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.
Here you go, Fandomaniacs: The most disappointing occurrences in geekdom from 2015!
Jason’s Disappointment: Sense8
Being a fan of both Babylon 5 and the first Matrix movie, I was excited when I heard that the creators of both would be teaming up to make a Netflix exclusive sci-fi series. Imagine my disappointment, then, when Sense8 turned out to be an overblown, terribly crafted, and insultingly pointless waste. I attribute the series being terrible more to the Wachowskis than to Straczynski, but it’s bad enough that I feel a bit gun-shy about new projects from either camp now.
Celeste’s Disappointment: Sense8
As a highly sensitive person for whom diverse representation is a huge passion and the concept of connectedness is a central spiritual belief, this show should have been everything I dreamed of. Instead, it was a nightmare. Every character was pulled from the most generic, stereotypical stock imaginable (which to me is worse than no representation), every plotline was predictable beyond belief, the queer storylines all felt about 10-15 years dated (and one in particular played like a really bad self-insert celebrity fanfic), the pacing was horrendous, the rules of the universe were inconsistent and inadequately explained, the directing looked like a first-year student film, and the central conflict of the season was entirely pointless and devoid of any real tension.
If the show had focused less on trying to seem “artistic” (a bizarre musical number, overly-long and boring conversations where nothing was actually said, way too many graphic childbirth scenes by which I’m now scarred for life) and more on developing characters to be something beyond cardboard cutouts and exploring what should have been an extremely fascinating and unique premise, Sense8 could have been something really special instead of the single worst TV show I’ve ever seen.
Kendra’s Disappointment: Jurassic World
As someone who grew up in the town that houses the huge dinos from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, it’s safe to say I love me some prehistoric creatures. On top of that, Jurassic Park was one of the coolest movies when I was growing up so when I heard about this movie — excitement. Then I saw it — disappointment would be an understatement. I could care less about those kids and their parents’ divorce. More dinos. Less feelings.
Kimberly’s Disappointment: Extant
Admittedly, the show had a lot to overcome since I wasn’t keen on the plot from season one, but with the addition of Jeffrey Dean Morgan I had hope that I could enjoy the second season of the show. Alas, not even JDM could fix the mess.
Ann’s Disappointment: Broadchurch
I loved the first series (and not just because David Tennant was in it), but the story just wasn’t nearly as compelling or interesting this time, nor were Tennant’s and Coleman’s characters quite as good.
Ava’s Disappointment: Supergirl
Might not be a popular choice, but my biggest disappointment this year is Supergirl. I love the array of superhero-based shows, both from Marvel and DC, but Supergirl fell flat for me. It feels cookie-cutter, and I connected to none of the characters. The one character I had any reaction to was Jimmy Olsen, and I disliked this version. The premise seems to be “I’m Superman’s cousin, so you should like me.” For me, it’s the TV version of Cadbury chocolate made by Hershey.
