We've all had that experience. In the middle of an otherwise pleasant conversation, a friend brings up something they've been watching/reading, you say you've heard of it, but haven't tried it, and they say: "Duuuuude, you have to! It's awesome!"

So you do.

And once you're done, you sit back and say, "I don't get it."

Perhaps it was the story, the characters, the pacing, what have you, it just didn't click. And yet, you feel like it should have, because so many people, including your now really annoying friend, won't shut the fuck up about it.

For me, this has happened twice in the last few years, to seriously major TV shows. Admitting this will probably lose me some geek cred, but I simply could not, for the life of me, get into either Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

For BB, the pacing was glacial, and the promised 'slow descent' of a nice guy into a criminal was all but complete within half an hour.

For GoT, It was too busy. Too many characters, I could not get invested in any of them. I can freely admit it is well-produced and awesome to look at, well-acted and even well-written. But I just didn't care.

I tried to be fair to both; in light of the way the Dresden Files doesn't get good until Book 3 or so, I tried to give both shows several episodes. I couldn't finish BB episode 2, and GoT, while the Wife fell in love with it, I found myself playing Angry Birds.

So, how 'bout it, DLP? Make me feel less alone; what hype trains have you just been unable to board?

 

Superwholock. The combined stupidity of all three fandoms ruined them for me before I even started. Same thing for One Punch Man.

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Dr Who.

I tried to get into it once (because a chick I was into was into it and I figured it'd be something to "bond" over), but I just couldn't do it.

I started with the new series (IIRC, been a while) and it was just... bland, I guess? There was just nothing there that grabbed my interest.

 

Deadwood. A friend raved about it, and lent me the first series on dvd, but I just couldn't get into it.

This happens more to me with films though. Until I saw Hail, Caeser!, I didn't understand the love for the Coen brothers. I'd watched Fargo, Millers Crossing and No Country for Old Men, and been disappointed in all three (although I did like the first two, I couldn't see why they were so heavily praised, so that's perhaps more hype backlash than anything else; No Country I just thought was bad).

I had the same with There Will be Blood, which is one of the most tedious films I've ever seen.

 

If I had the ability to bring back one show, it would be this. Proper absurd sci-fi. I'd go as far to say as Guardians of the Galaxy took a lot of inspiration from Farscape once it hits the right stride.

I'll grant the first coupleof episodes aren't super, but then the show starts taking risks.

I'd give it another chance. Once Crichton comes to terms with his situation, he decides the only way to out crazy the crazy is to become the most feared and respected outlaw in the universe.

And god help you if you mix pizza and margarita shooters.

 

Dr. Who for me as well. I just don't think it's a good series, though I'm sure someone will say I just watched the wrong era because there's so many.

For books - Kingkiller Chronicles. Couldn't really get into them.

I enjoyed Breaking Bad a lot (though I can't stand most scenes with Skyler). The GoT show is firmly meh, though I like it more than I don't. I could agree with it being overhyped, but I don't think they're bad (though there are a decent amount of bad parts). Perhaps not quite deserving of all the praise it gets. Books are good, but long and dull at times (think the camping scene in Deathly Hallows, except for 1000 pages).

 

I suppose I'm often a contrarian. Anything that is suggested to me with a lot of hype attached almost always falls flat with me. Like Cheddar said, it feels like a 7/10.

Star Wars 7, Deadpool, LotR films, Toy Story 3.

I prefer to see new shows without a great deal of expectation. The most impactful films, books, and TV shows for me have been those I've discovered myself, or with little more knowledge than the genre and an IMDB / Rotten Tomatoes / Metacritic score.

 

Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, etc etc, insert any gritty and/or edgy crime/law/justice drama.

I think the only one I've ever really enjoyed was The Wire.

 

Breaking Bad broke all records of boredom for me. I tried it once, dropped it after the first season. It was weird to me that half of the runtime was filled with the Whites being awkward during mealtimes when the season only had seven episodes. Last year I tried the second season and it was still boring as hell. At this point I kind of quietly hate it instead of just forgetting about it.

