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Films/tv that should have stopped whilst they were ahead

 IHN
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Right, well, that's the first episode of the new Night Manager watched. 

I fear it may be going on this list.


 
Posted : 04/01/2026 10:09 pm
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Right, well, that's the first episode of the new Night Manager watched. I fear it may be going on this list.

Yeah, I rewatched the first season prior to this new one to see if it was as good as I remembered - it was. Two episodes in to this second season....oh dear.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 9:36 am
 jca
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The News...

 

been a pile of crap for years...


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 9:43 am
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Alien. Aliens. Then stop. 

Absolutely no AVP films either. They've all been toss. 

Whilst I am not disagreeing with you, Alien3 has a specific cut/edit that is apparently a lot better than the cinema release and apprantly makes it a lot more sensible as a film. Resurrection  is total shite though and Romulus made me sad. I saw it at the cinema as well. Just so sad.

 

AvP... If they had stuck with the plot of the graphic novels I think they would have been better, but instead they did what they did and, much like in Romulus, they made an abomanation. 

I'm also going to add all 'Predator' films after 2. Predator was/is a classic and how can you not like the 90's cheese of 2? I mean, Danny Glover, Bill Paxton, Maria Alonso, Gary Busey FFS! 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 9:46 am
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Posted by: montgomery

Right, well, that's the first episode of the new Night Manager watched. I fear it may be going on this list.

Yeah, I rewatched the first season prior to this new one to see if it was as good as I remembered - it was. Two episodes in to this second season....oh dear.

I fear so.... it's badly missing Dickie, Corky and Jed (among others).

 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 9:52 am
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Posted by: burntembers

Might be controversial on here, but IMO Fargo TV series should have been season 1, season 2 and had season 5 as the third and stopped there. That would have been a perfect film and TV series spin off.

4 was weak but 3 with Ewan McGregor was brilliant. 1, 2 and 5 are of course brilliant too


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 10:00 am
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Another vote for The Night Manager.

 

Two episodes in and I couldn't care less. Huge Laurie's character and "Corky" were the best things in season 1. This just has nasty generic bad guys.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 11:43 am
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Posted by: GolfChick

No the night manager will not get a vote, each one is just as good as the last, just 'easy watching' you know exactly what you get and it's good all family fun.

Night Garden?

 

 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 11:50 am
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Posted by: willard

Alien3 has a specific cut/edit that is apparently a lot better than the cinema release and apprantly makes it a lot more sensible as a film. Resurrection  is total shite though

There is indeed a director's cut.  It's slightly less awful.

I rewatched 1-4 a few years back.  Resurrection, whilst still not great, was better than I remembered.  I appreciate this is an unpopular opinion but I think 4 is better than 3, Alien Cubed annoys me on a number of levels.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 12:05 pm
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Marvel in general. Captain Marvellous flies from five galaxies away and blows up the big bad guy. Done. No more deux ex machina required. Just do that in the first two minutes of every film, job done.

Handmaid's Tale. One book one season. One and done.

Night Manager, see above.

Harlen Coben in general.

Ghostbusters. Why is this even still a thing?

Witcher. First season, messy, pretty good, sliding downhill all the way since then.

Westworld. First season, top drawer. Second season, silly ending. Third, fourth, whatever.

Stranger Things. Season one was average at best. I give the soundtrack far more points than the rest of this thing put together, but there's only so many times you can repeat kate bush before it gets boring and that limit was reached a very long time ago.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 12:23 pm
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Dare I say, Game of Thrones.   Crikey it's slow, and we've binged quite a lot over the last month. It just doesn't go anywhere and just as you get into a character, they are dead !  Got one and a half seasons to go, and pretty tired of it. It also makes me grumpy watching it. Chop, chop, dead, dead, repeat.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 12:33 pm
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The early Bond films are virtually unwatchable now. Shite special effects, crassly sexist / slightly racist and with more plothole than plot. I think they'd be best described as a product of their time.

I can't deny it but I was watching them at the time, not now. As for special effects I'm not keen on modern overblown CGI stuff.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 1:24 pm
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Westworld. First season, top drawer. Second season, silly ending. Third, fourth, whatever.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that one. No way I'd watch another season of that. Not sure I actually finished 4. 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 1:30 pm
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Posted by: slowoldman

The early Bond films are virtually unwatchable now. Shite special effects, crassly sexist / slightly racist and with more plothole than plot. I think they'd be best described as a product of their time.

mmm... I'd say maybe the mid Bond films are worse. Later Roger Moore ones are camp as all get out, and not great, but fine. The Dalton ones were OK, a bit bland; but the Brosnan ones have aged really quite badly - maybe because they're recent enough not to be 'classic', but old enough to be pretty dated. 

