The 25 Worst TV Shows of 2012

Image via Complex Original

Stars: Charlie Sheen, Selma Blair, Shawnee Smith, Daniela Bobadilla, Noureen DeWulf, Michael Arden, Derek Richardson, Barry Corbin

When FX announced its new Charlie Sheen-led comedy series Anger Management, the controversial actor's first look after the whole Two and a Half Men fiasco seemed like a no-brainer.

Sheen, who's no stranger to mood changes and temperament issues in real life, plays an ex-baseball stud (the actor actually was a legit player before making any Hollywood moves) who bangs his own therapist (Selma Blair), oversees a group of crazies as an anger management shrink, and tries to raise a rebellious teenage daughter (Daniela Bobadilla). It sounded like a role Sheen could kill in his sleep, and, most importantly, one that's quite different from his Two and a Half Men playboy.

Anger Management's producers thought otherwise, working overtime to make their once-promising show look and feel like a Two and a Half Men clone, even turning Sheen's character into a duller version of the CBS sitcom's Charlie Harper.

Stars: Jordana Spiro, William Forsythe, Jaime Lee Kirchner, James Carpinello, Jesse Lee Soffer, Zach Gilford

We had high hopes for The Mob Doctor. With the oversaturation of medical dramas on television, it seemed promising that the Fox series mixed things up a bit by adding touches of The Sopranos into a familiar emergency room premise. The likable Jordana Spiro plays Grace Devlin, a successful surgeon who uses her hospital paychecks to help her brother clear a large gambling debt with angry Mafia members. Doesn't sound half bad, right?

Instead of focusing on that streamlined plot, The Mob Doctor became a patient-of-the-week lark, finding Grace helping out a different gangster in each episode. One week, she has to tend to a convict who wants to give his young daughter his heart; the next, her mob boss mentor (William Forsythe) wants her to oversee a pregnancy so he can give the baby to some Canadian couple.

It's a good thing The Mob Doctor is a wrap: Eventually, Grace would've been stuck resuscitating a fat Gambino who choked on his spaghetti.

Stars: Sarah Jones, Jorge Garcia, Sam Neill, Parminder Nagra, Jonny Coyne, Robert Forster

There was a great show lurking somewhere within the confined walls of Alcatraz, one that could have wowed viewers with a combined force of Lost’s puzzling mythology and Fringe’s lean, mean character work. Unfortunately, and unlike those other two J.J. Abrams-produced shows, Alcatraz went up to bat with an 0-2 count—the strikes being Sarah Jones’ unconvincing San Francisco detective character and Lost alum Jorge Garcia’s stereotypically nerdy Comic-Con regular of a doctor.

With their two weakly written leads, series creators Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lilien, and Bryan Wynbrandt never stood a chance at drawing us into their admittedly intriguing world of time travel, supernatural mysteries, and cryptic history lessons.

The basic set-up, that of the island's infamous prisoners turning up one by one after disappearing in 1963, baited Alcatraz’s writers into spending too much time delivering a case-of-the-week program, foolishly parceling out reveals and information as a way to construct a series that’d need three or four seasons to truly congeal. The show’s cancellation, after only 13 episodes, burdened viewers with just as many questions as complaints.

Certain reality shows produce talent-deficient stars who quickly dominate gossip blogs and, subsequently, irk the hell out of most rational human beings. The year's prime example would be Here Comes Honey Boo Boo star Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson, but she's only seven-years-old—it's not fair to hate on a little girl whose mother is really to blame.

Thus, the 2012 award for most undeservedly overexposed reality star goes to Courtney Stodden, meaning that her VH1 show Couples Therapy is a lock for this worst TV shows list. Forget the fact that the 18-year-old Stodden married the much older Doug Hutchison (who's 50-plus) when she was only 16. Together on Couples Therapy, they're a never-ending source for irritability, nausea, and a general hatred for the reality medium.

