I posted it in some other thread, but
Mr. Mercedes went from, bar none,
the best thing on TV after a
flawless first season to a depressing second season. It was still quite good TV, all things considered... but the writers fucked up and clearly didn't pre-plan what order they were going to adapt the books in (in a fucking
trilogy, no less), and because of that they didn't do the groundwork for the second season (which covers the third book) while writing the first season, and it was painfully obvious. (Without getting into real spoilers, something decidedly supernatural happens in season two, and nothing in season one established that the show's very grounded universe allows for the supernatural.)
Most recently they've adapted the second book for the
third season (which I haven't watched yet), making the second season even more frustrating because... why not just adapt the books in order and
slowly ramp up to the outlandish shit revealed in the second season?! Because... they just didn't plan ahead.
It's a shame, because it's still one of the best acted, best written, and best directed shows on TV. But it will never be as good as the first season was again. And now HBO's The Outsider, which is from the same fictional King universe, is eating their lunch, critically speaking. (And with a pointlessly race-bent Holly Gibny when there was
already a great actress perfectly playing the same character elsewhere, albeit on another show. I guess that level of consistency just would have been too cool to see...)
Basically most of what everyone posted already (GOT butchered Stannis and it was a sign of things to come) but right now Westworld is the best example of a show that started out with good acting, an interesting plot in S1 and then took a screaming nosedive into the ground in S2. S3 is HBO selling off bits of the wreckage to anyone who cares.
Part of what made Season 1 so good was Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris. Hopkins is such a skilled actor that his absence from most of S2 and S3 to date is so noticeable that whenever his character's name is mentioned it's a reminder of the depth he gave the series and it's missing now that he's gone. Harris is barely around but when he does appear he almost makes up for the bad writing/pacing/acting in Westworld. Almost because the contrast just reminds you how shit this series is.
I'm only watching so I can see Ed Harris do a final beat down of Evan Rachel Wood. Wood is well cast as a robot because it suits her robotic acting acting perfectly.
I mean, the "YASSS QWEEN SLAYYYY" shit is unbearable, but that was in the show from the beginning (tons of lame IDpol subtext, too), and it mostly succeeded in spite of that. After a slightly disappointing second season, I'm mostly fine with the third season so far. What's the issue everyone is having with it?
I stopped watching Mr. Robot after it became a "we r the 99%, anonymoose does not forgive", which was probably season 1 because I remember like nothing about it otherwise.
I was a huge fan of the first season, and I enjoyed but was slightly disappointed by the second season. I almost dropped the show entirely during the first half of the third season... but halfway through, it really picked up and got interesting again. The fourth and final season was, with the exception of one weird episode, really fucking good. You could tell the creator had planned a lot of what happened from the beginning.
Worth picking back to and finishing, IMO.