 

Too much. From the things already mentioned in this thread, Game of Thrones TV, Breaking Bad, ANYTHING Marvel or DC, Kingkiller Chronicles, RWBY... I haven't actually watched a single TV series out of my own volition in like 5 years.

I actually feel a bit bad about GoT and RWBY. I love the ASOIAF books, I just could never get into the tv show. I've always meant to binge watch it sometime, it's just never happened. RWBY, I just couldn't watch the show. I like the fandom, fics, amvs, stuffs, I just can't watch the actual show.

Ah, Worm, and other stuff Wildbow. I've heard so much about it, but I've never wanted to give it a try, at all.

 

I ended up watching Breaking Bad up to the sixth season I believe, because of my girlfriend at the time. While the premise was fun, Skyler was just so annoying ALL THE TIME that I wanted to shot myself every time she opened her mouth.

Archer was another one. I heard a bunch of friends saying how awesome it was, even some from our very own DLP during our DnD campaign. I think I clicked the red 'X' 5 minutes into the first episode.

I like Game of Thrones, but knowing what happens before it does kind of ruins it for me. A bit. I'll still watch it, but an episode once in a while.

 

A Song of Ice and Fire and Worm are two that I wound up being dissatisfied with. Attack on Titan comes to mind for a show that was really hyped, but I just found to be okay.

 

Echoing Xhip0 on Naruto (and anime in general) and RWBY. And Wilbow's stuff. I read the first few chapters of Pact, but just didn't suck me in.

 

The Name of the Wind have read probably half of it and it was boring me to tears.

The prose was far too flowery for my tastes, the characters were godawful the protagonist was a boring mary sue and all side characters were completely forgettable, only there to suck the MC off. The magic system was the only decent thing about it and it was still nothing special.

The Sopranos/ The Wire watched 6-7 episodes and it's alright just don't see where the hype is coming from because there is nothing too interesting or special about them, will probably finish it someday though just to see what the fuzz is about.

 

GoT for me as well. I guess part of my dislike stems from my distaste for the grimdark genre but even without it the show is a little too cluttered and added to the fact that I couldn't find a single character to root for.

 

Dresden Files.

Every time I see a fucker go "OMG ZOMBIE T-REX SO COOL" I die.

Yea. Fuck you and your avatar LC, stop killing me.

 

I really wanted to like Doctor Who, just because it sounded so cool and I really enjoyed some of the ideas. I just never liked it enough to want to watch more. Same for American Horror Story. If they're on I'll watch them but that's all.

 

The Harry Potter films. To this day, I've still only watched around half of them.

Pretty much any of the DC, Marvel, or other superhero films. I just don't find them compelling in the slightest and they're generally so full of "wink wink nod nod" homage to the superfans that it makes for some ugly storytelling.

Star Wars. Probably the most riveting thing I've experienced was back when I was seven and they made the jump into hyperspace for the first time. Now, I just find the series tedious.

(This one will almost certainly earn me the hate in some circles.) Bob Dylan. Some good songs, a few great ones, true, but I've never understood the reverence he receives.

Edit:

I thought I'd add: in my professional life? Easy. String Theory.

Seriously, even after thirty years, it's a jumbled pile of shit, "not even wrong" as Pauli would say. The "theory," such as it is, is basically the twenty-first-century equivalent of "How many angels can dance on the head of one's favorite Calabi-Yau manifold?" It has produced not a single prediction in three decades and tens of thousands of research articles.

Worse, it's not even possible in principle to use the edifice to make a prediction about the universe because it presupposes all sorts of nonsense to make things fit: there are effectively an infinite number of different ways to formulate things and string theorists have to resort to anthropic arguments to explain why the universe wound up the way it is. In other words, it has no explanatory power and is more religion than science; it should be taught in divinity schools, not physics departments.

That it is the only game in town in elementary particle theory has destroyed a generation of now-unemployable Ed Whitten-worshiping wunderkinds and is the very reason I left elementary particle theory for something slightly less intellectually and philosophically bankrupt. As Richard Feynman said, "Quantum field theorists make predictions; string theorists make excuses."