List of television series notable for negative reception

The following is a list of television series notable for negative reception, from around the world, either by published critics or by network executives. A judgment of a "worst television series" can be based on poor quality, the lack of a budget, rapid cancellation, very low viewership, offensive content, and/or negative impact on other series on the same channel. In some cases, a show that is acceptable on its own merits can be put in a position where it does not belong and be judged "worst ever." Note that in many cases, "worst television series ever" lists are slanted toward more contemporary events (for instance, the XFL was rated more highly on worst TV series lists in 2002, shortly after it was canceled, than it was in 2010, when the recently canceled The Jay Leno Show topped lists).

Contents 1 Animated shows 2 Live-action children's shows 3 Dramas 4 Game shows 5 Reality shows 6 Science-fiction shows 7 Sitcoms 8 Specials 9 Sports 10 Talk shows 11 Variety/sketch comedy shows 12 See also 13 References 14 External links

Animated shows

• The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican – Six animated episodes of this series were produced, all bearing the date 1954, making it one of the first ever efforts at a made-for-television cartoon (which would not become commonplace until the late 1950s); the characters were originally from a local TV puppet show on Chicago's WENR-TV that began airing in 1950. It is exceedingly rare, but has gained some fame for appearing on Jerry Beck's "Worst Cartoons Ever." On the DVD, he states that he has not found any evidence that it was aired on TV. The show is infamous for its shoddy pencil-sketch artwork, reused animation, rambling voiceovers, muffled soundtrack, and general low-budget problems.

• Battletoads – The video game franchise spun-off an American half-hour, traditionally animated television special produced by DiC Entertainment, airing in syndication on the weekend of Thanksgiving 1992. It is assumed that the series was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Incidentally, DiC Entertainment would try this again later on by producing Street Sharks and then later Extreme Dinosaurs. However, only the pilot episode made it to the airwaves; it was never picked up as a full animated series, despite comic-style advertisements in GamePro magazine claiming otherwise. In 2008, Battletoads was given the #5 place on the list of The 5 Worst One-Shot TV Cartoons Ever Made by Topless Robot.^[1]

• Bucky and Pepito – Two episodes appeared on a compilation DVD of the worst cartoons ever made,^[2] and it was described by Harry McCracken as setting "a standard for awfulness that no contemporary TV cartoon has managed to surpass".^[3]

• Clutch Cargo, Space Angel and Captain Fathom – These three Cambria Studios productions (listed in order of production) were serials produced using the process of Syncro-Vox, a widely derided animation shortcut that involved plastering the moving lips of a voice actor onto a drawing. While the illustrations and voice work in the Syncro-Vox series were generally praised, animation for these series was extremely limited even for the standards of the day, featuring mostly still pictures with dialogue "Syncro-Voxed" overtop. A Captain Fathom episode is included in the aforementioned Worst Cartoons Ever compilation.

• Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain – The continuation of the successful cartoon Pinky and the Brain, this cartoon was poorly criticized by fans of both the former and Tiny Toon Adventures, from which new lead character Elmyra Duff came. Despite receiving a few award nominations including voice actor Rob Paulsen winning an Emmy for the role as "Pinky", the cartoon was cancelled after five episodes, and the rest were chopped into segments on The Big Cartoonie Show. The show's producers showed particular disdain for the series concept; Peter Hastings quit the studio as a result of the idea, writing his last episode as a parting shot to the network (in said episode, the demise of Pinky and the Brain is blamed on network executives), and even the show's theme song stated that the change was "what the network want[ed], why bother to complain?"

• Robotech 3000 – Robotech 3000 was Harmony Gold's attempt to revive the Robotech franchise before the turn of the millennium. After the relative success of Voltron: The Third Dimension and Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, a new Robotech sequel was proposed that would use 3D CG visuals, with producer Jason Netter and writer Carl Macek at the helm. Some of the new concepts presented were Veritech Excavators, Proteus-group starships, but none of the trademark anime-look and transformable mecha of the earlier series were seen. The response to the Robotech 3000 promotional trailer at the 2000 FanimeCon anime convention was disastrous. Much of the negative feedback concerned the distinctive artistic style of the original anime series being replaced by generic CGI characters in a style that resembled ReBoot. By the 2000 San Diego Comic-Con, it was revealed that the CG project had been cancelled, not only due to negative feedback from fans but also because American animation studio Netter Digital, which had been hired to produce the project, had gone bankrupt earlier that year.

Live-action children's shows

• Barney & Friends – Although several people, including Yale University researchers Dorothy and Jerome Singer, have concluded that episodes contain a great deal of age-appropriate educational material, calling the program a "model of what preschool television should be",^[4] the program has been criticized for its lack of educational value.^[5] One specific criticism is: [H]is shows do not assist children in learning to deal with negative feelings and emotions. As one commentator puts it, the real danger from Barney is denial: the refusal to recognize the existence of unpleasant realities. For along with his steady diet of giggles and unconditional love, Barney offers our children a one-dimensional world where everyone must be happy and everything must be resolved right away.^[6] It is ranked on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time at #50.^[7]

• Minipops – This Channel 4 show featured young children singing then-contemporary pop music. The children were usually dressed to look like the original performers, including the clothing and make-up. The show made many adult viewers uncomfortable because it often showed the child singers dressing and dancing in imitation of the provocative styles of the original adult performers. One performance by Joanna Fisher, where she sang the Sheena Easton song "9 to 5" caused national outrage, over Fisher (who was only five years old at the time) singing the lines "night time is the right time/ we make love". The show's creators and child cast were somewhat shocked at the response to the program and its misinterpretation. Despite the show's popularity, the resulting controversy caused Minipops to be cancelled shortly afterwards.^[8] It was voted the second-worst UK show by TV critics.^[9]

• Junior Showtime – Jeff Evans, the author of The Penguin TV Companion has also identified it as being amongst the twenty worst shows of all time.^[10]

• Little Muppet Monsters – This 1985 series was designed as a companion series to the very successful animated series Muppet Babies, but was pulled from the air after only three of the thirteen episodes that were produced were aired. While intended as a vehicle for some of The Jim Henson Company's younger puppeteers, the juxtaposition of the animated baby muppets alongside a show containing both the real, grown-up ones and new, younger Muppets proved to be confusing, leading to unfavorable comparisons between the two shows. The network and the Jim Henson Company both indicated that the show was not up to the standards of other Muppets productions, leading to its abrupt cancellation (most Saturday morning programming lasted at least thirteen weeks).^[11]

Dramas

• The Big Bow Wow - this Irish drama about a group of young people who gather at the titular nightclub was likened by pre-release publicity to Sex and the City and This Life. ^[12] However,when broadcast, The Big Bow Wow received a copious amount of negative reviews. Shane Hegarty in the Irish Times claimed the nightclub scenes had "all the atmosphere of a parish fete" and complained that the characters "are narcissistic, shallow and humourless. The trick will be in knowing when it is deliberate and when it is down to an inarticulate script".^[12] Claire McKeon in the Sunday Mirror said "The camera work was as shaky as it gets...and the acting was not convincing". ^[13] In her overview of television for the year 2004, Olivia Doyle in the Sunday Tribune criticised "the dog's dinner stab at "yoof culture" that was The Big Bow Wow".^[14]

• The Borgias (1981 TV series) - What was intended to be a gripping historical melodrama in the same vein as the earlier BBC series, I, Claudius, was not a critical success, despite the locations and excellent cinemaphotography. The BBC screened the series at the same time as ITV's lavish Brideshead Revisited with critics contrasting the high production values and stellar cast of Brideshead with The Borgias'. However, The Borgias seemingly focused on the frequent graphic violence and nudity. The Sicilian-born actor Adolfo Celi, well known to have a heavy Sicilian accent, is said to have had much difficulty enunciating his lines, although his thickly-accented English gave the series a credible air.

• The Bradys - The Bradys critics called this return of The Brady Bunch "Bradysomething", a takeoff of Thirtysomething. It lasted six episodes.

• Cop Rock – Cop Rock has been cited as one of the worst television series, ranking #8 on TV Guide's list of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time list in 2002.^[15] The show was a critical and commercial failure from the beginning and was canceled by ABC after 11 episodes.^[16] Owing to the combination of its bizarre nature and its high-powered production talent, it became infamous as one of the biggest television failures of the 1990s.^[17][18] The final episode concludes with the cast breaking character and joining crewmembers in performing a closing song.