As a result, Couples Therapy (despite also featuring Too Short and former Jodeci member JoJo) is unbearable.

Clearly, we're fans of The Walking Dead around here—just check out the AMC zombie show's No. 1 ranking on our list of the year's best TV shows. So as much as it pains us to call out its unnecessary Sunday night follow-up program, Talking Dead, the truth is unavoidable here.

Aside from the fact that it's simply an AMC vanity project, Talking Dead typically wastes 30 minutes by having well-intentioned host Chris Hardwick get all gee-whiz over The Walking Dead with fellow celebrity fanboys like Chuck star Zachary Levi and WWE bruiser CM Punk. So, yes, it's essentially what you and your boys do after each The Walking Dead episode: Analyze the show from a secondhand watcher's perspective, not an expert's stance.

Occasionally, The Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara, comic book creator Robert Kirkman, and makeup effects master Greg Nicotero stop by the set to offer actual insider opinions, but their appearances are few and far between (and oftentimes they speak vaguely to avoid spoilers anyway). More often than not, it's someone like rocker Joel Madden discussing his homemade zombie survival kit. We'd rather hear the late Lori Grimes (Sarah Wayne Callies) give a Mother of the Year Award acceptance speech.

Stars: Reba McEntire, Sara Rue, Justin Prentice, Juliette Angelo, Lily Tomlin, Jai Rodriguez

In an age where the funniest sitcoms on TV (Parks and Recreation, Modern Family) get by without manufactured chuckles behind each joke, laugh tracks feel more unnecessarily distracting by the day. Especially when a show uses the fake giggle recordings to mask punch lines that aren't the least bit humorous.

Case in point: Malibu Country, starring the jovial Reba McEntire as a mother of two who moves into a new home with her kids and mother (Lily Tomlin) to get away from her cheating husband. Since she's from Nashville, McEntire's character exists as nothing more than a source of country bumpkin gags—she and her family are clearly out of their element living in the decidedly un-country Malibu, CA.

And just in case you can't comprehend how zany it is that she's a country singer who has to watch Travie McCoy cover one of her songs, there's always that laugh track to drive the point home.

Stars: Anthony Anderson, Jesse Bradford, Zach Cregger, Tempestt Bledsoe, Erinn Hayes, Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Every year, there's at least one new sitcom centered around the idea that male slackers really aren't all that bad. In 2011, it was the CBS trainwreck How to be a Gentleman, starring a post-Entourage Kevin Dillon. This year, the obligatory show was NBC's Guys with Kids, a mostly laugh-free look at three dudes whose usual daily routines of talking sports and complaining about their significant others get upended by newborn children.

The humor was embarrassingly lazy: See, they're "bros" walking around with Baby Björns and looking overwhelmed by parenthood! That's so crazy, right? Who can't relate to that? The saddest thing about Guys with Kids: Two of its executive producers are Jimmy Fallon (who's also a co-creator) and SNL honcho Lorne Michaels, two funny guys who should know better.

Stars: David Krumholtz, Michael Urie, Sophia Bush, Brandon Routh

Some sitcoms are so bland that it's difficult to complain about them—if the producers can't bother to show creativity, why should haters waste mental power finding clever ways to destroy their series? Because it's fun to be mean, of course.

In the case of Partners, the butt of all insulting jokes should be the overall stock feeling. Its premise—two buddies working together and helping each other cope with annoying relationships—was only slightly less perfunctory than its nondescript stars (David Krumholtz and Michael Urie), who did little to enliven the ho-hum jokes and desperate plots.

In one episode, Krumholtz's character gets insanely jealous over his wife's attractions to Derek Jeter and Justin Timberlake. Pre-cancellation, it was only a matter of time until his love for Kate Upton powered an entire one-joke episode.

Stars: Donald Faison, Wayne Knight, David Alan Basche, Kristen Johnston, Kelly Stables

The Exes is like the less interesting and less superficially appealing version of Fox's New Girl. Their plots are similar: Here, David Alan Basche plays a divorced guy who moves in with two single male roommates, and supposed hilarity ensues.

