A number of television shows, both regular series and one-off specials from around the world, have been judged to be among the worst to have ever been produced. Factors that can reflect poorly on a television series include inherently 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."

Multiple outlets have produced lists ranking the worst television series and most spectacular television flops in history, including the U.S. publications TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly, the British Mail Online and Jeff Evans's The Penguin TV Companion; in many cases, these lists were partially slanted toward recent memory. TV Guide, for example, published two lists, one in 2002 and another in 2010, each of which had contemporary shows near the top of the list; The Jerry Springer Show and the XFL in the top three of the 2002 list, while The Jay Leno Show topped, and in fact inspired, the 2010 list and the XFL had fallen nearly 20 spots.

The following is a list of television series considered the worst by published professional critics, network executives, and/or through viewer rejection (extreme low viewership despite high promotion). Because situation comedy shows make up a disproportionately large number of shows judged in this manner, they are listed in a separate list of sitcoms considered the worst.

Animated shows [ edit ]

Live-action children's shows [ edit ]

Barney & Friends The long-running show featuring a saccharine purple dinosaur as the title character was listed at number 50 on TV Guide ' s 2002 list of worst TV series. In addition to straightforward criticism of the title character's incessant cheerfulness[39] and occasional bad influences on the children in the series, the series has triggered a strong revulsion among people older than its target preschool demographic. The show has been the target of a barrage of often-vicious and dark anti-Barney humor since its debut. W. J. T. Mitchell, a University of Chicago professor who devoted a chapter of his book The Dinosaur Book to the anti-Barney phenomenon, noted: "Barney is on the receiving end of more hostility than just about any other popular cultural icon I can think of. Parents admit to a cordial dislike of the saccharine saurian, and no self-respecting second-grader will admit to liking Barney."[40]

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, in which she sang the Sheena Easton song "9 to 5", caused national outrage when Fisher, then eight years old, sang 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.[41] It was voted the second-worst UK show by TV critics.[42]

Dramas and soap operas [ edit ]

Fantasy/science-fiction shows [ edit ]

Galactica 1980 The 1979 cancellation of Battlestar Galactica prompted a letter-writing campaign by fans that convinced ABC to revive the show as Galactica 1980, but with a significantly smaller budget that resulted in the setting being changed to Earth three decades after the events of the original program,[81] while the cast was overhauled save for Lorne Greene and Herbert Jefferson Jr.[82][83] Galactica 1980 was negatively received as a result and canceled after ten episodes. GamesRadar+ named the show among its "Top 25 Worst Sci-Fi and Fantasy TV Shows Ever" in 2012, lambasting its "cardboard cut-out heroes" and having "more loathsome kids than any other SF show ever."[82] Gordon Jackson of io9 criticized it as "ill-advised" and "lack[ing] any of the zest of the original series."[84] Carol Pinchefsky of Syfy wrote in 2017, "[P]lease, oh please, let’s not think about Galactica 1980",[85] and The Guardian called the show "woeful".[86] Luke Y. Thompson of Nerdist deemed it "extremely difficult to defend," and considered the absence of original series star Richard Hatch a factor in its demise.[87] Hatch had rejected reprising his role as Captain Apollo, as he felt the changes "ruined the story. I just wasn’t interested."[81]

Inhumans The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 10% approval rating, with an average rating of 3.43/10 based on 42 reviews. The website's consensus states, "Marvel's Inhumans sets a new low standard for the MCU with an unimaginative narrative, dull design work, weak characters, and disengaging soapy melodrama."[88] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 27 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[89]

Manimal Manimal was scheduled by NBC opposite CBS's popular Dallas, and was canceled after eight episodes due to low ratings. It was a part of NBC's 1983 fall line-up that featured eight other series that were canceled before their first seasons ended (including Jennifer Slept Here, Bay City Blues, and We Got it Made).[90] John Javna's book The Best of Science Fiction TV rated Manimal among its "Worst Science Fiction Shows of All Time".[91] TV Guide ranked Manimal number 15 on their list of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time in 2002. In 2004, readers of the British trade magazine Broadcast voted Manimal as one of the worst television shows ever exported by the US to the UK.[92]

The Powers of Matthew Star The 1982 NBC series was put on the list of TV Guide ' s 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time, ranked at #22.[93] The show revolved around a seemingly normal teenage boy who was actually an alien prince with superpowers. The first half of the series showed him as a high school student where his guardian, also an alien, worked as a science teacher. The second half of the series abruptly shifted from a drama into a sort-of cop show, where he and his guardian worked for the government. Matthew's girlfriend, who had previously been a central character, was cut from the show, and he did not attend high school anymore.[ citation needed ]

Game shows [ edit ]