• Charlie's Angels (2011 TV series) – The show has received mostly negative reviews,^[19][20] with many of the reviews criticizing the acting,^[21] confusing plot, and useless action scenes. It has received a 30/100 on Metacritic.^[22] Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe gave the show a "C" grade commenting "The underwhelming cast brings nothing to the boilerplate action. Minka Kelly is miscast as a biker chick, and making Bosley a hunk with computer skills fails to add life."^[23] IGN's Matt Fowler named it the worst pilot of the fall, pointing out the bad acting and writing,^[24] saying that he didn't "believe that these ladies could change a flat tire, much less take down a notorious human trafficker" and that the series should have gone dark like Nikita or copied the tone of Burn Notice.^[25]

• Crossroads – The ITV soap opera was badly received by TV critics throughout its 1964-88 run, with writer Hilary Kingsley stating "Some of the acting would have disgraced the humblest of village halls; many of the plots were so farcical they could have been written in a bad dream, and much of the dialogue was pathetic."^[9][26]

• De Oro Puro – De Oro Puro is better known for having been a notorious flop in the history of Venezuelan television, which was worsened by being broadcast in the same time slot that was previously occupied by the very popular and long lasting Por Estas Calles. Despite the production values and the big names behind the series, the public became confused by the complicated plot and storyline, and the ratings were poor. It has been postulated that De Oro Puro contributed to the downfall of RCTV in late 1990s. RCTV publicized De Oro Puro, in an effort to attract viewers, but these efforts failed. When the plot became more confusing and the ratings further lowered, the channel aired a series of shorts where famous first actress Amalia Pérez Díaz resumed and explained the plot in a didactic way. This effort backfired when people began to perceive De Oro Puro as being difficult to understand to the extent that it had to be explained, and Ms. Pérez Díaz's apparitions became the subject of mockery.

• Eldorado – This British soap opera from 1993 was, despite heavy advertising, a notorious flop. Many of the cast were inexperienced actors whose limitations were clearly exposed on such a new and ambitious project; the acting was derided as amateurish, while the attempt to appear more 'European' by having people speaking other languages without subtitles or bizarre/unconvincing accents was met by viewers with incomprehension and ridicule.^[27] To this day, Eldorado is remembered as an embarrassing failure for the BBC, and is sometimes used as a byword for any unsuccessful, poorly-received or over-hyped television programme.^[28] It ranks #36 on the Daily Mail's list of the 50 worst TV shows of all time.^[9]

• The Playboy Club - This 2011 television series, originally aired on NBC, received widespread condemnation both from conservative family-oriented watchdog groups and from feminists, for its depiction of Playboy Clubs and the corresponding association with Playboy, a men's magazine. At least one station, Mormon Church-owned KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, refused to air the show; the network canceled the series due to low viewership three episodes into the show's run. Meredith Blake, reviewing the episode "A Matter of Simple Duplicity" for The A.V. Club, stated "One thing you have to give The Playboy Club credit for: When it comes to doling out cliches, this show is utterly fearless". Blake also criticized the show for being derivative of Mad Men and argued "after The Playboy Club is inevitably yanked off the air in a few weeks, the only time we’ll think of it in the future is to wonder how such a rotten show wound up on prime time".^[29] Discussing The Playboy Club post-cancellation, Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter gave a negative assessment of the program: "It was [a] bad show, period. The writing was weak, the acting spotty and the sexism too ridiculous and obvious to comment on more than once."^[30]

• The Secret Life of the American Teenager – Secret Life has received a score of 47 out of 100 from review aggregator Metacritic.^[31] The New York Post praised the series for having a set of characters that are "... real and come from families of all stripes – from intact to single-parent households to one boy in foster care..."^[32] However, most mainstream critics haven't embraced the show, indicating it as a TV-series version of an after school special, "filled with didactic messages and a lotta wooden acting," in the words of Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly.^[33] The New York Times claimed that Secret Life must surely be the collective effort of an anti-pregnancy cabal. [...] ABC Family means well but could not have done worse. Secret Life doesn’t take the fun out of teenage pregnancy, it takes the fun out of television" and calls the show a "Prime-Time Cautionary Tale".^[34] Variety Magazine reports that "ABC Family's latest original drama wants to be a slow-motion version of Juno but settles for being an obvious, stereotype-laden teen soap [...] based on first impressions, The Secret Life of the American Teenager should probably stay a secret."^[35] ReporterMag's Andrew Rees says, "The show...might be the worst scripted drama on television. Suffering from gag-worthy dialog, horrific plot twists, terrible acting, and characters who not even the best of 3-D glasses could give depth to, it’s a wonder how this show stays on the air."^[36]

• The Spike – The Spike was featured on RTÉ's scandal series, Scannal^[37][38] with the Irish Independent naming it as one of their "Top 10 Worst Irish TV Programmes".^[39]

• Supertrain – Supertrain was the most expensive series ever aired in the United States at the time. The production was beset by problems including a model train that crashed. While the series was heavily advertised during the 1978-1979 season, it suffered from poor reviews and low ratings. Despite attempts to salvage the show by reworking the cast, it never took off and left the air after only three months. NBC, which had produced the show itself, with help from Dark Shadows producer Dan Curtis, was unable to recoup its losses. Combined with the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics the following season, which cost NBC millions in ad revenue, the series nearly bankrupted the network. For these reasons, Supertrain has been called one of the greatest television flops.^[40]

• Triangle – A soap opera about a British ferry which starred Kate O'Mara, Triangle is remembered as "some of the most mockable British television ever produced".^[41]Triangle came third in a poll of worst UK shows ever.^[9]

• Viva Laughlin – CBS's American adaptation of the British series Blackpool lasted only two episodes, one in Australia. Like the aforementioned Cop Rock, the series was an attempt to create a musical TV drama. The New York Times asked the rhetorical question "Is it the worst show in the history of television?"^[42] Newsday concurred and called the series "jaw-droppingly wrongheaded," quipping "Let us count the way it bombs."^[43] The opening line of The New York Times review said, "Viva Laughlin on CBS may well be the worst new show of the season, but is it the worst show in the history of television?"^[42] Newsday's review started with, "The stud is a dud. And that's only the first of a dozen problems with CBS' admirably ambitious but jaw-droppingly wrongheaded new musical/murder mystery/family drama Viva Laughlin. Let us count the ways it bombs..."^[43]

Game shows

• The Chamber – Matt Vasgersian, formerly of Sports Geniuses and the XFL, was originally slated to host, but was disgusted by the show's premise (in which contestants answer questions while strapped into a torture chamber) and left before it even premiered. The show lasted three episodes, with Rick Schwartz hosting the first two and unnamed announcers serving as host of the third. Much like many Fox programs of the time, The Chamber was a knockoff of, and response to, ABC's The Chair, itself a short-lived and poorly received game show.

• Dotto – While this game show, based on the premise of connecting the dots, was a runaway hit at its peak (at which time it was concurrently airing on both CBS and NBC, an extremely rare occurrence), Dotto served as the impetus for the quiz show scandals of the late 1950s, after a contestant stumbled upon his rival's notebook containing the answers to the questions being given on the show. The discovery of Dotto being rigged led to similar rigging scandals being exposed on other top game shows of the time, including Twenty One, Tic-Tac-Dough, and The $64,000 Question, leading not only to Dotto's near-immediate cancellation, but to the cancellation of virtually every big-money quiz show still on the air at the time. High-stakes game shows would not return to American television until the 1970s, due to the stigma associated with them. The scandals also led the United States Congress to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit the airing of rigged game shows.

• Naked Jungle – A UK game show on Channel 5 which revolved around naturists performing an assault course. Naked Jungle was savaged by critics, denounced by nudists for being exploitative^[44] and even condemned in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.^[45] A group of TV historians later voted it the worst British TV show ever.^[46] Host Keith Chegwin later called presenting the show "the worst career move I made in my entire life".^[47]

• Our Little Genius – On January 7, 2010, one week before its scheduled premiere, the show's creator, Mark Burnett, announced that he'd asked Fox to postpone it due to concerns about its integrity. Burnett said that issues with how information was relayed to contestants were serious enough that he felt compelled to reshoot the episodes. Fox supported Burnett's decision, and added that all contestants would keep their winnings.^[48] The New York Times reported that some contestants may have known what questions were going to be asked (though not the answers) rather than just the topics to be covered.^[48] The Los Angeles Times reported that Burnett's main concern was that contestants somehow got more information than they should have prior to taping.^[49] The Federal Communications Commission soon opened an inquiry into the show to see if the show violated the aforementioned Communications Act. According to The New York Times, a member of the production team gave a prospective contestant and his parents specific answers to at least four questions.^[50]

• Shafted – A UK game show aired on ITV presented by Robert Kilroy Silk. It is most notorious for Kilroy-Silk's laughable actions on the show, which have since been frequently mocked on popular satirical show Have I Got News for You since late 2004. Particularly notable is his delivery of the show's tag-line, "Their fate will be in each other's hands as they decide whether to share or to shaft", and the associated hand actions. The show was dropped just four episodes after it started in 2001, and was listed as the worst British television show of the 2000s in the Penguin TV Companion (2006).^[51]

• You're in the Picture – A CBS game show starring Jackie Gleason, the premiere received such extremely hostile reviews that the following Friday, host Gleason appeared in the same time slot (but in a studio "stripped to the brick walls") to give what Time magazine called an "inspiring post-mortem", asking rhetorically "how it was possible for a group of trained people to put on so big a flop."^[52] Time later cited You're in the Picture as one piece of evidence that the 1960-61 TV season was the "worst in the [then] 13-year history of U.S. network television."^[53]

Reality shows

• Celebrities Uncensored – E! canceled this show the end of Season 2 (in June 2004) after movie stars, unhappy with the show^[54][55] refused to appear on E!'s red carpet shows. This came around the time that Mindy Herman was forced from the network^[56][57] and the new executive put in her place decided to take the network's programming in a direction that was gentler to celebrities^[58] and less exploitative^[59] about their private lives.

