After wrapping up the hit show, Baywatch, Pamela Anderson was keen to hold onto the spotlight while she still had momentum. Her breakthrough, raunchy lifeguard role led to appearances on Saturday Night Live and WrestleMania, but what Anderson craved was another safe and cushy starring role in a regular series. She got what she thought was her next big break with the show, V.I.P., in which she took on the role of Vallery Irons. In an echo of her life-saving ways in Baywatch, Anderson’s new role was all about protecting people. The premise of the show was that Anderson’s character accidentally saved a celebrity, leading to her discovery by a bodyguard agency.
The accidental hero is hired and her character joins a ragtag team of ex-spies, ex-law enforcement officers, martial arts experts, and a computer expert. The show featured real-life cameos from celebs needing Anderson’s expertise, including Jerry Springer, Jay Leno, and Stone Cold Steve Austin. While the cheese-factor kept a lot of people watching, and it did enjoy a decent run, the show was canceled in 2002.
2017: Marvel’s Inhumans
While Marvel may be breaking box office records with the insane levels of success it enjoys with its comic-based films, they somehow managed to fail miserably when they tried to translate their talents into TV. Maybe the small screen just isn’t big enough for all their oomph? That seems to have been a concern for the producers, anyway, because they actually aired the first episode of their made-for-TV series, Marvel’s Inhumans, in IMAX theaters. The 2017 series was then shifted to what was supposed to be its permanent home on ABC. Even with this epic introduction, Inhumans just failed to impress.
Ken Tucker, of Yahoo TV, perhaps put it best: “I’d like to say that Marvel’s Inhumans is so spectacularly awful, it’s worth tuning in just to witness the superhero train-wreck. But alas, Inhumans does not even yield sarcastic pleasures–it’s just bad. Bad in a dull way, bad in an irritating way… Marvel’s Inhumans is just inhumane.”
2018: Jean-Claude Van Johnson
While it had a massive star in the titular role, the satirical comedy, Jean-Claude Van Johnson, was canceled by Amazon just a month after its premiere. While it seems obvious to blame the quality of the episodes for the failure of the series, many people leaped to the show’s defense, claiming it wasn’t about the show per se. Rather, Amazon had made a strategic move to cut back on original comedies, replacing them with a focus on dramas. The pilot, after all, was solid; yet many point out that the episodes that stretched out after it was just that: stretched. Critics felt the storyline was so basic it barely warranted a full series. After just six episodes went to air, between 2016 and 2017, the show was canceled and Jean-Claude Van Damme sadly had to seek out new avenues for sharing his martial arts skills with the world.
What you’ve just witnessed were the worst of the worst: those shows TV viewers and critics agreed were the most heinous offerings of the 2000s. Coming up are the more controversial ones. The shows that had people divided, including some that were so bad they were weirdly hypnotic, and one that comedy genius, Steve Carell, wishes you never found out about.
2001: XFL
Okay, here’s the premise (let’s see if you think it’s as awesome as the network execs from UPN, NBC and TNN were all convinced it was): a brand new sport that combines wrestling with American football. Yep. As you might have guessed by now, this new sport was a dismal failure. XFL seemed to be more about barely-dressed cheerleaders and weird camera angles than actual athletic skill. It wasn’t all bad news though. Some players were able to use XFL as a springboard to get into the NFL. Players who were stoked to have made this transition include Corey Ivy, Kevin Kaesviharn and Mike Furrey.
Only realizing how dismal their weird creation was after seeing how much sports fans despised it, NBC bailed on its contract before the first season was even up. Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWF, ended up feeling nothing but shame for his part-ownership of the XFL. In fact, he went so far as to call it a “colossal failure.” Somehow, after the “sport” was canceled, that shame faded. McMahon is now planning to give the league a makeover and take another shot at impressing fans in 2020.
2002: Hidden Hills
This TV series came from the popular book, Surviving Suburbia. While the day-to-day angst of suburban life was relatable for fans of the book, the TV show failed to carry it off. This was thanks, in large part, to the fact that the producers were too focused on the idea that “sex sells.” They forced sexiness onto all the characters and into all the storylines, in a way that just felt weird against a backdrop of bake sales and softball games. Viewers felt alienated and just didn’t vibe with the show’s attempts at comedy.
With no one buying what Surviving Suburbia was offering, the show ended up on the official fail pile after just a single season. The sitcom started with low ratings and it only went downhill from there, causing NBC to pull out before they’d even aired all the episodes. There are five still stowed away somewhere that no one ever got to see.