When we find a new favorite show, we never want it to end. Sometimes, this results in shows likeGrey’s AnatomyorSupernatural, which go on and on ad absurdum until the only people left watching are diehards or people who forgot to turn their TVs off. Other times, the showrunners and executives know when the sweet spot is, cutting a show off just as it hits its peak.ThinkBreaking Bad,Parks and Recreation, or recentlySuccession. And then, there’s a certain type of show where you sort of lose track of when it truly ended because you stopped paying attention, wishing it had never continued past that first, perfect season at all.
Update July 26, 2025: This article has been updated with even more series that started strong in season one and quickly fell off in quality.
Those types of shows — that peak sometime in their first season — aren’t as rare of a breed as they might seem. Television networks and executives have a habit of running a good thing into the ground, so there’s a lot of fodder to pick from when considering what TV shows should’ve quit while they were ahead. This isn’t to say they suddenly got bad the more episodes they made. In some cases, there might not have been steam in the tank for even that first season. These series should have ended after just one season.
13Under the Dome
Based onStephen King’s novelof the same name,Under the Domewas a CBS drama that started off on decent enough footing. While the premise of a close-knit group of townspeople living, well, under a dome that has been placed on their town is an enticing enough plot for a TV drama, the show started to vary wildly in tone and plot conventions. Most of the first season held close to the original King text to decent effect, garnering middling to okay reviews and halfway decent performances from its stacked cast.
Things quickly went off the rails, however, as the subsequent two seasons differed almost entirely from any King-written content, losing any of the charm or intrigue that remained from its sloppy beginnings. The biggest shame of all was that Dean Norris, most likely known as Hank fromBreaking Bad, was on this show until the bitter end and never given material worthy of anything above a middling performance.Under the Domewas canceled by CBS before its third season finale aired, and we were all better off for it.
WhenHeroespremiered on NBC in 2006, it was a smash success, quickly becoming one of the best performing dramas in the network’s history. The first season of the show was monumental, capturing the gaze of TV critics and fans alike. Once the second season came around, however, it was clear that this momentum was very unsustainable. During production of the second season, the Writers Guild went on strike, which caused the show to cut its number of episodes from the bog-standard 22 to just 11 episodes.
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This led the creator of the show Tim Kring and the team of writers to conjure up rewritten and reshot episodes to encapsulate double the content in half the episodes — a tall task that was never going to work how they wanted it to. Ratings quickly began to plummet, and satisfaction with the direction the show had gone did as well. After the third and fourth seasons, NBC decided to cancel the show for good, citing the always dropping ratings and dissatisfaction of fans as reasons why.
1113 Reasons Why
Based on the teen novel by Jay Asher,13 Reasons Whyfollows Clay Jensen, a teenager who has been left with a box of cassette tapes that essentially contain the suicide note of a classmate who killed herself. It’s a concept that would be difficult to tell respectfully regardless of who did it, but Netflix managed to somewhat thread the needle with the first season of their adaptation. Once it was announced that the show was renewed, many wondered what direction it would go in since the first season utilized all of the book’s content.
Well, it turns out any tact or respectfulness that was left would go unutilized in the creation of the show’s following three seasons as the showrunners attempted to dissect issues facing today’s teenagers with the respect and subtlety of sledgehammer going through a plate-glass window. Not many were pleased with the direction the show went, and Netflix stopped producing new seasons after the fourth season aired. Ask anyone, however, and they’ll say it should’ve just ended where the book did.
10Wayward Pines
M. Night Shyamalan produced this small-town mystery show that toyed with the supernatural and captured a loyal audience during its first season.Wayward Pineslooked to be a spiritual successor to bothTwin PeaksandThe X-Files, capturing the small-town intrigue and supernatural crime of those shows in its own unique way. The first season was a resounding success, getting a quick renewal that excited fans at the possibility of what was to come. When the second season premiered, however, fans were quickly met with a follow-up that removed almost everything they found so interesting about the original premise. By the time that the possibility of a third season came around, viewership was so low that Fox decided to quietly abandon the show.
