2024 in Review: The 10 Worst TV Shows of the Year
We’re going to take a cue from St. Nick himself and craft our own Naughty List for 2024. After all, some very bad shows belong on it.
Earlier this week, we kicked off our annual Year in Review retrospective by honoring the 20 best TV shows that aired in 2024. But now, it’s time to stuff coal in the stockings of 10 series that really let us down this year.
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In the list below — which is organized alphabetically — you’ll find quite a few rookie series that underwhelmed in their first (or, in the case of AMC’s Orphan Black spinoff, only) seasons, including CBS’ Poppa’s House and Fox’s Universal Basic Guys. But the veterans didn’t make it out totally unscathed: the final seasons of NBC’s La Brea and Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy are among the returning shows on our list of duds.
Keep scrolling to see our complete list of 2024’s worst TV shows, then hit the comments with your own picks!
Still to come in TVLine’s Year in Review: Biggest Plot Twists, Sexiest Scenes, Character Deaths That Nearly Killed Us, Shocking Cast Exits, Unjust Cancellations and much, much more!
The GOAT (Prime Video)
Host Daniel Tosh tried his best, but what should’ve been a fun reality smackdown turned out to be one of the year’s snooziest competition series. Aside from a few gems (like Big Brother‘s Da’Vonne Rogers), the cast was full of duds who failed to create any meme-worthy moments that mattered. The abysmal carnival games shoehorned in as challenges were a bore, while the weak elimination ceremonies did nothing to curry favor with drama-thirsty fans (nor did the show come close to the comedic excellence of E!’s House of Villains). In an overcrowded genre full of reality stars battling to stay relevant, The GOAT, as a whole, was anything but.
La Brea (NBC)
Red flag No. 1: The sci-fi drama’s third and final season had to wrap everything up in just six episodes. Red flag No. 2: Series frontwoman Natalie Zea would appear in only one of those episodes. As showrunner David Appelbaum told us, 14 episodes needed to be condensed into six; due to Zea’s one-day shoot schedule, “we had to write the final scene of the series before the rest of the season had even been written”; and the “microchip-powered jet” that wound up saving the day was never part of the original plan. Guilty pleasures are great and all, but this swan song was wildly rushed and zipped past numerous story points (did Izzy and girlfriend Leyla ever say goodbye?).
Orphan Black: Echoes (AMC)
Tatiana Maslany’s extraordinary performances were always going to be tough acts to follow, but Echoes fell flat, punch-drunk with convoluted storylines and a bland cast that couldn’t compare to the original Clone Club. By midseason, our apathy toward the main baddie and Lucy’s relationships flew off the charts. With every mention of Cosima, Maslany’s absence rang even louder, which did the series zero favors. Echoes paled in comparison to the thrills and chills of the OG IP, and while technology may have advanced in this futuristic world, the offshoot remained a blurry carbon copy of a show that was truly great.
Poppa’s House (CBS)
Pairing real-life father and son Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. seemed like a home-run idea… until we quickly saw how unfunny the series turned out to be. Its mix of lowbrow humor with family comedy doesn’t jibe (we draw the line at butt hairs), and painting Senior as an out-of-touch elder (seriously, a radio DJ?!) feels flat-out wrong. Even more criminal is the fact that its female characters are grossly underwritten and one-dimensional. Maybe if the show delivered more laughs than not, we’d be able to chalk its flaws up to growing pains. Instead, the whole spectacle just feels exhaustingly dated.
The Regime (HBO)
The great Kate Winslet starring in a series penned by Succession writer Will Tracy and helmed by celebrated film director Stephen Frears — it can’t be that bad, can it? Oh, yes, it can. This bewildering misfire, with Winslet playing the iron-fisted leader of a fictional European country, was supposed to be a comedy, but it was utterly bereft of laughs, with an overly broad tone reminiscent of a failed SNL sketch. Whoever wasted Winslet’s time with this one deserves to be impeached.
RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars (Paramount+)
There was a time, many years ago, when an international all-star edition of RuPaul’s Drag Race would have been must-see TV, but the now-ubiquitous franchise is starting to feel more tired than wired. After All Stars 9, Canada vs. the World and UK vs. the World, Global All Stars was the fourth season of its kind to debut in 2024 alone. Sure, there was plenty of nerve and talent to be found among its cast of queens, but Global All Stars displayed neither the charisma nor the uniqueness required to stand out in an oversaturated market of its own making. Good for Alyssa Edwards, though.
So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)
It gives us no pleasure to put Fox’s long-running competition series on this list, after years of producing dazzling routines and successful alumni. But SYTYCD was merely a ghost of its former self during Season 18, eliminating every aspect of the series — from live performance shows to America’s votes — that once made it must-see TV. Plus, this year’s ridiculously truncated format meant we had barely gotten invested in the contestants before one of them was crowned the winner. It all felt like a big kick-ball-change in the face of SYTYCD‘s competitors, judges and viewers.
Those About to Die (Peacock)
This miserable slog through Roman history tried to go the Game of Thrones route by throwing lots of sex and violence at us, but all the empty spectacle couldn’t make up for the lack of plot and character. It was all blandly interchangeable actors trying to turn lifeless scripts into Shakespeare… and failing. And if you thought it might be worth watching to see Anthony Hopkins play the emperor? Don’t bother: He was barely in it long enough to cash his paycheck.
The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)
A pall had already been cast over The Umbrella Academy‘s fourth and final season, when showrunner Steve Blackman was accused of toxic and retaliatory behavior just one month before the swan song dropped. Unfortunately, the six episodes that arrived in August did little to cleanse our palates of the Blackman controversy, stuffed as they were with meandering storylines (what was the point of The Keepers again?) and surprising-in-a-bad-way creative choices (you already know we’re talking about Five and Lila). The series-ending demise of the Hargreeves siblings — characters we’d really come to love — was the cherry on top of a massive misstep sundae.
Universal Basic Guys (Fox)
Fox’s long-running animation block came up with a dud with this dumb, predictable and deeply unappealing comedy about a couple of lazy dudes who hit the jackpot when the government starts paying them to sit around and do nothing. We can’t decide what’s more crude: the humor or the animation style. You couldn’t pay us to watch another episode.
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