"When The Shippers Won, Everybody Lost": 15 TV Shows That Were Ruined When They Became Too Popular

"Once major characters started leaving or being killed off, it just wasn't as interesting or impactful. The show writers didn't do a great job of getting viewers to care about new characters."

—freshdragon41

"Grey's Anatomy was amazing and deserved to be popular. Problem is, they didn't know when to stop, which should have been many seasons ago, back when we still had amazing characters, friendships, romances, and medical cases. 

It has nothing to do with the great medical drama it used to be. I gave up after Season 16 but should have done it way earlier."

—silverhera

"That show became so popular, I feel like they are still making more seasons just to keep the fanbase growing, even though it's long exhausted all the stories, and at this point, it's recycled cases."

—smellyogre72

"It should have ended with Meredith and Derek going to DC, Cristina going to Switzerland, and Alex going into private practice outside Grey-Sloan."

—lindastarr

"The show has an amazing ensemble, and the music and direction are top-tier. Though the show has always been popular, since Season 4, the fanbase has become cringey and overly satirized online, and the show has lost its witty, nostalgic edge. 

Still excited for Season 5, though."

—witbeyondmeasure223

"How did we love you, and you went wrong? Let me count the ways!

Your stars drank their own Kool-Aid. After the first few seasons, it seemed like somebody was always threatening to leave, and poor Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish. By the time the show brought them on to replace David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, it would have been more humane to give them thimbles to bail out the lower decks of the Titanic.

The shipping. Who doesn't love love? But you were a show about space aliens, government coverups, weird serial killers, and wacky monsters. When the shippers won, everybody lost."

—chisti

"The first season was great because it was short. But then, when it got popular, they had to fill the 22/24 episodes per season that the networks request, and it became a lot of fillers and convoluted storylines by the end."

—grhngrg

"The show got so popular that fans were giving their theories about who Gossip Girl was, and [the writers had to change the planned ending after a leak]. So dumb."

—grhngrg

"It became so popular that people just focused on the hype and didn't pay attention to what was actually happening — especially regarding popular, way overhyped characters. The finale would have been much better received if certain characters hadn't been so overhyped."

—witchyfish58

"Such a stellar cast of women, but once they killed off Poussey, it all went downhill."

—lmclaughlin

"The showrunner bought into his own hype, and Season 3 was a complete disaster. There were too many characters, and they were all either extremely out of character or just dropped without really being mentioned again. 

Now, Season 4 is the final one, and it's not even a full one. Everyone suffered so badly in Season 3 that there's no way to pull off even a vaguely satisfying ending at this point."

—namelessliberty

"[It] had fewer episodes in the first season and an interesting story that needed adjustments, but it was a good teen mystery show. Then it went downhill when they wanted to fill seasons and seasons without knowing what to do."

—grhngrg

"All the unexplained situations on the island were so exciting in the first three seasons. I loved the characters and the structure of the show. 

I never saw the finale. They 'lost' me in Season 4 or 5, I think. The vibe was gone, the characters got weird, and the story was convoluted. When I heard how it eventually ended, I was glad I spared myself the major disappointment."

—younglatte48

"[It] went on for too long. The first few seasons are dumb and fun teen drama (even though it had several questionable romances). But then, it was so big, they wanted to keep going and going, and then A was AD, and Ali was alive all along, and OMG, enough!"

—grhngrg

"When Alan Alda started taking over and adding more pathos to the scripts, it became more tragedy and less comedy."

—sillytree12

"The first three or four seasons were excellent. Detectives Goren and Eames were a superb match.

In later seasons, guest stars started to be a regular feature of the show, along with diving too much into the detectives' personal lives.

The first three seasons are beyond reproach, though."

—jasonlefler

"Popular opinion agrees that it just got terrible at the end, but it had already faded after Season 4."

—ruchav

"The first few seasons were an absolute down-and-dirty blast. I loved everything from the casting to the plot to the amazing world-building. 

Then when showrunner Alan Ball left, it went off a fucking cliff. Fast! Culminated in one of the worst serious finales of all time."

—tendtomebollocks