Sometimes even the most super-hyped blockbuster movies fail, and fail hard. One look at thissummer’s Rotten Tomatoes assessmentsand you’ll find that more than half of the top 20 box office films have been declared “rotten” by critics.Independence Day: Resurgenceis just the most recent would-be blockbuster that failed to gain traction with criticsorgeneral audiences. But for television, the scale of which only continues to get grander as we trip further into the millennium, high-profile failures are becoming increasingly frequent. As part of #PeakTV, there are more series than ever, and therefore, inevitably more series that fail to make a lasting mark.
Most recently, Showtime’s much talked-aboutRoadies,Cameron Crowe’sheralded return to the world of rock music, has been struggling. (you’re able to read Allison Keene’s unimpressed reviewhere.) Even withJ.J. Abramsas EP, a strong ad campaign, and a great cast, the series has taken a bath in the ratings,earning only a few hundred thousand viewers during the night of its premiere. Earlier this year, HBO’sVinylwas in a similar situation, stuck in a state of irrelevance that resulted in its eventual cancellation.
Whether or not a series is considered as “failed” is, of course, subjective – but in the case of our list, a “failure” is a series that had high initial critical hopes, large network investment, and/or a reliable star presence that still failed to connect with both critics and audiences. It’s unclear whetherRoadieswill have its television tour cut short, but ahead of its looming fate, we take a look back at some of TV’s most notorious failures of the past decade (or so), in chronological order
Joey (2004 - 2006)
At home on your aunt’s outdated television set or on a laptop during a middle school sleepover,Friendshas been a series so unflaggingly ubiquitous that it continues to make for relevant pop culture reference material even two decades after its initial premiere. It makes sense then, that following the series’ final season in 2004, the enterprising minds at NBC would find a way to fill theFriends-shaped hole in their schedule with a spin-off of one of their most beloved characters:Joey. Led by the titularMatt LeBlanc, the series was largely what you might expect: a multicam sitcom devoted to following Tribbiani’s acting career in Los Angeles, and the womanizing antics of the lovable oaf. Though not a disaster upon its first bow (Friendsfans expectantly followed NBC’s trail of spin-off breadcrumbs), the series continued to lose steam both behind the scenes and with once-faithful audiences. The problem? It’s hard to say for sure – the show managed to last for one and a half seasons before being voted off the island, but my bet is on its rigid refusal to change with the times, as the multi-cam series failed to find footing amongst cutting-edge single camera shows likeThe Officeand30 Rock. (Being scheduled opposite the then-phenomenonAmerican Idolalso might have had something to do with it.)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006)
Shortly afterAaron Sorkintook flight from his wildly successful political dramaThe West Wing, he set his sights on a very different sort of TV show: an hourlong comedy/drama modeled on his life in the television industry calledStudio 60 on the Sunset Strip. What resulted was an endlessly buzzy self-parody of the inner-workings of television, withMatthew Perrydelivering a top-notch performance so motor-mouthed and self-righteous he could be mistaken for a Sorkin surrogate. With Sorkin penning nearly every episode himself,Studio 60followed Perry’s hardly functional yet embarrassingly Christ-like showrunner, a comic mind with the unique ability to effortlessly woo smart-mouthed women while penning a world-changing monologue minutes before air-time. The series, which received initial critical praise and a bevy of Emmy nominations, quickly floundered in the ratings, often trounced by vocal dissenters critical of the arrogantly autobiographical series. Becoming Sorkin’s much-heralded failure,Studio 60lacked the ratings or the positive glow of audience praise to stay afloat amongst the sour undertow.
Viva Laughlin (2007)
Filmed at what could arguably prove to be the height ofHugh Jackman’sfame, the CBS seriesViva Laughlinwas a doomed Americanization of the British showBlackpool. The plot – which traced the complicated life of a casino-owning upstart after he finds himself implicated in a murder investigation – was almost irrelevant when compared to the unique musical genre the series occupied. Largely characterized not by its dark comedy but rather its characters’ tendency to break into song and mildly choreographed dance,Viva Laughlinpremiered two years beforeGlee, which ended up proving that scripted musical televisioncouldmake it in the U.S. mainstream. Failing to replicate the shabby glam and self-deprecation of the British original, though,Blackpool’scharming camp was translated intoLaughlin’scorny cheese, and after two episodes, a swift axing put the series out of its misery.
MTV’s Skins (2011)
In 2007, a smallish teen-oriented series on an otherwise little-known overseas U.K. network (Channel 4) made waves in Britain and the U.S. with its unabashedly melodramatic approach to the gritty fictional lives of the sex, drugs and dubstep-fueled youth in Bristol. That series, of course, wasSkins, a show that ran for a nearly unheard of 7 seasons and catapulted the career of stars likeNicolas Hoult,Jack O’ConnellandKaya Scodelario.It’s no wonder, then, that MTV would take aim on recreating the controversially explicit series for American audiences after the imported original series proved as an underground success.
