I decided against a 10 worst list, because some shows — like Mixology and Manhattan Love Story — were clearly doomed from the start and promptly lived down to expectations. Instead, I’ve focusing on the year’s biggest disappointments: shows (and performers) who aspired to something greater, and perhaps even briefly achieved it, before it all came crashing down. Here is 2014’s Hall of Shame, in alphabetical order:

(Michael Desmond/NBC)

A to Z (NBC)

This sitcom — chronicling the A-to-Z relationship of Ben Feldman and Cristin Milioti —was one of the most promising fall pilots. Its stars had terrific, unforced chemistry. And then … nothing happened, for episodes on end. The jokes evaporated, and no actual stakes ever materialized. And how could a show set at not one but two different workplaces get away with never showing anyone doing actual work? After How I Met Your Mother, I thought the fantastic Milioti had finally found a part worthy of her talents. Better luck next season.

(Robert Voets/NBC)

Bearded best friends 

One of the most depressing developments of the fall season was the discovery that all the networks’ comedy development teams were operating from the exact same bland playbook: don’t forget to cast a bearded best friend! Like a virus, they popped up on almost every sitcom this fall, including Mulaney (Zack Pearlman), A to Z (Henry Zebrowski), Manhattan Love Story (Nicolas Wright) and Marry Me (John Gemberling). Now Gemberling is the last beard standing, not that I could really distinguish him from the other three.

(CBS)

Extant (CBS)

When I reviewed the Extant premiere this summer, I was excited about the sci-fi drama’s possibilities, both in storyline and the performance it was coaxing out of star Halle Berry, as an astronaut who returns from a lengthy solo mission to discover that she’s pregnant. A few episodes later, those optimistic dreams were the opposite of extant. Instead of learning its lessons from Under the Dome, which quickly squandered its beguiling premise in 2013, CBS repeated them all again.

(Ron P. Jaffe/Fox)

How I Met Your Mother finale (CBS)

While I was never a regular How I Met Your Mother watcher, I had been eagerly anticipating how series would pay off the story it had been setting up for nine (!) seasons. Instead, the finale confirmed everyone’s worst fears — that the Mother (Milioti again!) had died — and turned into How I Barely Met Your Mother. It was a legen — wait for it! — dary addition to the annals of all-time worst finales. (Make room, Dexter!)

(Ray Mickshaw/FOX)

Mulaney (Fox)

Out of all this year’s new sitcoms, I was most excited about seeing Mulaney, created by and starring one of SNL’s all-time great writers (and the man behind Stefon!), John Mulaney. And then I watched the first episode Fox made available, which was…awful. Soon after, Fox shared four more episodes, each one more depressing than the last. How could someone so innovative end up in something so conventional? Even worse, the show completely wasted its fantastic cast (including Martin Short and the underrated Nasim Pedrad).

(Fox)

Rake (Fox)

A year after Fox had scored big with a midseason drama featuring a movie star (Kevin Bacon’s The Following), it tried again with this Greg Kinnear legal series — and failed spectacularly. Billed as the law version of House, it lacked any of that show’s zest and wit. Kinnear’s Keegan Deane was less an anti-hero than an anti-character, as clunky a fit as the show’s silly title.

(Fred Norris/FOX)

Sleepy Hollow (Fox)

It’s the hat trick of Fox disappointments! Season 1 the Fox supernatural series was a delightful, wackadoodle wonder. And that’s what has made Season 2 so upsetting, as the series has undone so much of what made it addictive in the first place. John Noble, so vital to the end of Season 1, has been neutered this year, while Orlando Jones was stuck on the sidelines. There are still flashes of the trippy show that once was (and Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie remain terrific), but Sleepy Hollow suffered the biggest quality dropoff this year.

(Antony Platt/AMC)

Turn (AMC)

So intriguing in theory, so bland in execution. Still flailing post-Breaking Bad, AMC came up empty again with this uninspired Revolutionary War drama. It was somehow renewed for Season 2, and saddled with a longer title: Turn: Washington’s Spies. There, problem solved!

(Patrick Harbron/FX)

Tyrant (FX)

FX’s incredible run of essential dramas came to an end with this controversial Middle Eastern series, which finally offered one antihero too many for a network packed with them. And no, don’t remind me that this was renewed over the far-superior The Bridge.

(Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

Christopher Walken (Peter Pan Live!)

Two weeks later, I still can’t believe what I saw on Dec. 4. Walken’s Captain Hook was supposed to save Peter Pan Live! Instead, he almost sunk the show. That an actor who is so reliably riveting in everything he appears in — no matter how great or lousy the project itself is — could sleepwalk through a three-hour live performance was one of the year’s biggest stunners. Whether it was due to age or boredom, Walken lost a big chunk of his luster that night.

That was cathartic; now it’s time to praise television again! Check back Thursday for more 2014 TV VIPs.

The post The 10 Biggest TV Disappointments of 2014 appeared first on TV & Not TV.

