By Thanksgiving weekend, we've had our fill of turkey. But why not get a festive jump on end-of-the-year "Worst of" lists with a dash of holiday vitriol? Slamming the bottom 20 genre turkeys of 2008, we use the numbering system pioneered by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
20. Doctor Who, season 4: Russell T. Davies will be remembered as the man who not only brought the doctor out of retirement, he'll be the man who made the show more popular than ever. But season 4, with its lame stunt titling ("The Doctor's Daughter") and yet another return of the retread Dalek, proved it was a good idea for Davies to move on and hand the show over to a superior sci-fi writer: Steven Moffat.
19. Movie remakes: One after another. Halloween? Sleuth? Really? Don't re-make good movies. Sure, it saves studios money on development costs and intellectual property acquisitions, but when there's nowhere to go but down, that's usually where these flicks go.
18. Heroes: When even die-hard fans say a TV show is struggling, you know your superheroes have super problems. But even if it runs out of ideas, a series needs to do whatever it can to reach that 100-episode mark so it make a little scratch off syndication.
17. The Fox/Warner Bros. Watchmen legal war: It's a long way from over. Even though fans promise to punish Twentieth Century Fox, we may not see this eagerly awaited graphic novel adaptation until the judges rule.
16. Wanted: An average loser meets a mysterious, gorgeous woman who delivers him to an all-knowing, mysterious African American gentlemen. That same loser discovers that he's the chosen one who must save the world with a mix of bizarre martial arts and skillfully utilized bullet time. I liked this movie -- when it was The Matrix.
15. UFO hunt TV shows: A bunch of vaguely scientific investigators head out to vaguely reported UFO sitings to interview vaguely reliable eye witnesses on vaguely documented extra terrestrial encounters. How can efforts like these not convince the doubters?
14. Ghost hunt TV shows: Paranormal State? Ghost Adventures? Ghost Hunters International? How can so many "serious" supernatural investigation shows survive week after week, even though they find absolutely nothing?
13. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier: On its own, this Alan Moore graphic novel isn't awful. But compared to its masterful predecessors, Black Dossier felt like a tired, fan-alienating effort that screamed "contractual obligation." (This came out late last year, but *after *Thanksgiving).
12. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer: They're a writing/directing team. They should stop. Why should they stop? Check out their filmography.
11. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale: "A Dungeon Siege Tale?" Were you expecting there to be more? No. That week's Jason Statham movie turned out to be just a lame Lord of the Rings rip-off.
10. Cloverfield: C'mon! The plot was basically, "Walk here. Die there." And the lauded monster looked like it was assembled by evolution after losing a bet.
9. 10,000 B.C.: This movie cost a fortune, lost a fortune, and left critics and its meager audience shaking their heads. Naturally, studios offered Roland Emmerich the chance to make 2012.
8. X-Files: I Want to Believe: I wanted to leave. This sluggish, self-important tribute to clinical depression managed to kill the franchise.
7. Jumper: How not to make a movie: Make your hero an arrogant, dishonest jack-ball. How to save your movie: Make the villain a slightly more arrogant, dishonest jack-ball and hope the audience will root for the lesser of two balls.
6. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: This desperately unnecessary sequel was so bad it's hard to believe Stephen Sommers didn't direct it.
5. Torchwood: Lost Souls: The second season of this Doctor Who spin-off was much improved on TV but this off-season radio production on BBC4? Bland and uneventful.
4. The Love Guru: Mike Myers was determined to prove that midget jokes and toilet humor could entertain an audience for a couple hours. He pulled that off -- if you substitute "bore and disgust" for "entertain."
3. Brit TV remakes: Stop remaking good British TV shows. The Office worked. Life on Mars doesn't steam like the pile it could have been. But, remakes like My Own Worst Enemy (Jekyll) was euthanized, and Eleventh Hour isn't far behind. It will soon join the recreations of *Cracker *and Touching Evil.
2. Knight Rider: It's not like the bar was set very high by David Hasselhoff in the original series, but NBC's new Knight ended up tripping over it, falling on it and somehow swallowing it.
1. The Happening: Pretentious. Overwrought. Ridiculous. M. Night Shyamalan's latest gift to us packed that special kind of awfulness brought to us previously by Gigli, Showgirls and related cannon fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Images courtesy MorgueFile
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