10 Fantasy Shows That Couldn’t Recover From a Bad Storyline

Fantasy TV shows whisk audiences away to magical worlds filled with thrilling adventures, but even the greatest of these series tend to get lost in their own meandering and ill-conceived storylines. All it takes is a single badly construed storyline to ruin the whole series and drive fans away. The entries on this list include popular live-action and animated series that were once enormously popular and loved by fans, but have lost a great deal of their appeal due to a poor storyline they just couldn’t recover from.

These series have suffered from beloved characters who were or mythologies that were upended by absurd twists, yawn-inducing arcs, and weird creative decisions that rail against what the series were known for. From Daenerys’ sudden fit of insanity and the rushed finale of Game of Thrones, to The Witcher’s sudden departure from the source material, each of the following series has suffered tremendously from a bad storyline they haven’t been able to recover from.

10

‘Merlin’ (2008-2012)

Created by Johnny Capps, Julian Jones & Jake Michie

Merlin is a fantasy-adventure drama series that reimagines an Arthurian legend in which Merlin (Colin Morgan) is sent by his mother to the kingdom of Camelot due to his special gift. While in Camelot, Merlin happens to save Prince Arthur’s (Bradley James) life and becomes his manservant. Merlin soon discovers that the reason he’s been sent to Camelot is to use his magical powers to protect Arthur. As the series progresses, the two develop a close bond and Merlin does his best he can to have a positive influence on the young prince so that he can become the best king he can be.

For five series, fans tuned in with rapt anticipation for the fulfilling finale promised by the show’s premise: seeing Arthur become an enlightened king with Merlin by his side. After all, Arthur is prophesied as the “Once and Future King.” But, unfortunately, in what was an excruciating emotional rug-pull for fans of the show, Arthur only became aware of Merlin’s magic in the final episode and dies shortly after. This is a strange creative decision given the suspense and anticipation the series spent so much time cultivating for its fans; naturally, viewers who invested so much of their time patiently waiting for this cathartic moment were profoundly disappointed when it never arrived. This poorly executed storyline choice retroactively ruined the series for many viewers and many still feel that it deserved a whole other season in which the prophecy could have been fulfilled.

9

‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ (2018-2020)

Created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a supernatural coming-of-age series based on the Archie comic book character series of the same name. This spooky series follows the life of Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka), who’s forced to reconcile the duality of her identity as a half-witch, half-mortal while fending off evil forces that threaten her and her loved ones and the world at large.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina had a strong start. It was a stylish, subversive series with a heap ton of potential and a stellar lead with Shipka in the role of Sabrina. But by the final part of the series, it experienced a sharp decline in quality attributed to a narrative chaos of its own making. The series introduced the Eldritch terrors, a sequence of world-ending monsters that were meant to serve as the ultimate season arc. Instead of serving this purpose, this poorly conceived storyline only exacerbated the convolution of an already messy plot. The series implemented multiple alternate realities, time loops, and horror homages in an overwhelming hot mess, and the entire series seemed to collapse under the weight of its own conceit. What made The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina such a strong series in the first place was the way it weaved together folklore, biblical stories and other mythologies in thrilling fashion, but ultimately it was this penchant for mixing together so many mythologies that ruined the series in its final stretch. Still, fans of Agatha, All Along and Charmed will appreciate the series despite its weak finish.

8

‘Sleepy Hollow’ (2013-2017)

Created by Phillip Iscove, Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Oci

Sleepy Hollow is a series loosely based on the 1820 short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, and follows Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), who wakes up 250 years into the future after a fatal encounter with the legendary headless horseman. When Ichabod discovers that the horseman has also been revived and is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he joins forces with Detective Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) to stop the horseman from unleashing the End of Days.

Sleepy Hollow was a huge success and spawned a loyal fandom in its early run. But towards the end of season two, fans became disenchanted with the series as the dynamic between Abbie and Ichabod became sidelined, while the show focused more on Ichabod’s backstory, and less popular characters like his revived wife, Katherine (Katia Winter). Things really took a nosedive when Abbie was unexpectedly killed off in the season 3 finale in a move that completely alienated the series’ fans. The end result was a poorly received fourth season that was followed by the cancellation of the series altogether. Despite its strong start, this decision ultimately decapitated all the goodwill Sleepy Hollow developed in its early days. At least fans of the headless horseman can still check out Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow which is considered one of the best folk horror films.