Give him the Hook! (Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

I really thought I was prepared for all of Peter Pan Live!’s possible outcomes: It could have ended up a complete disaster (as many in the Twitterverse had hoped it would), or (more likely) a largely mediocre production on par with last year’s The Sound of Music Live!, or turned out to be a tour de force for Christopher Walken’s Captain Hook, as he steamrolled over everything in his path, especially poor Allison Williams as Peter Pan.

But I never saw this coming: a Peter Pan Live! that was quite good — much better than its promos indicated, and certainly a marked improvement on all fronts from Sound of Music Live! — save for one confounding performance: Walken’s.

I knew Walken would be the night’s wild card, but usually he’s the one who saves shows, not sabotages them. Not this time. The actor seemed to have skipped most of his rehearsals, opting instead to simply wing his way through the performance. Save for a few vintage Walken moments — tap dancing during “Vengeance,” snarling “Hoist up the children!” late in the production and finally showing some verve during “Captain Hook’s Waltz” — he was in a completely different show than his costars. At times he seemed lost in his own world, mouthing his lines and marking his steps, as if not realizing this was the actual performance, and not just a run-though. During his climatic swordfight with Peter, he could barely be bothered to lift his saber.

What a waste of Walken. Where was the performance we all expected from the man who spectacularly danced — and flew, Peter Pan-like — his way through “Weapon of Choice”?

Instead, in the night’s biggest surprise, Williams was the one who took charge and carried Peter Pan on her elevated shoulders. She was an immediate upgrade from last year’s non-actress lead, Carrie Underwood, and deftly handled the technically grueling role — at times, she was singing, flying and flipping head over heels, all at once. And unlike her Girls counterpart Marnie, she sang with gusto. (Sadly, her bizarre fishnet and spandex costume was never explained.)

The cast’s other standouts included Christian Borle, as Hook’s sidekick Smee, who helped camouflage Walken’s fogginess while pulling double duty as the Darling clan’s father, George. If only he had played Hook instead! And Kelli O’Hara was her usual powerhouse self as Mrs. Darling (sorry, no first name for you!).

Aside from Williams, the real star of the evening was the production’s ambitious, superior technical design. The set was a marvel, and showcased lovingly with confident camera movement that was a substantial improvement over the previous year’s pedestrian work. (As an added bonus, the sound issues that plagued The Sound of Music were also eradicated.) Cameras swooped and soared like Peter himself, and even got right in the center of some numbers to interact with the cast. Equally impressive were the live CGI effects, notably Tinkerbell. And the flying scenes were executed without a hitch.

Yet there are still more improvements to be made before next year’s live special. The awkward, abrupt cuts to commercial (and particularly in the last hour, there were a lot of them) made AMC’s Mad Men transitions look downright professional.

The cast (Walken aside) and crew’s outstanding work exposed the production’s biggest flaw: its problematic book. While producers rewrote and excised Peter Pan’s most cringeworthy sections (involving the Indians on the island, who were reconceived into a “tribe” that appeared to be refugees from Duran Duran’s “Rio” video), they didn’t do enough cutting and trimming.

The show dragged at three hours, easily one hour too long. Much of Peter Pan’s story is just plain weird: a stranger abducts three children and forces one of them to mother him and his friends, Wendy keeps coming on to Peter (she can’t take the hint that he’s just not into her), Hook spanks Peter, and the least menacing pirates in history are too busy incessantly dancing with one other to accomplish anything even remotely dastardly. Then in the end, Peter ditches Wendy for a younger model. He is all grown up, after all!

Still, the show somehow pulled it off. I believed a boy could fly, I believed in fairies, I believed that Allison Williams did better than anyone would have expected and I believed that NBC learned its lessons from last year’s production. Congratulations, NBC, you have plenty to crow about.

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It’s Thursday, which means that it’s time for my weekly Adweek Throwback Thursday column. In honor of tonight’s Peter Pan Live! (which could turn out to be as big of a disaster as the fishnet and spandex that makes up Allison Williams’ Peter Pan costume), I revisited promos from various live programs, including my favorite “live” promo, for ER’s live episode in 1997.

As I wrote,

The show was at its creative peak, and this fantastic promo captured all its glory. Old episode footage was filmed as it played on a monitor, setting a dramatic, nail-biting tone punctuated by ace voiceover work from maestro Don LaFontaine.

See, “anything can happen. Anything!” (Quick question: Is the “Oh My God!” you hear in this clip the same one used in every single ER promo, or did they actually record a new one each time?) Alas, the episode itself was a dramatic dud, but the promo had more than done its job.

I also unearthed promos from 30 Rock’s (second) live episode, a long-forgotten Jon Lovitz Fox special from 1992, and 2008’s so-awful-it-can-never-be-forgotten Rosie Live.

#TBT: Long Before Peter Pan, TV Promos Were Promising ‘Anything Can Happen’ on Live Shows

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