The Year in Hate-Watching

This season’s trashiest show comes courtesy from the folks who brought us the equally silly (yet ferociously entertaining) Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. Part law procedural, part law school version of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, How to Get Away With Murder provided us with Grindr hookups as legal strategy and Viola Davis uttering the line, “Why is your penis on a dead girl’s phone?” As far as hate-watching goes, this one is the kind of thing you hate to love rather than love to hate. [Where to stream How to Get Away With Murder]

First we were ambivalent, then we were told we couldn’t watch it, so of course we had to protect artistic expression and support freedom or whatever. What’d we get? A bunch of dick jokes that nearly caused an international crisis. Thanks a lot, bros. [Where to stream The Interview]

Some (myself included) would call the first season of HBO’s anthology series one of the best things on TV this year. But plenty of people soured on the show when it switched narrative gears mid-way through the season, ultimately proving itself to be a character study rather than a crime procedural about an occult-inspired conspiracy. People were disappointed, but they couldn’t unhook themselves from the engaging series. [Where to stream True Detective]

The soap about a Southern town of horny vampires finally reached its conclusion this year, finally ending all of that juicy, sexy hate-watching. Luckily, we can re-hate-watch all of those fanged foes bone each other forever (or at least until we sad mortals expire). [Where to stream True Blood]

Poor Selfie. The show got cancelled after just a few episodes, and we didn’t get the chance to fully hate-watch the modern update to Pygmalion with a social media twist (and, arguably, the worst title of the TV season). I guess we were all too obsessed with ourselves to give this one a shot. [Where to stream Selfie]

Seeking a low-rent Skarsgård and a show that focuses entirely on werewolves (because those True Blood vampires are too distracting)? Well, here’s Netflix’s Hemlock Grove, a weresoap that offers little more than a couple of cool shapeshifting moments and Famke Janssen. [Where to stream Hemlock Grove]

Most of us couldn’t even bring ourselves to hate-watch this show, a quirky comedy about a New York City detective whose toughest job is (drumroll, please) being a mom. Throw an impending divorce (from her husband/boss) and some kooky cases of the week and you’ve got a wacky, formulaic hit. Can Laura have it all? It’s a mystery that surely has no conclusion. [Where to stream The Mysteries of Laura]

The Emmy-winning comedy is one of the most popular sitcoms in the country — but have you ever watched this nonsense? Full of insipid laughs and stereotypical characters, the nerdy comedy supplies enough rage-inducing grimaces and teeth-grinding to last for hours. [Where to stream The Big Bang Theory]

It’s a great myth (perpetuated by dozens of think-pieces dropped online every week) that Girls is a hit show. While there are certainly people who do enjoy watching it, it seems, at least from what the Internet tells us, that most people only watch this show in order to work themselves into a weekly rage devoted to the dastardly Lena Dunham, who can do nothing right nor wrong. [Where to streamGirls]

“It’s like Girls, but for gay guys!” That’s what everyone expected from Looking, HBO’s dramedy series about three gay men in San Francisco. Unfortunately, it was only like Girls in that one couldn’t fathom why these guys were friends with each other. Otherwise, it was incredibly dull and proved that not only are some gay guys not fabulous, but they’re also really, really boring. [Where to stream Looking]

It’s a rare case of when hate-watching actually paid off: HBO’s summer drama about a rapture-like event that leaves a collection of people on Earth to deal with the sudden disappearance of their loved ones started off slow, boring, and incredibly frustrating. Those who kept up with the series each week (since there was nothing else to watch) were rewarded with a surprising and shocking climax that, in retrospect, made the entire season worth watching. [Where to stream The Leftovers]

Sure, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s psychosexual horror anthology never made much sense, but this season took the usual insanity and mixed in too many characters, too many storylines with no ends in sight, and too much shock-value for the sake of shock-value. At this point, just three episodes from the finale, American Horror Story feels like a slog — but where else are we going to get Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, and Jessica Lange in a room together? [Where to stream American Horror Story: Freak Show]

It’s a musical for children, yet millions of grown-ups gathered around their TVs with plenty of alcohol in tow to anxiously watch Allison Williams avoid falling from wires while desperately trying to hit her notes. But Williams surprised all of us with a pretty impressive performance. Christopher Walken, on the other hand, provided all of the cringe-worthy moments: forgetting lines, singing out of tune, and barely passing off awkward shuffling as dance moves. [Where to stream Peter Pan Live!]

Aaron Sorkin’s behind-the-scenes drama focused its lens onto American TV news — or, at the very least, the fantastical version that exists inside of Sorkin’s brain. Jeff Daniels’ Will McAvoy served as an avatar for Sorkin himself through which he could spout his own opinions about politics and media, and everyone else on the show (especially the women) represented the morons that Sorkin can barely put up with. What was the result? Aaron Sorkin’s view of the world is extremely exhausting and, to put it mildly, hilariously narrow. [Where to stream The Newsroom]

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