Fandomania’s Biggest Disappointments of 2014

At the end of each year we poll the Fandomania staff to bring you our favorite movies, TV shows, and video games from the year that’s concluding. Even though there’s always a lot of great stuff that excited us, there inevitably will be fan crushing disappointments as well. In the spirit of venting out all the negativity before launching into the greatness, we begin our traditional “favorites” posts with a rundown of what disappointed us the most from the past year.

We always ask each staff member for one disappointing release from the year, but — as also happened last year — this time there was so much vehemence that some staff members ended up blowing right past that limit of one. Rather than having them prune the extras, we’re tossing all the disappointments out there for your shared scorn (or possibly for your disagreement!). Here you go, Fandomaniacs: The most disappointing occurrences in geekdom from 2014!

Jason’s Disappointment: Broken AAA Video Games

We’re a year into the new generation of consoles, and 2014 is the year that brought a whole slew of top tier releases to our shiny new game consoles and PCs. This would be great news if game companies had bothered to finish their games before shipping them to stores. From Assassin’s Creed: Unity‘s myriad problems to Halo: The Master Chief Collection‘s inability to handle multiplayer to Dragon Age: Inquisition‘s game breaking crashes, it seemed like most of the year’s otherwise great games could have used a few more months in the oven.

Celeste’s Disappointment: Orphan Black

Remember when I called Orphan Black the “best new show of the year” in 2013? How the mighty have fallen. Where once there was an incredibly compelling arc tightly woven from the cleverly interconnected storylines of many unique characters — several of whose agendas we could only guess at — we were now left with an unfocused, meandering plot that lacked the mystery of the first season, simply by nature of most of the conspiracies surrounding the characters and the origin of the clones already having been revealed. From the creepy-as-heck Proletheans to Mrs. S’s pigtails to Tatiana Maslany’s iffy portrayal of a trans clone to Rachel and Paul’s bizarre sexual encounter to the implications of the season’s final scene, it was a giant mess. Alison and Felix were its only bright spots — and bright they were, though sadly not enough to save the disaster this show has become.

Kendra’s Disappointment: Gotham

Shows based on superheroes and such were never my thing until I fell hard for Arrow, so I figured I’d give Gotham a chance. Hey, Ryan from The OC could be good, right? I was so wrong. He, along with a few others, forgot how to act and I just couldn’t begin to care about anyone. The only redeeming character was and will likely forever be Penguin. If he gets a spin-off, call me.

Ann’s Disappointment: Gracepoint

I didn’t have the highest of expectations to begin with, but I watched it anyway, because David Tennant (despite the mediocre American accent). It was almost identical to Broadchurch, down to camera shots and dialogue with few changes, especially at first, but continuing all the way to the almost identical ending. The slight twist to make it different from its British counterpart just fell flat for me.

Nikki’s Disappointments: Godzilla and Gracepoint

Godzilla didn’t have enough of the main thing people go to see Godzilla movies for: Godzilla. The human people just weren’t that interesting. Any fights between Godzilla and the MUTOs were either a) in the dark or b) cut away/shown second hand. In fact, a lot of this movie was awfully dark. Maybe it was just my screen, but sometimes I couldn’t see a thing. When you did see Godzilla, it was cool and awesome, but otherwise, the movie did not live up to what I wanted it to be.

Gracepoint is essentially a nearly shot-for-shot remake of Broadchurch. They did add some new things and a new twist ending, but it was pretty much the same as the great BBC show. Gracepoint was boring at times, especially if you watched the original. It just didn’t have the same impact.

Ava’s Disappointment: Gracepoint

Gracepoint was my biggest disappointment of 2014. Finally, the television watchers of the U.S. could discover the talents of David Tennant. I loved Broadchurch. It had a haunting beauty to the story that kept the viewer intrigued and made you care about the people. I had high expectations for Gracepoint. The producers promised it would be Broadchurch, but not exactly Broadchurch… umm… yeah… Americanizing everything in a story is not changing up the story. It turned into a tired, wearisome rehash, sometimes matching Broadchurch word for word and shot for shot, but didn’t have that special zing that characterized the BBC version. Why do American networks think Americans won’t watch characters with English or Scottish accents on American shows? The acting was top of the line, but the series didn’t deliver the whole package. The new ending with a different murderer made me wish they had stuck with the straight retelling. I considered not watching after Episode 7, but I trudged on to the highly unsatisfying ending.

Mandi’s Disappointments: Gracepoint, Terminator‘s Reboot, and Divergent

This limited run series is why America should not always take a good British show and remake it. Gracepoint was nearly a line-by-line copy of Broadchurch. It was really painful for me to watch: Skyler White as a cop, David Tennant’s American accent, and the acting felt so plastic. I will be watching Broadchurch Season 2 to erase Gracepoint.

Why does Hollywood like to ruin my childhood? Terminator 2 was my favorite movie as a kid. I see no reason whatsoever to remake/reboot it. The new trailer, even with Arnold, makes me cringe a bit.

I know the Divergent books did not come out in 2014, but I read them this year. I did not like them at all. It felt like I was reading a teeanger’s tweets. I enjoyed a few of the characters but it wasn’t enough for me to like the books as a whole.

Kimberly’s Disappointment: The Librarians

Maybe I haven’t given it a fair chance yet, but I had such high hopes for the new series. With Christian Kane and the Leverage production team, it seemed like a no-brainer, but when I had to fast-forward through the first episode already, it doesn’t give me high hopes for the rest.