October Road (2007-2008)
Once, a couple of years ago, I began writing a post about my issues with October Road, but it devolved into threadless rambling. I couldn't identify what it was that compelled me to keep watching the show - and I watched every episode - when at least once an episode I would think, "I hate that I can't stop watching this." Sometimes it was the dialogue that sounded like something no actual person would ever say. Sometimes it was the endless teasing of an unresolved-paternity storyline that was only wrapped up in the second-season DVD extras. Sometimes it was just shit like this:
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007)
This is probably going to become a sort of a broken record script as various critics look back at the decade, but there really was a time when Studio 60 seemed like a stronger bet than 30 Rock. Aaron Sorkin's record was Sports Night and The West Wing, while Tina Fey's was a number of seasons of SNL that didn't seem to have a public consensus on overall funniness or quality. And, ultimately, that was what did Studio 60 in - the show within the show never quite seemed like it would be funny enough to sustain a run on television, and the difference between saying you're funny and being funny was just enough to doom the show. Fey, ultimately, could recognize that Tracy Morgan in a Thomas Jefferson biopic is a goldmine of comedy, where Sarah Paulson in an Anita Pallenberg biopic is dour and smacks of cultural over-literacy. Here, a clip from the show's infamous "animals beneath the floorboards" storyline, which really tells you all you need to know about why this one didn't last:
Watching this again reminded me of how many legit actors who've been delightful in other shows were in this, like Lucy Davis and Merritt Wever. Oh well. At least I got a good Christmas song out of it.
The Best Years (2007-2009)
A college show that seemed like the college experience was something its writers had only heard about in passing. The pilot started off on a truly strange note with a student falling off a dorm roof and dying, an event that never quite seemed to cast the kind of pall over student emotions one would think. The remainder of the first season was much of the same, with plot advancements that would have seemed over the top on most daytime dramas, a wholly unbelievable student-professor affair and a heroine so seldom depicted negatively that she became insufferable. It's my understanding that there was a largely revamped second season, but the first was just too much.
Big Shots (2007-2008)
In which Liz discovered that her love of Michael Vartan indeed had limits. Big Shots was presented as a sort of guys' Sex and the City, but played more like the back-patting dream of the kinds of dudes whose response to any assertion of feminism is "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?!?"
Hidden Palms (2007)
In the run-up to the premiere of The Vampire Diaries, lots of reviews brought up Kevin Williamson's work on Dawson's Creek, but, shockingly, none mentioned Hidden Palms. A CW summer series so brief that it almost seems like it didn't happen, Hidden Palms wanted to be a dark mystery set among the idle rich, but featured a protagonist so inept at sleuthing that it never quite gelled.
American Juniors (2003)
An American Idol spinoff with children sounds like a bad SNL sketch, but I swear it actually happened. The show more or less immediately revealed itself to be a totally ridiculous failure, with stage parents and kids performing uneasy covers of songs way beyond their maturity range like this:
And this:
Britney and Kevin: Chaotic (2005)
I don't really feel I have sufficient adjectives for this slow-motion trainwreck. I'll only say that as a piece of reality television it embodies all of the reasons why celebrities might want to resist the impulse to share everything with the world. Sadly, YouTube won't let me embed the clips of this, so I'll just link here and you can decide whether or not you want to go down that particular rabbit hole.
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