10 TV shows that should have been canceled this year - sorry

Ryan Murphy is the mastermind behind some of television's most beloved pulpy hits. From the tween drama "Glee" to the cult favorite "American Horror Story" and most recently "Pose."

And since moving over from FX to Netflix in 2018, Murphy's creative output has been prolific, but unfortunately not always good.

"Ratched" — his third show to premiere on the streamer — is an ambitious series based on the bestselling novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey, and explores the origins story of Nurse Mildred Ratched who is the head of a psychiatric ward known for its abusive and oppressive practices.

Murphy's show provides the necessary bumps and jumps any good thriller requires. And his trusted collaborator Sarah Paulson gives an assured performance in the title role, but "Ratched" never aims for anything of substance and constantly coasts on style and cheap gags.

After eight long and ambiguous episodes, you are left with one question: why exactly was this made?

Netflix has renewed the show for a second season.

The internet seemed to collectively stop in disbelief the week Netflix's "Emily in Paris" was released.

The show follows Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) a young marketing executive who, despite not being able to speak any French, moves from Chicago to Paris to join the ranks of a high-end digital marketing firm. And she stumbles her way through the city picking up a ridiculous set of friends who tick the box of every offensive French stereotype.

In parts, the depictions of French culture are so dated that it is quite hard to believe that Netflix allowed the show to be made.

Critics and every American living in Europe rightly panned "Emily in Paris" but unfortunately, because audiences were sequestered to their homes with nothing to do other than watch their television, the show was a huge hit for Netflix.

It has been renewed for a second season.

After his groundbreaking box office smash "Get Out," Jordan Peele was pretty much given carte blanche across Hollywood. And on paper, "Hunters" seemed to be one of the more interesting Peele-backed projects on the way to our screens.

Set in the mid-1970s, during the infamous Summer of Sam, "Hunters" follows a messy team of Nazi hunters led by Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino) who hunt down former members of the Third Reich before they start planning for a Fourth in North America.

However, the show quickly falls into the dangerous territory of almost fetishistic brutality where violence against Jewish people during the Holocaust is stylized and heightened for dramatic effect. One particular scene featuring a fictional and deadly game of human chess in a Nazi concentration camp was condemned by the Auschwitz museum.

"Hunters" was renewed for a second season in August.

Sadly, there is another Ryan Murphy entry on this list.

"The Politician" was the first show Murphy brought to Netflix in 2019, and the series combines all of the themes that Murphy has traditionally been excellent at exploring: teenage relationships, sexuality, racism, and politics; but unfortunately, none of these work in "The Politician" because the narrative set-up is completely ridiculous.

The show revolves around California-native Payton Hobart who, since the age of seven, has dreamed of being elected President of the United States. In the first season, these ambitions manifest in a cliché run for student body president against the popular and athletic cool-kid.

But the show's second season moves to New York where Payton is now a college student running for a seat in the New York State Senate against the incumbent majority leader. Murphy and the show's writers have commendable ambitions, but "The Politician" is not very good television.

It will be back on Netflix for a third, and thankfully final season.

"The Haunting of Bly Manor" was inspired by the complete work of Henry James, but Netflix's horror sequel chiefly pulls from James' 1898 novel "Turn of the Screw."

And like the preceding "Hill House," an adaptation of Shirley Jackson, "Bly Manor" is not necessarily a direct adaptation. The show's creator Mike Flanagan takes a lot of creative liberties, which ultimately do not pay-off.

The show's narrative quickly spins out of control often forgetting to be either scary or clever. There is also an overall soapiness to the production that is quite off-putting.

Showrunner Mike Flanagan is currently working on the next "Haunting of ..." chapter.

Rod Serling's original "Twilight Zone" series was revived three times before Jordan Peele picked up the mantle in 2019.

Peele serves as the adaptation's new spooky narrator and across two seasons he has assembled a star-studded cast including Adam Scott, Steven Yeun, Billy Porter, and Damon Wayans, Jr.

The show isn't necessarily bad, but it suffers from the same problem as other existential productions like the later seasons of Netflix's "Black Mirror." Right now, there is nothing that any writer or director could create that is more terrifying than the events we are currently living through.

As a result, the tight moral stories that usually work feel like inconsiderate overkill.

The two worst effects of the pandemic on Hollywood are the financial damage done to movie theater chains and the invention of the remote TV show. Some cynics may say that Netflix already had a hand in the former, but they are certainly guilty of the latter.

The streamers remote series "Social Distance" features eight short vignettes all shot remotely using software like Zoom and FaceTime to capture the lives of different families trying to navigate and process the early days of the pandemic as well as the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd.

We are all still currently living through the pandemic and the effects of the summer's protests, so there is no need for anyone to recreate these events for so-called entertainment. Episode titles like "Delete All Future Events" and "everything is v depressing rn" aren't clever or ironic, they're distasteful.

Let's leave all remotely filmed pandemic content in 2020.

"Snowpiercer" is based on South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's acclaimed 2013 film as well as the 1982 French graphic novel "Le Transperceneige" from which the film was adapted.

Like both the film and the novel, TNT's show focuses on a gigantic, perpetually moving train that travels around the world carrying the surviving members of human civilization after the world as we know it is destroyed.

The issue with "Snowpiercer" is quite simple; it is very tough to adapt and overcome two beloved editions of the same story, and after two seasons it has become clear that TNT probably isn't up to the task.

Steve Carrell co-created Netflix's "Space Force" in collaboration with the former showrunner of his acclaimed work-based comedy "The Office," and for the most part, the two shows follow a similar formula.

"Space Force" follows a four-star general named Mark R. Naird (Carell) who is unexpectedly tasked with creating a new branch of the US military that is dedicated to achieving total space dominance. John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Diana Silvers, and Lisa Kudrow also star.

The sitcom was quickly developed off the back of Donald Trump's real-life Space Force initiative, but weirdly the show shies away from ever mentioning or directly addressing its source material. As a result, most of the jokes fall flat and the memory that Donald Trump actually tried to establish a real-life space force awkwardly lingers over the comedy.

"Space Force" has been renewed for a second season at Netflix.

After the bloodbath of the season two finale, the "Westworld" amusement park has been closed. So for the first time, the show takes audiences out of the simulation and into the real world.

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) has taken up residence in a futuristic Los Angeles and quickly develops a relationship with slacker Caleb (Aaron Paul) who shows her the similarities of how artificial beings were treated in the amusement park and how working-class humans are treated in the real world.

"Westworld" is an exhausting watch because it's hard to care about any of the show's soulless characters. All the violence feels unnecessary and the narrative ambiguity is more style than substance.

Season three was the first time that "Westworld" wasn't able to coast on its beautiful cinematic look or its fun piano versions of rock and pop songs by bands like Radiohead.

HBO has announced that the show will return for a fourth season.

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