Top 10 Worst TV Shows of 2018 So Far

Did we REALLY need another police procedural? ABC certainly seems to think so, and the results are about as dire as you would expect. “Take Two” comes from married couple Terri Edda Miller and Andrew W. Marlowe, the creator of “Castle.” While that sounds promising, “Take Two” isn’t nearly as good, or even as passably entertaining as its predecessor, despite their readily apparent similarities. The cliched plot is yet another variation on the police procedural you’ve seen a thousand times, and the juvenile jokes often miss their broad mark. “Take Two” is nothing but derivative summer network television.

“Life Sentence” has an intriguing premise. It follows Stella, a cancer survivor who now must deal with the consequences of her care-free, cancer-driven decisions. At the same time, her family must cope with the sacrifices they made to make her final years more comfortable. For example, maybe her husband only married her out of sympathy. And maybe her dissatisfied parents only stayed together to prevent further emotional strain on Stella. You could mine a lot of brilliant material out of this concept, but “Life Sentence” wastes it on manipulative and saccharine sweet platitudes about life and love, all backed by acoustic guitars. It avoids complexity in favor of off-putting sentimentality.

“Splitting Up Together” is an American adaptation of a Danish sitcom about a divorced couple who live in the same house with their children. Like “Life Sentence,” a lot of interesting and complex material could be mined from this concept, and the series stars the always-adorable Jenna Fischer in the role of the matriarch. However, both the concept and Fischer’s talents are wasted on clichéd writing. The show is full of stock sitcom characters, and the storylines are trite. Newfound jealousy abounds, the couple explore boring freedoms, and the maybe-they’ll-get-back-together trope quickly rears its ugly head. This concept deserves better.

“Our Cartoon President” is a woefully misguided animated sitcom from Stephen Colbert, one of Trump’s biggest detractors, based on a recurring segment of his late night show. In an entertainment landscape full of Trump bashing and critique, an entire show based on the concept of his outlandish White House is just redundant. By now, it’s safe to say most people have heard all the jokes here a million times before. It’s just stale, predictable, and recycled humor that works better as short segments and monologue punchlines.

Yep, it’s another police procedural! Alan Cumming plays Dylan Reinhart, an author and professor who helps the New York police with a serial killer. But there’s a twist! You see, the killer is drawing his morbid inspiration from Reinhart’s book! Gasp! Alan Cumming is the sole star of this show. Everything else is so incredibly by-the-numbers and uninteresting that you may tune out after the very first episode. You’ve seen these characters, these stories, even these shocking acts of violence a thousand times before. With “Instinct,” you know exactly what you’re getting into. While many people love them, critics saw it as just another hackneyed procedural.

We’d make a “stay away from me” joke here, but we fear that may be too easy. “American Woman” stars the recently allusive Alicia Silverstone as Bonnie Nolan, a woman who leaves her husband amid the wave of feminism that swept America in the 70s. This show could have told a complex story about societal constraints and shifting gender and power dynamics. Sure, it would be a little “Mad Men,” but it would still be interesting. Instead, the show is full of archetypal characters and blunt, obvious messages about female empowerment. There’s no nuance. It simply expects us to cheer solely for telling a progressive story. It’s certainly well-intentioned, but painfully flawed.

We can’t think of a show released this year that wasted so much potential. “Alex, Inc.” had a brilliant story in the chamber – a radio journalist and family man (played by the missed and charming Zach Braff) quits his cushy job and naively tries to start his own podcasting company. It’s an original concept that could have told a fascinating story. Unfortunately, Braff puts on the J.D. man-child shtick to frankly unlikable results. If audiences don’t like or root for Alex, then what’s the point? The show is also too sentimental and annoyingly quirky, and the overly sitcom-y jokes are truly awful. What a disappointment.

This is one of those rare HBO swings and misses. “Here and Now” is an embarrassing mix of “This Is Us” and Alan Ball’s previous show, “Six Feet Under.” It follows a wholly unlikable and obnoxious family and tries to tackle numerous hot-button topics, including race relations, the destructive political landscape, and gender identities. However, this not only muddles the plot and characters, but it gives the show a laughable air of self-importance. It wants to be brilliant social commentary but just comes across as conceited and overwrought.

“LA to Vegas” is a workplace comedy produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, the team behind “Anchorman,” “Step Brothers,” and “Talladega Nights.” It’s certainly a winning combination, but we don’t know if Fox was the right place for it, because it reeks of sitcom clichés. For example, the characters are broad caricatures with no depth or humanity, and the show often resorts to lame jokes about sex and drugs. It was cancelled after fifteen episodes, and it’s not hard to see why.

We know there’s still half a year to go, but “Living Biblically” is a true contender for the worst show of 2018. The show follows Chip Curry, a film critic who loses his best friend and decides to start living his life according to the Bible. It’s a decent idea that is entirely wasted on stock sitcom tropes. The characters are thinly-sketched, every joke is capped by canned guffaws, and the show is so afraid to offend anyone that it just becomes annoying. “Living Biblically” avoids its own promise by adhering to the generic setup-predictable punchline formula.