• Fame – Although the Fame premiere did well in the ratings, much criticism was heaped upon the program for a number of reasons. Unlike American Idol, where the producers had absolutely no connection to any performers before the auditions, Debbie Allen personally knew and had worked with a number of those who made it to the final rounds. In the middle of the season, the show announced they would bring in a "spoiler", a new finalist who could make it to the last round if the public enjoyed his or her work. They asked viewers to send in audition tapes by July 1. On July 2, they announced the winner - Tyce Keith Diorio. Diorio was introduced to fans as a dance instructor, but his actual^[60] credits included being a former backup dancer for *NSYNC (host Joey Fatone's boy band), Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and dancing in an Academy Awards piece choreographed by Debbie Allen. Diorio was eliminated a week later, but many remained skeptical of the casting methods. Unlike American Idol, which focused on singing, or Star Search, which divided talent up into several categories, Fame sought a "triple threat", someone who could dance, sing, and have star quality. In the eyes of many viewers, most of the finalists had shockingly poor singing abilities, and so much emphasis was placed on dance numbers that their voices never improved. Viewer reaction quickly gave way to apathy and the ratings fell considerably.

• H8R - Critical reception for H8R was extremely negative.^[61][62][63] Many critics criticized the show for its questionable morality in tracking negative anonymous internet commenters whose comments, under normal circumstances, would not have brought them into the spotlight for "bullying" a celebrity. The show's attempt to connect the premise of internet criticism of celebrities with bullying was also highly scrutinized.

• Iron Chef USA – Like the original Japanese series, the show featured an eccentric chairman, played by William Shatner, who creates his own Gourmet Academy with four elite chefs who take on challengers in a specially-constructed Kitchen Arena ("Kitchen Stadium" in the original). However, unlike the original and the later Iron Chef America adaptation, Kitchen Arena was set in Garden Arena (a venue often used for boxing) in the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and not on a sound stage. Fans of the series, and critics at large, point to many aspects of the show for the reason why the series failed. Among the most notable reasons was the audience factor: the original Iron Chef (and Iron Chef America) had only minimal guest and VIP seating, while Iron Chef USA was shown in front of a larger audience. The audience also tended to be louder and rowdier, in sharp contrast to the relatively quiet audiences of Iron Chef. Another sharp point of criticism was directed at the commentators, who often showed their lack of knowledge of food (with lines such as "What? It's the sperm? We eat that?" in reference to sea urchin roe; "What's that tool called he's using to cut the ravioli?", "That would be a ravioli cutter"; and "it's a sauteed Ho Ho", "He's got a flour thing going" and "It looks like he enjoys cooking with booze.").^[64] However, critics saw Shatner's portrayal of the chairman in Iron Chef USA as a redeeming quality, as his performance paid homage to Takeshi Kaga and his antics on Iron Chef.

• Living Lohan – Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly graded the show F and commented, "The irritation turned to repulsion around the first minute ... Dina snipes about the paparazzi's invasion of privacy, but thanks to her, there's not much left to invade."^[65] Troy Patterson of Slate magazine said, "The show is crisply edited and tangily ironic without pushing its points too hard .... Living Lohan is not just a symptom of cultural decay but an active agent of it, commodifying the very youth and soul of Ali Lohan—younger sister of poor little Lindsay ... Living Lohan' is one big exploitative mess."^[66] Mark A. Perigard of the Boston Herald graded the show D and said, "Living Lohan scrapes the bottom of the stupidity barrel."^[67] Brian Lowry of Variety said, "It's a tedious exercise, joining E!'s Keeping Up with the Kardashians in the realm of mother-daughter bonding experiences, with limited appeal beyond, perhaps appropriately, those pesky tabloids for which the featured "talent" profess disdain ... The show at times provides unintended comedy, representing E!'s best hope of transforming Living Lohan into a guilty pleasure, if not for the reasons Dina (who doubles as a producer) would doubtless like ... the most salient aspect of the series is that it's profoundly boring, wringing out sprinkles of drama as best it can."^[68] While on Live with Regis and Kelly, Anderson Cooper bashed the show during the opening segment of the chat show. Kelly Ripa proceeds to show Cooper what the show is about. Video of Cooper's comments was placed in the "Top 20 Best Clips of the Year" by The Soup. "I cannot believe I'm wasting a minute of my life watching these horrific people" – Anderson Cooper

• Man vs. Beast – This 2003 Fox reality contest featured contrived competitions between world class humans and trained animals; for instance, hot dog eating champion Takeru Kobayashi faced off against a bear in a hot dog eating contest (the bear won), while Navy SEAL Scott Helvenston won an obstacle course race against a chimpanzee. The first special drew negative reviews from critics^[69] and protests from animal rights groups,^[70] but nonetheless led to a sequel in 2004.

• Married by America – The show was controversial when Fox aired it; many observers thought that it was degrading to both the participants and to the general notion of marriage. Because of this, the Fox affiliate in Raleigh-Durham, WRAZ (Channel 50) refused to air the program in its entirety due to the network refusing to preview the program for the station before air so the station could determine if it met its broadcast standards, pre-empting the hour with reruns of The Andy Griffith Show instead [3]. Fox defended its programming decision and there was no great outcry, probably because very few people watched the show, in spite of a premiere which aired after an episode of American Idol.

• The Marriage Ref – The show received an overwhelmingly negative reception from television critics.^[71][72][73] It currently receives a 41 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 11 reviews.^[71] According to the news agency, Reuters, the television program received "scathing reviews".^[72] An analysis of reviews in The Guardian noted that The Marriage Ref, "has been so thoroughly panned by critics its future looks in doubt even before it begins."^[73] A review of the program on National Public Radio called the television show "painfully bad"; the reviewer commented, "I was optimistic that I'd be writing something of the 'Don't assume this show is terrible' variety. But it's ... terrible."^[74] The newspaper The Star Ledger described it as "heinous", and called it an "ugly, unfunny, patronizing mess".^[72][75]

• My Super Sweet 16 - The show has been criticised for its excesses and the effects of presenting such over the top parties as an aspirational norm to impressionable young people. One episode in particular that drew criticism involved a girl called Audrey who, upon receiving a $67,000 Lexus for her 15th birthday, subjected her mother to a torrent of abuse due to getting the car on the day instead of during the party. The Daily Mail said: "In an age of celebrity, where anyone desperate and rich enough can get their 15 minutes of fame, the series is a depressing indictment of our next generation's goals and aspirations" displaying "the crippling excesses of fame and capitalism that have come to symbolise our society. British satirist Charlie Brooker discussed the show on BBC4's Screenwipe, calling it a "stonehearted exposé of everything that's wrong with our faltering, so-called civilization" and calling the protagonists "unbelievably spoiled rich and tiny sod[s]" who throw "despicably opulent coming-of-age part[ies] for themselves and their squealing shitcake friends." He also described the show as "an Al-Qaeda recruitment film".

• The One: Making a Music Star – Despite (or perhaps because of) heavy advertising comparing the show to American Idol, the most popular show in the United States at the time, the Canadian-American adaptation of the global Star Academy franchise went on to become the least popular show in the United States at the time, setting a record for the lowest-watched network telecast in U.S. network television history, a record that (as of 2011) still stands. Canadians widely criticized the CBC's unprecedented move to import a reality television series from the United States for air on prime time on Canada's public broadcaster. Americans derided the show as an obvious knockoff of Idol.