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 tagline, "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).[109] A 2012 postmortem of the show read: "Nothing seemed to work for Shafted from the start. It looked derivative, it sounded derivative, the format was pretty unfair, the host was bad, and it just wasn't that interesting. So basically nothing worked out."[110] In an article on ITV programmes, Stuart Heritage described Shafted as "Hamfisted" and stated it was "deservedly remembered as one of the worst television programmes ever made".[111]

Strike It Rich This show was controversial during the 11 years it aired.[ citation needed ] While some applauded Strike It Rich for helping out some less fortunate people (as well as showcasing the sincere charity and goodwill of the viewers), others found it a sickening spectacle that exploited the less fortunate contestants for the vicarious thrills of the viewers and the selfish gain of the sponsors. A major part of the criticism was that it promised more than it could deliver. Though the show received between 3,000 and 5,000 letters per week from needy people wishing to win what would be (to them) life-changing sums of money, only a small fraction of those could be selected.[ citation needed ] Critics stated that the show picked mostly those thought to have the most interesting tales of woe. Despite warnings by the show's producers, a number of people hoping to be contestants exhausted their money to travel to New York, only to be rejected and end up relying on charities such as the Salvation Army to help them return home. This led to complaints from charities and local government agencies. The New York City commissioner of welfare called Strike It Rich "a disgusting spectacle and a national disgrace" while the supervisor of the Travelers Aid Society said, "Putting human misery on display can hardly be called right." TV Guide later called it "a despicable travesty on the very nature of charity."[ citation needed ]

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."[114] 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."[115]

News [ edit ]

The Morning Program On January 12, 1987, The Morning Program made its debut[116] on CBS hosted by actress Mariette Hartley and Rolland Smith, former longtime anchor at WCBS-TV in New York City. Radio personality Mark McEwen handled the weather, while Bob Saget did comedy bits. Produced by the network's entertainment division, the show ran for 90 minutes (7:30–9 A.M. local time) behind a briefly expanded 90-minute CBS Early Morning News (6–7:30 A.M. local; although most larger affiliates pre-empted all or part of the 6–7 A.M. hour to produce a local morning newscast), which had dropped "Early" from its title. However, The Morning Program, with its awkward mix of news, entertainment, and comedy, became the joke of the industry, receiving scathing reviews.[117][118][119] At one point, it generated the lowest ratings CBS had seen in the morning slot in five years. The format was aborted and the time slot returned to the news division after a ten-and-a-half-month run. Hartley and Smith were dumped, while Saget left to star on the ABC sitcom, Full House. A longtime producer summed up this version of the program upon its demise by saying, "...everyone thought we had the lowest ratings you could have in the morning. The Morning Program proved us wrong".[119]

Reality television series [ edit ]

Sitcoms [ edit ]

Specials and television movies [ edit ]

A Christmas Story Live! A 2017 live adaptation of the 1983 film A Christmas Story received mixed to negative reviews from professional critics.[143] Most viewers of the program gave strong negative reactions; it had not been publicly advertised that Fox was not adapting the film directly but instead the 2012 Broadway musical, which stretched the live production out to three hours.[144] Ratings were the lowest for any live musical special since the genre had been revived in 2013, with its poor performance raising the possibility that it could end further entries in the format for good.[145]

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.[146] In exchange for the rights to air the special, ESPN agreed to hand over its advertising and airtime to James. James arranged for the special to include an interview conducted by Jim Gray, who was paid by James's marketing company and had no affiliation with the network.[147] The show drew criticism for making viewers wait 28 minutes before James revealed his decision, and the spectacle involved.[148] James's phrase "taking my talents to South Beach", which he spoke in revealing his choice, became a punchline for critics.[149][150] Though the special drew 13 million viewers, ESPN's reporting leading up to the program, its decision to air it and the network's relinquishing of editorial independence in the process were cited as gross violations of journalistic ethics.[147][151][152][153]

Eaten Alive A 2014 television special on Discovery Channel that purported to have host Paul Rosolie swallowed whole by an eighteen-foot anaconda, it drew criticism before its airing from those who felt Discovery was aiming for sensationalism and shock value.[154][155] Rosolie was never actually consumed by the anaconda before the stunt was prematurely called off due to safety concerns,[156] which resulted in heavy viewer complaints.[156][157][158][159] PETA criticized the special as an example of "entertainment features ... that show humans interfering with and handling wild animals [that] are detrimental to species conservation."[160] In January 2015, Discovery president Rich Ross admitted the special's promotion was "misleading."[161]

