We’ve made our list, checked it twice… and, yep, it’ll be nothing but coal for these bad shows.
Earlier this week, we kicked off our Year in Review by singing the praises of 2023’s very best series. But there are 10 shows that decidedly did not make the nice list this time around, and those are our picks for the worst shows of the year.
Several of the duds below were new to the TV landscape this year, dashing our high hopes with disappointing debuts (like in the case of Max’s Velma or Prime Video’s Citadel). But we’ve also got several returning veterans on our list, including tedious final runs for The CW’s The Flash and AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead.
Which network delivered this year’s biggest creative misfire, though? Scroll down to see which series claimed the top — or is it bottom? — spot on our list, then hit the comments with your thoughts.
Still to come in TVLine’s Year in Review: Biggest Plot Twists, Sexiest Scenes, Character Deaths That Nearly Killed Us, Shocking Cast Exits, Unjust Cancellations and much, much more!
The 10-episode limited series starring Spider-Man phenom Tom Holland, The Dropout‘s Amanda Seyfried and Shameless vet Emmy Rossum will likely go down as one of Apple TV+’s most high-profile misfires, and with good reason: The gratingly overlong drama — inspired by Daniel Keyes’ 1981 non-fiction tome The Minds of Billy Milligan — was a meandering, predictable endurance test that squandered the considerable talents of its three stars.
On paper, Max’s Scooby-Doo original was everything we could want from an adult animated series: Familiar IP with a modern twist, shepherded by Mindy Kaling? Jinkies, sign us up! And yet, even with comedy veterans on the creative team and an all-star cast voicing the Mystery Inc. gang, Velma hardly made us laugh at all upon debuting in January. What we hoped would be clever, subversive humor was instead disappointingly cynical and endlessly self-referential, stamping out any endearing qualities in Velma and her ever-sarcastic peers.
Given the talent involved (Richard Madden! Stanley Tucci!), the creatives (Marvel vets the Russo Brothers as EPs!) and the reported budget (a whopping $300 million!), we had high hopes for Prime Video’s ambitious international spy drama. Unfortunately, what we got was a surprisingly by-the-numbers series that showed every sign of its reported behind-the-scenes creative differences. Like many TVLine readers, we were often left wondering where the money went and were disappointed by the complete lack of chemistry between leads Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Madden.
It pains us to include the longest-running Arrowverse series’ farewell run, but… we reckon that if you ask most anyone involved, they’d be first to admit (and many have) that Season 8 used up the last of the good stuff, assumed as it once was to be the final season. Season 9, as a result, could only underwhelm week after week, with underbaked takes on Red Death and Eddie Thawne’s resurrection, a barely mourned Frost, a squandered Supergirl crossover and a pointless bottle episode. Even Oliver Queen’s improbable return and Nora’s lonnnnng-awaited birth could not liven up this sloth-like sendoff.
In the end, Luke Valentine’s appallingly casual use of the N-word was a harbinger of the disappointing Big Brother season to come. With its milestone 25th cycle, the CBS competition show had so much potential, ultimately squandered week after week by twists that went nowhere, evictions that were reversed, and an entire seven-day stretch where literally nothing happened, save for Cameron and Jared roaming the house in monochromatic zombie outfits. Somehow, even the presence of Survivor legend Cirie Fields couldn’t save this interminable season, which stretched on for a record 100 days and limped its way to an anticlimactic finish.
This midseason procedural was alllll over the map, tonally — oh-so-grave and veddy serious one minute, then joke-jokey, quip-quippy! the next. The lead investigator referred to the missing as “babies” to be found, even when they were grown-ass adults. You had random jokes about Scott Caan’s hairline. Day trips from Philadelphia to Las Vegas and back. No one listened to the daughter when she insisted her own brother was (clearly) a fake. Oh, and soooo much egg rubbing!
The obscene acronym in the title of this very loud and very dumb Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle was a pretty apt description of the writing, too, it turns out. A pale imitation of Arnie’s glory days as an action hero, the Netflix series bombarded us with cartoonish violence and groan-worthy one-liners to the point of exhaustion. Even those of us primed for a bit of old-school Dad Movie fun were disappointed by the utter laziness on display here, shamelessly borrowing the best bits from Arnold’s old movies and somehow making them worse in the process. It’s getting a Season 2… but we won’t be back.
