The Worst TV Shows of 2013

Decades from now, history books will acknowledge that 2013 was an incredible year for television. For a round-up of the year's best TV shows, consult our definitive list. While doing so, you'll see that, surprise, Breaking Bad owns the top spot, a position that's inarguable. After all, 2013 brought creator Vince Gilligan's dark, bloody, funny, and altogether mesmerizing tale of crystal meth madness to its bittersweet but perfectly timed conclusion. It was impossible not to give Walter White's final run the No. 1 ranking, even though several other TV shows were, simply put, magnificent in 2013—everything from veterans like Game of Thrones and Justified to rookies like Brooklyn Nine Nine and Masters of Sex.

With the good, though, always comes the bad, and in 2013 the bad was really, really bad. Awful, at times. As we followed throughout our weekly Cancellation Watch series, the fall TV season introduced viewers to a slew of garbage new sitcoms; meanwhile, on cable, network executives tried recapturing the bleak anti-heroism of shows like Breaking Bad to enjoyably morose and transparently one-note degrees.

Thanks—or no thanks, rather—to the worst TV shows of 2013, the year in which Breaking Bad ended will forever be sullied. Yes, that's mostly referring to you, Dads.

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25. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC)

Stars: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Brett Dalton, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge

In a year when Arrow did so many things right in bringing a comic book series to television, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did oh-so-much wrong. Existing solely to keep brand awareness alive in between movie releases, S.H.I.E.L.D. is a show that seems to go out of its way to ignore its comic book roots by creating all-new characters to shove down the viewers’ throats.

Unfortunately these characters fail to be more interesting than the one-sentence descriptions that accompanied them for the show’s initial press release. Why suffer through characters like Skye, Grant Ward, and Melinda May when the Marvel comics are filled with countless S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that fans actually want to see? If you're going to deviate from the comics, you had better improve on them.

And it’s not just the agents that fail to deliver, the villains on this show are sorry one-note threats too. Where are HYDRA or A.I.M.? Or even B-listers like the U-Foes? Instead the team faces threats pulled right from the Encyclopedia Generica like a cult of viking worshippers and the mysterious Centipede, which has been hidden in the shadows for so long that we don’t even care if it just stays there at this point.

You could do a lot worse than watch S.H.I.E.L.D. every week, but you can also do a lot better. With the ratings sinking and shows like Arrow and The Walking Dead doing comic book adaptations right, S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to turn it around quickly. Or else we’ll be writing its obituary this time next year. —Jason Serafino

24. The Michael J. Fox Show (NBC)

Stars: Michael J. Fox, Betsy Brandt, Juliette Goglia, Conor Romero, Wendell Pierce, Katie Finneran, Jack Gore, Ana Nogueira

Expectations were high for The Michael J. Fox Show. Pitched as Curb Your Enthusiasm but with the fourth-wall breaking address of The Office and Parks and Rec, the sitcom's intriguing meta twist was that the beloved Parkinson's-afflicted actor was playing a beloved newscaster returning to the air (also on NBC) despite his having the disease. In an hilarious 2011 guest appearance on Curb, Fox had played himself and shown that the disease hadn't robbed him of his sense of humor, and that he could even joke about it, so that all sounded promising. Furthermore, the supporting cast featured Breaking Bad's Betsy Brandt and The Wire's Wendell Pierce. C'mon.

NBC and co-creators Will Gluck (Easy A, Friends with Benefits) and Sam Laybourne (Cougar Town) intended to do something fresh, and they achieved that with Fox's protagonist, Mike Henry, but they unfortunately surrounded him with sitcom stereotypes, from his cardboard cutout kids (the college-dropout older son, eye-rolling daughter, and cute and surprisingly intelligent younger son) to Michael's down-and-out sister, a needy failed career woman who's afraid of dying alone. As the show relied more on hijinx than the stakes it introduced in the pilot, it squandered its promise. It is Fox's show, but for it to ever become any good it'll have to flesh out everything that's going on around him. —Ross Scarano

23. Beauty and the Beast (The CW)

Stars: Kristin Kreuk, Jay Ryan, Max Brown, Austin Basis, Nina Lisandrello, Brian White, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Edi Cathegi

Only The CW—the network whose ability to cast gorgeous twentysomethings in all of its original shows is uncanny—could so shamelessly eliminate all of the fantasy out of the classic love story Beauty and the Beast. A better title for the show would be Beauty and the Even More Beautiful, since, you know, there's nothing supernatural or even animalistic about its "beast."

