The 10 Most Disappointing TV Shows Of 2011

Network: Fox
Stars: Jason O’Mara, Stephen Lang, Shelley Conn, Christine Adams, Allison Miller

In 2011, Terra Nova was the much-buzzed-about show that everyone wanted to love, and, as a result couldn’t own up to the fact that it’s a colossal mess. Consider this a wake-up call, optimists.

With Steven Spielberg’s executive production muscle behind it, Fox’s dinosaur-packed science fiction series has a hell of a lot going for it, at least on paper: sets and costumes that look like they’ve been taken directly from Avatar, prehistoric monsters and futuristic action, and input from the one-man Hollywood powerhouse who directed Jurassic Park, the ultimate dino show.

In reality, though, Terra Nova squanders each of those attributes. The expensive visuals are pointless when inhabited by one-note characters, and T-rexes aren’t very cool when they’re rendered with crappy video-game-caliber special effects. Furthermore, Terra Nova’s surface-level faults could be tolerated if the story wasn’t a hodge-podge of forced twists, muddled reveals, and anticlimactic action.

Note to Mr. Spielberg: It’s time to abort this botched effort, raid the late Stan Winston’s workshop, and at long last give us Jurassic Park IV.

Network: The CW
Stars: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ioan Gruffudd, Nestor Carbonell, Mike Colter, Kristoffer Polaha, Tara Summers

Can you blame us for awaiting The CW’s Ringer with heightened excitement? On one end, there was the show’s lofty concept, which follows a sexy blonde ex-stripper as she ducks mobsters by posing as her supposedly deceased twin sister—neo-noir mixed with a dash of Twin Peaks. As for who’d play the former pole dancer? Sarah Michelle Gellar, returning to primetime television, and reigniting fan-boys’ collective passion, eight years after Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s final episode.

Amidst all of that potential, however, we ignored the fact that Ringer is on The CW, a brutal omission that has since bit us in the proverbial ass. The initial noir premise quickly gave way to the kinds of hammy acting and overdone melodrama that typically pervade daytime soaps. Which is to say, Ringer is more Gossip Girl than The Vampire Diaries (the latter being a syrupy CW program that’s actually good, believe it or not).

Network: NBC
Stars: Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Ed Helms, Mindy Kaling, Ellie Kemper, James Spader, B.J. Novak, Creed Bratton, Craig Robinson, Melora Hardin, Brian Baumgartner, Leslie David Baker, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nunez

Stupidly, we actually thought that The Office could maintain its consistent hilarity without Steve Carell. Even though his Michael Scott anchored the NBC sitcom in wonderful aloofness and uproarious idiocy, The Office has always been a magnificent ensemble comedy, so losing only one piece of the funny puzzle should’ve done little to ruin any of the other actors’ strengths. Or so we thought. As upsetting as it is to say, the show’s problematic eighth season has been mediocre at best.

The disenchantment began almost immediately, when it was revealed that Ed Helms’ Andy Bernard would take over as Dunder-Mifflin’s new boss; well-intentioned but ultimately bland, Helms’ middling character is a lazy, status quo choice. The better move would’ve been to give James Spader the job, since his Robert California has been one of Season Eight’s few highpoints. Mostly because he’s not riddled with a meandering love subplot like Andy’s dragging romance with Erin (Ellie Kemper, who deserves better from the writers), which is clearly the producers’ attempt to recapture that old Jim-and-Pam magic.

If there’s one thing that Season Eight has made abundantly clear, it’s this: As long as The Office remains on the air, we’ll tune in, though not without an underlying sense of apathy.

Network: MTV
Stars: Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio, Jennifer “JWoww” Farley, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, Deena Nicole Cortese

It seems that the spell cast by JWoww’s enormous fake breasts has finally worn off, reality TV junkies. At least it has around these parts, though not enough for us to stop watching MTV’s Jersey Shore altogether. But it’ll certainly be difficult to not hate ourselves for assisting in the brain-dead, GTL-obsessed cast’s weekly Nielsen ratings successes after enduring this year’s all-too-familiar fourth season.

