Five Shows I Abandoned: Which Should I Return To?

fringe1

I watch a lot of TV, play a lot of video games, and see a lot of movies for my job (and uh, for fun). But usually out of the three, TV ends up being the biggest time commitment. There are easy a dozen shows I could be watching at any given time on air, but it can be hard to manage them all, even with a DVR, and naturally I’m forever trying to catch up on older shows I’ve missed by binge watching seasons.

Over the years, I’ve started certain quality shows, but eventually let them go by the wayside. This usually happens during season breaks, and they’re shows I’ve watched live, but then when I come back for season two, I’ll miss the premiere or watch one or two episodes and forget about it. This is why binge watching is so much easier, and rarely will I abandon a show I consume in that format.

These five shows I simply gave up on at one point or another due to either laziness, or general boredom. I’m looking to you to tell me which are worth getting back into, which I’ll try to do as the holidays approach. Read on.

1) Arrow

Legacies

Stopped watching: halfway through season one

Alright, I lied. I quit Arrow mid season, but I’m pretty sure it’s because it took a little break and I simply forgot it came back. While Arrow and Hannibal were the two most interesting new shows of last season, I stuck with one while the other went by the wayside. I blame the CW’s propensity to force every show to have like 30 episodes a season (or 22, whatever), while Hannibal’s 12 episodes were a lot more digestible.

Arrow had surprisingly great fight choreography, but unsurprisingly not great characters in my estimation. Stephen Amell might be one of the ten best looking dudes on planet earth, but I didn’t find his Arrow particularly compelling. The same goes for nearly every side character on the show, from his sister to his would-be girlfriend to his goofy best friend. I’d blame it on being “too CW-y,” but the network has other shows with better characters.

I did appreciate the way different DC villains were introduced and represented in the show. Now I hear that they’re expanding the DC universe even further, and going full-on Smallville by introducing other JLA members like The Flash this season. I also heard the end of season one is pretty good as well, so I’m wondering if I should get back into Arrow, finish last season and start watching week to week for S2.

2) Burn Notice

burn notice

Stopped watching: the beginning of season four

Burn Notice was an odd case where it was a show I absolutely loved for years, but simply gave up on one day. To me, it seemed like the concept had simply exhausted itself, and once I saw this image, I realized that the show had become way too formulaic for its own good.

That said, over the years I really grew attached to Michael, Sam and Fiona. And Fiona, especially Fiona. It seems like a sort of betrayal that I didn’t stick with them until the end, as I really want to know if Michael ever gets the best of like, the entire spy world which has been hunting/manipulating him.

Going into this article, I thought that I’d only missed one season, two at the most, but I discovered that the show went all the way through season seven which wrapped last year. Holy Dexter Batman. Is it worth going back to watch practically four full seasons of Burn Notice to see how it ends? With that many episodes still to go, it seems like a kind of daunting task.

3) Justified

justified

Stopped watching: at the beginning of season three

Justified is a show that I didn’t quit because I didn’t like it, it just got completely lost in the shuffle with so many other programs airing at similar times. I think my DVR actually kicked it out the window, and I would have had to go on a piracy spree to get it back and it just didn’t seem like the effort.

Season two was really fantastic, and Raylan and Boyd remain two of TV’s best characters in my opinion. That said, Raylan could be a little too cool for his own good some times, and charmed himself out of many ridiculous situations. Season three didn’t seem to quite have the same magic as season two when I stopped watching, but that’s probably because of the absence of Mags Bennett.

I believe the show has now ended its fourth season, meaning I’m barely halfway through it. Is it worth restarting?

4) Fringe

fringe2

Stopped watching: at the end of season two

I keep being told I’m some sort of blasphemer for not finishing Fringe, but those people likely haven’t heard that I also ditched The X-Files and Buffy after only a few episodes (but that’s a story for another day). I watched season one of Fringe and appreciated that it was a procedural that had at least a grand thread of plot running through it.

But…I tried to catch up on season two a solid year after I finished season one, and found the world hard to jump back into. And I soon remembered how much I disliked what parts of the show were rather procedural, and that I couldn’t handle the character of Walter. Too much, just, too much.

Fringe is now completely over, which would make it relatively easy to catch up on. I know it was sort of killed rather than bowing out on its own terms, so does that make the ending unsatisfying? Is it worth watching in its entirety?

5) The Venture Bros.

venture bros

Stopped watching: I have no freaking idea

I really loved The Venture Bros. when I first came across it a few years ago. It was a parody of the type of cartoon adventure shows I loved as a kid like Jonny Quest, and it was absolutely hilarious.

That said, what a horribly scheduled show.