On New Girl, though, hilarity actually does ensue—The Exes, unfortunately, subjects veterans of better sitcoms (Scrubs alum Donald Faison, Seinfeld favorite Wayne Knight) to hackneyed scripts, lifeless one-liners, and a drone of a leading man (Basche). We'll stick to the spunky and sexy one-two combo of New Girl's Zooey Deschanel and Hannah Simone.

Stars: Jami Gertz, Lenny Venito, Simon Templeman, Toks Olagundoye, Max Charles, Isabella Camp, Ian Patrick

Remember 3rd Rock from the Sun? Full of wit and starring a strong ensemble cast (including John Lithgow and a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt), that aliens-in-the-suburbs sitcom was an enjoyable romp harmlessly playing on both sci-fi punch lines and fish-out-of-water situations. ABC's latest domesticated E.T. series, The Neighbors, on the other hand, crash-landed onto Earth's airwaves with stale jokes that flatlined during every episode.

A typical set-up on The Neighbors, which is, of course, set in New Jersey (Aren't all bad shows these days?): An alien named Jackie Joyner-Kersee (since they've all taken names of famous athletes as their own) unintentionally embarrasses her new human friend Debbie (Jami Gertz) by acting like one of those fancy-pants women from The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Where's the Xenomorph from Ridley Scott's Alien when you need it?

Stars: Terry O’Quinn, Vanessa Williams, Rachael Taylor, Dave Annable, Robert Buckley, Mercedes Masohn, Erik Palladino, Helena Mattsson, Samantha Jade Logan

Blame Ryan Murphy and his wacky FX hit American Horror Story. Seeing that off-the-wall genre series' cultural resonance, ex-Fringe producer David Wilcox and the ABC brass hoped to emulate the AHS formula with 666 Park Avenue, only without any of the overt sadism, graphic provocations, and general R-rated insanity that a cable network like FX affords showrunners.

Benefitting from an attractive cast and some effective ambiance, 666 Park Avenue's pilot hinted at good things to come. Unfortunately, the show's inherent flaws surfaced faster than you can say "wannabe Rosemary's Baby." Wasting scene-stealers like Terry O'Quinn (Lost) and Vanessa Williams, ABC's great horror hype feel deeply into a cauldron of cheesy CGI, demonic movie clichés, and hammy acting.

Hanging out in comic book stores is always good fun, even if you leave empty-handed after two hours of chit-chatting and casual browsing. Vicariously spending time alongside stacks of Marvel and DC titles while sitting on your couch, however, isn't very exciting, especially when the store's workers aren't funny.

The brainchild of Kevin Smith, Comic Book Men comes across as a cheap attempt to capitalize on pop culture's current fixation on superhero movies. It's also a relatively inexpensive way for Smith to give his best friends (full-grown geeks earning paychecks inside the filmmaker's New Jersey shop, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash) some camera time, but here's the problem: None of the guys are remotely interesting, and describing their banter as Clerks-light would be an overly generous compliment.

Was there ever a reality show more scripted than Kourtney and Kim Take New York? Other than Jersey Shore? Yeah, that's what we thought. Kourtney and Kim was one of the twenty million (OK, four) spin-offs spawned from E!'s flagship series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and it featured the two sisters as they "took" New York by opening a D-A-S-H location in Soho. They're accompanied by their respective hubbies at the time, Scott Disick and Kris Humphries, and the series often featured guest appearances from other Kardashians like Kris Jenner and Khloe.

Though the series was supposed to be about the so-called drama and so-called work that the two sisters were putting in to opening a new location of their "family run" store in NYC, much of the drama from this past season ended up being derived from the strained new marriage between Kim and Kris, who ended up divorcing by the end of the season (much to the delight of her thirsty Instagram followers).