We’re already on record detailing exactly why and how this Marvel series made us super-mad. (R.I.P., [Spoiler] and [Spoiler], to cite but two big reasons.) But what’s even more frustrating about what Secret Invasion did to, and with, certain characters is the fact that, upon seeing The Marvels ignore it all (!), we realize that this six-episode series was five hours of our life wasted. You are literally the better for not having bothered with it.
As the first Walking Dead spinoff lurched toward its grave, you’d have been hard-pressed to say that it in any way resembled the promising drama that debuted in 2015. Characters changed motivations so often that viewers considered their deaths mercy killings. Plot twists got so silly that a pair of enemies escaping from quicksand while zip-tied together seemed comparably plausible. Catchphrases were repeated with such regularity that if we’d drunk every time they were uttered, we’d have all croaked of alcohol poisoning. Ultimately, the show became so laughably bad, more than 40% of TVLine readers gave the series finale a grade of “F.”
Was it really that bad? Well, having seen every last excruciating minute of HBO’s aggressively ugly showbiz drama, we can say with authority: Yes, actually, it was. Sam Levinson seemed to think his takedown of the music industry was revolutionary, but it was riddled with clichés, and even the small bits that worked were drowned out by incredibly unsexy sex scenes and unintentionally funny dialogue. The real lowlight, though, was The Weeknd’s hopelessly wooden performance as sinister club promoter Tedros, a turn so completely devoid of charisma that it might be the single worst TV performance of the past decade. So in that way, The Idol was revolutionary after all.
Secret Invasion was seriously mismanaged. We have moments of brilliance (Fury and Varra as an example). But the rest was haphazard and out of sequence with other movie. Before ‘the Thunderbolts’ comes out, we need Wong to be consulted by the protagonist of the movie and have him explain everything — including the impact of Secret Invasion.
For example, I’m fairly certain events of The Marvels happened BEFORE Secret Invasion. We need a Wong sequence to tie it all together.
I love Wong but not even the power of a Wong cameo can save this Mutliverse of Crapness.
I feel like Marvel needs to issue an apology for Secret Invasion. To everyone who watched it, and to all their stars they made act in it.
Agree..fear the walking dead was just awful this past season. Not sure why Madison needed to be brought back plus what’s his name, cant even remember already that was when it all went down hill and the child actor was horrible. They certainly could have come up with a better way end the series. Personally I would have liked to see Padre begin anew..
Troy and Tracy
Man, I watched all but 3 of these (Velma, Citadel, FUBAR) and they were pretty rough. I enjoyed the Crowded Room actually, though I’m a big fan of the book and knew the story already. Fear and Flash were mercy killings for sure.
BUT overall I will say the WORST thing on this list was Alert: Missing Persons Unit and it’s getting a season 2! Spare the babies and make this show go “missing”. I’ll most likely hate watch at least the 1st new episode for the LOL moments.
Most modern shows and their writers, unless they are unhampered by rules like those on some streaming sites, are generic, and why anyone would cast Scott Canaan and yes I know who he is, or Pryanka Chopra in anything serious is beyond me.
I agree with you on Scott Caan for sure. Knowing who his father is in no way negates the fact that he is comedy relief at best. I loved Hawaii Five-O and all of the main cast except Caan. I had a hard time ever taking him seriously.
I started watching FUBAR but could. not. finish. Ugh. It deserves to be on this list. You missed nothing.
And I totally agree with you about Alert. OMG. I hate watched it and I hate that I did. And WHY oh WHY was it renewed. It was THE WORST. Okay. Idol was REALLY BAD TOO, but OMG. UGH.
With Alert, I recorded and ffwd through all case of the week stuff and only watched the family mystery parts because I was too curious not to. Still a bad 15-20 minutes per week hah
Cirie is the primary reason that BB was unwatchable. Most of the houseguests became so attached to Cirie (given her reality show history) that they all forgot to play the game. Adding in Cirie’s kid (Jared) just made matters worse.
In addition, the competitions couldn’t have been more boring. Bring back some of the old competitions that at least took some athletic ability.
If cast properly, the game runs itself. It gets screwed up whenever Grodner and Company try and spice up the game. They always screw it up, they never learn..
