21 Episodes That Ruined Entire TV Series

What makes television unique as a storytelling medium is that it’s broken up into so many little chunks. Think about it: When was the last time you read a book or watched a movie 10 minutes at a time, in between commercials for toilet paper? On the plus side, that means it can theoretically go on forever. You write your book or film your movie, and it’s done, but every season of television and even every episode has to build on from the last.

That also means, however, that if you don’t get it perfect every time, it can start a chain reaction that sends the series spiraling into the ground. Hell, make one bad enough episode, and it has the potential to erase everything good that came before it, at least in the eyes of some viewers. That’s why responses were so plentiful when user theinnocenthostage asked r/AskReddit, “What episode nearly destroyed the whole series?”