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The good thing about TV shows that truly suck: More often than not, they don’t last very long. 2 Broke Girls and The Following are anomalies, somehow hooking enough masochistic viewers into their respective, though similarly frustrating, inefficiencies to remain on the air, even as critics brutalize them. Due to their maddening sustainability, those shows have become easy targets—it’s understood that they’re terrible, so discerning viewers have already moved on, including we here at Complex Pop Culture.
Besides, there are always plenty of lame to flat-out abysmal new shows to redirect vitriol towards, and, to this point, 2014 has been especially fruitful in that regard. The fruit in question has been rotten, of course, but also not everlasting. All ten of the duds included in our list of The Worst TV Shows of 2014 (So Far) have already been cancelled, meaning you’re about to embark on a painless journey through lameness. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, leading to a sign labeled “Casualties of Nielsen.”
RELATED: The Best TV Shows of 2014 (So Far)
10. Believe (NBC)
Stars: Jake McLaughlin, Johnny Sequoyah, Jamie Chung, Kyle MacLachlan, Delroy Lindo
Rarely have two creative giants combined to make something so bland and forgettable. Executive produced by the imagination-heavy J.J. Abrams (your new Star Wars overlord) and created by the superlative filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón (recent Academy Award winner for Gravity), NBC’s Believe had everything going for it, except one major component: good storytelling.
The one-season-and-out series—via cancellation, not a Fargo-like creative decision—centered on a magical kid named Bo (Johnny Sequoyah, strangely not the name of a Disney Channel movie) who’s in the middle of a tug-of-war between a bad-boy protector (Jake McLaughlin) and the military commanders trying to use her powers for their own benefit. Coming from two guys as genre-savvy and gifted as Abrams and Cuarón, that familiar premise should have felt fresh; disastrously, Believe suffered from an overemphasis on its window dressings, reducing its characters to anonymous ciphers while binging on cinematic action sequences that went nowhere.
In television, a medium where stories stretch beyond two hours and require enough depth to sustain multiple episodes, a predominant big-screen mentality can be cataclysmic. Believe is the proof. —Matt Barone
9. Those Who Kill (A&E)
Stars: Chloë Sevigny, James D'Arcy, James Morrison, Bruce Davison, Omid Abtahi, Kerry O'Malley
Not even the usually compelling Chloë Sevigny could save A&E’s quickly cancelled Those Who Kill. Indicative of the sluggish show as a whole, she was a dreary non-entity as Pittsburgh homicide detective Catherine Jepsen. She’s a green gumshoe with serious family issues (her brother disappeared; her dad might be a murderer) who recruits an equally bland forensic psychologist (James D’Arcy) to help her figure out who’s been offing female drug addicts and prostitutes and stashing them in a drainage pipe.
Neither Sevigny nor D’Arcy did much to distinguish themselves from the bodies their characters found—they weren't acting as much as they were sleepwalking. Those Who Kill was Hannibal on Ambien.
Even worse, Those Who Kill’s pilot was directed by the normally kinetic Joe Carnahan, the no-BS filmmaker (and Those Who Kill executive producer) who made the best post-Taken Liam Neeson movie (The Grey), a better A-Team film than anyone could have expected, and the closest crime cinema has ever gotten to emulating an acid trip (Smokin’ Aces). With Those Who Kill, though, Carnahan was powerless against Those Who Kill’s garden-variety thriller elements, doing his best to over-stylize things with fluorescent color schemes lifted from ‘70s Italian giallo flicks and a synthy, '80s John Carpenter score. But superficial dressing can’t mask dull storytelling and snoozy performances. —Matt Barone
8. Friends With Better Lives (CBS)
Stars: James Van Der Beek, Majandra Delfino, Zoe Lister-Jones, Brooklyn Decker, Rick Donald, Kevin Connolly
Friends With Better Lives, now cancelled, was an CBS multi-camera comedy that followed the lives of six friends, each of whom thinks the others have it better. The show's tired "keeping up with the Jones'" concept and cast of B-list actors (including Dawson's Creek's James Van Der Beek and model Brooklyn Decker) made it medicore at best. The dialogue was hit-or-miss (mostly miss) and the characters were only sometimes likeable. Mostly, everybody just complained and talked about sex—a lot.
At heart, Friends With Better Lives was just a Friends wannabe, trying a little too hard to be like the cool kids. —Rachel Sheldon
7. The 100 (The CW)
Stars: Eliza Taylor, Paige Turco, Thomas McDonell, Marie Avgeropoulos, Bobby Morley, Christopher Larkin, Devon Bostick, Eli Goree, Isaiah Washington, Henry Ian Cusick
The CW's newest foray into the land of sci-fi followed 100 teenagers who are exiled from their spaceship back to post-apocalyptic Earth; hence, the failed show's name, The 100. The concept is interesting, albeit vague: the survivors of a nuclear war that made Earth uninhabitable live on a giant Ark in space. 100 criminal teens are sent back to Earth to determine whether it's habitable, and a rebellious "no parents, no rules" mindset immediately kicks in.
Similar to popular CW teenybopper drama The Vampire Diaries, The 100 painted the pretty picture of a world entirely inhabited by hot young adults. Oh, and there was some supernatural stuff too. The show cashed in on the popularity of The Hunger Games-esque survival of the fittest theme, as well as "constant fear of death from the unknown" trope from shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. The main problem with The 100 was that it had about 100 things going on at once: teenagers running amok, post-apocalyptic weirdness, wars raging, assassination attempts, and, of course, romance. There was also the issue of trying to keep track of the many characters on Earth as well as back on the Ark.