As for Fear the Walking Dead, it never had a chance, because it was so poorly cast from day one. Dickens and Curtis didn’t have any romantic chemistry at all, and that should have been known before the first episode was filmed. Still, TPTB went through with it without a recast of either role.
You have got to be kidding me. Cirie and Izzy ruling the game (behind the scenes) for the first half was the only interesting game play. Production rigging the season for a Cam, Jag or Matt win through an excess amount of physical comps, the “(dis)honorable” gameplay by Jag and the casting of Bowie ruined the season.
Izzy wasn’t playing for Izzy. If she weren’t so infatuated with Cirie, she would have lasted in the game longer. She could have leveraged the knowledge she had about Jared being Cirie’s son to advance herself in the game. IMO, Izzy came off as creepy as hell and it was incredibly uncomfortable to watch whenever she was around Cirie.
An in game revelation that Jared was Cirie’s son would have been much better for the game.
There were far less physical competitions than there used to be, and it isn’t close. If anything, they made the competitions easier just to keep Cirie in the house. Jared sucked at the game. Cirie had to carry him as far as he got in the game. And even then, there was only so much that she could do.
If they want to have a senior edition of BB, fine, but they shouldn’t be reducing the number of physical competitions just because some houseguest would rather just lounge around in their robes and do nothing.
They haven’t had the untying of knots in the swimming pool competition in years. There are a lot of other physical competitions that were mothballed.
I am sure production wanted Cirie to make it all the way to the end. Or at the very least, have Jared make it to the end with Cirie in the Jjury house to sway the jurors. Jared was so horrible at the game, there was no way that Production could carry him to the finals.
I seriously doubt that they wanted Cam to win. They could have done more to keep him in the house instead of having him booted, leaving the Minutemen in the house with no one to compete against them..
Matt was more interested in hanging out with Cirie, than do what was best for his game. He did all he could to keep Cirie in the house, until it was no longer an option.
Jag shouldn’t have been brought back into the game. That is where I have a problem with Production. That in game twist ruined the game.
Unlike the top show list recently that I watch none of, I did an always watch Flash and Big Brother religiously…or I used to do so.
Flash I quite on after Episode 2. Insufferable. Still have not even seen the final episode.
Big Brother, I’m a Superfan. Yet after Week 1, the cast completely turned me off. I did not watch another episode.
I enjoyed The Crowded Room.
I loved it. I was shocked to see it on this list.
I really liked it too. I knew going in what the “twist” was, and I would have thought most people did as well. It’s based on a true story, and it seemed pretty clear what the issue was. So no, if you were expecting to be shocked, the twist was obvious IMO. But the story was well done and interesting, and the acting was top notch. I was surprised the reviews were so bad.
I picked up on the twist pretty early; I thought it was pretty good as well, I personally enjoyed the long-scenic drive of it.
I did as well. I thought the performances were fantastic!
Big Brother was better than it was the last two years. These rankings are always sad.
Even if you didnt like the winner, last season was great. I have no idea what show you were watching last summer.
It’s interesting how often streaming series with big, expensive names both behind and in front of the camera turn out mediocre-to-terrible. Maybe if Netflix, Amazon and Max didn’t keep overspending on dreck, their fees (and/or attempts to raise cash with commercials) wouldn’t keep climbing every year.
Why isn’t Beacon 23 in the #1 spot?
I totally agree with this!
At a guess, this list isn’t about the truly WORST tv shows in a given year. It is about high profile shows (and Network TV is higher profile than a 3rd tier streaming platform just starting to make tv shows). So this list is about the high profile shows that were terrible, relative to expectations. I had to look up Beacon 23 on line, and based on the 3 sentence synopsis I found, I would expect that show to be bad. This list, featured shows that were expected (or at least hoped) to be good. And they were terrible.
You obviously haven’t watched The Idol
I don’t remember a lot of The Flash’s last season, except there wasn’t a lot of Barry, they didn’t get Cisco back for even a second, and Oliver’s return was the only real satisfying episode.
Interesting to see Secret Invasion on here! I noped out after the first episode. They did Maria dirty and I hardly heard anything about how the show did.
They couldnt bring back cisco cause carlos couldnt come back cause of schedule issues, simple as that.