Not only did the showcasing of their so-called "marital problems" seem ridiculously set-up. One example of a fight: After telling Kourtney that she wants to stop taking her birth control because she "finished her birth control today, and I think that's a sign I should stop taking it," Kim gets into a fight with Kris about her fame, things that probably should have been discussed before the gigantic televised wedding.

Plot lines like Scott purchasing a piano and teaching himself how to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" filled up the rest of the allotted episode times. Oh well, they tried.

What's more ridiculous than a Lifetime movie? A half-scripted, half-documentary series where real-life ladies talk about their own melodramatic experiences. At least that's how their stories come across on My Life is a Lifetime Movie, a show whose intriguing concept is squandered by the dishonest need to play up the salaciousness of Lifetime movies.

The story of Jodi Barrus, for instance, is no laughing matter. She's an Iowa schoolteacher who's been falsely accused of having sex with one of her students, and it's both alarming and heartbreaking to listen to her on-camera testimonial. But then it's wrongly funny to watch her account dramatized with the same kind of overacting and poor production values seen in Lifetime's hokey brand of cinema.

Just because her world might feel like My Stepson, My Lover, it doesn't mean she deserves to have it trivialized as such.

Stars: Sarah Jones, Jorge Garcia, Sam Neill, Parminder Nagra, Jonny Coyne, Robert Forster

Back in early February, when NBC premiered the highly anticipated Broadway musical drama series Smash, the critics were all hot and bothered—in the best way possible—about the pilot, lavishing it with praise. So curiosity was piqued, and, yes, the first episode was quite enjoyable, driven by a rousing climax and a potential star-is-born performance from Katharine McPhee.

So what the hell happened? Faster than the producers could say “We’re not a Glee rip-off,” Smash degenerated into an amalgamation of overly melodramatic acting, annoying characters, and conflicts transpiring with all the emotional resonance of an iCarly episode. Smash will return for a second season at the top of 2013, but will its viewership? Count those of us around these parts out.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which left most of New Jersey's shoreline decimated, there was a cruel (but, admittedly, evilly funny) joke heard around the Garden State's shell shocked streets, and it went something like this: "After MTV announced that Jersey Shore's sixth season would be its last, God made sure of that."

Listen, we'd gladly slog through more Jersey Shore seasons if it meant having Seaside Heights back in tip-top, functional shape. The tourist city deserves a fresh start, though, and what better way to do so than to rejuvenate without Deena's drunk munchkin ass stumbling all over the boardwalk? Throughout its disastrous fifth and final sixth seasons, the once-enjoyable and still ubiquitous reality show limped toward its inevitable finish line.

All of the show's sideshow appeal is gone, with a pregnant Snooki (read: less partying for her), a post-rehab Situation (read: less partying for him), and an increased focus on the aforementioned Deena, who's more of a cautionary tale than a watchable mess. It's not like we'll never see or hear from these kids again: JWOWW, in fact, just signed onto a new reality show about competitive diving (seriously). As long as they steer clear of the rebuilding Seaside, as well as MTV cameras and bars like the Beachcomber, all will be OK.

Stars: Mirielle Enos, Joel Kinnaman, Billy Campbell, Brent Sexton, Michelle Forbes, Eric Ladin, Kristen Lehman, Jamie Anne Allman

Yes, The Killing’s creator, Veena Sud, and her colleagues provided the answer to the question (“Who killed Rosie Larsen?”) that went unattended to during last year’s much reviled season finale. The problem is, though, that, even if the murderer turned out to be that SyFy channel staple Megashark (Who doesn’t love that monster?), intelligent viewers would’ve still lambasted The Killing for its ham-fisted, ultimately unsatisfying second season, especially since the show’s latest 13-episode run was at times excellent.

Every one of those “excellent” times, of course, should be credited to stars Mirielle Enos and Joel Kinnaman, who, as detectives Linden and Holder, respectively, both gave Emmy-nomination-worthy performances. Which is why a series cancellation would be the best thing to happen to them—Enos and Kinnaman deserve so much better.

