The Best of 2014: Worst New Show

Hate to say this because I loved Ryan Atwood so much AND Batman, but Gotham just fell short with me. It was the first one off of my DVR. Just felt too campy and not in a good Michael Keaton kind of way.

I was so excited to see Debra Messing back on TV but I couldn't even get through the first episode of this show. It felt too much like a dumbed down procedural with a couple of super bratty kids as the supposed comic relief. I wanted to like it but it just didn't work for me.

"Red Band Society" has some decent performances and might even make a satisfactory film but as episodic television, it's horribly misguided. There's never adequate explanation for why some of these kids (the bulimic Emma or the post-surgery Leo, for example) have to stay here 24/7 and the show further distances itself from reality by seeming to want us to root for these kids to stick together and not go home as if hospitals are magical adolescent incubation pods. The show's romantic through-lines among the adult staff are somewhat half-hearted and oftentimes quite sloppy.

I didn't expect much from it, but I couldn't even get through one episode of Mulaney. It was poorly written, acted, and simply unfunny. It's no surprise Fox pulled the plug on this Seinfeld wannabe, but I do wonder how it made it to series in the first place.

Gracepoint was destined to live in the shadows of it's highly successful UK predecessor; Broadchurch. Though David Tennant was brilliant in both versions, the majority of the American casting was uninspired. Naturally, Anna Gunn and Nick Nolte being the exceptions. The plot deviated at times simply to be different and that ending - though similar to the original - felt much more random and sloppy. Bottom line, stick with Broadchurch and forget Gracepoint ever existed.

Believe was hardly a blip on NBC's radar, but the similarity to Stephen King's Firestarter, even down the scene with the little blonde girl with hair blowing back as she creates fire or some stupid thing, certainly didn't help. It's a shame, really, because the premise wasn't awful and the actors fine... it just wasn't worthy of the time spent watching it.

A show that was supposed to focus on the beginning of a new relationship in New York fell extremely flat. The terrible voiceovers were ridiculous and the characters were unlikeable -- if you made it past the first episode, more power to you!

I only watched the first episode, which was actually the third. It's never a good sign when a network decides to air episodes out of order and that certainly didn't help Mystery Girls. It was poorly written, over-acted, and probably could have benefited from the background that I assume would have been in the real first episode. My nostalgia for 90210 got me to try it out, but it was not enough for me to suffer through a second episode.

For a series being compared to Game of Thrones, Netflix's $90 million drama Marco Polo certainly fell short. Don't get me wrong the cinematography, art direction and costumes were extravagant. Much of the series looks like it's being shot in Westeros, down to the nudity and sex. However, the sluggish pacing and lack of memorable moments makes the series tough to sit though. Not to mention the difficulty understanding many of the lead actors accents. Sure, Lorenzo Richelmy did a decent job considering he didn't even speak English prior to being cast, but perhaps the creators should have thought a detail like that through better. Since this is "historical fiction" let's not even get into the historical inaccuracies.

I'm not sure what made Fox executives approve Utopia, but it seemed like a bad idea from the beginning. The actually-interesting premise of creating a working community with an intentionally diverse cast warred with the sort of attention-grabbing antics that normally draw viewers to unscripted reality series. Part 1 of the series premiere drew more than four and a half million viewers - by the time Fox put it out of its misery, Utopia was barely eking out one and a half.