The first three Connery ones are good; Thunderball isn't; and You Only Live Twice is pretty tasteless

 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 2:28 pm
 rone
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Can I just say Sopranos is a rare example of this not being the case. 

I absolutely adore the neo-western melodramatics of Yellowstone - couldn't get enough; but the fall-out between Costner and creator/writer Sheridan really damaged the last few episodes - it wasn't a total disaster, and arguabley they did quit whilst ahead but you could see the writing suffered having to deal with a missing Costner.

It did tie itself up well though considering - Sheridan's ego a bit too on display through all of this. But he writes punchy dialogue.

Still one of my favourites though.

 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 2:40 pm
 IHN
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Posted by: fossy

Dare I say, Game of Thrones.   Crikey it's slow, and we've binged quite a lot over the last month. It just doesn't go anywhere and just as you get into a character, they are dead ! 

This is what made it good. Intrigue, character development, plot development, things took a while cos it's the (fantasy) middle ages so it takes ages to get from place to place (which they conveniently seemed to forget towards the end) so there's time for other things to happen along the way.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 2:43 pm
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Kind of think the first season of Night Manager should be on here. Got to episode 4 before sacking it off as dreary, poorly scripted rubbish. If people who actually liked S1 are saying S2 is bad, it must be utter drivel. 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 2:43 pm
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Night Manager S2 was interesting enough for half the first episode......and then freefall into utter tosh. Ep2 was just pants.

 To be fair I was hoping for Jackson Lamb to turn up but alas...


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 2:58 pm
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Jaws, should have stopped after one

Indiana Jones, should have stopped after three

Jurassic Park, should have stopped after one

Terminator should have stopped after two

Alien should have stopped after two

and Matrix and X-Men and Marvel and on an on.

Thing is Hollywood exists to make money, you would like to think that there is a bit of artistic integrity involved, and to be fair a lot of the time there is, but that's never the main goal, which is making money.

The Jurassic Park franchise being a perfect example.  You'll not find a single person on Earth who doesn't think the first film is by far the best in the series and none of the others have come close, but every single one of the sequels has reliably made money, that's why they get made.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 3:01 pm
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Posted by: Cougar

Posted by: willard

Alien3 has a specific cut/edit that is apparently a lot better than the cinema release and apprantly makes it a lot more sensible as a film. Resurrection  is total shite though

There is indeed a director's cut.  It's slightly less awful.

I rewatched 1-4 a few years back.  Resurrection, whilst still not great, was better than I remembered.  I appreciate this is an unpopular opinion but I think 4 is better than 3, Alien Cubed annoys me on a number of levels.

Both the Assembly Cut and the well known fan edit (called the Legacy Cut) are much better than the theatrical cut of 3.

 

 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 3:11 pm
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True Detective

Series 1 - obviously absolutely fantastic

Series 2 - I didn't mind it and had it been not called True Detective it probably wouldn't have got as much criticism

Series 3 - tonally back in line with series 1 and pretty decent

Series 4 - utter horse manure


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 3:30 pm
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Has anyone said The Bridge? First series was great, and then...


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 3:36 pm
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Paddington - Great film.

Paddington 2 - One of those rare occasions where the sequel is better than the original.

Paddington 3 - what a load of utter tosh. So disappointing.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 4:45 pm
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Posted by: BoardinBob

True Detective:

Series 4 - utter horse manure

erm, no. Rips off a bunch of stuff from The Terror, and seems very similar to Fortitude, but a decent 7/10 show. And S2 had so thoroughly torn itself away from S2 that there was no real rigid structure of what makes a True Detective series.

Posted by: ratherbeintobago

Has anyone said The Bridge? First series was great, and then...

eh, later series weren't bad; even post-Martin it was one of the better Scandi shows. Obviously later series couldn't be as shocking or unique as its first series, but not terrible. Unless you mean the (US?) The Bridge from 2013. 

I think we're straying into "shows that didn't make quite the impact of the first series"; whereas the first person who mentioned The Wire S5 really nailed the "series of shows that absolutely should not have existed" thread title


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 5:16 pm
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Having just watched the latest Jurassic Park film on a flight, you can add that franchise to your list.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 5:59 pm
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Posted by: richmtb

Alien should have stopped after two

while I'll admit it's not a popular opinion, I think it should've stopped after one. 


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 6:00 pm
 IHN
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Posted by: ThePinkster

Paddington - Great film.