As played by cardboard Tiger Beat cutout Jay Ryan, he's just a dude with PTSD, a hackneyed sci-fi conspiracy backstory, and a really bad temper. Yes, he's the Hulk if Bruce Banner turned to science after a failed audition to become the sixth member of The Wanted. —Matt Barone

22. Lucky 7 (ABC)

Stars: Summer Bishil, Lorraine Bruce, Alexandra Castillo, Christine Evangelista, Matt Long

When seven Queens-based gas station employees win the lottery, people, life stops being polite and starts getting real. And boring, too. Cancelled by the second episode, you probably have never heard about this show, and that's OK. You didn't miss anything. Don't even look it up. Seriously, just by moving on with your life, you made the right decision. Trivial fact, though: Isiah Whitlock Jr. was cast in this failure. (If you don't recognize that name, we can't help you). Sheeeeeeeit, we're glad you moved on to a better show like Veep. —Frantz Rocher

21. Welcome to the Family (NBC)

Stars: Mike O'Malley, Mary McCormack, Ella Rae Peck, Joey Haro, Ricardo Antonio Chavira, Justina Machado, Fabrizio Zacharee Guido

NBC took the guillotine to this sitcom, about two high school graduates who find out they're going to be parents and the ensuing culture clash between their white and Latino families, and we're better off. Swift, painless, anonymous. By episode two, Welcome to the Family disappeared, never to be heard from again (until now).

"But Mike O'Malley headlines it! He's one of the better comedic television talents to have graced the screen in years! How could it fail?!" Sorry, Mike O'Malley's agent, unfortunately absolutely no one else thought so. Going single camera for a more current look didn't, and couldn't, elevate the vanilla sitcom material.

For the hardcore fans, get yourself an early Christmas gift. A Yes, Dear box set may be in order, you'll find it next to Wet Paint: The Complete Series. —Frantz Rocher

20. Do No Harm (NBC)

Stars: Steven Pasquale, Phylicia Rashad, Alana de la Garza, Ruda Gedmintas

Congratulations, America, you've managed to ride the coattails of yet another British masterpiece into the dirt. It's a rip-off of Jekyll & Hyde but this time, it's about a neurosurgeon, Jason Cole (Steven Pasquale), who unleashes his evil, amoral alter ego, Ian Price, at 8:25 p.m. on the dot.

How could this show not be a comedy? For starters, Jason Cole, J. Cole, JayCole, Jaycle, Jycle, Jekyll—oh snap! Nobody is going to take this seriously. Very little about it made sense. For instance, who gave this clearly unstable and unpredictable guy a prescription pad and a scalpel? —Arianna Friedman

19. Married to Jonas (E!)

Stars: Kevin Jonas, Danielle Jonas

Reality TV is television's answer to community theatre—anyone can participate. Hell, even Ryan Lochte got his own show, so the fact that Kevin Jonas, the least interesting of the altogether bland Jonas Brothers music group, headlines a reality program isn't a surprise. That enough people watch it to warrant a second season, which thankfully only included six episodes earlier this year, is the real shock.

