Why do so many TV dramas start off well then degenerate into a wet fart?

[BuckyBarnesArm]

Latest is Close To Me. Ridiculous. The Tower also ended ridiculously.

DUPED into watching stuff with good first episodes and then FORCED to watch them through because I have no life til the soggy arsed end. Or am I just fussy?

I am really enjoying The Outlaws but apart from that British drama is total rubbish at the moment.

We watched the first Hollington Drive and thought it was absolute drivel, we didn't even bother with either of the 2 programmes OP mentions, or Angela Black..They didn't even sound original ideas, just same old psycho drama schtick.

More or less everything we watch is on Walter Presents and a few things on Netflix. Thank goodness they exist!

If I find myself shouting at the telly it's a sure sign it's crap.

I'm still depressed about the last season of Lucifer. That series started so well, and ended so badly.

Have some problems with my eyes so can't do subtitles as much as I would like which is a shame. I find the best dramas I watch are subtitled.

Yes I agree totally. Watched both Nine Perfect Strangers and Normal People, but just could not be bothered to watch the final episodes. Just lost interest - as did the writers obviously.

That is why Line of Duty is so good, great writing all the way through.

The Long Call started vaguely promisingly and just got worse and worse.

@CrazyTimesAreOccurring
"That is why Line of Duty is so good, great writing all the way through"

Good god, the last series finale was the biggest damp squid in the history of damp squid.

Line of Duty was DIRE,they should've stopped when it was good.

I enjoyed The Tower and Showtrial was great.

Hollington Drive was drivel.

Close to Me was laughably bad.

I wonder if it's because we as audiences are more sophisticated, and expect more?
Spend next Saturday pm watching Columbo back to back and wonder how people were satisfied!
Good drama / longlasting drama (& there's a difference) is because people like the character and forgive them crapness (Midsomer perpetual murders anyone?)
I think ITV / CH5 three parters can't sustain a story if you're not following the problem solver. Ergo LoD has a head start despite the very crap explanatory dialogue.

I think it’s because they string it out over 6/8 episodes when it could be done in 2/3. The one that has annoyed me most recently is The Bay. Especially the first series, why didn’t she just SAY SOMETHING!!

Watched both Nine Perfect Strangers and Normal People, but just could not be bothered to watch the final episodes. Just lost interest - as did the writers obviously.

I was expecting Nine Perfect Strangers to be good. God, but it was sooo dull.

Clickbait on Netflix
Equinox on Netflix

I have had so many disappointments lately I cant even remember all

Good god, the last series finale was the biggest damp squid in the history of damp squid.

Or even a damp squib .

The last series of LoD was awful. Like it had been rushed, then someone chucked a dart at the cast list to decide who the baddie was.

Yes I agree totally. Watched both Nine Perfect Strangers and Normal People, but just could not be bothered to watch the final episodes. Just lost interest - as did the writers obviously

Normal People mostly stuck to the book and the writer was Sally Rooney. But it was one of those where the series was better than the book. But the whole pilot line made you want to scream at the tv.

I watched The Sopranos through lockdown and to be honest nothing will ever come near that again, I just know I will be disappointed

@Tlollj

I think it’s because they string it out over 6/8 episodes when it could be done in 2/3. The one that has annoyed me most recently is The Bay. Especially the first series, why didn’t she just SAY SOMETHING!!

To ratchet up the tension, I think. I enjoyed both series of that.

I enjoyed 'Life' (on Britbox) from last year, but Hollington Drive was terrible.

I'm enjoying the fluffy light-drama of Madame Blanc on C5.

The first episode of Close to Me was the worst thing I've seen in years. The main characters appeared to have met each other for the first time five minutes before filming. Utterly dreadful.

Totally agree OP. I just watched Close to Me and it got sillier and sillier. What really annoys me is the dialogue. IRL people don't speak like they do in these silly dramas, where people hold back things totally unnecessarily, often things that exonerate them immediately, and the clichés, OMG!!!

I can't watch any ITV dramas, because they're just SO badly written and the dialogue so utterly cringeworthy. I managed the first 5 mins of Angela Black before I had to turn it off.

So many dramas and books start well then go off.
I have a vision of the writers wife yelling "Your dinners ready" up the stairs and the writer has to finish in a rush.

@NigellaSeed

Stranger things sadly went the way of total arse gravy.

I thought this sadly! Loved the first series and liked the second - thought the third was almost a parody of what they were doing.

I was saying to DH one of the things I loved was that the first two they were always insistent ‘it’s the Russians who are doing it’ and it wasn’t, it was Americans. I thought it summed up the 80s in America in a really funny and clever way. Then in series 3 - it’s the Russians. And not even in a clever way, quite a silly way.

Although - arse gravy

Hopefully you write reviews because I’d like to see that review in entertainment weekly.

@Tlollj

I think it’s because they string it out over 6/8 episodes when it could be done in 2/3. The one that has annoyed me most recently is The Bay. Especially the first series, why didn’t she just SAY SOMETHING!!

Also totally agree with this. I know everyone adored it so it’s sacrilege to say but I remember watching The Bodyguard after everyone raved on about it and saying ‘this could have been a two parter. Or a film.’ It just felt like they were dragging it out painfully and adding a bunch of nonsense to come to white an underwhelming ‘twist’ conclusion.

Like a PP, I was really enjoying The Tower and spent the whole of the last 10 minutes waiting for the twist, and then there just wasn't one. It was so pointless. Everybody was more or less at exactly the same place as when it started (other than the dead people...). And wouldn't the mother of the little boy be obliged to let the police interview him? Why did they even bother to include him?

I really hope Showtrial doesn't go down the pan too! I'm trying to watch it at TV pace and so far it's got me gripped.

Yes OP - see Vigil.

Oh God - Vigil was another one. All these thrillers just feel really samey now and if you go to a bookshop there are hundreds of samey thrillers there too. It's so unusual these days to come across something that's really good and really different. I feel like everything has been done to death!