10 Once-Great TV Shows That Went Downhill

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10 Once-Great TV Shows That Went Downhill

Becoming a beloved TV series is one thing, but retaining that adulation from viewers and critics is quite another. Here are 10 shows — including Glee, True Detective and The O.C. — that had trouble keeping fans happy by the end of their runs.

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10 Once-Great TV Shows That Went Downhill

Becoming a beloved TV series is one thing, but retaining that adulation from viewers and critics is quite another. Here are 10 shows — including Glee, True Detective and The O.C. — that had trouble keeping fans happy by the end of their runs.

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'True Detective'

Perhaps we need to get Rust Cohle on the case to suss out what happened to the quality of HBO's True Detective. It earned critical praise and loads of buzz for its first season, including for the heralded performances by stars Matthew McConaughey (Cohle) and Woody Harrelson (Marty Hart). But season 2 — which starred Vince Vaughn (Frank Semyon) and Colin Farrell (Ray Velcoro) — moved from New Orleans to L.A. and had trouble exciting viewers. Needless to say, there was no Vaughnaissance to follow.

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'The O.C.'

It continued for four teen-angst-filled seasons, but it's the first season of Fox's The O.C. that felt like a never-ending Chrismukkah morning for viewers. The show couldn't quite recapture the magic in later batches, thanks to oodles of new characters and odd story lines such as Marissa Cooper's season 3 demise.

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'Heroes'

Remember how ubiquitous "Save the cheerleader, save the world" was during the NBC superhero series' first season that began in 2006? The show earned a whopping eight Emmy nominations after that initial season, but zero for the subsequent three, and Heroes Reborn — a miniseries reboot in 2015 — never caught fire.

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'Desperate Housewives'

Some viewers may have preferred to be locked in a basement than watch Desperate Housewives' second season, with its bizarre captive-son mystery. The soapy ABC drama ran for eight seasons and remained a popular show throughout, but only its first season earned an Emmy nomination for best comedy series.

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'Lost'

The island-based ABC show retained a fervent fan base throughout its six-season run, but Lost watchers may have felt a bit like they themselves were the ones stuck in purgatory throughout all the red herrings, loose ends and, yes, even the head-scratching existence of those polar bears. The show was nominated for the best drama Emmy for four of its seasons, but it only won for season 1.

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'Empire'

Fox's music-industry drama remains a popular one, but it has had trouble retaining its status as the go-to watercooler show. The season 1 finale was seen by more than 17 million people when it aired, while the final season 2 episode was caught by just 10 million viewers.

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'The Killing'

When a show devotes an entire season to one case and doesn't solve it by the finale — as The Killing did with the murder of Rosie Larsen in season 1 — fans are bound to get miffed. The slow-burn drama series lasted three seasons on AMC, plus a fourth on Netflix, but none were as widely beloved as the first collection of episodes.

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'New Girl'

New Girl's ratings were never nearly as high as they were at the start of its Fox run, and many fans weren't pleased when Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) started dating at the end of season 2, forever changing the dynamic among the four roomies. 

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'Pretty Little Liars'

There are certainly plenty of fans who have loved Pretty Little Liars from day one through all seven mystery-filled (and car accident-filled) seasons. But some devotees quickly got frustrated by the many changing identities of "A," along with concern as to whether the Freeform show could possibly end in a way that makes the myriad clues add up.

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'Glee'

No one thought a musical series could be taken seriously (no offense, Cop Rock) until Glee became a bona fide phenomenon upon its 2009 launch. However, the buzz proved tough to sustain, particularly when the Fox show tried to introduce a new cast of students in season 3.