Apparently there's a market for watching a boy band member's previously anonymous wife, Danielle Deleasa, working at Cosmopolitan. Or a show whose main source of conflict derives from Kevin's brother-in-law's attempts at starting his own schmaltzy singing career. It's all so painfully vanilla that one wishes Joe Jonas' rumored sex tape would suddenly air in its place. Or, screw it, even Farrah Abraham's. Anything with a pulse. —Matt Barone

18. Ironside (NBC)

Stars: Blair Underwood, Brent Sexton, Pablo Schreiber, Spencer Grammer, Neal Bledsoe, Kenneth Choi

To criticize Ironside, NBC's remake drama about a paraplegic police detective who solves his city's toughest crimes despite being confined to a wheelchair, is not to hurt the disabled community. The show did that all on its own. In pre-production, disabled actors criticized producers for hiring able bodied Blair Underwood to play the lead instead of a talented actor with an actual physical disability who could relate to the character's experience. (Producers explained that they needed an able-bodied actor for pre-paralysis flashbacks.)

The far worse crime is that the show, which lasted all of four episodes after failing to threaten C.S.I. and Nashville in its time slot, was an eye-rolling, monotonous, procedural mess that did little with its protagonist's disability besides repeatedly emphasize that not even the bullet that paralyzed him could make him any less of a tough guy. Uninteresting writing that failed to explore how people overcome disabilities and redefine themselves is what really took Ironside's legs out. —Justin Monroe

17. Betrayal (ABC)

Stars: Hannah Ware, Stuart Townsend, Chris Johnson, Wendy Moniz, Henry Thomas, Braeden Lemasters, Elizabeth McLaughlin, James Cromwell

Betrayal will lure you in with its sex appeal and basic soap opera plot: A couple (Hannah Ware and Stuart Townsend), both married to other people, begins an affair despite being on opposite ends of a murder trial. It's enough to make you put down that romance novel for a solid hour.

However, what it delivers is far less stimulating and wholly transparent. Basically, it's a boner kill. It's everything you've seen before, and probably had seen 30 seconds before it premiered, in an episode of Revenge. If that doesn't make you change the channel, the awkward acting by Henry Thomas as a mentally impaired billionaire's son, which seems kind of insulting to actual mentally impaired people, should do the trick. —Tara Aquino

16. What Would Ryan Lochte Do? (E!)

Stars: Ryan Lochte

Not ones to pass on a moronic piece of reality TV programming (see: Khloe and Lamar, The Gastineau Girls, Sunset Tan, etc.), the suits at E! presented their undiscerning viewers with a question as grand as, "What's the meaning of life?" The inquiry was simple: What would famously airheaded Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte do if put in front of cameras and asked to live his life?

The answer, unsurprisingly, was waste people's time. And also say a bunch of dumb things (On fashion: "I want to design everything from the bottom of shoes all the way up to the top of hats."), try to make "Lochterage" happen as a pop culture zeitgeist term du jour (it didn't), and give The Soup's writers more material than they could handle. —Matt Barone

15. Low Winter Sun (AMC)

Stars: Mark Strong, Lennie James, James Ransone, Sprague Grayden, Athena Karkanis, David Costabile, Billy Lush, Ruben Santiago-Hudson

Thanks to Don Draper, Walter White, Jax Teller, Dexter Morgan, and their countless other bad-boy counterparts, television's been overly focused on the antihero-as-protagonist conceit. Low Winter Sun, AMC's oppressively bleak and uninviting post-Breaking Bad failure, represents cable programmers' official wake-up call to brighten the mood up a bit, moving forward.

From the pilot episode's opening sequence, in which Detroit detectives Frank Agnew (Mark Strong) and Joe Geddes (Lennie James) murder one of their colleagues, Low Winter Sun felt about as appealing as a staycation in the local morgue. The rest of the show's first season tried its damnedest to make viewers like Agnew and Geddes, despite their darkest impulses, but Low Winter Sun's creators proved better at grimness than characterization, and their penchant for grimness isn't even that good.

