9 Good Shows With Terrible Titles
A TV show title is a work of art in itself. As a writer or executive, you want to pique viewers’ curiosity while conveying a sense of your show’s storyline and tone. And we wish the creators and networks behind the shows below had spent a little more time at the drawing board.
In some of these cases, the title is opaque. In others, the title is on-the-nose. And sometimes, the title just doesn’t make a lick of sense. And none does justice to its show, which is actually an enjoyable experience once you get past the title card.
(A dishonorable mention, which we wouldn’t call a good show, is the hodgepodge of words and punctuation that is Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.)
Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23
A sitcom with Krysten Ritter playing a nigh-sociopathic roommate and James Van Der Beek playing a vain version of himself? Sign us up. But then there’s that title — a jokey, censored, sorta-rhyming mouthful. Between that title and the decision to air Season 1 episodes randomly in Season 2, maybe it’s network execs who shouldn’t be trusted.
iZombie
Into a TV industry full of derivative police procedurals came this unique addition to the genre, a comedy-drama about a medical examiner who eats peoples brains. Its source material shares the same name, but get this: That comic series was originally titled I, Zombie, which is a much better title, especially because it doesn’t sound like a 2000s-era tech product.
Selfie
ABC would have been silly to name this sitcom after its inspiration, the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, or its predecessor adaptation, the Broadway musical and film My Fair Lady. But calling the show Selfie reduces a charming story — with Karen Gillan as a recovering narcissist and John Cho as her social media-averse PR sage — to a faddish title bound to turn off anyone older than millennial age.
Happy Endings
To this day, we’re still not quite clear on why this sitcom shares a name with slang for the, ahem, culmination of an erotic massage. What could have been a worthy successor to Friends — with the comedic stylings of stars like Casey Wilson and Damon Wayans Jr., no less — ended up with the unhappy ending of a cancellation after Season 3.
Animal Kingdom
No, we’re not talking about the Disney theme park of the same name; we’re talking about a TV show. And no, it’s not a nature documentary either. It’s a drama about a Southern California crime family and its alpha-dog matriarch. It’s based on an Australian film of the same name, but metaphors that work in cinema sometimes get lost in the translation to television.
God Friended Me
In the 1990s, CBS gave us Joan of Arcadia, a drama about a teenage girl who communicates with God. In the 2010s, the network gave us God Friended Me, a drama about a young man who gets friended by God on Facebook. CBS should have given viewers a little more credit — we don’t need such a literal title for a show with a high-concept premise.
The Unicorn
Between Walton Goggins’ Justified breakout and his White Lotus and Fallout fame, he starred in this sitcom, playing an widowed father who’s prized in the dating scene. Yes, his eligible-bachelor status might make him a “unicorn,” but that title doesn’t convey that the show is a heartwarming tale of a man navigating a second romantic act.
GCB
ABC, bless its heart, didn’t have the guts to keep the title of this soapy comedy-drama’s source material, Good Christian Bitches, a Kim Gatlin novel centering on pious but petty Texas women and the newcomer they shun. So instead we get GCB, an initialism that no one would know from Adam.
Cougar Town
The exemplar of unfairly-titled TV shows, Cougar Town has a lot to do with Courteney Cox’s character and her fun-loving, wine-guzzling, Penny Can-playing neighbors and almost nothing to do with older women chasing younger men. Co-creator Bill Lawrence ended up disavowing the name and considering a retitling that, unfortunately for us all, never transpired.
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All great shows. Happy Endings deserved multiple seasons past 3 and Cougar Town is a treasure
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