Shows that Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot

[Mangod]

So, I've been reading Naruto on-and-off for a while now, slowly waching the series turn into a slow-motion train wreck, when it struck me what an absolute waste the story was, when it squandered its initial premise. And that brings me to this thread; what shows/books/Movies/cartoons/etc can you, my fellow Escapists, Think of that completely wasted the potential of their original premise? I've got three lined up for you already.

1. Naruto.
What is Naruto? Well, at its core, it is supposed to be a manga/anime about ninja, and more specifically, about the eponomous main characters rise from the lowly ranks of the grunts to one day lead the village he was born into.

What has the series become? Dragonball Z, except more contrived and even more drawn out. Any hints about the slow rise to power and responsibility that the series suggested it would be about when it started has been stomped into the ground in favor of focusing on some kind of ridiulous "war" between all the ninja villages and God Mode Villain Tob- I mean Mada- I mean Kaguya.

2. Pokémon.
Again, same deal. What was the initial premise? Ash's quest to become a "Pokémon Master", by defeating all the Gym leaders in his home region, followed by winning what is in essence the World Championships in cockfighting. A simple journy from Point A (inexperienced youth starting out on his journey) to Point B (a more experienced young man making the final climb to reach his dreams). Hell, they could have ended the original run with Ash as the undisputed greatest trainer in the World, then flash forward 3 years to the next protagonist starting out on his journey to become the worlds greatest Pokémon trainer, culminating in him facing Ash himself at the end of his journey.

Instead, the series is just perpetually going on and on and on, with Ash becoming increasingly dumb, which is rather impressive since he seems incapable of aging beyond the age of 10. You figure being stuck in some weird groundhog day loop would stop you from becoming senile.

3. Highschool of the Dead.

The initial premise; Dawn of the Dead meets Lord of the Flies when a group of highschoolers find themselves stuck in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, and need to struggle to survive while society breaks down around them.

What the series became:


So, what shows do you think wasted a perfectly good plot for the sake of fanservice/pandering to the lowest common denominator.

 

[tippy2k2]

I have a hard time being mad at High School of the Dead for what it's done. It has never pretended to be anything else but a fan-service (or my new favorite word coined by a user in another thread fap-service) and zombies getting killed (ideally with fap-service being present somehow; see Matrix Boobs).

As for the question at hand, the one show that started with an excellent premise and then slowly but surely fell apart (most agree after Season 4) was DEXTER.

It was an absolutely excellent show for those first four seasons and while I don't feel it ever completely fell apart (discounting the ending), the show felt like it was just going through the motions after John Lithgow's season. I continued watching it until the very end hoping that it would re-catch that spark but alas, it was never to be...

 

[Zontar]

This is going to be said eventually so I'll do it now: Sword Art Online.

The premise: 10 000 people are trapped in an MMO where if you die in game you die in real life.

What we got: 3 interesting episodes with larger then should be justified time skips, 9 filler episodes which accomplish nothing and waste our time 3 episodes which are about halfway decent with a bullshit ending that no one should have been happy with. And then it get to the second half of the season, where it takes a nose dive into being just plane bad into full "so bad, it's entertaining just to see how bad it gets" territory.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I'll second Sword Art Online (Season 1, didn't watch Season 2). Along with the tension created by the premise, the story showed a lot of potential to deal with the people who play online games and the relationships that form between them due to playing those games. And honestly, with all the lamenting we see about friendships formed online, that was a story that I would love to see. However, almost every character that was introduced was mostly dropped after the first or second episode they were in, and every interesting plot element was thrown away just as quickly. The end result is that none of the characters or their relationships felt meaningful in the slightest, and so much of it came across as really bad filler. Sure, some episodes were interesting, but the overall story was seriously lacking.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Strike Witches. Y'all might say that it's just a fanservice show and I shouldn't be angry at it for being one. I disagree. The show clearly is trying to have plot and drama and characters, but it is so fucking undermined by it's stupid fanservice bullshit that it fails as both a drama and a fanservice show. And the second season is the lazest copy-paste job I've seen in years.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Twin Peaks. I love the show to death but it's riddled with inconsistency problems throughout its (rather lengthy) second season. Solving Laura Palmer's death mid-season was wrong and left a plot void that gave way to lots of stupid filler and circular subplots. By the end of the show it was getting interesting again and it got cancelled. So much for that.

 

[babinro]

Lost instantly comes to mind as it sets interesting things up in the first 2 seasons and the gradually becomes a total mess.

Death Note is fantastic up until part way into Season 2. It takes a significant turn and goes downhill from there.

 

[ckam]

Shingeki no Kyojin. That is all.

 

[Squilookle]

How about Looper? (spoiler alert, obviously) An interesting premise about time travelling assassination, which goes pear shaped for the protagonist when he is sent his future self to kill, and in hesitating to do so, his older self escapes. Pretty good so far, but then the whole thing gets bogged down in this moral quandary about whether to kill a child or not. It annoyed me immensely to hear just how much damage this kid will do later in life and he doesn't get killed like he really should, whereas other, completely innocent children born on the same day were.

Couldn't it have just been a good old fashioned chase movie running with the twist that neither person REALLY wants to kill the other?

 

[franticfarken]

In my experience, I feel that anime's seem to just come up with an incredibly interesting and sophisticated plot.
Then piss all over it.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

I'm going have to go with Adventure Time, it has had SO many amazing plots started in episodes and then they're just instantly solved in the one episode and nothing is ever spoken about it again, there is SO MUCH potential in so many episodes but it's just wasted!

 

[Adapth]

A lot of anime shows do seem to have this problem...