Low Winter Sun ignores the key ingredient that makes shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men work: Before viewers ever feared the main characters, they were able to like them. Why do you think David Chase saved Tony Soprano's first act of brutality for The Sopranos' FIFTH episode, "College"? —Matt Barone

14. Ray Donovan (Showtime)

Stars: Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight, Paula Malcomson, Eddie Marsan, Dash Mihok, Steven Bauer, Katherine Moennig, Pooch Hall, Kerris Dorsey, Devon Bagby, Elliot Gould, Peter Jacobson, Ambyr Childers, Josh Pais, Austin Nichols, Frank Whaley, James Woods, Jonathan Schaech

Ray Donovan so desperately wanted to become TV's next great, important cable drama. It's obvious that series creator Ann Biderman and her team knew Breaking Bad was on its way out, and that Mad Men is gearing up for its own permanent departure.

Thus, they loaded Showtime's latest antihero program with an aggressive yet superficial sense of pathos. You see, professional celebrity "fixer" Ray Donovan (Liev Schreiber, reduced to moroseness) just wants to be a good husband and father, but his job requires him to be a bad, bad man. That's why he stares at things and broods—oh, does he brood. It was tough growing up in the Boston hoods, and it's even tougher correcting asshole celebs' problems when you have tons of your own personal issues to remedy.

There's a legitimately compelling series tucked somewhere inside Ray Donovan, but the existing show's dependencies on self-seriousness, Boston gangster movie clichés, and uneven Entourage-style Hollywood lampooning keep all of its potential stifled. Unless he finds an identity of his own and lightens up a bit, Ray Donovan won't ever be worthy of "fixing" Walter White's or Don Draper's faulty toilets, let alone stand alongside them. —Matt Barone

13. Smash (NBC)

Stars: Debra Messing, Jack Davenport, Katharine McPhe, Megan Hilty, Anjelica Huston, Jennifer Hudson, Jeremy Jordan, Krysta Rodriguez, Leslie Odom, Jr., Andy Mientus

In its earliest episodes, NBC's now-cancelled Smash was something that many wouldn't have admitted to ever wanting: an entertaining and vibrant drama about the makings of a Broadway show. That's right, folks (read: us) who watch zombies eat flesh on The Walking Dead, gangsters unload Tommy guns on Boardwalk Empire, and Walter White ruin people's lives on Breaking Bad were suddenly clamoring to watch Smash co-stars Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty compete to headline a Marilyn Monroe musical. Both actresses sang wonderfully, had tons of charisma, and promised an epic diva-off.

But then two unexpected things happened: One, that diva-off actually materialized on ABC's underrated country soap Nashville, and, two, Smash's creative team quickly lost confidence in McPhee and Hilty. Instead of letting their characters duke it out on the show's center stage, the producers introduced a plethora of lame side characters with vapid plotlines, to the point where this year's season two devolved into a desperate succession of useless guest stars (Jennifer Hudson, Liza Minnelli, Rosie O'Donnell). The McPhee/Hilty tandem deserved better. —Matt Barone

12. Red Widow (ABC)

Stars: Radha Mitchell, Goran Visnjic, Clifton Collins, Jr., Rade Serbedzija, Luke Goss, Lee Tergesen

How's this for a sales pitch: Red Widow is a television show about Russian mobsters and the drug trade as written by the woman who penned the Twilight movies. And, no, it doesn't exist in some alternate reality where David Chase and David Simon have teamed up to co-author a new Teletubbies series. Red Widow lasted eight episodes before being mercifully cancelled by ABC.

Who can blame the network's brass for taking a chance on it, though? In addition to Twilight scribe Melissa Rosenberg's publicity-ready presence, the implausibly high-concept Red Widow—about a woman who has to enter the world of organized crime after her gangster husband gets smoked—benefited from having the always solid Radha Mitchell as its lead. On paper, it seemed like a no-brainer, yet Red Widow didn't have the pieces necessary to sustain intrigue beyond its pilot—i.e., any believable characters capable of helping the show overcome its many storytelling flaws. —Matt Barone

11. The Real World: Portland (MTV)

Stars: Jordan Wiseley, Joi Neimeyer, Averey Tressler, Daisy, Jessica McCain, Anastasia Miller, Marlon Williams, Johnny Reilly, Nia Moore

In 2014, MTV is debuting a new twist on The Real World. In Ex-Plosion, seven horny and stupid young people are forced to live with their exes and—SPOILER ALERT!—it leads to fights and sex.