7

‘Sword Art Online’ (2012-Present)

Created by Reki Kawahara

Sword Art Online is an anime series set in the year 2022, where thousands of people get trapped in a virtual MMPORPG where dying in-game means dying in real life. The series focuses on protagonists Kirito (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka) and Asuna (Haruka Tomatsu) as they play in various virtual reality worlds. Sword Art Online was initially a massive hit that gracefully balanced action, romance and high stakes, but during the second half of the first season, the SAO took everything it built in the first half and dumped it off a cliff.

In the first arc of the season (Aincard Arc), Asuna is written as a strong and fascinating character with plenty of depth. But during the second arc, Fairy Dance, SAO completely throws away this layered characterization and reduces the once-fierce warrior to a generic damsel-in-distress who’s subjected to the advances of the villain Oberon (Takehito Koyashu) in a sleazy subplot. This lazy, generic character writing and ill-conceived storyline left audiences frustrated and deteriorated much of the goodwill SAO had built in the first half of the season. While the show has remained popular, this awful arc is still seen as one of the biggest missteps in its history and, for many viewers, it was enough to turn them off the series altogether.

6

‘The Witcher’ (2019-Present)

Created by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich

In The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) is a solo-riding monster hunter with superhuman abilities who navigates a harsh world where the humans inhabiting it are oftentimes worse than the monsters he hunts. The series proved to be a huge hit among fans of the novel and newcomers, especially due to the charismatic, gravelly voiced Cavill, who was celebrated as an exceptional casting choice. Unfortunately, the writers made the inexplicable choice of veering away from the source material in season two and instead took the show in a new, and extremely disappointing, direction.

Everything seemed to be going well for The Witcher up until the second season, until the writers chose to deviate from the source material in a number of inexplicable and messy ways. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with veering away from the source material of a work, the team behind The Witcher did so in a tasteless and baffling manner. This begins early on in the second season with the poor writing of Eskel’s character. In the book series, Eskel is depicted as an honorable fan-favorite, but in the TV series he’s written as a sleazy, boorish character. His death, which has no basis in the books, was a shocking slap in the face to viewers who felt that the writers had done a disservice to a fan-favorite character. The creation of Voleth Meir (Ania Marson) also complicated the storyline and contributed to the poorly handled developments of other characters in the series, such as Yennefer (Anya Chalotra).

5

‘Once Upon a Time’ (2011-2018)

Created by Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis

ABC’s Once Upon a Time captured the imagination of viewers with an enchanting premise: Bailbondswoman Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), the daughter of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) must break a powerful curse that’s trapped fairy-tale characters in the town of Storybrooke, Maine, where none of them have any memories of their true identities. The first season of the series was a hit among viewers, but things only went downhill after that.

Once Upon a Time didn’t necessarily suffer from just one bad storyline that it couldn’t recover from, but rather a series of convoluted arcs that came one after another; the series kept introducing new curses, new realms and retconned relationships with a make-it-up as we go approach that made it an exhausting series to keep up with. Each new plot was introduced before audiences could process the one before it and by season 4 the show had gone off the rails with way too many ideas. A rushed “Queen of Darkness” arc and the introduction and sudden disappearance of characters like Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten) contributed to the show’s rapid decline in quality. The biggest mistake of the series came with its poor structuring of season seven; Once Upon a Time had lost its main character, and most of the original cast had been sidelined at that point, leaving little reason to complete the show at all. Instead of calling it quits, the showrunners went with a poorly conceived soft-reboot approach that included a new cursed town. Naturally, this didn’t land well with the fanbase, who struggled to emotionally connect with this new storyline. Despite these narrative miscalculations, Once Upon a Time limped toward an underwhelming ending long after the magic of the series had faded away.

4

‘American Gods’ (2017-2021)

Created by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green

American Gods had an explosive premiere that was immediately met with acclaim. Based on the novel of the same name by Neil Gaiman, the series followed recently released ex-convict Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) who, after meeting a mysterious man named Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane) finds himself in the middle of a conflict between old and new deities. Athough the series was met with warm appraisal in its first season, things quickly fell apart in the second season after creators Bryan Fuller and Michael Green were fired allegedly due to conflicts regarding a ballooning budget and the tone of the series.