9Prison Break
Prison Breakis one of the first examples most cite when they think of shows that overstayed their welcome. A first season that many considered to be one of the best that Fox had produced in the early-2000s, the diminishing returns came almost immediately after its second season premiered. The plot shifted focus from the origins of breaking out of a prison toward a more by-the-numbers interpersonal drama, which wasn’t what anyone signed on to watch when the first season aired.
The original four seasons were plagued by inconsistent plotting and ever dwindling ratings, so a feature film finale was made to satisfy those who stuck around until the end. The irony, however, is a fifth season of the show was produced years after the show had ended, continuing to beat the deadest horse possible.Prison Breakfinally died after the two leadsdecided not to returnfor season six.
8The Killing
Originally based on a Danish television show of the same name and using the former’s first season as the basis for its own, AMC’sThe Killingstarted off incredibly strong. Its first season entered the pantheon of AMC’s prestige television lineup (alongsideHalt and Catch FireandBreaking Bad) but paved a singular path to ubiquity with its strong central mystery, captivating lead characters, and dark atmosphere. The show got a quick renewal for a second season, which is where the issues started.
Much like the show it ripped a lot of inspiration from (Twin Peaks), the writers played their hand too early, revealing the secret of who killed the central Jane Doe way too early and removing all dramatic inertia from the show. Ratings dipped until AMC planned to cancel the show after its second season before changing their minds and giving it one last chance. The show would be canceled after its third season on AMC, with Netflix picking it up for a final, nail-in-the-coffin season of six episodes.
7Revolution
Revolutionwas another NBC-born drama that lit a fire in audience’s hearts with its first season. Taking place 15 years after a worldwide blackout,Revolutionexcited TV viewers with its intriguing concept, varied cast of characters, and huge scale themes. After the series premiere, NBC immediately ordered a second season of 22 episodes — a task that would prove fatal for the show.
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Whereas the first season, for the most part, managed to maintain a sense of suspense and intrigue, the second season aimed to answer too many questions and solve too many issues that weren’t worrisome in the first place. Viewership was cut in half by the midpoint of season two, leading NBC tocancel the showafter the finale. This is a textbook example of a concept only carrying a show so far.
6Scream Queens
Black comedy/slasherScream Queenswas a sensation when it premiered on Fox in 2015, with a cast of exciting, soon-to-be ultra-famous young actresses and the creativeleadership of Ryan Murphy. Quickly, however, it seemed like its momentum could not be maintained. Although many enjoyed the first season from start to finish, it was increasingly clear there was a fair bit of wheel spinning happening by the time the finale came around.
When the second season started, most people had tuned out, and those who were still watching were met with a follow-up that lacked even a sliver of the ideas from the first season. After an entire season of biding time and filler, season two didn’t instill anyone with confidence that this was a lasting premise. Fox canceledScream Queensafter its second season, although Murphy continues to threaten the public with a potential third season on the way.
5Big Little Lies
The first season ofBig Little Liesmight go down as one of the most impressive single seasons of television ever released, especially during the so-called “golden age of television.” HBO’s smash-hit miniseries had it all: a strong premise and creative team, every single woman star above a certain age, and the attention of any and all who cared about prestige TV.
It was natural that HBO and theBig Little Liesteam wanted to keep that momentum going. What they should’ve realized is that lightning only truly strikes once.Big Little LiesSeason 2was, yes, bigger, but it lacked a level of intrigue and mystery that the first season so deftly handled. That and the bag of tricks used in season one was getting old, especially by the time the finale rolled around. There is no moreBig Little Lieson the way, and it should’ve stayed that way.
4Riverdale
Call it misguided or wishful thinking, but fans of the Archie comics were very excited about The CW’sRiverdalewhen it was announced. A live-action, grounded adaptation of those stories could absolutely work, and, for the most part, the first season proved that fact. Where everything went wrong was the show continuing on past that first season.
All you have to do is look at the kinds of episodes that started being produced (Hedwig and the Angry Inchhomage anyone?) to see that the writers' room was creatively bunk, yet the show kept on going. We’ve now reached seven seasons of the show with the end finally in sight, but this one’s grave should’ve been dug as soon as possible.