• On the Lot – The debut lost 70% of its American Idol lead-ins, host Chelsea Handler left before the season ended, and the live results shows were axed. Initial criticism was that the show focused on director quarreling instead of broadcasting the directors' audition short films.^[76] In addition, the judges were faulted for not providing helpful criticism. The show host Adrianna Costa has been criticized for not being engaging enough. It seemed to critics she had trouble reading her cue cards.^[77]

• Pirate Master – Pirate Master did not perform well in ratings, drawing in only 7 million viewers on the premiere episode, and subsequent showings drawing in less.^[78] Joshua Alston of Newsweek called the debut episode a "confusing muddle".^[79] Some critics have considered that the failure of both Pirate Master and On the Lot represent not only troubling issues for Mark Burnett, but for reality television as well.^[80]

• Secret Talents of the Stars – This celebrity talent contest had numerous celebrities attempt to perform acts that were in contrast to the ones for which they were well-known. The one episode that aired featured actor George Takei attempting to perform country music (and largely failing at it), followed by one of the judges making an off-color reference to Takei's homosexuality. The show experienced extremely poor ratings and was canceled after one episode.

• The Swan – The show has been criticized for being a commercial for plastic surgery, having a view of beauty packaged and marketed by the fashion industry, and a lack of ethics in preying on vulnerable people. It has been described as "the most morally bankrupt TV since Al Qaeda's latest press release."^[81][82]

• Touch the Truck – Glenn Barden became known in the UK in 2000 for creating the controversial television endurance show Touch the Truck, described by the Sunday Times as "the worst TV idea ever".^[83]

• Welcome to the Neighborhood – ABC cancelled this reality show about African-Americans, Hispanics, and gays vying for a house in a white suburb; it never made it to airing. The first two episodes were screened before a group of critics, who lambasted it for the prejudice the judges displayed. One judge openly claimed that he "would not tolerate a homosexual". The still-unaired show came under fire from the Family Research Council for concerns that "conservatives could come off looking biased", and from the National Fair Housing Alliance for concerns that the show violated anti-discrimination housing laws, which the show's producers denied. GLAAD, with reservations, has approved the show's final message.

• Who's Your Daddy? – An adult who had been put up for adoption as an infant was placed in a room with 25 men, one of whom was his or her biological father. If the contestant could correctly pick out his or her father, the contestant would win $100,000. If he or she chose incorrectly, the person the contestant incorrectly selected would get the $100,000, although the contestant would still be reunited with his or her father. This show drew controversy from adoption rights organizations, leading to one Fox affiliate (WRAZ in Raleigh, North Carolina) declining to air the series pilot, a 90-minute special. The show was quickly parodied on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and This Hour has 22 Minutes when it became public that the first adoption contestant was actress T. J. Myers, who had worked in such R-rated movies as The Dallas Connection (1994) and Seduction of Innocence (1995). Evoking the suggestive title of the latter film, Jay Leno said "This wasn't the first time she was in a room full of men screaming 'Who's your daddy?'" After the pilot finished fourth in the Nielsen ratings for its time slot, Fox decided not to broadcast the other five episodes that had been produced. However, the pilot aired as a "special" and not as a "series premiere" so technically the series was canceled before airing an episode.^[84] United Press International reported that Myers "guessed which of eight men was her father. She guessed correctly and won $100,000."^[85]

• The World According to Paris – Magazine Entertainment Weekly gave the reality series a D in review, and noted that, unlike Kim Kardashian's Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Paris Hilton's new show "fails to deliver any frothy fun and the star comes across as completely unlikable." That failure may have to do with Paris's "inane voice-over narrations" in which she says things like doing community service "really sucks."^[86] Alessandra Stanley, a TV-critic on the The New York Times, noted that while a lot of time has passed since Paris had a hit show, the bleached blonde has failed to evolve. She comes off as "a Sony Walkman in an iPod era, a Friendster in the age of Facebook." In other words, she's no longer relevant.^[86] Brian Lowry of Variety wrote of the show's inherent, unavoidable hypocrisy saying "Paris laments how the paparazzi intrude on her life, and then she allows a camera crew to watch her bathe." During an episode, Paris remarks that she wants to change her image, but she seems at a loss as to how to do that. So, she sticks with her "old tricks" like "showing up for court-ordered community service in Louboutin high heels."^[86][87]

Science-fiction shows

• Galactica 1980 – During the autumn of 1979, ABC executives met with Battlestar Galactica's creator Glen A. Larson to consider restarting the series. A suitable concept was needed to draw viewers, and it was decided that the arrival of the Colonial Fleet at the contemporary Earth would be the storyline. A new TV movie called Galactica 1980 was produced. Again, it was decided this new version of Battlestar Galactica would be made into a weekly TV series. Despite the early success of the premiere, this program failed to achieve the popularity of the original series, and it was canceled after just ten episodes. In this 1980 sequel series, the Colonial fleet finds the Earth, and then it covertly protects it from the Cylons. This series was a quick failure due to its low budget (e.g., recycling footage from the 1974 Universal Studios movie Earthquake during a Cylon attack sequence), widely-panned writing, and ill-chosen time slot (Sunday evenings, a time generally reserved for family-oriented programming and, more specifically, also for the 60 Minutes news magazine program). The TV series also had to adhere to strict content restrictions such as limiting the number of acts of violence and being required to shoehorn educational content into the script and dialogue. To cut costs, the show was set mostly on the contemporary Earth, to the great dismay of fans. Another factor for fan apathy was the nearly complete recasting of the original series: Lorne Greene reprised his role as Adama (working unpaid), Herb Jefferson, Jr., played "Colonel" Boomer in about half of the episodes (with little screentime), and Dirk Benedict as Starbuck for only one episode (the abrupt final episode), which was mostly unused footage from the original series. Richard Hatch (Apollo in the original series) was sent a script for Galactica 1980, but he turned it down since he was not sure what his part in the series would be - now that all the characters had changed.^[88]

• Star Cops – Critical reaction to the show was generally negative: writing in The Times following the broadcast of "Conversations with the Dead", Andrew Hislop wrote that "Star Cops has neither the campiness of Star Trek nor the imagination of Dr. Who to overcome its technological limitations".^[89] Also in The Times, reviewing "Intelligent Listening for Beginners", Martin Cropper found that "some of the individual plot-lines show invention of a sort, but the script is uniformly feeble".^[90] Meanwhile, in The Sunday Times, Patrick Stoddart was confused by the plot of "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" asking readers "if you are following any of this, please write to me and explain".^[91] Letter writers to the Radio Times were split on the merits of the show: some such as P. Tricker of Alpheton, Suffolk praising it for having "brilliant special effects, well-written scripts and actors who were convincing" while others like Martin Bower of Allendale, Northumberland slated the "dated designs, poor music [and] cheap sets" and P. Curwen of Balloch, Dunbartonshire described it as "boring – too much talk and not enough action".^[92]

• The Starlost - This Canadian sci-fi series' production was plagued by virtually every conceivable kind of problem, and creator Harlan Ellison disowned the series before the first episode had even aired. The resulting series was cancelled after 16 episodes due to poor ratings and negative critical reception. However, in recent years, the series's reception has improved.

Sitcoms

• All That Glitters – All That Glitters debuted the week of April 18, 1977 on about 40 stations in late-night syndication.^[93] It was poorly critically received, with one reviewer going so far as to call the show's theme song "blasphemous" for suggesting that God was female and created Eve first.^[94] Time magazine sharply criticized the series, calling it "embarrassingly amateurish", with "flaccid" and "wearying" jokes, flat writing, "mediocre" acting and "aimless" direction.^[93] The Wall Street Journal concurred, saying that while the series' role-reversal premise may have been adequate for a play or film, it was too limiting to serve as the basis for a continuing series. These limitations showed up most clearly, the Journal says, in the lead performances. Although praising the performers themselves as talented, they are cited for being "unable to infuse much life into their roles".^[95] The Journal pegs the fundamental problem with All That Glitters as that "its characters are not people at all, merely composites of the least attractive characteristics of each sex. The satire focuses not on the way real, recognizable people behave, but on stereotypes and cliches about masculine and feminine attitudes. Even when stood on their heads, they still remain stereotypes and cliches."^[95] New Times Magazine was much more receptive to the series. Although labeling it "unquestionably the weirdest [show] that Norman Lear has ever produced",^[96] New Times found that the series was not "a satire of mannerisms but of attitudes".^[96] All That Glitters required that viewers watch closely to pick up on the subtleties and nuances, "not so much for what the show says, but for the way that it's said".^[96] All That Glitters, after initially capturing 20% of viewers in major markets in its opening weeks, had lost about half of that audience mid-way through its run.^[96] The series was cancelled after 13 weeks, last airing on July 15, 1977. Although the show was panned, it and Lear, along with Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, are credited with expanding the subject matter that television producers were able to explore with lessened fear of antagonizing sponsors or viewers.^[97] In the years since the series, it has garnered something of a positive reputation, with one critic listing it and other Lear efforts as "imaginative shows that contained some of the most striking satires of television and American society ever broadcast".^[98]

• Baby Bob – The series was panned by critics, but premiered to strong ratings and placed 15th in its first week, but ratings quickly declined.^[99][100]

• Baby Talk – A short-lived early 1990s American sitcom that featured a talking baby (played by Tony Danza), a TV spin-off from Look Who's Talking films. Multiple cast changes (including a then little known George Clooney) came about during the two seasons on ABC-TV. In 1991, Electronic Media Critics' Poll voted Baby Talk the Worst Series on Television.

