TV Shows That Became Unwatchable With Age

Before you get too upset, let's be clear: we're talking about the original, pre-modern version of Doctor Who. While much of the series' continuity and long-running themes were established during the days of Hartnell, Baker, and McCoy, it's difficult to sit through a three- or four-hour story arc with rubber monsters and a floundering Doctor. Sure, some of it has a bit of value for the ridiculous alien costumes alone, but for viewers accustomed to modern production values during an era in which television has risen to an art form, the camp and general plot-holery make the show hard to endure. Vintage Who barely stands up against Star Trek, and that's some serious camp. Just sit down and watch "Time and the Rani." If you make it out alive, you've probably used up one of your regenerations.

At its best, Scrubs offered an entertaining comedy counterpoint to the glut of medical dramas on television. And there was even a time when Zach Braff's Dr. John Dorian was a sympathetic character whose everyday trials and heart of bronze was kinda worth watching... but as the show progressed, Dorian became less and less likable—and less insightful during his endless monologues. Finally, Braff left the show partway through the ninth season, leaving it to limp awkwardly to an anticlimactic conclusion.

Pushing against the borders of television decency was a pretty risky thing to do back in the days of Married... with Children, and no one pushed harder than Fox's original hit sitcom. That level of borderline-repulsive sass was something different in the '80s and '90s, but watching the exploits of Al Bundy now, it's clear that the program was pretty much an equal mix of embarrassingly easy fat jokes and sex jokes... and nothing else. Seeing what Ed O'Neill and Katey Sagal are truly capable of as actors just makes the broad, lowbrow junk of Married more embarrassing to watch. While it has a place in TV history, it should probably just stay there.

It may be sacrilege to disparage any classic Nicktoon, but a show that once seemed like a clever look at the world through the eyes of infants has lost a lot of its charm—not least because it's hard to look past the constant baby talk and the grossly negligent parents. Angela never gets the discipline she needs to straighten out, everyone just keeps on having more babies, and anyone could have guessed that Chuckie would still be just as awkward in the show's unnecessary continuation, All Grown Up! Until someone comes along to animate the characters as balding, overweight 30-somethings struggling with depression and mortgages, we should probably just stick with Doug.

Although the production value of Highlander: The Series was widely praised by critics at the time, television fantasy has come a long way since the 1990s. In an age when HBO spends as much as $10 million per episode to create Game of Thrones and audiences are used to seeing big screen quality on their TVs, the CBS show based on the film of the same name now looks terribly dated—and its problems go deeper than aesthetics. What at that time seemed like a sprawling epic has revealed itself as little more than a series of formulaic hourlong confrontations, pitting Duncan MacLeod (clansman and pupil of his movie namesake Connor) against one disposable immortal after another. Worse still, British actor Adrian Paul's performance is nowhere near the bar established by Christopher Lambert in the 1986 movie, lacking the rough edges and cool wit of the original Highlander.

While '90s spinoffs Saved by the Bell: The College Years and Saved by the Bell: The New Class have always been nigh-on unwatchable, the original show was once considered essential children's television. Digging out the NBC high school sitcom for your kids to watch today isn't advisable, however, as many of the lessons are painfully dated. The episode "The Mamas and the Papas" makes for particularly cringeworthy viewing, pairing the kids up in an effort to teach them about married life. The tone of the episode is summed up by A.C. Slater's definition of a "women's movement" (when she puts on something cute and moves into the kitchen). It also becomes apparent over the course of the show's four seasons that Zack Morris has a severe gambling problem, with every other episode involving Preppy making some kind of bet at the expense of his friends.

Dawson's Creek was part of the wave of teen films and TV shows that gushed out of Hollywood in the late '90s, created by the writer of the equally angst-ridden Scream movies, Kevin Williamson. The show had its detractors even when it was at the height of its popularity, though the torrent of criticism back then doesn't even come close to how hated this show would be if it aired for the first time today. From its hammy dialogue and excessive self-regard to its habit of severely under-developing its female characters and being generally sexist, the only thing worse than Dawson's Creek as a show is Dawson himself, who's far more condescending and smug than you ever remembered. The only people who should be watching this today are millennials looking for a nostalgia fix—the VHS players, cropped tank tops, and watered-down ska music will have you reminiscing in no time.

While things certainly became less formulaic as the show went through its numerous reincarnations over the years, the monster-of-the-week format relied upon in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers meant that there was a constant lack of genuine adversity in those early days. Of course, there were the rare occasions on which the Rangers would lose their powers and find themselves in the odd dire situation, but generally speaking there was no problem that Megazord couldn't easily solve. One thing that becomes obvious when watching early Power Rangers episodes today is that the show wasn't made from scratch in Hollywood. The first season simply stole its fight sequences from the Japanese show Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger (Dinosaur Squadron BeastRanger) and hired American actors to fill in the gaps, a clever ploy from producers looking to make a buck in the U.S. market without having to spend money on big set pieces. It worked, even though it's painfully obvious that most of the actors couldn't pull off some of the stuff they managed to do behind their masks.

If you thought Baywatch was as dated as David Hasselhoff gets, think again. Even though that show's stars were basically well-toned bags of meat in tight red swimwear, they were still more interesting than KITT, the talking car who served as the star of Hasselhoff's '80s sci-fi series Knight Rider. The artificially intelligent car simply doesn't make for a very compelling sidekick for the crimefighting Michael Knight, and the fact that "he's" a vehicle severely limits the show's plot opportunities, but at least the state-of-the-art special effects made up for it...in the '80s. Even the most ardent consumer of the decade's nostalgia will have a hard time swallowing this today, which is exactly why an updated Justin Lin-produced reboot of the story is on the cards for 2017.

Sister, Sister is a '90s sitcom in the spirit of The Parent Trap, made before Disney decided to reboot the 1961 film about twin sisters randomly reunited after being separated at birth. In this instance, Tia and Tamara bump into each other at a shopping mall and discover that one has it way better than the other, leading to both girls and Tia's mother Lisa moving in with Tamara's well-off dad Ray. The twins fight off advances from their neighbor Roger and get into all the scrapes you'd expect of teenage girls—which was all well and good at the time, but really doesn't resonate today. Those who grew up watching Sister, Sister are now adults, and re-watching the show now reveals how poorly constructed the grownups were. Single mother Lisa is a walking, talking stereotype and Ray is even more one-dimensional as the square widower. Their transparently constructed romantic subplot is randomly abandoned, making room for more car dates and adolescent anxieties.