Northern Exposure, Season 6 (CBS; September 19, 1994 - July 26, 1995)

Northern Exposure was an adventurous, thoughtful fish-out-of-water comedy that was unlike anything else on television. The plots were generally anchored around Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), a New York-born intellectual doctor, getting used to living among the zany, outdoorsy residents of remote Cicely, Alaska. The series was consistantly strong throughout, but snags were hit when Morrow held out for a larger payday following its fifth season.

The writers had Fleischman go into the woods to "find himself," which meant that the fish had finally embraced being out of water and the series was largely resolved. Though they slotted other characters in to fill Fleischman's neurotic shoes, and many of the show's other characters are more unique and memorable than Dr. Joel, Morrow's character was ultimately the heart of the show, and seasons where he takes a back seat simply don't compare.

20. Homeland, Season 2 (Showtime; September 30, 2012 - December 16, 2012)

Anyone who followed the critical reception of Homeland during the show's recently concluded second season knows that the deepest hope harbored by the show's most ardent fans and favorable critics was that the show wouldn't "become 24." While most fans agree that the show didn't hit the levels of superficial action and beyond belief antics of later seasons of the Keifer Sutherland hit, the critical community was generally disappointed with the second season of this Emmy-winner.

The first season was crafted cleanly while avoiding the logical leaps that so many "spy shows" often fall into; season 2, on the other hand, presented a number of character, plot, and even technology problems that gave viewers pause and left them hoping for a return to form in the third season.

19. The Daily Show, Season 1 (Comedy Central)

The Daily Show wasn't bad when Craig Kilborn hosted—it just wasn't great. The show began with what Stephen Colbert has called a "local news" feel, lacking the sharp political focus it would gain under Jon Stewart.

Producer Lizz Winstead had always wanted to push the show in an overtly political direction, but met resistance from the network. The lack of vision was particularly damaging during the "correspondant" segments. Rather than sharp, yet jokingly naive, political commentary, the early versions of these segments came off as merely mean-spirited. One early critique of the show from The New York Times was harsh, but, in our view, pretty spot on, describing the show as "bereft of an ideological or artistic center... precocious but empty."

18. Lost, Season 3 (ABC; October 4, 2006 - May 23, 2007)

The weak first half of Lost's third season resulted in some soul-searching. The flashback technique of the series was growing stale and the character revelations from the past began to feel repetitive. In response to this problem, Lost's producers limited its focus on the main characters, which further aggravated fans.

Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who had been a fan favorite and was on screen more than almost any other character, appears in only half the episodes of season 3. The new characters, Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) and Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro), were not hitting with audiences. Co-creator Damon Lindelof went as far as to admit that the couple was universally despised. This led to a hiatus to re-focus the show.

Though the second block of episodes came back with a vengeance, making a number of improvements, including getting rid of the offending new characters, the damage was already done.

17. The X-Files, Season 8 (Fox; November 5, 2000 - May 20, 2001)

With The X-Files, we have another instance of a show trying to live on past one of its main characters and paying the price. The entire chemistry of the show rested on the balance of the relationship between Agent Mulder (David Duchovny), the true-believer, and Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson), the skeptic. Though lingering questions around key plot points and Scully's drifting away from her skepticism began to irk longtime fans as the show moved forward, die-hard X-philes hung on for the ride.

A show with a foundation so firmly built on a relationship between two characters can hardly expect to survive one of their departures. Sure, the Agents who joined the show after David Duchovny left a moldering (see what we did there?) hole in the series were game, but they couldn't hope to replace the seven-year relatoinship between belief and skepticism that comprised the show's fundamental fabric.

16. Gilmore Girls, Season 7 (The CW; September 22, 2006 - May 15, 2007)

Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino's mile-a-minute pop-culture-reference-laden cadences made her the undipisuted master of teen angst comedy dialogue with Gilmore Girls. As this list bears out, a showrunner leaving is damning to almost any series. Sherman-Palladino may be unique, however, in that she may have been the first showrunner to leave a show citing too much creative control.

She told Vulture, "It was a botched negotiation. It really was about the fact that I was working too much. I was going to be the crazy person who was locked in my house and never came out. I heard a lot of 'Amy doesn't need a writing staff because she and [her husband] Dan Palladino write everything!' I thought, That's a great mentality on your part, but if you want to keep the show going for two more years, let me hire more writers."

The situation ended up lose-lose, as Palladino and her husband walked, leaving the show without its unique, quirky voice and Gilmore Girls still needed a horde of new writers to have any shot of mimicking Palladino's trademark voice.

15. The Cosby Show, Season 6 (NBC; September 24, 1989 - May 3, 1990)

Raven-Symoné joined the cast of The Cosby Show as Olivia when bossman Bill decided the child actors were getting too old. Thus, an element of cuteness had to be injected back into the show. The writers took the directive a bit too far, though, and Olivia-centric episodes turned the show's overall tone distinctly sachhrine.