Elvis in Concert This TV special was a recorded Elvis Presley concert held on June 19, 1977; it was one of the last concerts of his career. Presley's deteriorating health was evident in his weight gain and his inability to remember lyrics of several songs. It has been described as "terrible and embarrassing"[162] and as a "travesty."[163] 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 had plans to 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.[164]

Highlander: The Source Highlander: The Source is the first Highlander film in the franchise not to be released in American theatres. Instead, it was shown on the Sci-Fi Channel on September 15, 2007. Critical reaction to Highlander: The Source was universally negative. Christopher Monfette of IGN gave The Source a score of 1 out of 10, saying: "The worthwhile days of Connor MacLeod, it would appear, are officially over—dead, decapitated, and depleted of their power. The struggle for an immortal to move through life unchallenged has since mutated into an awkward arrangement of mismatched mythologies, TV-to-movie crossovers, and a steady stream of low-budget, direct-to-DVD cash-cows which may, in the end, prove to be the only truly immortal thing about this series."[175] Brian Orndorf of DVD Talk gave the film one half star out of five, saying: "The Source is nothing less than a parody of what has come before. If you've seen the previous sequels, you already know that's saying something. There is some relief that this franchise will finally be put out of its misery, because nobody in their right mind would try to keep this series going after watching just how boneheaded Highlander: The Source is."[176] Danél Griffin of Film as Art gave The Source one half star out of four, remarking that "it's bad—cheesily bad, colossally bad, monumentally bad, bad enough to make you never want to watch another movie again bad."[177] Keith Breese of FilmCritic.com gave the film one star out of five, saying: "Not only will Highlander fans be disappointed by the film's nosedive into nonsense, but the average viewer will be stunned by the backyard quality of this film. The acting is uniformly terrible, the special effects are hideous, the sets are cheap and grubby, and the direction is uninspired. The film is an utter failure. ... Surely this is the final nail in the coffin lid for this film series. If it isn't, then something is truly wrong with the universe."[178] The Sci-Fi Movie Page gave The Source one and a half stars out of five, saying: "Just when you think that this is a franchise that can't sink any lower, along comes Highlander: The Source. ... One gets the impression that The Source was filmed with theatrical distribution in mind but that no sane cinema distributor would touch it with a ten-foot barge pole. Good for them. Instead it went straight to the SciFi Channel and now the DVD shelves where you should let it stay, collecting dust."[179]

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 friend 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 who won a US$33,500,000 wrongful death settlement against Simpson for the murders, declared the special "an all-time low for television"[180] and eventually arranged for Regan's firing from HarperCollins for alleged "anti-Semitic remarks;"[181] Regan eventually sued HarperCollins for wrongful termination and won. Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch eventually admitted the idea was an "ill-considered project."[182] The special never aired in its original form and the book's rights were turned over to the Goldmans, who retitled the book If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, with the If in much smaller type. In 2018, the still-unaired special was re-edited, with new bridging segments hosted by Soledad O'Brien, and given the name O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession. The Goldman family approved of the re-edited special, which aired March 2018.[183]

Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives Discovery Channel aired this special alleging the continued existence of the megalodon, a long-extinct giant shark species, to begin its 2013 edition of Shark Week. The special received some of the highest ratings ever for Shark Week, but the special was shortly thereafter soundly rebuked from numerous critics, who noted that many of the events in the special, despite being portrayed as actual events, were obvious fabrications; Discovery itself was also the target of criticism for allowing such a program to air, accusing the channel of "jumping the shark" (a wholly unrelated television idiom) and having stooped to a level of channel drift that the channel had previously been able to avoid. Discovery's response to the criticism was to claim that the barely visible fine print, which ambiguously stated that the organizations mentioned in the special were not involved and that there was still doubt about what caused the alleged events, was sufficient.[188] Science writer Christie Wilcox wrote an open letter to Discovery Communications complaining about the program: "Part of me is furious with you, Discovery, for doing this. But mostly, I'm just deeply saddened. It's inexplicably depressing that you've gone from "the world's #1 nonfiction media company" to peddling lies and faking stories for ratings." [189]

Sports [ edit ]

Talk/chat and discussion shows [ edit ]

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" during the show's second week.[290] 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."[290] TIME panned the show: "Nervous and totally at sea, Chase tried everything, succeeded at nothing."[291] 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.[291] The show ranked 16th on TV Guide's list of worst television shows and the same position on its of biggest television blunders; Fox chairwoman Lucie Salhany described the experience of watching it as "uncomfortable and embarrassing."[292][293] After drawing half of the number of viewers promised, Fox dumped the show to save both its own stations' ratings and Chase's reputation.[293]

The Jerry Springer Show The show topped TV Guide magazine's 2002 list of "The Worst TV Shows Ever".[294] 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.

Variety/sketch comedy shows [ edit ]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]