The Most OVERated TV Shows of all Time

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HarmonyServant said:
… and American Idol.

ducks under table
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It’s true though… the only part I like is the first one or two episodes where they show all the really bad singers who think they’re so great. But even that isn’t ever enough to make me go out of my way to watch it.

Also I’d like to nominate, Whose Line is it Anyway? (the American version, but I’d imagine the original can’t be much better)
 
exoflare said:
Also I’d like to nominate, Whose Line is it Anyway? (the American version, but I’d imagine the original can’t be much better)
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The British version is far more off color than would be allowed on American TV.
 
I can’t comment to much never having seen any episodes of Seinfeld, American Idol, Friends, Modern Family, Desperate Houswives, etc. I consider most of modern tv a cesspool trying to push the boundries of censorship. Even my beloved game show network is getting worse all the time. Thank heavens for football, ewtn, and rfd-tv.
 
Keep in mind, the thread title is ‘of all time’, so that includes shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. 😉
 
I have to defend Seinfeld! I absolutely love that show and I can die laughing watching it all the time. Its always a pleasure watching everything somehow tie back together at the end…my parents used to watch it after I would go to bed (it was on when I was younger) and now that I’ve gotten into it at college, its incredible how I can say that “I saw such and such an episode of Seinfeld today” and they’ll burst out laughing, knowing exactly what I’m talking about. I’ll always have a soft spot for a particular episode where for one reason or another, the Yankees think that George Costanza has died, so George Steinbrenner visits his parents house to break the news, and all that George’s father can do is berate Steinbrenner by yelling “HOW COULD YOU JAY BUHNER?” The same goes for the Office, which we all watch together.

On the other hand, I never liked Friends at all (it was almost the inverse of Seinfeld, I guess; they were both in New York City, but in very different New York cities. Friends always seemed so artificial to me), and I never really got the Andy Griffith Show. Nothing seems to ever really happen. All in the Family is another show I just don’t enjoy. Maybe they just aren’t my style; if I’m watching an older show, I’ll much prefer something like Get Smart or Batman (HILARIOUS!!!).
 
There are so many shows I could not begin to list them.

MASH was funny in its first two year with the Colonel Blake and Trapper John characters.
One of the writers for the show was Larry Gelbart, who was a classic comedy writer. He worked with Sid Caesar on Your Show of shows in the 1950s. Gelbart was one of the best comedy writers ever.

Gelbart left the show at the same time Wayne Rogers and McLean Stevenson left the cast. The comedy was never as good after that.
 
HarmonyServant said:
… and American Idol.

ducks under table
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Ugh – what a load of old laundry that one is!

Funny thing is that if you go back thorough the annals of broadcast history, you’ll discover it is nothing new or innovative In the 1930s and 1940s. you had Major Bowes Amateur Hour, American radio’s best-known talent show. In the 1950s you had Ted Mack and The Original Amateur Hour which gave us Pat Boone!

But – all these American Idol, Canadian Idol, even Afghani Idol should bow in homage to the greatest of them all – the Eurovison Song Contest! Thanks to Eurovision, ABBA became world stars with Waterloo. And, if you know Dana, who you’ve seen on EWTN – yep Eurovision. And the Catholicity doesn’t end there. Tajci who competed in 1990 for Yugoslavia, is now is a devote Catholic who tours the USA giving Christian concerts!

American Idol – ha! 😛

God bless

Tony
 
Ahh, Blackadder Goes Forth!

sticks two pencils up her nose, puts underpants on her head and starts answering every question with the word ‘wibble’

:rotfl:

I’ve got to say I don’t like ALL of Seinfeld, but I do find much of it pretty darn funny - the final episode is absolutley priceless.

As for MASH, I agree it got preachy in later seasons, but then my Dad who did a few years as an Army doctor, loved it, so I suppose it’s fairly true-to-life.
 
another under rated show and my all time favorite DUE SOUTH!!! It was about a Chicago cop who teamed up with a mounty who was trying to find his father’s killers. What I liked was the mounty didn’t need a gun to solve crimes (he had to get permission to carry a gun in the US). He, the mounty, was a by the book cop and had a strong moral compass. Yeah, some of what the mounty did to solve crimes was a little far fetched, but it was still a good show. I heard that some people considered the show too violent and that was in part why it didn’t do well in the States. 🤷
 
Although I never watched it, and never will, even the episodes that include my favorite actor–I think the show The Sopranos, was OVERated.

I think it’s not right to present mobsters as regular folks. Real-life mobsters are monsters who prey on decent people, destroy businesses, and break every commandment in the Decalogue.

The very idea of normalizing such evil makes me sick.
 
saskatoon said:
another under rated show and my all time favorite DUE SOUTH!!!
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I must admit I really like that show too. I was glad when it finally came out on DVD.
saskatoon said:
I heard that some people considered the show too violent and that was in part why it didn’t do well in the States. 🤷
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Possibly, but it wasn’t finally cancelled for good until after the worst season, when they replaced Marciano with Renne as the mountie’s US partner. A season like that makes you much less sad when the show is cancelled, IMO. But the first three seasons were VERY good.

Also agree with posters who like Blackadder goes forth. But I would not restrict it to that. The second, third, and fourth seasons were all good, IMO. The first season had its moments, but was less good.

