It can be very difficult for a TV show to come back from an awful storyline, although there were a select few who managed to do just that. From misjudged romantic encounters to characters whose stories just weren’t working, an awful storyline can be the death of a great TV show, but luckily, creators, writers, and showrunners have occasionally spotted their mistakes and come back from the brink of disaster. It can be difficult to undo an awful storyline, but, when there was enough good faith from viewers, the audience was still there when the show got back on track.
While there have been TV shows that never recovered from an awful storyline, luckily, that’s not been the case for every show that went down the wrong path. Particularly in the earliest seasons, TV shows needed some extra time to find their voice and explore some misjudged stories before discovering what worked and what didn’t. While it can be a very difficult thing to achieve, there were a number of examples of TV shows that found a way to come from awful storylines.
The fourth season of the NBC sitcom Community was known as the “gas leak year” due to a perceived drop in quality and its reputation as the worst season of the beloved series created by Dan Harmon. The drop in quality was so great that the characters themselves later attributed the entire events of the previous year to a gas leak, to explain its awful storylines and gimmicky nature. Through the badly received use of things like puppets and musical numbers, the narratives in Community Season 4 lacked the unique charm that made the earlier storylines work so well.
This disappointing development was because Harmon was fired as the Community showrunner after the third season and replaced with Aliens in America creators David Guarascio and Moses Port. Harmon’s unique writing style and tendency for meta-referential humor were part of what made Community a success, and without his input, the entire fourth season, and its storylines, felt like a pale imitation of all that came before. Although the show still tried to emulate Harmon’s unique voice, it felt like an imitation and the show suffered from it.
Thankfully, Community was able to come from these awful storylines through their “gas leak year” explanation and by having Harmon return as the series showrunner for the fifth and sixth seasons. Once Harmon came back to Community, it breathed new life into the show as the wit and charm of its first three seasons had returned. As the creator of Community, the series does not work without Harmon at the helm, and thankfully he will also be the main creative force behind the upcoming Community movie.
When Parks and Recreation premiered in 2009 it was not an immediate success, and it took a while for it to find its unique comedic voice and for the true strength of its ensemble cast to be properly utilized. One major factor in the disappointing first two seasons of Parks and Recreation was the character of Mark Brendanawicz and the awful story of a potential romance with Leslie Knope. While the city planner Mark was not without his charm, his storyline just did not click with the rest of the show and held it back from achieving its later greatness.
The relationship dynamics between Mark and Leslie were introduced early in Parks and Rec, as the two slept together years before and Leslie had harbored romantic feelings ever since. Sadly, Mark did not return her feelings, and it was even revealed that he had actually forgotten their night together after some years had passed. With Leslie being such a positive and loving character, this storyline just did not sit right, it made Mark unlikable, and it felt like there was not a lot of comedy to mine from it as a major sitcom will-they-won’t-they story.
Parks and Rec fixed their Mark problem in a very definitive way by having Paul Schneider, the actor who played him, depart the show after its second season. While the door seemed to remain open for his return, as he was replaced by newer characters like Ben Wyatt and Chris Traeger, he became less important, and he never came back to the show. Overall, Mark’s storylines just weren’t working and Parks and Rec only truly found its voice after he had departed.
While some claim that Joey and Rachel would have been endgame if Friends were made today, at the time their romance was considered a truly awful storyline that went against the previously established relationship dynamics on the show. The storyline was even disliked by the actors on Friends (via People) with Joey’s actor Matt LaBlanc reportedly calling the dynamic “incestuous” after he carved out a brotherly bond with the female characters over the years. After having watched Ross and Rachel’s will-they-won’t-they storyline play out for so long, it just felt wrong having Joey as her love interest.
However, despite pushback from viewers, Friends explored Joey and Rachel’s romance arc from Season 8 to Season 10 of the show. The two briefly dated, but despite good chemistry and a mutual attraction, it just didn’t work and as Friends continued through its tenth and final season, the focus was put firmly back on the Ross and Rachel romance. With Ross and Rachel being a central focus throughout Friends’ full ten-year run, and the two even having a child together, it made sense that, in the end, the writers had them end up together.
Friends recovered from the Joey and Rachel storyline by simply brushing under the carpet, with Rachel even joking that they only dated for a week during Season 10. While Friends did come back from this awful storyline, the effects of the relationship on Joey were never properly explored. Joey told Rachel that he loved her and showcased a level of commitment he hadn’t previously shown to any other women, while it’s easy to dismiss the importance of this romance within Friends, for Joey’s character, Rachel was one of the most important love affairs of his life.
Without proper knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes, the cliffhanger about Dennis Reynolds leaving It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia at the end was the twelfth season was a truly awful and confusing storyline. The in-universe reason for Dennis leaving his life at Paddy’s Pub was to move away and be with his newly discovered son Brian Jr that he had due to a one-night stand. Dennis’ decision to step up to the plate and be a present father, while noble, was entirely out of step with his egotistical and neurotic character traits.
The finale episode implied Dennis would not be returning to Always Sunny, as, in real life, Dennis’ actor Glenn Howerton had accepted a leading role on the sitcom A.P. Bio. The feeling was that Howerton would not be able to commit to both shows and, as such, he was planning to leave Always Sunny behind for this new opportunity. Within Always Sunny, this felt like a truly awful storyline as the character’s dynamic as a gang was so important, and it did not fully make sense for Dennis to leave in this manner.
The storyline continued into Season 13 as the gang attempted to recruit a new member played by Mindy Kalin to replace Dennis. However, Dennis’ absence was quickly revealed to be untrue and he returned for much of the season and has remained a main cast member ever since. Always Sunny came back from this awful storyline by simply undoing it, and the show has avoided referencing it ever since.
The lowest-rated episode of Stranger Things was “The Lost Sister” in Season 2 which introduced a horde of awful plotlines and characters that just did not work well in the overall narrative of the supernatural Netflix series. The episode followed a storyline based on Eleven going out on her own to learn how to control her powers, soon Eleven encountered a girl named Kali who was also experimented on by Dr. Brenner and developed psychic abilities. With Kali and a band of her followers, Eleven took on an entirely new look where she slicked back her hair while wearing eyeliner and dressed in black.
The episode attracted near-universal distain as, despite including many good ideas, it introduced too many new characters and dynamics while audiences were craving for more of the core group that made Stranger Things such a success in its first season. The further Eleven strayed from Mike and the rest of her friends, the less willing audiences were to accept new characters and major subplots like this. While it was exciting to get more insight into Eleven’s history and those who had been experimented on, it needed not to overtake the main friendships and bonds that grounded Stranger Things.
Stranger Things overcame this awful plotline by simply moving away from it and not further exploring the storylines of Kali or her band of renegade goths. While there’s an argument that “The Lost Sister” could act as the inception point for a future Stranger Things spin-off series, it was not well-received at the time, and it might be best to just move on entirely. While Strangers Things continued to take narrative risks in the later seasons, it never repeated the same ill-received mistake as “The Lost Sister” again.
Source: People