• Big Day – Big Day was considered "One of the Worst TV comedies Ever Killed". Metacritic indicated that 39% of critics gave the show widely negative to poor reviews. In 2010, the show is topped as "One of the Worst TV Shows of the 2000s", according to Rolling Stone magazine.

• Brighton Belles – The 1993 British adaptation of the popular American series The Golden Girls was both a critical and popular failure in the UK, lasting only six episodes out of ten that were filmed. It is included in Jeff Evans's list of the twenty worst TV series of all time.

• Cavemen – In terms of reception from the media the show was "critically savaged".^[101] The Chicago Tribune listed it as one of the 25 worst TV shows ever,^[102] and Adam Buckman of the New York Post declared the show "extinct on arrival."^[103] Ginia Bellafante of the New York Times wrote "I laughed. But I laughed through my pain. 'Cavemen,' set in some version of San Diego where people speak with Southern accents, doesn’t have moments as much as microseconds suspended from any attempt at narrative."^[104]

• Co-Ed Fever – Co-Ed Fever is an American sitcom that aired on CBS in 1979. The series attempted to capitalize on the success of the motion picture National Lampoon's Animal House. It was the third of three "frat house" comedy series to air in early 1979 (the others were ABC's Delta House and NBC's Brothers and Sisters). CBS cancelled Co-Ed Fever after only one episode, and all three series were off the air by the end of April 1979. The series was so low rated it never made it to it's regular time slot, Monday night, instead it aired as a 'special preview' the night before.^[105][106] In 2002, Co-Ed Fever ranked number 32 on TV Guide's 50 Worst Shows of All Time list.^[107]

• Coupling – This American adaptation of a British sitcom of the same name drew objections over its extensive sexual content, prompting at least two stations (both owned by religious organizations) to not carry the show, and it was pulled from the NBC schedule within two months despite a barrage of publicity. It was also immediately panned as a poor imitation of the original UK series by viewers and critics. BBC America even ran commercials noting that they would play the original British versions on their station just after the American equivalent episodes on NBC aired, so that viewers could see instantly just how superior the original was. Miscasting and stilted delivery of a nearly identical script were believed to be the reasons for the failure though creator Steven Moffat claims the level of network interference was the sole reason. It ranked #7 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the Biggest Bombs of All Time.

• Daddy's Girls – The series followed Dudley Walker (Dudley Moore), the owner of a New York fashion house who loses his wife and his business partner when, after a years-long secret affair, they run off together leaving him as the primary caretaker to his three daughters. The series is notable as the first in which a gay principal character was played by an openly gay actor.^[108] Harvey Fierstein played Dennis Sinclair, a high-strung designer at Walker's firm.^[109] Although Fierstein earned praise for his performance, Daddy's Girls was hated by critics. New York magazine called the series "Despised, reviled."^[110] Entertainment Weekly, somewhat prophetically, found Moore to be "wan and confused."^[111] The Dallas Morning News could only say that "Daddy's Girls isn't horrendously bad" but predicted that it would not last until Christmas. Indeed, the series was placed "on hiatus" after only three episodes aired and never returned. Moore would never return to television; he would later be diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, which Moore would later cite as the cause of his difficulties on the set of the show.

• Das iTeam - Die Jungs mit der Maus – A German version of the British programme The IT Crowd was in production starting June 2007, starring Sky du Mont, Sebastian Münster, Stefan Puntigam and Britta Horn.^[112] Originally titled Das iTeam - Die Jungs mit der Maus (The iTeam - The Boys with the Mouse), the title was changed to Das iTeam - Die Jungs an der Maus (The iTeam - The Boys at the Mouse) at the last minute. The premiere episode was aired on 4 January 2008 on Sat.1. After the first episode was broadcast online, the adaptation received a mainly negative response from Internet forum users and blog writers. It was criticised for the quality of its translation and direction, and the poor performance of Stefan Puntigam as Gabriel (German version's name for Moss). The show was dropped by Sat.1 in January 2008 after the second episode due to low ratings.^[113]

• Delilah – The series generally received poor reviews and negative audience reception. It was cancelled after a single 13-episode season in an era when Canadian content requirements made canceling Canadian programs after so few episodes a rarity.^[114] Delilah was one of several CBC flops during the early 1970s, including Corwin and McQueen, the product of inferior creativity.^[115] However, CBC's next sitcom, King of Kensington, fared much better and became a multi-year success.^[114] Toronto Star television critic Jim Bawden declared the series as "Worst Canadian Sitcom", declaring the scriptwriting to be "appalling" and discovered an absence of laughter from the audience when he attended a taping of an episode.^[116]

• Emeril – Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse briefly starred in a self-titled TV sitcom on NBC during the 2001 fall season with Robert Urich (in what turned out to be his final TV series), but it was canceled after several episodes and widely panned by critics. The show 101 Biggest Celebrity Oops ranked the sitcom at #51.

• Emily's Reasons Why Not – The show drew fire from pro-abstinence groups for its inability to portray an abstinent person and relying on stereotypes of homosexuality to portray an intentional virgin. It was reported that ABC committed to the show before seeing a script. Despite heavy promotion by both Sony Pictures Television and ABC, the show was pulled after the first episode due to drawing only 6.2 million viewers. Production was stopped after filming six episodes. ABC was said to have spent millions on promotion, including airtime, billboards and radio ads, and considered Emily to be the 'linchpin' of the network's post-football Monday-night schedule. The promotion was so heavy and the cancellation so abrupt that some magazines found themselves carrying cover stories about a canceled show. After viewing it, ABC's entertainment president suggested that they considered the show lackluster and unlikely to improve.^[117][118] One television critic said there are "over a million 'reasons why not' for this sorry show." The New York Times attributed the cancellation in part to the extremely unappealing nature of the main character and the portrayal by Heather Graham.^[119]

• Extra! Extra! Read All About It! (also known as Extra! Extra!) – was an Irish sitcom on RTÉ set in a newspaper office. It was poorly received, critics stating the scripts lacked any humor and that the direction was poor. Reviewing the program for the Sunday Independent, writer Colm Tóibín called it "probably the worst program RTÉ has ever shown".^[120] The Irish Times' Brendan Glacken was equally scathing: "Speaking of Extra! Extra!, as I am afraid we still must, even seasoned RTÉ observers seem unable to answer the question why a series so pathetically weak should have been allowed to reach the screen at all".^[121] The Irish Independent later listed it as one of the worst Irish TV shows ever.^[122]

• Ferris Bueller – The show (based on the hit 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off starring Matthew Broderick) received mostly negative reviews from critics.^{[123][124][125][126]} John J. O'Connor of The New York Times wrote that the version of Bueller portrayed by the "smirking" Charlie Schlatter "is likely to leave most viewers reaching instinctively for their wallets."^[125] Some critics considered Ferris Bueller one of the worst shows of the year.^{[127][128][129]} The show also suffered from comparison to a show with a similar concept that debuted on Fox the same month, Parker Lewis Can't Lose.^{[125][126][130]} Parker Lewis proved to be more successful, lasting three seasons.