The second season of American Gods was devoid of the magic that made the first season so enthralling. The writing of the series took a massive nosedive, and the production ran into a slew of issues as writers had trouble completing scripts. Things got worse as actors when major cast members like Gillian Anderson and Kristin Chenoweth left the series. The narrative direction of the show became a meandering husk of what viewers encountered in the first season; American Gods began to focus more on Shadow’s history and the new God’s schemes, which failed to connect with audiences in a meaningful way, and the conflict between Shadow and Mr. Wednesday seemed to go nowhere and offered no payoff to the audience. American Gods’ dramatic production chaos ultimately doomed the series to a directionless storyline that was devoid of the momentum and excitement the first season brought.

3

‘Heroes’ (2006-2010)

Created by Tim Kring

Heroes is a series about various ordinary people who discover they have superpowers. As the series progresses, these individuals work together to prevent catastrophic futures. Heroes featured Hayden Panettiere, Milo Ventimigilia and Masi Oka. Upon the premiere of its first season, Heroes was met with critical acclaim, but the second season’s lack of direction seemed to throw all that progress away.

The problem with the second season of Heroes was a slow plot and the forced introduction of new characters with separate arcs and storylines from the main plot. This lack of focus caused the series to move at a meandering and underwhelming pace that left viewers frustrated and unfulfilled. The series also suffered from forced onscreen romances that failed to resonate with audiences like that of West and Claire and Hiro and Yaeko. For many fans, this marked a crucial misstep in the series, and it wasn’t long before ratings began to plummet. Although Heroes tried to course correct in the third and fourth seasons with the addition of villains and more superpowered beings, it was never able to rekindle the spark of its first season.

2

True Blood (2008-2014)

Created by Alan Ball

True Blood is a fantasy drama series based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries, a book series by Charlaine Harris. The story revolves around telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who lives in the rural town of Bon Temps, Louisianna, two years after a synthetic blood product has given vampires the freedom to live freely among humankind. The series began as a highly popular Gothic vampire tale, but things started to fall apart by season 3.

True Bloods’ problems began with the introduction of faeries as a part of Sookie’s heritage. The inclusion of Fairy Land in True Blood wasn’t well-received among fans, who found the storyline felt out drawing within the broader tone and style of the series. This would prove to be the first major mistake of the series, and the beginning of a trend that would go on to ruin the series. Instead of checking themselves, the runners of the show decided to include more mythological creatures; witches, werepanthers, fire demons, vengeful ghosts and much more would go on to make appearances in True Blood in what seemed to be nothing more than an attempt at covering up increasingly weak and directionless plot threads. By its final season, True Blood was on narrative life support and many fans were relieved that it was finally being put to rest following its predictably disappointing series finale.

1

‘Game of Thrones’ (2011-2019)

Created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss

Game of Thrones had it all. It was a brilliantly written show based on George R.R. Martin’s book series A Song of Fire and Ice, and it boasted an ensemble cast of incredible actors, including Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke. And with its die-hard fandom, few series in history have enjoyed the adoration, popularity and critical acclaim that Game of Thrones has earned. Everything seemed to be going so well, and although things got a bit shaky in the later seasons, it wasn’t until the final season that the creators completely decimated everything they’d built in a staggering failure of tragic proportions.

In the final season of Game of Thrones, fans will recall that Daenerys was on the path to becoming the liberator of Westeros. Everything in her arc suggested that she would be the one to free the people from Cersei’s rule. But suddenly, in what was perhaps the most half-baked rushed character pivot in the history of television writing, she went full-on mass murderer. Sure, there were some small, subtle hints leading up to this moment, but none of them justified the complete one-eighty her character did. She went from liberating the people to reducing King’s Landing to an ashtray. Why exactly? No one is quite sure. Had the creators taken the time to develop this storyline and illustrate the steady, enveloping madness of Daenerys, then maybe, just maybe, this could’ve been a satisfying ending. But in the end, this storyline ruined the series so badly for viewers that many choose to ignore its existence altogether. It was a shameful end to one of HBO’s greatest television series.

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