The addition of the pint-sized actress marked the beginning of a tough period for the show that would see the persistent addition of new characters as the series moved towards its inevitable conclusion. The Cosby Show went on to call it quits after season 8.

14. Weeds, Season 4 (Showtime; June 16, 2008 - September 15, 2008)

Fans of Weeds were drawn in by a surburban satire of a housewife (played by Mary-Louise Parker) who had to sell drugs to support her family. By the fourth season, the show was no longer set in the suburbs, and the family was pretty much taking care of itself, and many fans felt that Weedswas no longer the show they had signed on for.

Though we never think it is a great idea to keep a show treading the same ground over and over again, season 4 went too far, presenting an entirely different show from the prior three seasons. Losing Agrestic—the parodically suburban setting of the first three seasons—was a blow, one that was compounded as it became increasingly difficult to understand Nancy's motivations when she was longer fighter for her family's financial well-being on a weekly basis.

13. Rescue Me, Season 4 (FX; June 13, 2007 - September 12, 2007)

Rescue Me was simple yet wonderful in its early seasons. The show was nothing more and nothing less than a bunch of firemen bullshitting and ballbusting in the firehouse as they repressed their problems. We loved watching that. But as Rescue Me wore on and the fundamental building blocks of the show (most notably Denis Leary's character's unresolved emotions regarding 9/11) grew more and more distant, it pressed further into melodrama.

Extreme acts of violence, sexuality, and even arson, became somewhat regular and the show devolved from dramedy into full blown soap opera. While this decline was gradual, season 4 was the tippping point for many viewers and critics, and the show never recovered.

12. Justified, Season 1 (FX; March 16, 2010 - June 8, 2010)

Justified's first season wasn't bad by any stretch—in fact, many critics had the show on their year-end top ten lists. Justified began as a series of one-offs, with Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) dishing out justice, and bullets, to a new bad guy each week. As the show grew, it appeared that the writers learned what they had in some of their supporting actors—like Walton Goggins, who plays the fiery Boyd Crowder—and began to see potential for sustained drama in Harlan County.

Late into season 1, Justified moved to a more serialized approach, focusing in on the tension between Boyd and Raylan. The choice to serialize Justified and limit the number of one-off episodes set the stage for the phenomenal second season of the show, which launched the show to a level we hope it never comes down from.

11. Seinfeld, Season 8 (NBC; September 19, 1996 - May 15, 1997)

Sometimes one season of television can turn bad with merely a single episode. Many fans feel that Seinfeld's finale season was lackluster overall, as comedy mastermind Larry David had already left the show. What they likely remember most vividly, however, was just how dissapointing the finale was.

The "show about nothing" ended with a strange reunion episode, as the characters finally received their comeuppance in court, at the hands of characters from their past, and managed to land themselves in jail. Anyone who was watching TV at the time remembers the extreme hype around the episode, and perhaps we are less kind in retrospect because of the build-up.

Nonetheless, a finale that was both structurallly and geographically different from the formula that made the series great was unexpected, and enough to tip a middling final season into flat-out dissapointment.

10. Californication, Season 3 (Showtime; September 27, 2009 - December 13, 2009)

Though Californication's third season featured the stubborn refusal to resolve longstanding plotlines, the season's fundamental problem was far more, er, shallow, than that. While fans of the show can likely find ways to enjoy, or at least overlook, Hank Moody's (David Duchovny) intense promiscuity in the first several seasons, it starts to wear thin by this stretch.

It doesn't help that many of the objects of his lust are the college students he's teaching. Although there was nothing illegal about what Professor Moody was doing, it's hard to root for a guy who's behaving this scummy with women this young. Moody's behavior while he was on staff in the English department was a low point, even for everyone's favorite sex-crazed writer. It can be fine drama to watch a man's wife and daughter stop believing in him, but it's harder when the audience stops believing in him too.

9. Sons of Anarchy, Season 4 (FX; September 6, 2011 - December 6, 2011)

The fictional town of Charming, California, had so much potentional. The unique setting of Sons of Anarchy—a classic American town compromised by its need for SAMCRO—could have been as richly textured as Pawnee (Parks and Recreation) or Harlan County (Justified). The relationship between Jax (Charlie Hunnam) and Clay (Ron Perlman) also had interesting possiblities as showrunner Kurt Sutter's promise of "Hamlet on motorcycles" seemed so close to running its course by the end of season 3 that you could taste it.

But then the Sons went off to Ireland and pushed the pause button on the plots viewers had been waiting so long to resolve. While we love Sons of Anarchy as much as any pop culture outlet, we're among those still waiting for the show to payoff what we view as its initial promises, instead of adding new gangs to blow up with each passing season.

8. The West Wing, Season 5 (NBC; September 24, 2003 - May 19, 2004)

Aaron Sorkin left The West Wing for financial reasons at the end of its fourth season. A great series often has trouble continuing on strong after losing its founding showrunner, but Sorkin went out of his way not to make things easy for John Wells, who had the uneviable job of replacing Mr. Walk-and-Talk himself.