Why did the network feel the need to switch things up? Because, as seen in the Portland edition, the basic trashy format of seven strangers meeting, fighting, and fucking has grown incredibly stale since the series broke reality television ground back in 1992. PDX was the TWENTY-EIGHTH season, and by that time there was nothing that could surprise or engage viewers anymore, from physical disability to public sex. No, not even kegel toning. —Justin Monroe

10. Cult (The CW)

Stars: Matthew Davis, Jessica Lucas, Alona Tal, Robert Knepper, Aisha Hinds

What a waste of a dynamite premise. The short-lived series Cult had a great narrative hook: There's a TV show within the show called, yes, Cult, and its fans are reenacting its fictional, heinous crimes in real life. And with that, Cult promised a twisty mix of meta storytelling and mind-warping horror—well, if it were on any network other than The CW, that is.

Limited by the network's reliance on massaging, not pushing, boundaries and making sure all of its show's characters are beautifully airbrushed, the series never stood a chance at capitalizing on its intriguing, dark concept. The result was sanitized and dull, akin to Darren Star trying to be more like David Lynch. —Matt Barone

9. Dracula (NBC)

Stars: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jessica De Gouw, Victoria Smurfit, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Thomas Kretschmann, Nonso Anozie, Katie McGrath

Considering that horror is TV's latest obsession, led by The Walking Dead's zombies, True Blood's vampires, and American Horror Story's whatever-the-fuck-works, a small-screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's seminal bloodsucker novel Dracula was bound to happen. But who could have anticipated it'd be so damn dull?

NBC's Dracula is many things. It's a stuffy period drama that makes Downton Abbey feel like Strike Back. It's a supercharged genre rehash cut from the Paul W.S. Anderson/Resident Evil playbook, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers' titular count using martial arts fight moves to hurt opponents when he's not drinking their blood. And it's a hodgepodge of Stoker's novel's concepts that plays fast and loose with his source material, turning Abraham Van Helsing (Thomas Kretschmann) into one of Dracula's allies and Renfield (Nonso Anozie) into a bland man-servant, among other tweaks.

But one thing that Dracula sure as hell is not? Entertainment with either a pulse or a shred of intrigue. Between Meyers' bizarre Christian Slater voice impersonation and the show's hammy demeanor, Stoker has many reasons to roll over in his coffin. And, if he's feeling especially ambitious in the afterlife, send letters of appreciation to Bill Compton and Eric Northman. —Matt Barone

8. Big Brother (CBS)

Stars: Aaryn Gries, Amanda Zuckerman, Andy Herren, Candice Stewart, David Girton, Elissa Slater, GinaMarie Zimmerman, Helen Kim et. al.

Yes, Big Brother is still on and successful enough to have a 16th season in 2014. It's been around since 1999, and the undying reality series is currently at its lowest point. The only reason anyone talked about Big Brother this year: those horribly racist comments made by contestant Aaryn. She was, obviously, the worst thing about the show in 2013, but even without her abhorrent comments, Big Brother still would have been offensive. —Frantz Rocher

7. Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (ABC)

Stars: Sophie Lowe, Michael Socha, Petet Gadiot, Emma Rigby, Naveen Andrews

Similar to the way one would summon a genie, a circle of greedy executives rubbed their hands together to summon another moneymaker (after the success of the original Once Upon a Time show) and out wafted this travesty. Too bad none of the money made it onto the screen. From Alice's Windows '95 Screensaver Wonderland to the cheap flying mechanics (you could almost hear the cables holding them squeaking on set), the visuals don't even stand up to lowball standards.