Put simply, The 100 was an overall good concept that fell into the trap of over-complication. —Rachel Sheldon
6. Mixology (ABC)
Stars: Adam Campbell, Adan Canto, Alexis Carra, Craig Frank, Ginger Gonzaga, Blake Lee, Vanessa Lengies, Andrew Santino, Frankie Shaw, Katie Simses
Mixology was a short-lived sitcom on ABC that followed five men and five women at a bar over the course of one night. Already, anyone could've seen where this show ran into issues. Even with complex, involved storylines (like the classic show 24) it's a risky undertaking to set your entire series during a single day. Over the course of the night/season, the characters coupled up, broke apart, and came back together again, this time in different combinations. And that's pretty much all that happened, along with some flashbacks to the characters' pasts.
The show was also downright racist and sexist, from its appalling dialogue to its offensive character depictions. This brand of comedy was to be expected from the show's creators, The Hangover's Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, but Mixology blurred the lines between clever satire and blatant ridicule. —Rachel Sheldon
5. Black Box (ABC)
Stars: Kelly Reilly, Ditch Davey, David Ajala, Ali Wong, Laura Fraser, David Chisum, Siobhan Williams, Terry Kinney, Vanessa Redgrave
The only show on this list that hasn't been cancelled—it's only a matter of time—Black Box tells the story of a famous neuroscientist who discovers she has mental illness, a diagnosis she hides from those closest to her. Naturally, because #drama, she isn't the only one with skeletons in her closet, as secrets from her friends and family are revealed.
Despite being stacked with a talented cast, and a living legend in Vanessa Redgrave, the show is marked by cliche and manipulative melodrama that make for an unengaging viewing experience. Luckily for the series, it's got seven more episodes to figure itself out—the network gave it a straight-to-series order, committing to a 13-episode season. —Tara Aquino
4. Crisis (NBC)
Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Rachael Taylor, Lance Gross, James Lafferty, Max Martini, Michael Beach, Stevie Lynn Jones, Halston Sage, Max Schneider, Joshua Erenberg, Gillian Anderson
Crisis was NBC's action/mystery/thriller wombo-combo that was just as its name suggests: a TV crisis, canceled halfway through its first season. The show's premise went as follows: A bunch of rich kids from Washington, D.C., including the President's son, are captured while on a school field trip. The kidnappers then demand that the kids' parents do illegal stuff, and a national crisis ensues (hence the show's name).
Crisis asks viewers, if you had to choose, would you pick your child or your country? A bold question that the series failed to address in its entirety. The show tried valiantly to maintain a rapid pace and keep audience engaged, but fell just a hair short of realism with its overabundance of characters and crises. —Rachel Sheldon
3. Surviving Jack (Fox)
Stars: Christopher Meloni, Rachael Harris, Connor Buckley, Claudia Lee, Kevin Hernandez, Tyler Foden
Despite SVU vet Christopher Meloni's convincing performance as a strict ex-military dad, FOX comedy Surviving Jack fell flat after a mere seven episodes. A throwback to the golden age of sitcoms, the show simply lacked initiative. It had potential, with a great leading actor and a writer with a hilarious bestselling book under his belt—that would be Justin Halpern, of Shit My Dad Says fame. But with all its potential and nostalgic flair, Surviving Jack was, at best, unoriginal and sappy. At worst? It was a predictable cliche wrapped in a blanket of bad jokes resting on a bed of life lessons we didn't want to hear. —Rachel Sheldon
2. Bad Teacher (CBS)
Stars: Ari Graynor, Sara Gilbert, Ryan Hansen, Sara Rodier, Kristin Davis, David Alan Grier
In due time, Ari Graynor will become a major movie star. Her gorgeous looks aside, she’s one of Hollywood’s funniest actresses on the low. In Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, she stole the movie away from headliners Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, playing a lovable drunk who somehow makes puking into a public restroom’s toilet seem endearing; in the 2012 indie comedy For a Good Time, Call…, she gave the kind of revelatory, equally hilarious and touching performance that’d earn her a legion of fans if anyone had actually seen that movie.
Graynor deserves a widely seen platform to show and prove; the CBS sitcom Bad Teacher, based on Cameron Diaz’s hit movie, wasn’t it. Kudos to the network and the show’s producers for recognizing Graynor’s comedic skills and breakout potential, but nuts to them for giving her such flaccid material. Even a young Carol Burnett would’ve been helpless against Bad Teacher’s one-note “she’s rude, crude, and not fit for schooling impressionable young minds” premise.
Fortunately for Graynor, Bad Teacher only lasted five episodes before getting sent to permanent detention. Now, she won’t get contractually locked into an unfunny TV show that keeps away from reaching her full potential (see: Kat Dennings on 2 Broke Girls). —Matt Barone
1. I Wanna Marry "Harry" (Fox)
Stars: Various
In the realm of reality television, FOX's I Wanna Marry Harry was a royal screw-up. The premise of the show was similar to 2003's "Joe Millionaire": 12 female contestants are led to believe they are vying for the affections of Prince Harry. The catch? The guy who the ladies are clawing each others' eyes out for is actually just a Harry look-alike.
This concept was controversial 11 years ago with Joe Millionaire and remains so today, spurring many to ask if reality TV has finally gone too far. In retrospect, Harry was a misguided attempt to bring the humor of deception and mistaken identities to a reality show. Where the show went too far was in its true shamelessness, its utter lack of guilt over deceiving these women.
Maybe it's a testament to the forward progression of society that the ratings for Harry were so abysmal compared to the huge success of Joe Millionaire. The show was canceled after a mere four episodes and is best summed up in the words of this scathing Telegraph review: "fodder for the braindead." —Rachel Sheldon