The pilot premiered in 2003, with season one airing in 2004. Seasons then proceeded to jump around through the years from 2006 to 2008 to 2009 then a yawning gulf to 2013, which is probably when I lost track of it. I couldn’t figure out where the hell I’d left off, as seasons seemed to get cut midway through, and I gave up trying to figure out where I was and what was going on. There are a TON of minor characters in the show that can be hard to keep track of, and the long gap made me forget nearly everything that came before it.

That said, this is a great show, and I probably only half a season and a half to catch up on. Folks who followed it religiously, is it worth it? Is it still as good as it once was?

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14 Comments

  1. I’m with you on Fringe. I have tried, twice, to finish it, but I have never gotten past season two. Well, maybe I got to the first couple episodes of season three, but I just couldn’t keep on. I heard that it got really good near the last seasons, but churning through two tepid seasons before you get to anything good doesn’t sound all that exciting, especially when there are much better things to watch.

  2. The Venture Brothers. Reasons: 1) It’s a half hour show. 2) There are a fairly small amount of episodes per season (8 this most recent season for instance). 3) They are doing shorter seasons to cut down on the time between them.

    Overall time investment, you can probably get through the entire series in one weekend. Just make sure you watch episodes with high quality audio, as there are a lot of lines that are yelled on top of each other and you don’t want to miss out on anything if you want to actually follow whats going on.

  3. I grew up a huge fan of Smallville and Arrow is an excellent substitute. It has guest and recurring characters which were prominent in other great Sci-Fi shows, like Gaius Balthar, Captain Jack Harkness and River Song, something that Smallville did a lot. The second half is much better than the first, particularily the last 6 episodes.

  4. (1) Arrow – Watch, just saw latest episode of S2 and things get interesting…
    (2) Burn Notice – Don’t bother, if you want you can just watch last ep and figure out what has happened since you left and still feel ending was sufficient
    (3) Justified – I stopped a few episodes into S2 but keep hearing S2 was all kinds of awesome…the show was a little to slow for me and other shows came out so just forgot about it
    (4) Fringe – I think there was an article on io9 which stated the “must-watch” episodes from season 1-3 that relate to the main season-long story. I’d say watch only those then watch the rest of the seasons afterwards. The last season isn’t really procedural and more like season long arc with every episode pushing towards endgame/goal
    (5) Venture Bros. – Never watched.

  5. Justified.

    I simply have nothing more to add, it’s just one of best shows on TV.

    I’m still astounded as to why Walton Goggins has never been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Performance.

  6. About halfway through Season 3 of Fringe, they really seem to ditch the whole procedural/monster-a-week copy drama in favor of an over-reaching story arc that would consume the final 2 and a half seasons. If you can put up with a few more monster-a-week episodes, I strongly recommend Fringe, if only for John Nobles completely unappreciated work as Walter.

  7. Couldn’t even finish Fringe season 1.. after 5-6 episodes it became like a chore to watch them. I liked the overall plot, but each “episode plot” was just too annoying. Would just fall asleep watching them.

    There are too many (good) shows out there to waste time on bad/mediocre ones 🙂

  8. If you’re not going to get caught up with Venture Bros., just try your hardest to watch Operation Prom if you haven’t already. Personally I think the series could only go downhill from that, but the latest season was quite decent.

    Also, JUSTIFIED PAUL WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

  9. agree with all the justified comments

    also i believe fringe finished very well, the writers knew the end was coming and they tied everything up. left me with a feeling of closure that not everyone does *cough* LOST *cough

  10. Just have this to say about Fringe: watch seasons 1-4. Forget Season 5 exists. Seriously. Just pretend it got unceremoniously axed at the end of season 4 and they couldn’t resolve it. Up until then it was fantastic, introducing new plot threads and world-building every time you look. But sadly somewhat typical of JJ Abrams, I think the whole thing just got too complicated and got away from the writers. And then in Season 5 they just abandoned everything they’d built to jump ahead to the future – I can’t stand when shows do that (Heroes, Dollhouse).

    I kept up with Burn Notice probably longer than it deserved, but it finally did get old for me. They never progressed anything with his whole “burned spy” situation. And they had the weird miniseries devoted to Sam Axe so they tied that into a few episodes of the show too which did nothing for me. The addition of Jesse was a nice touch though, he really brought some variety.

    You probably know Burn Notice is in its final season now, I’m really curious if it’s going be worth watching and if Michael finally gets the retirbution he deserves.

  11. Fring died at the end of season 3. I hated watching season 4 it was a real pain in the ass. I even threw a hot poket at my tv. of course I cleaned it up afterwards and made up by kissed my tv. But its a show that ends and concludes the full show. Season 5 was no better but it sure made up for the crappy season 4.

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