My biggest disappointment was probably Darker than Black. A world with violent, mysterious, and frequently bad ass superhumans who are by definition emotionless and the people trying to live around them? Goddamn that show was awesome. But while the story was always fairly dreary and dour, something went wrong and it got downright mopey. Watching the protagonist run around being mysterious and bad ass against the backdrop of this interesting mythology turned out to be way more interesting than finally getting answers about him and the world he lived in. And then season two...which I never got through because it just wasn't interesting enough, not enough of what I liked about the show was left.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

Avatar: The Legend of Korra. Granted it had a lot to live up to, but even on its own the premise was amazing. And while I won't go so far as to say that it "wasted" a perfectly good plot, it certainly hasn't executed quite as well as I would have liked. Still a good show, mind.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Firefly.

Thats right I said it, the TV show wasted a perfectly good setting and characters with most of the episodes being boring nothings.

Agreed. I really do think that it's one of the most overrated shows.

As for my picks:

Lost -It had great characters and a plot that was full of interesting things. What we got was some cop-out religious ending that answered hardly any of the questions we had and probably raised more.

Dexter -It just went on too long. Although, when I compare its first season (my favourite one) to some of the more recent high quality TV, I'm not even sure if the show was all that great to begin with.

Most recently: Knights of Sidonia -It had a cool premise but that's about all I can say for it. Not a whole lot happens in each episode, and I've already come across an incredibly pointless filler episode (episode 5). Ya it was supposed to get us more invested in the characters, but I just found it to be so badly written that it made me care even less about the characters than I originally had. I don't think I'll finish it the series.

 

[Michael Tabbut]

I will second Naruto. An article said the thing was supposed to end over in two weeks...months ago. Kishimoto is padding it out to get a satisfying end to an un-salvagable mess.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I will second Naruto. An article said the thing was supposed to end over in two weeks...months ago. Kishimoto is padding it out to get a satisfying end to an un-salvagable mess.

Yeah totally. He spent a bunch of time creating a bunch of side characters that could be fun and interesting to use, but they never get any screen time or Sasuke kills them. Shino deserves at least one good fight after the number of times that Kashimoto cockblocks him.

 

[Reaper195]

Attack on Titan. The first two episodes were pretty good. The next eleven episodes (I've only seen the English Dub) can fuck right off. I don't care if the characters are still teenagers or early adults. I don't want to see a show which is 20% action, and 0% people monologue-ing and complaining and EVERYONE seems to suddenly suffer from shell shock so goddamn easily. In fact, there are two episodes about midway through (When people realize a certain character can do a certain thing) and all these people are pointing guns at them. And next to nothing happens the entire time with the exception of that one thing PARTIALLY happening. And then the next episode, they spend sitting in dust and smoke SITTING DOWN AND HAVING A FUCKING CHAT!

I thought maybe the origin of the Titans, characters history, etc, would be explained in the comics. Nope. It's like Lost all over again (But more whingey and average voice casting) by instead of giving us any answers, it just throws more shit onto the question pile without bothering to ever answer anything.

 

[Saltyk]

Yeah, I recently caught back up on Naruto. Man, did it go into Bullshit Ass Pull powers territory.

Say what you will about DBZ, but characters generally didn't pull out some never before seen technique. Or get gifted God Powers by Ninja Jesus. And unleashing a new form or power usually took some effort. Krillen had to die to push Goku to Super Saiyan. Cell had the Z Warriors on the ropes and mercilessly destroyed Android 16 before Gohan ascended. The idea of Piccolo reuniting with Kami was established long before it happened.

In recent Naruto chapters... Yeah, let's just say when discussing it with someone recently, I used the phrase "Bull Shit" a lot.

It's sort of odd, but while Naruto seems to have gone off the rails, Bleach seems to have gotten back on track.

That being said, the whole Aizen thing felt like it was mishandled. Ichigo had Aizen outmatched and completely overpowered. So much so that Aizen couldn't even comprehend his power it was so immense. And he decides to use a technique that will completely sever his Spiritual Connection and make him lose all his powers? And it missed? But it was okay, because Urahara saved the day?

Yeah, I was completely disappointed in that whole ending. It dropped the ball hard. Then, starts up a new Full Bring Arc. And when Ichigo regained his former Soul Reaper powers, he so outclassed the villain that the fight wasn't even interesting. And now he's half Soul Reaper, half Hollow, and half Quincy. So stupid...

However, what I read actually seems to indicate that the series got back on track a bit. Rukia's recently revealed Bankai was awesome.

 

[Nikolaz72]

BBC's miniseries - Sherlock.

Yea, no. I adore the thing, all 9 episodes infact. But there was one episode that pissed me off and that was Episode 2 of Season 3. (Note that there are 3 episodes every season)

They mentioned in passing like 18 different cases they had solved together which hadn't been shown in any episode. Talking about how interesting they were and all that, but we never got to see them actually solve said cases because there are too few episodes in the seasons and they seem to spend most of their time fighting a big bad rather than just solve the small individual cases due to the short length of the seasons.

The original premise was 6 episodes a season with 60 minutes each, but they ended up having 3 episodes a season with 90 minutes each. If they had gone with the original they'd have had plenty of time to do all those interesting cases together and actually show Sherlock doing Sherlock things. Instead, well... It looks like what we're getting are just really long movies focusing on small specifics, and not a show where they go around solving the old cases with a modern spin.

I don't know, I think it's a preference. But I found Sherlock qualified well for the title as the show has literally been 'wasting' 'perfectly good' 'plot' by, well.. Literally wasting it.