Plus, the effects aren't enough to distract you from a saggy, soapy story that involves Jafar (Naveen Andrews) stroking his proverbial, and actual, evil beard relentlessly to get his hands on the genie Cyrus (Peter Gadiot). The genie is caught immediately and stays there for episodes on end while Jafar continues to plot. Even The Simpsons' Mr. Burns had his soft moments.

Not to mention, Alice always foils Jafar's brilliant schemes five minutes later, at which point, he says ominous things like, "Back to the drawing board," and the awful game begins again. The Knave of Hearts enters the picture and saves Alice a few times, sporting a modern "bad boy" leather jacket for some reason. And considering the rest of the set is designed to replicate a magical, albeit very elaborate, 19th century vibe (a wooden catapult makes an appearance) the Knave's '80s I-smoke-in-the-high-school-parking-lot thing is consistently distracting.

This show already exists, and without magical realms. It's called All My Children, or General Hospital, whichever you prefer. Minus the cheap special effects. —Frantz Rocher

6. Dexter (Showtime)

Stars: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, David Zayas, James Remar, C.S. Lee, Aimee Garcia, Charlotte Rampling, Yvonne Strahovski, Sean Patrick Flanery, Dora Madison Burge

Showtime's Dexter had consistently been losing its momentum in recent years, but season eight, the show's final one? The absolute nadir for a once-solid cable drama that never should have lasted more than four or five seasons.

If Dexter's producers knew this was their final year heading into season eight's story-breaking sessions, they sure fooled all of the show's fans. At its best, Dexter's last hurrah felt like a middling regular season, with yet another uninteresting villain-of-the-year, "the Brain Surgeon," and a half-baked subplot involving a psychopath expert/doctor (Charlotte Rampling) who knows a lot about Dexter Morgan's past. But around the season's halfway point, Dexter frantically began trying to wrap up loose ends, stumbling along towards a rushed, unsatisfying resolution that left the show's fan-favorite Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) dead in the lamest of ways and Dexter himself (Michael C. Hall, who deserved better) wearing a flannel and inexplicably being a lumberjack.

Years from now, TV historians may end up ranking Dexter's last episode as the medium's all-time worst series finale. Don't expect many complaints from the show's begrudged fans. —Matt Barone

5. We Are Men (CBS)

Stars: Kal Penn, Jerry O'Connell, Chris Smith, Tony Shalhoub, Rebecca Breeds

Man, life is hard for a guy just trying to live it up in the 21st century. Especially when you're a sex-obsessed dude living in a singles complex with minimal responsibilities and totally detached from the rest of the world. Yeah, that's the premise of We Are Men. But hey, if you're into that, treat yourself to all two episodes, since, well, only two aired before the show got cancelled.

The moments that aren't taken up by misogyny are filled with bad comedy and regret. (Kal Penn, Obama is shaking his head at you.) If we wanted to watch four losers hit on women and not laugh we would hit up a club. But even those guys eventually get the point and leave. —Arianna Friedman

4. Under the Dome (CBS)

Stars: Mike Vogel, Dean Norris, Rachelle Lefevre, Natalie Martinez, Colin Ford, Britt Robertson, Alexander Koch, Nicholas Strong, Jolene Purdy, Aisha Hinds, Samantha Mathis, Mackenzie Lintz

An Under the Dome miniseries? That could have been something special, a short, no-holds-barred look at townsfolk contending against both supernatural forces and each other while trapped inside an impenetrable shell. There's a reason why Stephen King hasn't written a sequel to his 2009 novel of the same name yet—the story wraps up nicely by the end of his book, because, well, it's a limited narrative to begin with.

It's too bad Brian K. Vaughan, the veteran comic book writer whose CBS series is based on Under the Dome made the idiotic mistake of pushing King's story to an ongoing series, with, yes, a second season on tap for 2014.