Relocating The Situation, Snooki, and the rest of the carelessly slutty and drunkenly moronic twenty-somethings to Italy was all for naught, doing little to differentiate Season Four from any of Jersey Shore’s previous three. Yet again, Sammi and Ronnie bickered, made up, cried, and then made up some more; everyone resented The Situation for his unsubtly antagonistic maneuvers; and Snooki and Deena made liquor-drenched asses out of themselves only to tear up about it every morning after.

In the past, such repetition was at least enjoyably dumb, but Jersey Shore’s latest installments were often gloomy, as if the producers aimed to depict the cast’s issues with a concerned eye, not a joyfully tolerant one. Which, sadly, suggests that MTV’s shotcallers think we’re actually invested in these goons, when the truth is, of course, that we’ve always been thoughtlessly entertained by their buffoonery. Until now.

Network: Fox
Stars: Matthew Morrison, Chris Colfer, Darren Criss, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Jayma Mays, Dianna Agron, Jane Lynch, Kevin McHale, Naya Rivera, Heather Morris, Amber Riley, Mark Salling, Jenna Ushkowitz

The Glee love affair was bound to end at some point. When Fox’s song-and-dance dramedy premiered back in 2009, there was a certain charm about the show that set it apart from everything else on the air. The jokes, often clever and sharply written, came at a rapid clip, and the schmaltzy high school drama registered deeply thanks to the cast’s uniformly believable and game performances. Hell, we didn’t even mind having to fast-forward those borderline obnoxious renditions of Billboard’s Top 10 pop songs.

But when the conflicts never progress beyond stubborn parents, the now-unbearably annoying antics of the once funny Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), or one-dimensional characters stuck in narrative cruise control, co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk can’t expect finicky viewers to hang around for the long haul. Besides, Murphy and Falchuk gave us another reason to care less about Glee this year, in the form of FX’s wicked American Horror Story.

Network: AMC
Stars: Mirielle Enos, Joel Kinnaman, Billy Campbell, Michelle Forbes, Brent Sexton, Brendan Sexton III, Brandon Jay McLaren, Eric Ladin, Kristin Lehman

For its first three or four weeks, AMC’s bleak freshman drama The Killing was a revelation. Centered around the whodunit murder of teenager Rosie Larson, the Veena Sud-created hit started off with one hell of a pilot, continued on with a couple of riveting, plot-developing episodes, and promised a payoff that would blow viewers’ minds. But then Sud and company apparently realized that they had no clue where the fuck the story was going, opting to drain The Killing of all its intrigue and instead wasting multiple episodes on lame red herrings, not to mention an entire late-game hour without any connection whatsoever to Rosie’s case.

And, really, all would’ve been forgiven if The Killing’s much-anticipated season finale would’ve resolved matters in the expected way—meaning, with shock and awe. It’s too bad that Sud foolishly fancies herself as the next David Chase, though; rather than give viewers what they deserve (i.e., an actual resolution), The Killing’s last hour concluded without any answers, a la The Sopranos’s last episode. Only in this case, Sud’s bullshit reactions, in which she pointed out that first season answers were never promised, will never seem brave or progressive.

Network: Comedy Central
Stars: H. Jon Benjamin

You’ve heard that old saying, “He has a face for radio,” right? Well, H. Jon Benjamin clearly has a talent perfect for voicing animated characters. As for live-action, television, Comedy Central’s shockingly lame man-on-the-street series Jon Benjamin proved that the hilarious guy behind the leads on FX’s Archer and Fox’s Bob’s Burgers is ill-equipped.

Most, if not all, of the blame should be placed upon Benjamin’s writing staff, a roster of folks whose idea of comedic gold was pitting Little Italy’s residents against midgets collectively known as Little Little Italy. Or masking an awful half-hour’s worth of jokes with Benjamin running over a gypsy woman and having her hubby place a “Curse Of The Terrible Episode” on him. Multiply that hex by 10 and you’ve got the year’s most unsatisfying TV comedy.