• The Grubbs – This Fox TV series from 2002 featuring Randy Quaid, Carol Kane, and Michael Cera received a poor critical response, including an E! Online review that called it "the worst sitcom ever produced".^[131]

• Hank – The show has been critically panned, scoring a 37/100 in Metacritic, with viewers agreeing with the critics, scoring it at a 4.2/10.^[132] The Los Angeles Times has noted "There's nothing here you couldn't imagine from the premise, but there's also nothing wrong with what's here: Melinda McGraw is a good foil for Kelsey Grammer, and Grammer is good at what he does."^[133] The New York Post panned the show: "Hank is one of the worst new (or old) comedies of this or many other seasons".^[134]

• The Hathaways – Later-day television critics Castleman and Podrazik (1982) have called The Hathaways "possibly the worst series ever to air on network TV", criticizing the production, scripts, acting, the "utterly degrading" premise, and the overall "total worthlessness" of the program.^[135]

• Heil Honey I'm Home! – This UK sitcom depicted fictionalised versions of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun living next to a stereotypical Jewish couple. The show was criticised for being unfunny and distasteful, and was cancelled after a single episode aired.^[136]

• Hello, Larry – Hello, Larry had the misfortune of appearing on NBC at a time when that network was at its nadir in the ratings (despite its poor quality, it lasted two seasons and 35 episodes). The show was greeted by viewers who had high expectations based on McLean Stevenson's M*A*S*H association, but quickly gained an extremely bad reputation as a weakly written, unfunny sitcom, and it was not helped by frequent ridicule from Johnny Carson in his The Tonight Show monologues. It was thereafter used as a frequent punchline whenever a reference to a bad decision by an actor to leave a successful TV show was needed.

• Holmes & Yo-Yo – Holmes & Yo-Yo was universally panned by critics and is #33 on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time. Many Nielsen viewers claimed they felt "uncomfortable" with the show's often racy humor, most especially episode seven, over 14 minutes of which was Yo-Yo verbalizing (in graphic detail) his desire for genitalia. Although the series lasted only 13 episodes (undaunted by the failure of the series, ABC green-lighted a similar concept the same season called Future Cop with Ernest Borgnine; it had the same success as Holmes & Yo-Yo), the influence of Holmes & Yo-Yo can be felt in other "robot cop" series and films that followed, most notably the RoboCop films and TV series, and the 1993 series, Mann & Machine which used the same premise as Holmes & Yo-Yo, only with a sexy female robot instead of the stout Yoyonovich.

• Homeboys in Outer Space – The series was panned by critics^[137][138] and was on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time. Homeboys in Outer Space was cancelled in 1997 after 21 episodes.

• Joanie Loves Chachi – This spin-off of the popular series Happy Days was a romantic musical comedy that has been negatively received by critics since its 17-episode run ended in 1983. Originally rated highly, network research suggested it was not rated well because of its own merits but was instead being propped up by its lead-in. It ranked #17 on TV Guide's list of Biggest TV Blunders and is also featured on numerous other worst TV series lists.

• Kath & Kim (U.S. TV series) – The show has generated criticism from fans and television critics,^[139] especially in the casting,^[140] adjusting of the tone of the show^[141] and even the show's costume design,^[142] which has led to Selma Blair firing back over the claims that it ruins the creativity of the original.^[143] Early reviews of the pilot were poor, with the San Francisco Chronicle calling it "a contender for worst remake ever."^[144]

• Life with Lucy – Life with Lucy was Lucille Ball's final sitcom. The show ran on the ABC network from September to November 1986, and unlike Ball's previous hits on television, it was a critical failure. In order to get Ball to agree to a new series, ABC allowed her complete creative control, no requirement to make a pilot episode, and no requirement for testing before focus groups or other tryouts. As all of Ball's previous TV efforts had proven to be hugely successful, the network acquiesced to these demands, even though she was at the time 75 years old, her long-time co-star Gale Gordon was 80, and Vivian Vance, who had co-starred as Lucy's sidekick in all three of her previous sitcoms, had died six years prior. Fourteen episodes were written, thirteen filmed, but only eight actually aired. Life With Lucy's premiere episode on September 20 made the Nielsen's Top 25 (#23 for the week) for its week; however, subsequent episodes dropped steadily in viewership. It ranked only 73rd out of 79 shows for the season (the seventh lowest rated show on TV), with a 9.0/16 rating/share. The short-lived show was never syndicated, nor was it ever released on home video. Biographies of the actress reveal that she was reportedly devastated by the show's failure, and never again attempted another series or feature film; her subsequent interviews and other TV appearances were extremely infrequent. In 2002, TV Guide included this show on its List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time, ranking at #26.

• Me and the Chimp – It is considered by many to be one of the worst shows in the history of television (came in at #46 on TV Guide's list of "The 50 Worst Shows Ever" from 2002); for many years it was a frequent punch line when comedians wished to reference bad TV shows.

• My Mother the Car – Critics and adult viewers generally panned the show, often savagely. In 2002, TV Guide proclaimed it to be the second-worst of all time, just behind The Jerry Springer Show.^[145] My Mother the Car belonged to the genre of "wacky" TV sitcoms popular at the time that featured supernatural characters and cartoonish situations, such as Bewitched and My Favorite Martian, but it failed and for many years afterward was widely ridiculed as the quintessential "worst show of all time," though many competitors have vied for that title since then. It did not help that the highly respected Dick Van Dyke Show, starring My Mother the Car star Jerry Van Dyke's brother, was still on the air at the time on another network. Audience demographics was an emerging science in the mid-1960s. My Mother the Car was a hit with younger viewers, but no one at the time knew just how to exploit the youth market with a live-action sitcom.

• One of the Boys – TV Guide named it one of the worst on "The 50 Worst Shows Ever" in 2002, ranking at #24.

• The Paul Reiser Show – This mockumentary featuring former Mad About You star Paul Reiser was "critically panned," had the lowest-rated in-season premiere for a comedy series in NBC's history, and was canceled after two episodes.^[146] Metacritic reported a rating of only 38 out of 100.^[147] Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave the show a D+, writing that it was best summarized by the word "complacent" and that "everything about it feels off-putting and weird." He compared it unfavorably to Curb Your Enthusiasm, calling it a "weird copycat" that "takes most of the trappings of Curb but misses almost all of the soul."^[148]

• Public Morals – The original pilot episode of Public Morals was scrapped because critics and some CBS affiliates believed the language was too vulgar. However, the episode that did air was also poorly received. Critics argued that the characters were one-dimensional and that some of the humor involved racial stereotypes.^[149][150]

• The Ropers – The show was ranked number two on Time magazine's "Top 10 Worst TV Spin-Offs".^[151] It also ranked #49 on TV Guide's list of the "The 50 Worst Shows Ever" in 2002.

• The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer – This infamous sitcom about Abraham Lincoln's titular black butler (played by Chi McBride) - featuring jokes about slavery and Lincoln's gay tendencies - was fledgling network UPN's attempt to grab at attention. It lasted four episodes and is listed at #5 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the Biggest Bombs of All Time.

• Sir Yellow – The programme was axed after just one series following bad reviews and was never brought back for a second; in 2003 the TV critic Mark Lewisohn named it "the 20th worst British sitcom of all time" in his book The Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy.

• Small Wonder – In 2002, Robert Bianco, TV critic for USA Today, listed it as a contender for one of the worst TV shows of all time,^[152] and according to the BBC, it "is widely considered one of the worst low-budget sitcoms of all time."^[153] In the audio commentary for the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It", co-creator Matt Stone lamented that "for some reason, people lump South Park and The Simpsons and any animated program together... which is unfortunate that we have to be compared to one of the best shows on television ever and one of the most popular shows on television ever, we never get compared to Sister, Sister or Small Wonder."

• The Tammy Grimes Show – In 1966, Tammy Grimes starred in her own ABC television series, in which she played a modern-day heiress who loved to spend money. Receiving "unfavorable critical reaction and poor ratings", it ran for only a month, although an additional six episodes had already been made.^[154]The Tammy Grimes Show remains one of the shortest series in television history.

• The Trouble With Tracy – This Canadian sitcom was hastily assembled in 1970 to comply with upcoming Canadian content requirements and suffered from an extremely limited budget for both time and money. 130 episodes of the series were produced, requiring scripts to be recycled from 1940s radio dramas, line screw-ups to be kept in the finished product due to time and money constraints, and virtually the entire series shot from one small living-room set. As a result of the shoddy end product, the series is often considered one of the worst of all time.^[155]

• Work It – 2012 ABC cross-dressing sitcom which received a Metacritic rating of 19.^[156] Matt Fowler of IGN gave the pilot 0/10, IGN's first zero rating since 1998.^[157] Todd VanDerWerff of The AV Club gave the pilot an F, calling the show "fascinatingly awful, in that way where you wonder how the hell something like this got on TV in the year 2012".^[158] Linda Holmes of NPR called Work It "pointlessly crass, utterly cliched, sexist toward both men and women, and hopelessly, painfully unfunny from wire to wire".^[159] James Poniewozik of Time described Work It as "the kind of bad dumb show you will use in years to come as a benchmark for other bad sitcoms".^[160]

Specials

• Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany! – After the original hit MTV show was cancelled, producers for German MTV received rights for a Celebrity Deathmatch special. This special, which is relatively unknown by American audiences, removes the original cast, including Johnny Gomez, Nick Diamond, and referee Mills Lane, and features about eight matches, all about a minute and a half long. The German producers animated, and voiced the show, but the puppets were still made by the American owners. It was criticized for choppy animation, poor special effects such as blood, and no English subtitles, although it wasn't meant for an American release. It was also known as the last original Celebrity Deathmatch episode before it was brought back to MTV2 in 2006.