I’ll add another over-rated show, though: South Park. For a short while, it was more funny than it was offensive. Then it got less funny and more offensive. Now it is supposed to be this great show, apparently on the judgement of people who can’t tell the difference.

About earlier over-rated shows (from the 50s etc.): That one is a little tricky, for a couple of reasons. First, when bad shows are really popular, that effect diminishes with time. Also, they may not play the show now. For example, I know as a historical fact that Ozzie & Harriet was a popular show. But I’ve never seen it in my life, so I have no way of knowing if it was over-rated.

Second, maybe we are more unashamed in our TV watching now? I mean, you can’t say that a show like, for example, Three’s Company was over-rated, simply because everyone thought of it more as a guilty pleasure. Nobody ever claimed it was any good, they just watched it because it was more or less entertaining. At least, that is how I remember it toward the end of the series–I wouldn’t have been allowed to watch it when it started, and wouldn’t have gotten the jokes if I had been. 😃

–Jen
“Baldrick, you wouldn’t know a cunning plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on the desk singing, ‘Cunning plans are here again.’” (Blackadder goes Forth, from memory so pardon if it’s not 100% accurate)
 
My wife and I (both 31) were watching Leave it to Beaver last night on Netflix. We have Netflix directly to the TV. We both were talking about how it seemed that in the 50’s everything seemed more wholesome and respectable. Too bad that we were born in the wrong era.
 
Overrated shows on tv:

Family Guy - the show is rarely clever and resorts to too much shock humor.

Grey’s Anatomy - dumb du dumb dumb

Deal or No Deal AKA the pretty lady suitcase show - the contest requires absolutely no skill

Dexter - I really don’t get sympathizing with a main character that is a serial killer. I don’t know if I would say it is the most overrated show on tv so much as the most disturbing.
 
mkipp said:
My wife and I (both 31) were watching Leave it to Beaver last night on Netflix. We have Netflix directly to the TV. We both were talking about how it seemed that in the 50’s everything seemed more wholesome and respectable. Too bad that we were born in the wrong era.
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Interesting facts about that show that many don’t realize. Hugh Beaumont was, besides an actor, an ordained minister and insisted on a moral underpinning to every episode. It was also a show seen through the eyes of a child. The adults become background scenary.
Here’s something that would send the PC patrol into shock: There was one episode of “Leave It to Beaver” where a girl invited Beaver to her birthday party only to discover when he got there that he was the only boy among a group of girls. The father of the girl, seeing how uncomfortable Beaver was with the situation, invited him to his den and showed off his antique gun collection. He even let the fascinated and gleeful Beaver hold one of his pistols.
Can you imagine such a scene appearing in a modern show?
 
Trick said:
I never saw a Seinfeld episode, so no opinion.
I do think MASH was a very funny show, amid the rather serious backdrop.
Two of my personal favorites were the Dick Van **** Show and the Andy Griffith Show.
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I agree on the Dick Van **** and Andy Griffith shows. They were classics and are still funny and Andy Griffith is heartwarming too, but was better when Don Knotts was on. Once he left it wasn’t as good. My 11 year old watched a Dick Van **** episode in school during Language Arts and thought it was pretty good too, so it holds up over time.
I also loved Everybody Loves Raymond cause I think my husband could be Raymond’s twin!
Another really funny show was Candid Camera. It was fresh and original, sort of the original reality show.
I absolutely hate shows like Desperate Housewives, Melrose Place, Cougartown, Nip and Tuck. Anything that resembles a soapopera is going to be redundant and boring.
 
JustaServant said:
Interesting facts about that show that many don’t realize. Hugh Beaumont was, besides an actor, an ordained minister and insisted on a moral underpinning to every episode. It was also a show seen through the eyes of a child. The adults become background scenary.
Here’s something that would send the PC patrol into shock: There was one episode of “Leave It to Beaver” where a girl invited Beaver to her birthday party only to discover when he got there that he was the only boy among a group of girls. The father of the girl, seeing how uncomfortable Beaver was with the situation, invited him to his den and showed off his antique gun collection. He even let the fascinated and gleeful Beaver hold one of his pistols.
Can you imagine such a scene appearing in a modern show?
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This is funny as that is the episode that we watched last night. Beaver was playing with the guns, and all I could think was that the lefty liberals would have the show cancelled if they did that now.
 
Cat said:
Although I never watched it, and never will, even the episodes that include my favorite actor–I think the show The Sopranos, was OVERated.

I think it’s not right to present mobsters as regular folks. Real-life mobsters are monsters who prey on decent people, destroy businesses, and break every commandment in the Decalogue.

The very idea of normalizing such evil makes me sick.
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I’ve watched a few episodes.

Tony was a monster who preyed on decent people, destroyed businesses, and broke every commandment in the Decalogue 😃

…I actually think James Gandolfini portrayed Tony soprano very much as the sociopath. I cannot think of one redeeming quality Tony had…except maybe he liked ducks.

And the other mobsters were worse than he was.

His mother was evil, his sister, another sociopath.

I don’t think the program really portrayed them as normal, but maybe more as “hidden” in society.
 
KostyaJMJ said:
yet Dick makes it through ok. That is strange considering there many perfectly legitimate uses for ****, same as with Dick.
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They used to censor out the word “Dick” here, too. At least they’re making progress… :o
 
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