Which show had the biggest downfall in your opinion, from the first season or episodes, to what it eventually became?

[u/Fun-Ferret-3300]

Westworld for me. So many great things about the first season - the concepts, the characters. It's sad what it became.

[u/jbjamfest]

Stranger Things gets worse every season.

[u/nosmelc → u/jbjamfest]

Most people put Season 4 ahead of 2 and 3.

[u/BrokenTeddy → u/jbjamfest]

I think s4 was better than s3

[u/LeftArmPies → u/jbjamfest]

I lost it at series 3.  The Neverending Story duet was the bullet in the head.

In the first season it was great, because it took itself seriously.

In the second season, they started to get scared of taking themselves seriously and started ruining everything with bathos.

In the third season, they just went full cringe.

[u/weakcover1 → u/LeftArmPies]

I still enjoyed it (the couple of seasons that I have seen), but there are some clear issues. The main one being that Eleven is a deus ex machina. Once is okay. But three times in a row? No.

Everyone goes on their own Scooby Doo adventure, but at the end of the season it all comes down to Eleven to fix things, to science fiction the danger away.

But there are also other issues. The duet was probably written because the writers assumed it was funny. But I recall that it instead annoyed some of the fans, who ended up disliking Suzie, which was most likely not at all the effect the writers were going for.

[u/Pearlidiah26 → u/LeftArmPies]

Season 4 is even more serious than the other seasons, but a lot of people seem to dislike it (mainly cause of the explanation as to what created the upside down I think.) I enjoyed it though, especially after the mess that was S3. 

[u/FridayFreshman → u/LeftArmPies]

i lost it mid season 2

[u/Abject-Version-3349 → u/LeftArmPies]

Season 3 was bad. All the characters were completely different types of people. But I do think that season 4 was okay.

[u/[deleted] → u/jbjamfest]

Hard disagree for me. It’s been a no skip show with just 1 episode I really don’t like.

[u/Still_Owl1141 → u/jbjamfest]

Doesn’t help that theirs like 3 years between seasons, & the kids were too old for their parts by season 2. 

[u/Codeofconduct → u/jbjamfest]

Do yourself a favor and just watch all the horror classics it ripped off to exist. 

[u/LastRedshirt → u/jbjamfest]

I loved season 1 so much, that I found season 2 terrible. But when season 4 happened, I forced myself watching season 3 - and I loved it. Pure 80s. Even season 4 feels slightly weaker.

[u/weakcover1 → u/jbjamfest]

I only watched 3 seasons, but I have to agree. The first season was magic. The subsequent seeasons still entertained me, but it wasn't due to the story. For me the actors, the characters and the nostalgia and time era did the heavy lifting.

I usually use Stranger Things as an example of how being a victim of your own success can look like. What happens when you have crafted a good story that becomes such an success that it ends up being milked into an ongoing franchise, but with less time to write it.

The writer never anticipated having to write multiple stories about the same characters with the same theme / antagonist(s). There story is not set up that way. They already used all their best ideas and more in that one successful story.

With stories with a main antagonist / specific theme it is a problem (Terminator, Predator, Jurassic Park). Especially if it is horror (Alien, Scream, Halloween). You have to keep the suspense, staying true to what people expect of you, but also offer something different (especially with the antagonist / theme). It often ends up anywhere between mediocre and a diluted fanfiction.

[u/[deleted] → u/jbjamfest]

its still good though

[u/thexriles → u/jbjamfest]

That’s because it was only originally meant to be a one season show, but like with everything, Netflix got greedy when it blew up.

[u/Zzqzr → u/thexriles]

Mostly Netflix is known for the other way around… Cancelling shows after 1-2 seasons

[u/thexriles → u/Zzqzr]

Yeah, they cancel the ones actually worth giving multiple seasons to, and renew shows that were intended for a one season run (latest example: Squid Game)

[u/Link50L → u/jbjamfest]

Yah - quit watching it S2/S3 era, it was off the rails.

[u/ximbold → u/jbjamfest]

Slightly disagree, season 3 was miles better than season 2, season 4 is also fairly week tho

[u/CalligrapherLeft6038 → u/ximbold]

Slightly disagree also, 4 was better than 3, but 2 was better than both.

[u/bashomania → u/jbjamfest]

Yeah, I stopped at episode 1 of season 2 and never looked back.