But the show, which was looked after bySkins’original creatorBryan Elsley, was beset with problems from the beginning. Upon first whiff of the show’s development, the Parents Television Council launched a full-scale attack on the series, fearing a direct translation of the original that would inevitably include transparent drug use, explicit sex scenes, and free-flying expletives. Rumors abounded that pushback from thePTC caused advertisers to pull awayfrom the show and the network launched one of themost expensive ad campaigns in the MTV’s historyin order to counter the bad press. In spite of the buzz (or, in fact, because of it), the series premiered to admirable numbers on a nearly shot-for-shot recreation of the first UK episode.
The series continued to be relatively faithful to the original series and remained edgy enough to eventually earn a TV-MA placard above its half-naked, rave-soaked proceedings. But then, the ratings plummeted fast and hard – and MTV chose not to continue production on the series after the first season. Though the show clearly had a troubled background, the series’ ultimate drop in ratings was certainly in response to its failure to deliver anything but anechoey copy of the original British series, failing the show’s key fans (who were no doubt fans of the original) and alienating its most important audience as a result.
Terra Nova (2011)
The very existence ofTerra Nova, at least in retrospect, seems nearly too good to be true. It was a grandly realized sci-fi series kept under the faithful purview ofSteven Spielberg,and produced with the help of the biggest budget Fox had ever provided any series. CreatorCraig Silversteinheralded that it was a project with an even bigger bow than the cultural wildfire ofLost, promoting the show as the ultimatefour quadrantseries well before the show’s premiere date.
Behind the scenes, the show struggled to find a lead actor who would attract eyeballs to the project, and courted people likeKevin BaconandKyle Chandler(before settling onJason O’Mara) while also jettisoning writer/directorDavid Furybefore the show began production. Still,Terra Novamoved forward and managed to hold its own in the ratings during its premiere, though the numbers continued to dwindle as the show hurdled towards its Season 1 finale. And after critical reception dropped from apoplectic excitement to deflation, it became clear that there was little substance behind the show’s dino-munching. At the end of the series’ 13-episode run, it seemed Fox had lost much of itsTerra Novafuror too – and the network chalked up the Spielbergian series epic asa one-off.
Low Winter Sun (2013)
For those for whom the titleLow Winter Sunrings a bell, it’s probably as a fuzzy footnote. The AMC series began airing near the tail-end ofBreaking Bad’s time on the air, and was a crime drama whose initial ratings were buoyed by the network’s clever nestling ofBreaking Badsneak peeks during the new series’ first commercial breaks. For a while, viewers were willing to buy into the TV baiting, while AMC presumably hoping that viewers would become attached toLow Winter Sunin the process. This, as it turned out, was not a successful strategy.Low Winter Sunwas never able to succeed on its own merit, and despite mildly positive critical reception, the series’unrelenting doom and gloomfailed to connect with audiences. In a rare misstep for the network (and as part of an even rarer club of one-season cable cancellations), AMC ended the series after one season.
True Detective - Season 2 (2015)
They call it a sophomore slump for a reason. WhereTrue DetectiveSeason 1 benefitted from hazy expectations and pleasant surprise on the part of critics and audiences, forTrue DetectiveSeason 2 those assets promptly turned on the series, making the second installment look almost laughably inferior to its beloved predecessor. While Season 1 functioned as an eye-opening exploration of the lengths to which television could go in the modern era, Season 2 was nearly the opposite, seeing returning creatorNic Pizzolattodeliver work that was almost depressingly predictable. A sluggish melodrama featuring a shamefully stilted performance from new leadVince Vaughn, it didn’t take long for Season 2 viewership to drop off significantly from Season 1 following its whimper of a premiere.
True Detectivefaithfuls (myself included) stayed hopeful as the series slid along towards its conclusion, but the show never managed to right itself, concluding with a resolution that left even hopeful viewers cynical about everything that had come before. Upon reflection,HBO agreed that Season 2 was in fact, a “failure,”one they chalked up to the truncated schedule Pizzolatto was given to conjure up an entirely new series, compared with the years he had to conceive of the series’ first season. Season 3, for what it’s worth,remains in doubt.
Vinyl (2016)
It’s an undisputed fact that the year’s biggest television failure thus far isVinyl: a show whose creative pedigree (includingMartin Scorsese,Terence Winter, andMick Jagger) couldn’t prevent the series from floundering under its own expectations. A show HBO no doubt hoped would garner a cult following to rivalGame of Thrones(or at leastBoardwalk Empire),Vinylresulted simply in a lukewarmly accepted and almost laughably under-seen musical series that left a significantdent in the network’s pockets, without delivering on its grandiose promises. Leaning heavily on existing television tropes of morally dubious protagonists, convoluted plot revolutions, and celebrity cameos that failed to land,Vinyldidn’t manage to strike viewers as much more than hollow (albeit stylish) showboating. Ultimately, HBO scrambled in the wake of its apparent failure, first ousting showrunner Terence Winter beforescrapping the projectentirely, warts, guitars, and all.