Sorkin left the plot twisted as tightly as he could for Wells to unravel, going as far as to have the President's daughter kidnapped by the previous season's end. As a result, Wells had to spend a good chunk of season 5 getting himself out of the trouble that Sorkin had left for him. Though many viewers and critics agree that the final two seasons of the show did a fair job of regrouping the show, Wells' first season as shotcaller was a lost cause from the start.

7. The Office, Season 8 (NBC; September 22, 2011 - May 10, 2012)

No matter how much time the producers have to prepare for it, and despite how game the rest of the cast is to move forward, losing a major cast member is one of the most difficult things for a show to overcome.

Steve Carrell was the indisputable headliner of The Office with his portrayal of Michael Scott, but he'd also become an American comedy icon along the way. Finding humanity in a character like Michael Scott is a great comedic feat, and it's extremely difficult to imagine the show without the sweet sweet ineptitude of Michael Scott. Though The Office has made an amirable effort in Carrell's absence, its post-Michael episodes just feel flat.

6. The Simpsons, Season 1 (Fox; December 17, 1989 - May 13, 1990)

A common complaint against the first season of The Simpsons was (and still is) how inferior and cheap the early animation looked next to the more mature renderings of later seasons, which is certainly true. Still, there were other issues that held The Simpsons back in its infancy.

Early on, Homer and Bart were far rougher around the edges—Homer with his quick anger and Bart with his troublemaking. The writers toned down these aspects as the series went on and focused on the lovable stupidity of both characters. The town of Springfield would grow to be one of the most richly populated in television history, but at the beginning, the landscape felt sparse, as the dozens of Sprinfield residents we would come to know and love were mere sketches of what they would become.

Sure, these complaints are similar to those that one would have about any show, but when something continues on as long as The Simpsons has, those nitpicks come into fuller view.

5. All in the Family, Season 8 (CBS; October 2, 1997 - March 19, 1978)

All in the Family became a hit by breaking with convention. Any topic was fair game for crusty curmudgeon Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), from racism to breast cancer. When one of the main sources of Bunker's ire, Rob Reiner's Mike Stivic, left the show, the sounding board for Bunker's backwards ideas was lost. He was replaced with a little girl named Stephanie (Danielle Brisebois) who was abandoned by her father. Even a man who's as rough around the edges as Bunker is going to be softened by a young orphan child.

Needless to say, a little girl did not provide the same level of comic antagonism as Rob Reiner. The next season saw a re-naming of the show and the death of Archie's wife in a last-ditch, failed attempt to revive a once-great program that was already dead.

4. Scrubs, Season 9 (ABC; December 1, 2009 - March 17, 2010)

It's one thing to replace one character on a show, but when you replace the majority of them, then you're in real trouble. The final Scrubs season moved the story from Sacred Heart Hospital to the medical school at Winston University. While Turk (Donald Faison) and Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) hung around, most of your favorite characters only appeared in fleeting appearances, if at all.

Thew ninth season of Scrubs may have been better branded as a spin-off, as those of us who were fans of the show remember feeling cheated by the final season, which made it all but impossible to enjoy.

3. Roseanne, Season 9 (ABC; September 17, 1996 - May 20, 1997)

If we asked you what you thought the worst thing you could do to a comedy about a working class family was, you'd probably say, "Have them win the lottery," right? Well, that's exactly what happened on season 9 of Roseanne.

Up to that point, Roseanne had followed the Connor family as they struggled to keep their family together through the hard times, as life threw them curveballs from unemployment to unplanned pregnancy. After all of that, the ninth season began with the Connor family hitting the lottery and becoming millionaires. Strangely, with all of their problems solved for them, the Connor clan ceased to be as fun as they had been when they were barely getting by and the show limped through a less-than-stellar series finale.

2. Dallas, Season 9 (CBS; September 27, 1985 - May 16, 1986)

At the end of season 9 of Dallas, the writing staff made one of the strangest, most ill-advised choices in TV history.

The soap opera, which followed the exploits of a rich Texas family, continues to be one of the most celebrated in television history, and with good reason. Dallaswas home to Larry Hagman's J.R. Ewing, perhaps the most beloved villain in TV history. The show was no stranger to big season enders either, as their "Who Shot J.R.?" cliffhanger was one of the biggest events ever witnessed on the small screen.

These credentials made it all the more of a headscratcher when Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy), who had been thought dead, showed up in the shower at the end of the last episode, rendering numerous earlier episodes meaningless. Even Dallas couldn't totally bounce back from that. This is generally agreed upon as the show's "Jump the Shark" moment.

1. Friday Night Lights, Season 2 (NBC; October 5, 2007 - February 8, 2008)

The second season of Friday Night Lights is often held up as the ultimate TV show run that fell short. Critics were so distraught by the relative weakness of season 2 that they are

Looking back on it, perhaps the largest problem is that Coach (Kyle Chandler) wasn't the coach. Much of the season was spent illustrating to us why Coach Taylor needs the Panthers and they need him, which is all well and good, but does little more than make us hunger for his return to the Dillon sideline.