Paddington 2 - One of those rare occasions where the sequel is better than the original.

Paddington 3 - what a load of utter tosh. So disappointing.

Agreed. Paddington and Paddington 2 are genuinely brilliant. Gave up on 3 after about half an hour

 

Posted by: richmtb

Jurassic Park, should have stopped after one

Or two, at a push, I don't mind the second one. The "raptors in the long grass" and "cracking windscreen" scenes are pure Spielberg goodness.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 6:03 pm
 DrJ
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Bad Sisters. The first one was so perfect that there was no excuse whatsoever for trying to milk it further.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 6:04 pm
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Posted by: rone

Can I just say Sopranos is a rare example of this not being the case. 

I'm toying with watching it all through again for the third (maybe fourth) time. For my money, the best TV show ever made


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 6:05 pm
 DrJ
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Posted by: ratherbeintobago

Has anyone said The Bridge? First series was great, and then...

and then subsequent series were also great, though maybe not quite as great. Likewise The Killing.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 6:08 pm
 DrJ
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Let me suggest something that will probably get me death threats, and I admit I haven't thought about it very deeply ...

Twin Peaks


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 6:09 pm
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Posted by: richmtb

Jurassic Park, should have stopped after one

The later ones could have been very good but mostly they just created a whole load of extra plot holes. 
Jurassic World had a lot of potential but then gave us those two annoying teenage boys and a supposedly smart dinosaur that did two clever things then just turned into a relentless eating machine.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 6:30 pm
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Posted by: montgomery

Right, well, that's the first episode of the new Night Manager watched. I fear it may be going on this list.

Yeah, I rewatched the first season prior to this new one to see if it was as good as I remembered - it was. Two episodes in to this second season....oh dear.

 

Oh FFS!

I thought S1 was brilliant - classic Le Carre vibes, great cast and performances, particularly from Tom Hollander, and just a generally stylish atmosphere.

I've been holding off S2 because I suspected they'd **** it up, when I saw it was set in South America I had even less hope for it and now it sounds like I was right.  

I'll still watch it though.

 

Edit - also, True Detective

1 - great

2 - ok, good in places just not even remotely TD

3 - good, TD vibes

4- not good, not TD.


 
Posted : 05/01/2026 11:42 pm
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Last of the Summer Wine.

Should have stopped when Brian Wilde left the second time.


 
Posted : 06/01/2026 9:39 pm
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Posted by: ThePinkster

Paddington - Great film.

Paddington 2 - One of those rare occasions where the sequel is better than the original.

Paddington 3 - what a load of utter tosh. So disappointing.

This question is resolved by Nick Cage in this movie (which is silly, but amusing).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11291274/


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 12:39 am
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Taskmaster.


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 12:53 am
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Posted by: montgomery

I've a horrible feeling 'The Night Manager' might end up in this thread.

That might take some time, the second season has just started, after quite a gap.


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 1:42 am
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Posted by: slowoldman

James Bond after Sean Connery.

Until Daniel Craig took over.


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 2:02 am
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Posted by: nickc

while I'll admit it's not a popular opinion, I think it should've stopped after one.

Didn’t like the first one, then? The second one was at least as good. 


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 2:16 am
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Anything positive Craig did for Bond was totally wiped out by what he did at the end of the No Time to Die; unforgivable.


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 8:28 am
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One franchise which improved by series and you kind of wish for another (it won’t happen) is Blackadder.


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 8:30 am
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Posted by: blackhat

One franchise which improved by series and you kind of wish for another (it won’t happen) is Blackadder.

time for a the "films / tv that should have carried on because they were so good" thread?

 


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 8:51 am
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Total Recall 2012.. Mahhh

Annie Total Recall ... great. Closest to PKD. However, if the film followed the novella religiously it would of been a bit boring to view on screen.

We can remember it wholesale for you. novellette by PKD. Fantastic.

Must read. I got the PDF if anyone wants it.

Reimaginings ... consider it a divorce from me.

 

 


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 10:37 am
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David Mitchell had quite a good rant about the Superman films. 

They're making *another* Superman film, even though the original is still available! We get it OK, he can fly! Just how super does one man need to be?!


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 10:41 am
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wiped out by what he did at the end of the No Time to Die; unforgivable.

I am not sure if I agree (genuinely not sure) – they thought it was time to fully refresh the brand as they were hamstrung by the character always being "Bond. James Bond". Now they can cast anyone, give them different characteristics (and, inevitably, gender) and they are simply 007.


 
Posted : 07/01/2026 10:42 am
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