I strongly believe That Fear The Walking Dead is up there with the worst shows *of all time* — for such a bad show to go on (and be that bad) for 5 seasons (continuously surviving due to franchise reasons) — what other show has produced 80 horrendous hours of television?
Wasn’t Fear the Walking Dead’s downfall Scott Simple’s inability to distinguish between a companion show and a spin off when he took over in season four?
Worst new shows: Fatal Attraction, True Lies, Gotham Knights, Extrapolations
Worst new seasons: How I Met Your Father, Ginny & Georgia
Worst series finale: Riverdale, Flash
I actually thought the Riverdale series finale was one of the best series finales in recent memory for a show. It gave closure and was heartfelt, especially for a show that lived on being bonkers just for the sheer ludicracy of it. Of course I also didn’t have shipper skin in the game, that appears to be where most of the hate for it comes from.
I have to completely disagree with The Crowded Room being included in your Top 10 Worst Shows! I was enthralled by the premise of the series and honestly didn’t start to figure it all out until a few episodes in. Then again I had never heard of Billy Milligan or his story before watching the series.
I want the Agatha Harkness miniseries to have a stinger scene in which Madisynn and Wongers are on the sofa, explaining and mocking to Maria Hill the alternate timeline they’ve just watched through some mystic portal — and it’s Secret Invasion.
For me the worst show of the entire YEAR was the CFP Selection Show, where they revealed the most ridiculous plot twist by selecting Alabama over an undefeated Florida St. !!!!!WORST SCRIPT EVER!!!!!!!
From my wathclist: MGM+’s From (season 2), ABC’s Big Sky (season 3) and Disney+’s Goosebumps.
I watched the first 3 episodes of
Citadel & never finished it.
Started Secret Invasion but quit after 3 episodes. Hated it. Plot was dumb.
Had watched Fear the Walking Dead the first time it was out but didn’t try the renewal. Characters never interested me.
I watched the whole first season of Alert Missing Persons despite it’s stupidity. Will not watch Season 2.
But the BABIES!
Anyone that doesn’t understand the importance behind that is just…..
True Lies should’ve been on here. I wanted to like it, but Ginger Gonzaga was sweet almost to the point of a toothache, and Steve Howey looked like he was in constant pain through the entire series. Even the kids seemed like an afterthought—more like “we have to have them because the source material included them” rather than any serious characters.
x
Also, the “egg rubbing” comment probably sounds REALLY wrong to someone who doesn’t know that Kemi is a santera. 😂
FEAR went downhill during season 4. The nuclear bombS was the icing on the cake. Which they somehow seemed to ignore in the finale.
Most of these characters became bipolar or has multiple personality disorder.
I did overall like the actors
I never liked Fear the Walking Dead much, but I honestly thought the show got a bit promising at the beginning of season 4 when Morgan joined it along with interesting new characters like John Dorie and Al. However, by the end of the season (remember that pathetic climax with the truck leaking gasoline and no one getting a bucket?), I was back to disliking it, and somehow the show kept getting even worse every year. If only I could understand my inexplicable loyalty to the TWD universe.
The reason why I don’t think The Idol wast as bad as FTWD is that it was mercifully short at just 5 episodes. It even made me laugh at times, although it wasn’t always intentional.
Oops, that was ethanol, not gasoline. My bad.
The Curse should be on this list… I couldnt even stomach the entirety of the first episode… cringe on top of awkward on top of complete waste of good actor talent.
Just, no.
“oh-so-grave and veddy serious one minute, then joke-jokey, quip-quippy! the next.” – TVline’s writers really should stop talking about themselves in this way………Just a sayin…………..
They could do their reviews with some class, but instead they lean on their inner child. Time to grow up!
I really liked it too. I knew going in what the “twist” was, and I would have thought most people did as well. It’s based on a true story, and it seemed pretty clear what the issue was. So no, if you were expecting to be shocked, the twist was obvious IMO. But the story was well done and interesting, and the acting was top notch. I was surprised the reviews were so bad.
Watched all of citadel and they must have been shooting golden bullets with all the money 42.8 million for 7 episodes if 300 million budget
for such a meh show
the HQ in the the if the cliff was cool and the concept was kinda cool but can I get my memory wiped too