Network: ABC
Stars: Christina Ricci, Kelli Garner, Michael Mosley, Mike Vogel, Karine Vanasse, Margot Robbie, Annabelle Wallis

Out of nowhere, Mad Men became the new Lost, the popular and unique show that other networks’ executive desperately try to emulate. The heads at NBC debuted The Playboy Club, a series that everyone knew would suck, and, alas, sucked the big one. But ABC’s Pan Am was an entirely different situation; the early word was positive, and the 1960s-set drama’s first two episodes moved with enough vibrancy and narrative focus that we gladly checked our pessimistic luggage and hopped aboard.

The subsequent crash-and-burn, unfortunately, happened with the quickness. Actors with no chemistry were paired as love interests, Christina Ricci’s zany performance alongside her more nuanced cast-mates continually made it seem like she was on a totally different show, and Pan Am’s once-intriguing CIA subplot kept getting sidelined for episode-long scenic diversions. Now, the only reason to ever use the words “mad” and “men” when discussing Pan Am are to describe disappointed viewers like us.

Network: Showtime
Stars: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, James Remar, Colin Hanks, Edward James Olmos, Mos Def, Desmond Harrington, David Zayas, Lauren Velez, C.S. Lee, Billy Brown

Watching Dexter’s excruciating sixth season was much like going home with an ugly, celibate woman after a drunken night out: We knew it’d be tough to look at the entire time and end in unfulfilled disappointment, but we couldn’t resist trying anyway.

Before the Showtime series began its latest run, expectations were incredibly low; after last year’s underwhelming batch of episodes, it became clear that Dexter had run its narrative course. But the notion of introducing religion into the well-meaning serial killer’s (Michael C. Hall) life led us to believe that Season Six could make us care once again. Alas, now that it’s over, we’re even angrier than before.

Per usual, every character not named Dexter or Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) did nothing but distract with all of their painful melodrama (Get laid, Captain LaGuerta!) and throwaway conflicts (someone needs to kill Quinn already). Not that the newer ones were any better; if someone can explain what Mos Def’s purpose was on Dexter this year, we’ll give you the Ice Truck Killer’s preserved hand. Even worse, the show’s producers thought so little of the audience’s intelligence that this year’s central villain, the god-fearing Travis Marshall (a completely miscast Colin Hanks), brought with him the world’s most obvious twist.

How bad was Dexter? Put it this way: The moment we’ve all been waiting for after six years, Deb’s discovering of her brother’s killer side hustle, finally happened, but all we could dispassionately mutter was, in the spirit of potty-mouthed Deb, “Who gives a fuck-ball?”

Network: HBO
Stars: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgård, Sam Trammell, Ryan Kwanten, Rutina Wesley, Nelsan Ellis, Kristin Bauer, Deborah Ann Woll, Chris Bauer, Jim Parrack, Todd Lowe, Carrie Preston, Marshall Allman, Kevin Alejandro, Joe Manganiello

How bad was True Blood’s scatterbrained fourth season? Those damn were-panthers weren’t even the biggest issue. The kinky, gory HBO series has always been top-heavy with characters, and in past seasons creator Alan Ball and his cohorts managed to divvy out screen time well enough to make True Blood that rare ensemble show that features several “fan favorites.” This year, however, an abundance of frustrating, idiotic, and unappealing arcs changed all that—for the absolute worst.

The first fuck-up came when Alexander Skarsgård’s Eric Northman turned into a butter-soft chump, the result of his memory being erased by Bon Temps’ new witch, Marnie (Fiona Shaw), and a romance-novel-bad sex affair with Sookie (Anna Paquin). Almost as bad as sissy Eric were the decisions to have Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) get possessed by an old baby-wanting spirit, dedicating more than five seconds’ worth of an episode’s duration to Alcide’s (Joe Manganiello) dull interactions with a werewolf biker gang, and littering action sequences with awful CGI (the season’s opening sequence in fairy land was the year’s cheesiest moment) and ridiculous clichés (vampires walking in slow-motion with automatic weapons).

If not for the genuine chemistry between Deborah Ann Woll (as sexy redhead vamp Jessica) and Ryan Kwanten (dim-witted playboy Jason), as well as Fiona Shaw’s strong, though underused, acting, True Blood’s 2011 run would’ve been an epic fail. As it stands, a show we used to love has devolved into one we’re cautiously optimistic about, moving forward. Yes, it’s dangerously close to becoming the new Dexter.