Considering how much Americans love superhero sagas, and considering Flash Gordon is retro gold, it’s surprising this Sci-Fi channel offering failed so dismally, Inspired by the 1930’s comic strip of the same name, Flash Gordon starred an actor who had already tested the superhero waters: Eric Johnson. Fresh from the super successful hit, Smallville, Johnson was primed to step up from a supporting role into the shoes of the superhero himself. Somehow though, the Flash Gordon creators managed to get everything weirdly wrong.
USA Today was scathing in their appraisal, calling the show “[badly] written, badly cast and done on the cheap in the Canadian woods, Flash is the kind of fantasy toss-off that gives sci-fi, and Sci Fi, a bad name.” Superhero fodder is so hit and miss! There really is no in between.
2006: The Game
The Game may seem a little out of place on this list, considering it enjoyed enough popularity to run for a full nine seasons. It earns its place here, though, due to the extreme hatred directed at it by critics. The 2006 show was a spin-off from Girlfriends, and centered on a medical student who put her needs, wants and career goals on the back burner to support her boyfriend and his dreams of being a pro-footballer. Sounds as progressive and forward thinking as you can get, right?
We have enough faith in your intelligence to know you picked up on the sarcasm in that last line. But to bring it home, here’s what the Boston Globe had to say: “This new CW series cranks out brash jokes that evaporate upon hitting the air, winds them into situations where women submit to their men, and leaves no aftertaste when it’s gone.” While it did have a decent fan-base, The CW caved to pressure from disgruntled female viewers and canceled the show after three seasons. Seeing its potential, BET picked it up and ran with it for another six seasons before finally calling it quits.
2006: Pepper Dennis
With Rebecca Romijn in the starring role, Pepper Dennis had a lot going for it. The romantic sitcom featured the stunning model and actress as a Chicago news reporter. Pepper Dennis got its start in 2006 on The WB. It was dropped, but then quickly picked up by The CW that same year. While Pepper Dennis did manage to eke out a full season, it was eventually shut down for good.
With a killer actress in the lead role, critics chalked the show’s failure up to poor writing. According to New York Daily News, “Romijn certainly tackles her character with the abandon and conviction necessary to anchor a comedy-drama series. Were the show better written, these actors probably could deliver the goods with no problem.”
2007: Sons of Hollywood
While A&E enjoys high ratings for dramatic reality shows like Intervention, the network was doused in failure when it attempted to tread on the turf of competitors like E! and TLC. In 2007, they released Sons of Hollywood, a program that followed the lives of the offspring of Rod Stewart and Aaron Spelling. We’re sure you’ll be completely unsurprised to learn that people just didn’t really care what spoiled rich kids, Sean Stewart and Randy Spelling, were up to.
We love the way The Los Angeles Times ripped into it: “Sons of Hollywood is the answer to a question nobody was wondering: What if you did ‘Entourage’ with actual Hollywood layabouts, without the writing and the acting and, you know, all that other work stuff?”
2008: Momma’s Boys
Reality TV is a dicey genre, with far more fails to its name than successes. Yet the popularity of shows like Keeping up with the Kardashians and The Bachelor keeps celebrity wannabes constantly attempting to find their own slice of reality TV heaven. Ryan Seacrest had his shot back in 2008, when he debuted Momma’s Boys, a weird competition-style dating show that involved mothers taking charge of their sons’ love lives. The NBC show was as awkward as it sounds, and everyone was relieved when it was canned after the first dismal season.
With an already kitschy premise, the show drove further into cringe town with a collection of pathetic contestants and over-the-top moms. Struggling to wrap his head around the horror of it all, Entertainment Weekly writer, Ken Tucker, explained, “this putrid reality competition works a racist mom into the mix: So, in addition to a parade of mostly inarticulate, cheerfully stereotypical bimbos… there’s plenty of moral ugliness as well.”