Old shows you can no longer watch....

[Warped9]

We all grew up with television shows that at one time were favourites or we at least found watchabe. But the passage of time in hand with advancing age and experience is not always kind to old favourites.

So here we can share shows we used to like or at least tolerate yet now they no longer work for us anymore.


This past year I went to see the feature film reboot of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and found myself quite enjoying the film. Flash forward a few months and after watching it again on BluRay I felt a wave of nostalgia and ordered the 1st season set of the original TMFU series from Amazon.

The resulting impression?

Ouch!

Okay, I still like the opening theme song. And the series is not actually a stinker. But while I used to enjoy this series back in the day it has not aged well. Maybe it helps if you take it as just light and somewhat silly entertainment, but I find a lot of the show ridiculous and cheap. This show isn't simply a riff on the popular spy genre of the era, but something of a gentle spoof on the genre. While quite popular in its day TMFU series isn't one of the shining lights of television of the era.

This is a case where the reboot done decades later is distinctly better than the original source material.


Contrast TMFU with Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea., at least the first season. VTTBOTS has an earnestness to it that somehow makes it tolerable even when it shows its age in terms of writing and ideas. The original source material manages to make me wonder what a decent modern reboot could be like (and I'm not thinking of SeaQuest).

Contrast TMFU with the original Mission: Impossible or Danger Man (aka Secret Agent), both of which I still find eminently watchable today.


Anyone else?

 

[bigdaddy]

I remember watching Coach as a kid and then they announced the continuation I decided to watch the first episode....

O-U-C-H!!!!!!!!!!

 

[1001001]

I tried to watch Happy Days and Welcome Back, Kotter. I loved those shows when I was a kid.

Now....Yikes!

 

[MANT!]

1970s, Planet of the Apes TV series...poor execution, and the same damn summer in the hills outside of LA scenery in every episode..the writing often sucked.. just can't stand it..

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I have trouble watching a lot of TNG and DS9 now. They're just so staid and feel more like watching a bland workplace show than space adventure.

 

[Warped9]

Recently I also rewatched Search from 1972.

Overall it was still okay, but some of the writing betrays its age. Part of what bugs me today is the performance of some of the main characters. Back in the day I thought Hugh O'Brien as Probe agent Hugh Lockwood was cool. Now he comes across as something like a creepy lounge lizard with exaggerated mannerisms. Now my favourite agent is C.R. Grover played by Doug McClure. There's a lowkey yet quietly calculating aspect to Grover that I like that also could lull people into underestimating him. Of the three agents I find Grover tolerable while Lockwood and Bianco now seem rather over acted and maybe even predatory (to women) in their behaviour.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

I loved Sailor Moon as a kid. Loved! A few years ago I decided to do a re-watch.

Ten episodes into the first season was all I could handle. It was nauseating.

But I'll always have fond memories.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

I tried watching a couple of episodes of Full House after the new series was announced. I can't believe that I ever watched it back when it was new.

I agree with MANT! about the Planet of the Apes show. It seemed like almost every episode one of the leads would be captured and then the other 2 would have to rescue him. I do still like the opening credits though.

 

[Warped9]

Planet Of The Apes is something that always struck me as working best as feature films. As a television series a path is laid out to serious monotony.

 

[Starbreaker]

I know the show isn't that old, but I loved Sliders as a kid. I bought the first two seasons on DVD, and was seriously disappointed in it. The fact that these four people are extremely important on other worlds is ridiculous, and when the Kromaggs show up, it's barely watchable. There was so much potential in the premise.

 

[Warped9]

Fantastic Journey. Early '70s sci-fi series. A group gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle and find themselves on an island(?) where different cultures somehow by different pockets of time or something.

I thought it was cool as a young teenager. Now--Yeesh!


On the flip side I never saw the original The Outer Limits when I was young. Decades later I finally got to see it. I was impressed that while much of it looks quite dated storytelling wise a lot of it was still respectable.

I wonder how the original The Twilight Zone holds up after fifty plus years.

 

[RandyS]

^It's still excellent.

As for me, I've never met and "old" show I didn't like. It's current TV that often annoys me.

 

[Kemaiku]

The original Twilight Zone is still easy to get into and watch, especially investing in the bluray version to get all the detail. Most of the series I watched when I was young are still kind of fun to watch, some aren't as engaging or worth watching as many episodes in a short time, but few terrible ones.

 

[Warped9]

Adam West Batman series.

I LOVED this as a 7 year old. Then I discovered the comics in the early '70s. Uh oh...

I cringe now. All I can say is, "Hey, I was a kid. What the hell did I know?"

 

[1001001]

I wonder how the original The Twilight Zone holds up after fifty plus years.

My son and I just watched the whole series on Netflix.

It hold up just fine. A fantastic show.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I think the original Twilight Zone is one of the few shows that can still appeal to each generation. It has a pacing and weirdness (helped by being filmed in black and white and having fantastic scoring) that adds to the creative scripts and acting.

It's as 'timeless as infinity'...

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Lost in Space was probably never really a classic per se but I enjoyed it as a kid but it is hard to watch now. I can get in a state of mind where the old Flash Gordon serials can be fun to watch but the childish charm of Lost in Space has lost its pull over the years.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I can't watch any of the sitcoms I liked when I was a kid. Way too trite for me now.

 

[Push The Button]

I recently watched a few episodes of The Odd Couple on Hulu. Tony Randall was always giving it his all, but Jack Klugman at times seemed to be just grinding through his lines, bleh. The show would continually break its own canon, which was annoying, though perhaps this isn't as important with a sitcom as it would be with a drama or genre show. Just like with Happy Days, the transition to filming in front of a studio audience from season two onward was accompanied with a noticable drop in the quality of production.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Just about any cartoon series from the 80s. I recently watched the first few episodes of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe". WOW! What the hell was I thinking all those years ago? So corny!