As a seasoned binge-watcher of many TV shows, I’ve gathered a lot of opinions on the best casts, scripts, settings and plots. From terrible decisions in the writer’s room to weird character development storylines, Hollywood has nothing on my hot takes.
5. Seasons 4-6 of Glee? We don’t know her
I’m a huge Glee fan… with a caveat. If we accept Glee for what it is (a problematic, campy show that actually had some good music), the first three seasons of Glee were great. The original cast was still at McKinley High, Sue Sylvester and Will Schuester’s clash didn’t feel too repetitive, and the storyline of a bunch of misfits, popular kids, and self-identified losers coming together for song and dance felt exciting and addicting to watch. I’ve probably binge-watched the first three seasons of Glee half a dozen times or so.
But then season four rolls around. The original cast graduates, we follow them as they move to NYC, and we’re introduced to new club members back at McKinley. Essentially, a whole bunch of the same plots are rehashed: The pretty blonde cheerleader (Kitty) is jealous of the misfit awkward girl (Marley) with a little mix of love triangles here and there with the bad boy (Jake) and the new kid (Ryder). And yes, I know it’s easy to come down on a cast that isn’t the original, but the fact of the matter is that they didn’t actually do anything too new or interesting.
While the later seasons do boast some really cool star cameos (Kate Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Demi Lovato, and Adam Lambert, to name a few) by far the most egregious thing the writers decided to do occurred in season five: when Rachel literally gets bored of being on Broadway in her dream role and decides to do TV instead. She essentially decides that she wants more stardom than Broadway and skips out on her Funny Girl performance to audition for a TV show pilot. At this point, nearly five whole seasons of her character development go down the drain. She finally gets what she was working for since she was a young child and then she just throws it away? Horrible.
I honestly don’t know what the writers were thinking. I think they must have felt the backlash though because in the series finale’s flash-forward, it’s revealed that Rachel did return to starring in broadway and she accepts a Tony award. But I’ll still never forgive them for that plotline because it just pushed the story past the point of no return.
Also, that season five cover of “What Does the Fox Say?” was just a low point that I never, ever want to acknowledge again. What even was that?!
4. Riverdale is actually good… if you just watch season 1 and nothing else
When I was a little kid, I was a huge fan of Archie Comics, and Betty and Veronica were my favourite fictional characters of all time. So back in 2017, when I first heard about Riverdale coming out, I was skeptical yet excited.
When I watched the first season, I was pleasantly surprised. I actually enjoyed the ominous setting, and the murder mystery that follows the gang throughout the first season was really fun to watch. I thought the casting was great and that they had good chemistry, and at that point, the series had just the right amount of drama. There was still that classic love triangle between Archie, Betty and Veronica, and I even thought that that weird and problematic affair between Archie and Miss Grundy kept viewers on the edge.
From thereon, the show just gets worse and worse, and I think I stopped watching after the third season. The second the showrunners decided to implement the “supernatural” element into the plot, I just couldn’t buy into the high school setting anymore. The ghosts and ghouls and cults and gargoyles and whatever else they put in there just made the whole thing so cheesy, and the mysterious true crime tone of the first season was soon replaced by something that felt too Halloween-y. Not a fan!
3. Rachel Lindsay was the BEST bachelorette
Pivoting now to reality TV, I grew up watching the Bachelor and the Bachelorette on a weekly basis with my mom, and some contestants were more memorable than others. By far, the best bachelorette was Rachel Lindsay. Lindsay finished in third place in Nick Viall’s season of the Bachelor in 2017, and by convention, the next Bachelorette is usually one of the fan favourites or one of the contestants who came close to the finish line during the last season of the Bachelor. So, it made perfect sense for Rachel to be the next bachelorette because everyone loved her!
Rachel’s season stood out not only because she was the first Black Bachelorette, but because she was straightforward, smart, and extremely confident. She was a lawyer who knew her worth and she wasn’t afraid to speak up. During the famous one-on-one fantasy suite overnight stay (which happens later in the season when the contestants get narrowed down) Rachel decided to spend the time talking to each contestant about their personal finances and career goals. LOVE her.
This was also a season where I genuinely wasn’t sure who she was going to end up with, in the end. For a lot of seasons, it can be pretty easy to guess who the contestant is going to choose, but with Rachel’s season, I could definitely see her going with either Brian or Peter. Clearly, she made the right choice by accepting Brian’s proposal, and the two are still together to this day — five years after the season 13 premiere!
Rachel Lindsay is also the best because she’s been very vocal about the problems with the Bachelor franchise — she even wrote a personal essay last year for the Vulture on the tokenism and racism she experienced on the show and thereafter. Rachel is incredibly genuine and down-to-earth, which is what makes her the best contestant of all time!
2. Mindy should not have ended up with Danny in The Mindy Project
OMG, this one angers me just thinking about it. For most of the seasons, Danny belittles Mindy and treats her terribly, but then they have a kid together and eventually during the series finale they kiss at the top of the Empire State Building and come together again. This comes after Mindy separates from Ben, someone with whom she had a very secure and loving relationship.
I get that they were trying to go for the whole enemies-to-lovers trope with Danny and Mindy, but in my opinion, it felt really forced and unnecessary. Danny was inconsistent and unappreciative of her, whereas Ben loved every part of Mindy and was willing to make it work and communicate with her. When Mindy refuses to do the same, they get divorced, breaking his heart and his daughter’s heart.
I do think that the scene where Ben calls out Mindy for liking the idea of marrying him rather than their marriage itself was really well done. Even still, I think the writers shouldn’t have written that off so completely and made Mindy and Danny get together again as if it were some sort of fairy tale romance. It sucked! I actually think that it should’ve been reversed — Danny and Mindy should’ve gone through the divorce and heartbreak, and Mindy should have ended up with Ben if a rom-com ending was really what they were going for.
1. 13 Reasons Why would’ve been fine with just one season
I’m a sucker for TV shows and films that stay true to the books they’re based on, and 13 Reasons Why actually did a good job with this — to some extent. I was really happy with the casting and script of the first season because I felt like it reflected the grief, guilt and angst from the book reasonably well.
It’s when the show continues on for three more seasons that it gets conflicted. It starts to stray pretty far from the original intention of the book and goes more into a murder mystery theme. There are extremely brutal and graphic scenes and even a plotline that involves the high school gang preventing one of their friends from becoming a psychopath and a school shooter. It just became way too unnecessarily dramatic, and kind of like Riverdale, it makes you wonder how one high school can have so much chaos going on.
I honestly think the show was perfectly fine with just one season and didn’t require the horrific experiences that come along for the characters in later seasons. The show was trying to go for too much of a “shock factor” after season one, in my opinion. And they definitely didn’t need to give Justin one of the most tragic endings I’ve ever seen for a beloved character in a TV show.
I’m definitely no TV snob, but I do think my opinion on these five shows has some validity. If there’s a common theme to pick up on, it’s that shows often struggle with maintaining the personality, originality and integrity of their early seasons — which causes viewers like myself to leave the show with a bad taste in our mouths. Don’t agree with my hot takes? Well, let’s just agree to disagree.
Be sure to stay tuned for my next article on my favourite shows written from the female gaze!