• The Decision – On July 8, 2010, LeBron James announced on a live ESPN special that he would be playing for the Miami Heat for the 2010–11 season.^[161] In exchange for the rights to air the special, ESPN agreed to hand over its advertising and air time to James. James arranged for the special to include an interview conducted by Jim Gray, who was paid by James' marketing company and had no affiliation with the network. ESPN's reporting leading up to the James special, its decision to air the program, and its decision to relinquish editorial independence were widely cited as gross violations of journalistic ethics.^{[162][163][164]}

• Elvis in Concert – This TV special featured a recording of an Elvis Presley concert held on June 19, 1977; it was one of the last concerts of his career. Presley's deteriorating physical condition was obvious from his weight gain (particularly his extremely bloated face) and his inability to remember lyrics on several songs. It has been described as "terrible and embarrassing"^[165] and as a "travesty."^[166] Had Presley not died on August 16 of the same year, CBS would have likely never aired the concert, and only did so in October, after his death; the network had plans to try and record another concert to get better footage, but this was rendered impossible after Presley's death. The Presley estate refuses to release the special on VHS or DVD to this day.^[167]

• Exposed! Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets – The documentary was roundly criticized for being sensationalist, misleading, and outdated in the presentation of the "secret tricks." Critics in and out^[168] of the wrestling business contend that many of the "secrets" exposed were already widely known by fans to begin with, and others were so obscure as to be non-notable. While most of the professional wrestling world refrained from acknowledging the program, the night following its airing, Ernest "The Cat" Miller entered the ring during WCW Monday Nitro and sarcastically shouted in a melodramatic tone to the audience, "Now you know all our secrets!" Mick Foley on WWF Monday Night RAW announced, to tag partner Al Snow, "We didn't do so well last week, but last night, the secrets of professional wrestling were revealed to me!" Foley also poked fun at the program several times in his autobiography, Have a Nice Day!

• If I Did It – In November 2006, O. J. Simpson, who had been acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ronald Goldman in a trial in 1995, wrote a book describing how, if he were to have actually committed the murder, he would have done it. He arranged for a television special in which he would be interviewed by publisher Judith Regan to promote the book. NBC refused to air it, while Fox almost did before backing out at the insistence of its affiliates. The Goldman family, who insist Simpson is guilty of the crime despite the acquittal and won a US$33,500,000 wrongful death settlement against Simpson for the murders, declared the special "an all-time low for television"^[169] and eventually arranged for Regan's firing from HarperCollins for nonexistent "anti-Semitic remarks;"^[170] Regan eventually sued HarperCollins for wrongful termination and won. Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch eventually admitted the idea was an "ill-considered project."^[171] The special never aired and the book's rights were turned over to the Goldmans, who retitled the book If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.

• The Star Wars Holiday Special – Generally, The Star Wars Holiday Special has received a large amount of criticism, both from Star Wars fans and the general public. David Hofstede, author of What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, ranked the holiday special at number one, calling it "the worst two hours of television ever." Shepard Smith, a news anchor for the Fox News Channel, referred to it as a "'70s train wreck, combining the worst of Star Wars with the utter worst of variety television." Actor Phillip Bloch explained on a TV Land special entitled The 100 Most Unexpected TV Moments, that the special, "...just wasn't working. It was just so surreal." On the same program, Ralph Garman, a voice actor for the show Family Guy, explained that "The Star Wars Holiday Special is one of the most infamous television programs in history. And it's so bad that it actually comes around to good again, but passes it right up." The only aspect of the special which has been generally well-received is the animated segment which introduces Boba Fett, who would later become a popular character when he appeared in the Star Wars theatrical films.

• Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? – This one-time special had fifty female contestants vying to immediately marry an unseen multimillionaire who, unknown to the contestants or viewers, only barely qualified for the title (owning nearly exactly $2,000,000 in assets, including non-liquid ones) and had a record of domestic violence. The winner, Darva Conger, never consummated her relationship with Rick Rockwell and the marriage was annulled. In a 2010 issue of TV Guide, the show was ranked #9 on a list of TV's ten biggest "blunders".^[172]

Sports

• ESPN Hollywood – The show's launch was controversial; promotional advertisements featured photos of baseball player Derek Jeter with a woman whose face was not shown. A spokesman for Jeter's employer, the New York Yankees, objected to the ad, saying "In the ad they insinuate they are out with Jeter, with his permission, or they are following him. Give me a break. Neither is true."^[173] ESPN realized that the show would be risky; if sports figures were angered by their coverage on ESPN Hollywood they might refuse to participate in interviews on other ESPN programs.^[173] The final episode was broadcast on January 26, 2006.^[174] An ESPN executive vice president later remarked that the premise of the show was unworkable, saying "I think fans want information about athletes in the context of sports coverage."^[175]

• NHL on Fox – The 1996 iteration of Fox's coverage of the National Hockey League led to the introduction of FoxTrax, a graphic that aided in the visibility of the puck that was positively received by those who did not watch hockey regularly, but savaged by hockey purists, being derided as a "glowing puck" and a gimmick reminiscent of video games. Greg Wyshynski dubbed it the second-worst idea in sports history, behind only Ten Cent Beer Night, in his book Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History. Its implementation coincided with a peak of the NHL's popularity on television, and Nielsen Ratings for NHL games went into decline after the debut of FoxTrax, a decline that would not be reversed until the NHL Winter Classic was developed in 2008, by which point high-definition television had made it easier to see the puck.

• WFL on TVS - TVS Television Network, a syndicator best known for its coverage of college sports, signed on to televise the World Football League, a fledgling major football league, in its inaugural 1974 season. TVS would carry a weekly Thursday night game with a two-man announcing crew and, in most weeks, a celebrity guest commentator. The league soon devolved into chaos; several teams either moved or folded midseason, including the New York Stars, a team that was particularly important to the network's viewership ratings, and schedule changes were being made on an almost weekly basis. The WFL was further undermined by a scandal in which league owners were caught lying about paid attendance, having inflated ticket sales by as much as tenfold, which destroyed fans' and TV stations' confidence in the league. By the end of the 1974 season, TVS found it impossible to sell the games to local stations, and ratings fell to levels that were anemic even by modern standards. TVS issued an ultimatum to the WFL demanding that the Chicago Winds sign Joe Namath in order to continue TV coverage in 1975; the Winds failed to do so, and TVS pulled the plug, leaving the WFL untelevised for its final, abortive season.^[176]

• XFL – This cooperative effort between World Wrestling Entertainment and NBC was an effort to form the first challenge to the National Football League's dominance of professional outdoor football since the USFL failed in 1985. Low-scoring games, a perceived lack of top-level professional talent, a high rate of injury, overemphasis on tawdry stunts, and the stigma of the WWE's involvement led to the series not being taken seriously by either sports or television commentators, and the league folded after one year. It ranked #3 on TV Guide's list of the worst TV shows of all time in July 2002, as well as #2 on ESPN's list of biggest flops in sports, behind Ryan Leaf. It ranked #21 on TV Guide's 2010 list of the biggest blunders in TV history and #10 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the Biggest Bombs of All Time. Author Brett Forrest published a book on the league entitled Long Bomb: How the XFL Became TV's Biggest Fiasco in 2002.

Talk shows

• The Chevy Chase Show – Television critic Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the show an F letter grade, and criticized the show for having "the gall to rerun a taped comedy bit he'd aired in the first week of his show."^[177] Tucker also noted that "the audience that fills Hollywood's new Chevy Chase Theatre has steadily turned into the worst-behaved crowd in late-night television; they hoot and yell and cheer over whatever pitiful chatter Chase is attempting to wring out of a luckless guest."^[177] TIME panned the show: "Nervous and totally at sea, Chase tried everything, succeeded at nothing."^[93] The magazine also criticized Chase for having "recycled old material shamelessly", taking pratfalls, and even pleading with the audience to stand up and dance in their seats.^[93]

• The Jay Leno Show – While the show itself, which amounted to transporting The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (a popular late-night talk show) into an earlier prime time slot, was not considered horrible, the decision to use a late-night talk show in a prime time slot as a cost-cutting measure was declared the biggest blunder in television history in a listing compiled by TV Guide in 2010. Entertainment Weekly expressed a similar sentiment when it declared the show one of the "biggest bombs in television history" in January 2010. The move caused significant damage to the Nielsen Ratings of the local newscasts that immediately followed it and drew derision from labor unions involved in producing scripted programming. Leno resumed hosting The Tonight Show in March 2010, but only after the controversial removal of existing host Conan O'Brien.

