6 Mediocre Shows That Are Only Popular Due to Hate-Watchers

When something goes bad it’s only natural to throw it away, right? However, sometimes the emotional bond with it is so strong that you just can’t let go of it, even if you understand it no longer serves its purpose. And we are not only talking about physical stuff here.

The same goes about TV shows we watch on a daily basis. The moment we realize a show we used to love is no longer cool – we can stop watching it, right? But instead, we continue to engage, talking about it, reading about it, complaining about it. That’s what hate-watching is.

So here are 6 shows that we unintentionally made extremely popular and still can’t stop rewatching on our worst days.

1. ‘Emily In Paris’ (2020-)

IMDb: 6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 64% from critics, 50% from audience

So many stereotypes in one show! I don’t know what the creators were thinking about putting everything they thought they knew about France and French without thinking twice. Emily in Paris wanted so hard to be a rom-com about an independent young woman balancing high stakes career and love life, that they failed to make it at least a little realistic.

It all started with Emily's every decision turning out either right or wrong, but for the best. Then the writers added the absolutely awful love drama with so many exes and “we can’t be together for this stupid reason” plotlines. However, you just can’t stop watching it because the desire to find out how this freak show will end is stronger than anything…

2. ‘And Just Like That’ (2021-)

IMDb: 5.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 59% from critics, 33% from audience

The only people watching this are probably the fans of cult classic show Sex and the City. While the OG series were brilliant at the time, the revival felt absolutely forced and unnecessary, created only to milk the story a little bit more.

The main characters’ stories are superficial, the problems are not worth even going through and frankly there’s no one you want to root for. But you will watch it till the end, no matter what, because it’s a disease.

3. ‘Glee’ (2009-2015)

IMDb: 6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 70% from critics, 72% from audience

Talking about Glee now, former fans ask one question: “What was it?”. What started out as a promising show about real-life problems of high-schoolers turned into a cringefest of unrealistic plotlines and stories for the sake of creating another season. The flaws that teens had started to feel fake and ridiculous, and that was exactly what kept us glued to screens.

4. ‘Riverdale’ (2017-2023)

IMDb: 6.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 81% from critics, 49% from audience

Riverdale was up to a great start! Season 1 felt natural, and the murder mystery premise was fulfilled to the fullest. However, what followed was the chain of bad decisions in terms of making the universe wider and the stories absolutely unbelievable. There were just too many layers of the supernatural that we lost in it.

However, we continued hate-watching it because it was just too weird to give up halfway.

5. ‘Pretty Little Liars’ (2010-2017)

IMDb: 7.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 81% from critics, 81% from audience

Pretty Little Liars was another series that went on for too long. The result – just too many plot holes to keep up. Seems like after a certain point the character development just stopped and the plot kept becoming less and less interesting. However it wasn't easy to give up the show because of the main mystery still being there – the identity of "A."

6. ‘Euphoria’ (2019)

IMDb: 8.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 87% from critics, 84% from audience

Despite the high ratings, this series absolutely belongs here in this list. Everything is Euphoria seems unrealistic and absolutely not relatable. Every scene is grotesque, and every character is caricaturish. The real content of the show is simply out of touch with the premise of what was supposed to be a teenage show. It was just too mature and depressing, and we probably kept on watching just to find out how much darker it can get.