We need to get better as a species at pretending certain seasons didn’t happen. Season 5 of The Wire, Season 3 of Homeland, anything after All Along the Watchtower in BSG etc

The thing about season 5 is that it doesn't stand up well to the other seasons, but it does stand up reasonably to most other television; I'm not sure it's quite in this category.

> Season 3 of Homeland

Oh, what a downer that season was. On the other hand, Homeland Season 1 was one of the best bits of television I’ve seen.

The last season of Homeland I thought was incredible. It felt like everything pushed to the extreme. Overall great show.

Honestly I just skipped it having seen the IMDB reviews. I’ve watched all the others and it’s one of my favourite shows.

"Community" made their lost season part of the show's lore by having the characters refer to it as "The Gas Leak Year": https://screenrant.com/community-season-4-gas-leak-year-expl...

I like the last season. I thought it was a comic masterpiece (darkly comic) and a master class in all sorts of irony. Maybe that's the rub. Still, these two scenes are gems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn0ylNZhOJI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2-NkZ8lGsA

And it's still consistent with the "institutional ineptitude of conservative western cultures" (as @ddek puts it above) theme.

One of the main writers left before season 5, which might explain it.

It's disappointing, because the season's focus on journalism and public optics was really interesting and educational and in many ways well-executed. But the serial murder stuff just made it kind of goofy.

Seasons 1 - 4 are so good that it's not a big deal, but it seems so rare that multi-season shows stick a graceful landing.

Yeah it lost believability there, felt like David Simon’s personal grudges against the Sun we’re getting in the way of the story.