• The Jerry Springer Show – The show topped TV Guide magazine's 2002 list of "The Worst TV Shows Ever".^[178] The phrase "Jerry Springer Nation" began to be used by some who see the program as being a bad influence on the morality of the United States. In addition, the phrase has shown the association of Springer with any "lowbrow" type of entertainment in general.

• The Magic Hour – Soon after its debut, the series was panned by critics citing Earvin "Magic" Johnson's apparent nervousness as a host, his overly complimentary tone with his celebrity guests, and lack of chemistry with his sidekick, comedian Craig Shoemaker. The series was quickly retooled with Shoemaker being relegated to the supporting cast (and eventually fired for publicly stating the show was a disaster)^[179][180] which included comedian Steve White and announcer Jimmy Hodson. Comedian and actor Tommy Davidson was brought in as Johnson's new sidekick and Johnson interacted more with the show band leader Sheila E. The format of the show was also changed to include more interview time with celebrity guests.^[181][182] One vocal critic of The Magic Hour was Howard Stern, who was later booked as a guest for one episode as part of a stunt to raise the show's ratings.^[183]

• Maury – This tabloid talk show hosted by Maury Povich was dubbed by USA Today columnist Whitney Matheson as "the worst show on television" and "miles further down the commode than Jerry Springer."^[184] Nowadays the common themes on the show are Paternity testing and Lie-detector testing; most of the show's guests are urban, lower-class women seeking to settle disputes with their equally low-class ex-boyfriends. The main criticisms of the show are how it not only uses the serious issues of the guest(s) as entertainment, but also due to its focus on tabloid subject matters.

Variety/sketch comedy shows

• The 1/2 Hour News Hour – Fox News Channel's satirical news comedy show was criticized for its banal jokes and lack of innovation. The show's initial two episodes received generally poor reviews.^[185] MetaCritic's television division gave The 1/2 Hour News Hour pilots a score of 12 out of 100,^[186] making it the lowest rated television production ever reviewed on the site.^[187]

• Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos – This series was canceled by its network midway through its first airing. Kerry Packer, Australian media magnate and owner of the broadcaster Nine Network, saw the show whilst out at dinner with friends, and reportedly phoned Nine central control personally, ordering them to "Get that shit off the air!" The network complied and immediately replaced it with reruns of Cheers, citing "technical difficulties." Packer arrived at the network the next day and again referred to the show as "disgusting and offensive shit." The show itself largely consisted of videos of animals having sex interspersed with off color jokes from the show's host. The show would not be seen in its entirety until 2008, three years after Packer's death.

• Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth – Live From Planet Earth debuted on Channel Nine on 8 February 2011, in the 9:30 pm timeslot. During the broadcast of the first episode, reaction on Twitter was hostile, with many users speculating the show would be axed.^[188] Reviews of the first episode were largely negative. Colin Vickery of the Herald Sun called it "an early contender for worst show of the year", and Amanda Meade of The Australian called it "a screaming, embarrassing failure".^[189] The Age's Karl Quinn stated there was "more to like than dislike" about the show.^[190]

• The Brady Bunch Hour – This variety show featuring the cast of the hit sitcom The Brady Bunch has been frequently panned for its poor quality. Fred Silverman produced the show without the permission of either the creator or the copyright owners; both eventually consented after the fact. Eve Plumb, the original Jan Brady, refused to participate, leading to the Jan Brady role being recast, with Geri Reischl taking the role. It is ranked #4 on TV Guide's list of the worst TV series of all time, and Susan Olsen (who played Cindy Brady) authored a book on the show in 2009, Love to Love You Bradys, in which she referred to the show as "spectacularly bad."

• Hee Haw Honeys – This all-female adaptation of the popular and long-lived syndicated country-flavored variety show Hee Haw, which starred Kathie Lee Johnson, lasted one season in syndication in 1978, after which most of the cast (except Johnson) rejoined the parent show. It was nowhere near as popular or well-received as its parent show, which lasted 23 years on air. TV Guide placed it at #10 on its 2002 list of the worst TV shows of all time.

• Osbournes: Reloaded – The show was universally panned by critics, with Roger Catlin of the Hartford Courant even going so far as to call it the "worst variety show ever"^[191] and Tom Shales of the Washington Post labeling it "Must-Flee TV".^[192] It was canceled after one episode, which itself was cut from 60 to 35 minutes prior to air; twenty-six affiliates had refused to air the first show or buried it in overnight graveyard slots, and Fox had barely convinced a group of nineteen other stations to drop its plans to do the same.

• Pink Lady and Jeff – The series ranked #35 on TV Guide's Fifty Worst TV Shows of All Time list. The series, which featured Japanese duo Pink Lady struggle awkwardly through American disco hits and sketch comedy (the duo spoke very little English), was moved to the Friday night death slot after one episode and killed off at the end of its six-episode run.^[193]

• PopCultured – The show was widely panned and due to poor ratings it was canceled after one season, in early 2006. Comedy Network removed its web site's message boards due to the huge number of complaints they received, and a number of petitions demanding the cancellation of PopCultured were circulated on the internet. However, it is unclear whether these petitions had any direct link to the cancellation of the show. A 2005 poll on BestandWorst.com named PopCultured the worst TV show of all time.

• Rosie Live – This NBC variety special hosted by comedienne and activist Rosie O'Donnell on the day before Thanksgiving 2008 received almost universally negative reviews from critics. The Los Angeles Times critic Mary McNamara wrote, "For those of us who are, and remain, Rosie fans, who think The View will never quite recover from her departure, who think her desire to resurrect the variety show was, and is, a great idea, disappointment does not even begin to describe it."^[194] TV Guide critic Matt Roush panned the show as "dead on arrival,"^[195] while Variety wrote "If Rosie O'Donnell and company were consciously determined to strangle the rebirth of variety shows in the crib, they couldn't have done a better job of it than this pre-holiday turkey."^[196] The show had been cleared for a tentative January 2009 launch as a regular series, but the show's poor reception led to the cancellation of those plans.

• Ryantown – Ryantown was named as one of the "Top 10 Worst Irish TV Programmes" by the Irish Independent and Ryan was later to admit that it was all horribly "half-baked" and "should have been taken off the air after a few shows".^[39]

• Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell – Saturday Night Live's director Don Mischer remembers the show as hectic and unprepared, and has recalled one particular episode wherein executive producer Roone Arledge discovered that Lionel Hampton was in New York, and invited the musician to appear on the show an hour before the show was set to go on the air.^[197] The show fared poorly among critics and audiences alike, with TV Guide calling it "dead on arrival, with a cringingly awkward host."^[198] Alan King, the show's "executive in charge of comedy," later admitted that it was difficult trying to turn Cosell into a variety show host, saying that he "made Ed Sullivan look like Buster Keaton."^[198] Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell was canceled on January 17, 1976, after only 18 episodes.^[197] A year later, in 1977, NBC's Saturday Night was renamed Saturday Night Live, and it eventually hired most of the members of Cosell's Saturday Night Live cast (the most notable being Bill Murray).

• Turn-On – Bart Andrews, in his 1980 book The Worst TV Shows Ever, stated that Turn-On was actually quite close to the original concept for Laugh-In. "It wasn't that it was a bad show, it was that it was an awkward show," concluded author Harlan Ellison, a fan of counter-cultural comedy and a TV critic for the Los Angeles Free Press in 1969. Nonetheless, it has an extremely poor reputation because of the actions of at least two affiliates, who dropped the show halfway through its first airing, and others on the West Coast who did not show the first episode at all. The network followed suit in cancelling the series after its first episode.

• White Heather Club – The Penguin TV companion in 2006 voted The White Heather Club one of the 20 worst TV shows ever. Jeremy Paxman cited The White Heather Club as evidence that there was no "Golden Age" of British television at the 2007 Edinburgh International Television Festival's James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture.

See also

• List of television series canceled after one episode
  • List of television series cancelled before airing an episode
• List of films considered the worst

References

External links

• EW: "TV's 50 Biggest Bombs and Blunders"
• 25 Worst TV Shows - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
• The 20 Worst TV Shows | HEAVY

Lists of works considered the worst in certain forms of media Films Music Television series Video games