Meaning, Vaughan and company had to introduce clichéd characters to pad out the running time, but, even worse, they also stretched King's existing characters beyond all plausibility, likability, and general interest. The result: Plodding episodes in which the only cause for alarm is the local teenagers' cell phones suddenly not working. The show's biggest downfall, though, is its acting, which is subpar, at best, delivered by an underwhelming cast with whom the usually strong Dean Norris (downgraded after Breaking Bad) can't help but sink along. —Matt Barone

3. Gossip Game (VH1)

Stars: Angela Yee, Candice "Ms. Drama" Williams, Jas Fly, K. Foxx, Kimberly Osorio, Sharon Carpenter, Vivian Billings

VH1 brought yet another version of No, You Shut Up, Bitch! in the form of Gossip Game. This time, viewers mostly, if not politely, put their hands over their plates and politely declined another spoonful of bullshit.

The reality series followed famous female radio personalities and reporters in the rap scene like Angela Yee and K. Foxx. Cool, you say, a positive prescedent about strong female rol... "No, get up, bitch! If you want to throw down, stand up then!" Or, "Maino, rank which radio personalities you would 'smash.'" "You're trash and I don't stand for trash!"

Those quotables do anything for you? Go smell the flowers, folks, or skip the middle man and go to the beauty salon, because you'll get the gossip there, live and uncut. Let's leave you with this wisdom from K. Foxx, on the topic of hip-hop bloggers: "They can be eating a bag of chips, typing on the computer, and masturbating at the same time."

That's right bloggers, your gross but impressively dexterous habits are exposed. What a way to give the worst PR imaginable for female hip-hop writers, imaginable. Empowering!—Frantz Rocher

2. The Following (Fox)

Stars: Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy, Natalie Zea, Shawn Ashmore, Valorie Curry, Nico Tortorella, Annie Parisse, Adan Canto, Billy Brown

It's the show that millions of viewers loved to hate and hated to miss. Because to miss an episode of The Following meant that you wouldn't get to see Ryan Hardy—the incredibly inept FBI agent played by Kevin Bacon—make one idiotic decision after another, like breaking protocol and running off on his own cavalier search-and-rescue missions. Which, of course, always ended with someone saving him right in the nick of time, though not before every random actor not listed in the show's opening credits revealed himself or herself to be one of homicidal cult leader Joe Carroll's (James Purefoy) gullible minions.

Created by Kevin Williamson (The Vampire Diaries), The Following was the year's strongest hate-watch event, plowing through every familiar serial killer trope on its way to the first season finale's lame, maddening anti-climax. Somehow, though, The Following kept us intrigued, perhaps due to its occasional moments of startling gruesomeness, scenes of impressive shock wild enough to appease any genre fan's morbid sensibilities. Makes sense, too, considering that morbid curiosity describes what it took to not erase The Following from our DVR schedules. —Matt Barone

1. Dads (Fox)

Stars: Giovanni Ribisi, Seth Green, Brenda Song, Peter Reigert, Martin Mull

Otherwise known as $h*! My Racist Misogynist Uncle Says.

When it was announced that Seth MacFarlane would leave the safe shores of animated television for live-action, with the sitcom Dads, people were relatively excited. What we got, unfortunately, were lazy jokes that played on racial and sexual stereotypes without commenting on or challenging the ignorance of game developers Warner (Giovanni Ribisi) and Eli (Seth Green), who clearly soaked up all the insensitivity of their intrusive, backwards-ass dads (Peter Riegert, Martin Mull).

And just how lazy were the jokes, you ask? With sexy Asian school girl jokes, Latina maid jokes, and "You go, girl" gay jokes, it's like the humor never even bothered to get out of bed.

Would half of these jokes land on Family Guy, where the offensiveness gauge has been turned off and our taste for it calloused? Perhaps, not that it makes it any less lazy and awful. In Dads, Pete-ah Griffin isn't around to save things. Instead, viewers get the full brunt of stupid, in real life, coming from flesh-and-blood actors' mouths. Painful for all involved, but mostly for audiences foolish enough to watch. —Frantz Rocher