They’re deserving of a project that doesn’t insert random, unjustified character motivations (see: Aunt Terry’s involvement in the crime) and incriminating evidence (that damn key card) at its own convenience. What killed The Killing? Collective laziness in the writers’ room.

Stars: Laura Prepon, Jake McDorman, Lauren Lapkus, Chelsea Handler, Natasha Leggero, Lenny Clarke, Ali Wong, Mark Povinelli

Somebody needs to give Laura Prepon good material, because the former That '70s Show actress definitely has what it takes to hold down a headlining star role on a sitcom. But she’s not Wonder Woman, and Are You There, Chelsea?, NBC’s resounding disappointment from executive producer Chelsea Handler, just dragged Prepon down with it.

Based on Handler’s non-fiction book, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, the show followed a boozing waitress (Prepon) who favors random sex over advancing her life in any significant ways. Given such an unsympathetic character, Prepon came across as loathsome, not emphatic, and Are You There, Chelsea? never seemed interested in making viewers care about her. Add on to that the weekly barrage of abrasively mean-spirited one-liners and you had a sitcom even less likeable than Whitney. Ouch.

Now that co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have the American Horror Story franchise kicking ass over on FX, it's officially time to put Glee to bed. In the high school musical's early days, we were, admittedly, shameless Gleeks, but Glee's endearing freshman charms haven't been recovered since the show's uneven and repetitive second season.

In its remarkably forgettable fourth season, Fox's pop culture juggernaut barely registered with the impact of a Fisher-Price firecracker. Graduation meant a whole new cast of fresh-voiced teenagers were ready to keep McKinley High's New Directions going—we'll give a crisp $20 bill to any Glee viewer who can name more than two new characters without consulting Wikipedia.

The mostly forgettable new kids make us miss the days when it was just about hotties like Rachel (Lea Michele), Santana (Naya Rivera), and Quinn (Dianna Agron). And not so uninspired that they have to resort to yet another Britney Spears-themed episode.

Stars: Billy Burke, Giancarlo Esposito, Tracy Spiridakos, Anna Lise Phillips, Zak Orth, J.D. Pardo, Maria Howell, David Lyons, Tim Guinee, Elizabeth Mitchell, Daniella Alonso

On paper, Revolution sounds like the first post-Lost, sci-fi drama that's actually worth investing some long-term hope into, unlike recent failures like Flash Forward and The Event. The show's post-apocalyptic backdrop isn't anything new, but the concept of life without electricity or technology is intriguing, and the behind-the-scenes pairing of producers J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau led optimists to believe that NBC's most anticipated new fall program was of a high pedigree.

Imagine the disappointment, then, when, three or four episodes into Revolution's debut season, the realization hit that it's basically little more than a slightly grungy fashion commercial with horribly choreographed hand-to-hand combat and gunfights.

It was one thing on Lost when Jorge "Hurley" Garcia didn't lose a pound while going hungry for weeks on end—it's not like they'd include tummy-tucks into dude's contract. Being unable to watch Revolution without wondering how the characters can take so many showers and wash their clothes so often in a world where neither sanitary action should be possible is a deal-breaker.

Stars: Jon Cryer, Ashton Kutcher, Angus T. Jones, Conchata Ferrell, Marin Hinkle, Holland Taylor, Sophie Winkleman, Judy Greer, Courtney Thorne-Smith

Angus T. Jones, the "half" member of Two and a Half Men, made headlines a couple weeks back when the suddenly super-religious actor called the show "filth," adding, "If you watch Two and a Half Men, please stop watching Two and a Half Men.” We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Once a reasonably funny show under Charlie Sheen, the CBS mega-hit lost whatever comedic juices it had once Sheen went all batshit and exited. And along with him, Sheen took the casual, easygoing chemistry he shared with co-star Jon Cryer.

