SANTA CLARITA DIET just got the axe from NETFLIX. All the good shows are getting cancelled these days while too many shows that should be kicked to the curb keep getting renewed. We're compiling a list of the ten worst shows from last fall to date. We're leaving out reality or 'reality' television. We're also taking a pass on Chicago shows.
1) I FEEL BAD. Has a show this bad ever been promoted so hard? You'd think after viewing the pilot, NBC would have decided to cut their losses. Instead, a small fortune was spent trying to persuade viewers that this was a funny show -- it wasn't.
2) THE CONNERS. As Ava and C.I. pointed out, Rhoda only gets married once. And Roseanne only gets killed off once. Eleven million watched that episode. After? They averaged six million. A huge comedown for the show that was ROSEANNE the year before and, as ROSEANNE, their highest rated episode saw 27 million tune in and their lowest saw 15 million viewers. THE CONNERS is a bomb and no one wants to watch pointy-chinned Sara Gilbert play a straight woman pursued by several men (three this season alone). It took Gilbert years to come out of the closet -- she was already married and had a kid ready to start school before she came out. How long before she finally agrees to play a lesbian -- which is what Darlene should be? The homophobia wafting off Sara Gilbert is disgusting.
3) EMPIRE season five. Oh, look, another season where we pretend Cookie's going to grow emotionally but doesn't. Another give her a romantic partner who is questionable season. And, look, there's Jamal thinking bitchy is the new heroic. Between that and everything else, the only storyline that worked was Lucious relationship with Kingsley -- and the show even blew that, delaying Lucious accepting his own son so long that it made a mockery of everything Lucious had ever stood for or done.
4) SUPERSTORE. A great episode, for this show, means you smile once. You never laugh because it's not a funny show. Ratings should have gotten this show cancelled years ago. Low rated, non-funny shows like this crowded our WILL & GRACE a decade ago. These single-cam shows built on 'whimsy' but no one tunes in for that. NBC has had to bring back WILL & GRACE to get a hit on Thursdays but they still surround it with these single-cam shows billed as "sitcoms" which are actually not funny. Of all of them, SUPERSTORE is the worst.
5) THE GIFTED. It should have been more. Bryan Singer's lust for young boys, is that why we got what we got? The hideous Percy playing a lead role even though he should be laying the guest on SAVED BY THE BELL whose head gets pushed in the toilet by Zach while Slater flushed the toilet. White boy blond Percy was the worst actor in the cast and played the least interesting character. So why was he front and center? Bryan Singer's lust or just the fact that he was Anglo White?
6) THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT. Lifeless and joyless, this is another single-camera 'comedy' that fails to deliver the laughs.
7) THE PASSAGE. If the first episode had been 30 seconds, it might have worked. They had enough going on to make the commercial appear to be for a strong new show. But then the actual episodes started airing and it was clear that the writing just wasn't there and never would be. One of the great disappointments of this season.
8) WHISKEY CAVALIER. As Ava and C.I. noted, when you build a show around sexual chemistry, your leads need to have it: " Scott Foley is a lead, yes. But Lauren Cohan? She's not a lead.
She's someone's who has been hired for a role she's all wrong for and
every episode is an attempt to shoot around this reality."
9) NCIS. Apparently, this show will be back next season so that the increasingly feminized Mark Harmon can breast feed the young pups on this tired show.
10) FOSSE/VERDON. What should be a raging potboiler melodrama instead is a genteel bore. Michelle Williams looks so bad, you don't even wonder why they've hired another actress to play Gwen Verdon as a young adult, first married woman. Yes, she looks that bad and that old and that flabby ass doesn't speak to a professional dancer. Sam Rockwell has a ridiculous part but he goes with it and does deliver a performance, he's the only one in the cast who does.
The top two on the list above also made our list for the worst of fall 2018.