Ashton Kutcher, his replacement, is mostly a bland straight man, exactly what Two and a Half Men didn’t need. There’s already Cryer to fill that role, and, when paired with Sheen, Cryer’s Tony Randall to Sheen’s Jack Klugman gave their odd couple set-up ample room for a combustible chemistry. Cryer’s rapport with Kutcher, on the other hand, is equivalent to two wet sticks trying to make fire.

Maybe religion is just a cover-up for Jones' inability to endure the unfunniness firsthand any longer.

Stars: Kat Dennings, Beth Behrs, Garrett Morris, Jonathan Kite, Matthew Moy, Jennifer Coolidge, Nick Zano, Brooke Lyons

Clearly we’re fans of Kat Dennings around here, which is why it pains us to chastise her new hit sitcom 2 Broke Girls, but sometimes one has to call a spade a spade. Or, in this case, a forced, obnoxious compendium of obvious sexual puns and racial jokes just that.

It’s no slight toward Dennings or her co-star, the comically gifted Beth Behrs—together, the show’s leading ladies justify our incessant need to watch every episode. They’re often able to sell the most insufferable of punch lines with goofy charm (Behrs) and sexy arrogance (Dennings), but the same can’t be said for their co-stars, or the writing staff responsible for repeatedly using the subject of rape as comedic fodder.

Stars: Janet Montgomery, Kristoffer Polaha, Kyle MacLachlan, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Toni Trucks, Erin Cummings, Felix Solis

As if Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Jerseylicious didn't taint the Garden State enough already. The latest TV show to further sully the metropolitan state's reputation in 2012 was the thankfully short-lived Made in Jersey, about a beautiful Italian-American woman (Janet Montgomery) whose new job at New York City law firm requires her to work extra hard in order to convince her new colleagues that she's more than a pretty face.

It's a seemingly foolproof premise dating back to movies like Working Girl and Erin Brockovich, except Made in Jersey suffered from one major problem: Martina Garretti (Montgomery) was basically perfect. Gorgeous, highly educated, and, as the show's writers loved to remind viewers, successful at everything she's ever pursued, Martina never experienced any real failures—of course she'd thrive in the new workplace. And with no dramatic tension, Made in Jersey floated weightlessly for four episodes before getting mercifully cancelled.

Stars: Justin Kirk, Joanne Garcia-Swisher, Bobby Lee, Kym Whitley, Betsy Sodaro, Tyler Labine

Everyone makes mistakes, including us. Back in September, we foolishly included NBC's Animal Practice on our list of the fall season's most anticipated TV shows. Why? Because, well, we're suckers for sight gags involving chimps using stethoscopes. Sue us.

But then, like everyone else unlucky enough to watch the first few episodes, it became clear that Animal Practice was a one-joke program, and the punch line—all hijinks carried out by humans and animals are hilarious!—was painfully obvious. Cancelled after only six episodes, Animal Practice shall forever be remembered as a humbling reminder of our sometimes questionable judgment. Hey, nobody's perfect.

Stars: Rob Schneider, Cheech Marin, Claudia Bassois, Diana Maria Riva, Eugenio Derbez, Lupe Ontiveros

Frankly, it’s a shock that Rob even lasted eight episodes—smart money would’ve been on a three-ep run, a la NBC’s similarly canned The Playboy Club. That’s nothing to be proud of, though; with nary a genuine laugh to give, the perpetually unfunny Rob Schneider’s fish-out-of-water sitcom flopped around like a dying trout—or maybe that best describes the viewers’ reactions.

Keeping up his trademark buffoonery at the expense of every ethnic type in any given census report, Schneider targeted Mexicans in Rob, playing a tool with OCD who marries into a Mexican-American family, overseen by the shameless Cheech Marin. Cue the onslaught of stereotypes and obvious look-at-the-white-guy punch lines. And the ringing of Adam Sandler’s iPhone as Schneider calls him to beg for a role in the next Happy Madison production.