We’ve previously written about inventors who came to regret their innovations and novelists who learned to loathe their work. But what about television shows? We have also written about 12 Actors Who Disappeared From Popular TV Shows (And What Really Happened).
But what about TV writers who dislikes their storylines, so we decided to offer 15 controversial storylines TV writers regret writing…
1. Eric Kripke, the showrunner, regrets Lamplighter’s death on The Boys.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2-3.jpg)
They’d already put his death into the script when they saw Shawn Ashmore in the role, but Kripke was so impressed with his performance that he regretted his decision. “We, the writers, were convinced that Lamplighter deserved to die for what he did. You know, he burned a bunch of kids alive. “It’s not great behavior,” he told TV Guide. “But after casting Shawn and witnessing his dailies, I must admit that I regret killing Lamplighter… It was too late. At that moment, we were already well into the scripts.”
2. Marti Noxon is not certain Tara should have died in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/11-1.jpg)
The showrunner told Vulture, “There were instances of season six when I felt we went too far. We pushed into some categories that almost felt sadistic, and Buffy was volunteering for things that went beyond ‘poor choices’ and were nearly reckless for her character. […] And I believe that killing Tara was unnecessary.
3. Lena Dunham laments an episode in which Jessa sleeps with an ex for retribution.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/12-1.jpg)
“She was a little too soulless,” the author told HollywoodReporter.com. “There was something about that that didn’t speak to who that character was, and we were trying to figure out how to write for someone confident but had a dark side. So that isn’t something I enjoy watching.
4. They lament Chrissy’s loss, especially given her chemistry with Eddie.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/5-3.jpg)
The Duffer brothers admit they were surprised by how well the two characters worked together on television. “We always have those moments [of ‘What have we done?’],” Matt Duffer explained to TVLine.The Stranger Things creators regret killing off Bob in season four.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/4-4.jpg)
“When we killed Bob in Season 2, I did not want to do it. We fell in love with both of the characters and Sean Astin. And Sean did not want to die. “Winona Ryder did not want him to die,” Matt Duffer told TVLine. “But we’ll find something else to do with Grace, something else to do with Sean,” he told me. Hmmm…
5. Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse expressed dissatisfaction with the way the show’s writers handled Jacob’s backstory.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1-3.jpg)
Speaking of the final season, he stated, “There was no way to answer all of the outstanding questions that had lingered during the previous 119 episodes of the show. We tried a variation of it with the episode Across the Sea, which was a couple of episodes before the finale and was highly mythical about Jacob and the Man in Black’s beginnings. That’s what responses look like. And I didn’t think it was fantastic.
6. Marta Kauffman, the co-creator of Friends, regrets making Chandler’s parents’ gender the subject of numerous jokes on the program.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/6-3.jpg)
“We kept referring to her as Chandler’s father, even though Chandler’s father was trans,” according to what she told the BBC. “I did not yet understand pronouns. So we didn’t address that character as female. “That was an error.”
7. This is why Dan Fogelman, the creator of Us, wishes he had not included the storyline in which Kate calls her father before he drives intoxicated.
![15 Controversial Storylines TV Writers Regret Writing](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/7-2.jpg)
The episode featured a flashback of Kate’s father, Jack, getting off the phone with his daughter before embarking on a dangerous drive. “That was a head fake on our part,” he informed me. “While I thought, ‘Oh, that’s good, intriguing timing,’ and that people would expect it, I had no idea the narrative surrounding that moment would become so strong. If I could go back in time, that’s the moment I’d choose, merely to slow the spread of our story.”
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8. The Walking Dead’s creator, Robert Kirkman, regrets the episode in which Rick and the crew learn of the virus’s spread.
![](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/8-4.jpg)
“If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have done the CDC episode,” he said to The Hollywood Reporter. “It may have given away too much information and was a significant move early in the series. I’ve been careful in the comic series not to discuss what’s going on in other regions of the world. It’ll be interesting to investigate in the spinoff series. But given the fact that France is mentioned in that episode and other things like that, I definitely would have avoided such material if I had to do it all over again.”
9. Shonda Rhimes regrets murdering Dylan Young on Grey’s Anatomy.
![](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/9-1.jpg)
In a 2013 interview about characters she wishes she hadn’t killed off, Rhimes admitted that she “probably wouldn’t have blown up Kyle Chandler.” Later, in 2017, she revealed that she did not anticipate the “natural” Kyle Chandler to do the role, stating that she “didn’t want to explode him.”
10. Showrunner Jason Rothenberg regrets killing Lexa in The 100.
![](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/10-1.jpg)
He stated that the death was intended to highlight the fragility of life, but it ended up perpetuating the frightening ‘Bury Your Gays’ cliché. Our strong promotion of the episode and this relationship further reinforced the sense of betrayal.”
11. Kevin Williamson of The Vampire Diaries had envisioned a different ending in which “both brothers [in a love triangle] should die in the name of saving their girl and then be watching her like ghosts—because we had introduced the Other Side—as she went off into the sunset to live her life and maybe marry Matt Donovan or maybe become a doctor.”
![](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/3-3.jpg)
At this point, “If Nina had never left, I would’ve loved to have been able to see if Stefan and Elena could’ve found their way back to each other,” according to him.
12. Simpsons creator Matt Groening regrets the entire The Principal and the Pauper episode, which altered Seymour’s identity.
The episode, in which we find Seymour Skinner was Armin Tamzarian the entire time, prompted Groening to comment, “By the time we finished the episode, we realized it was a mistake, and we had a judge say, ‘We’ll never speak of this matter again.'” “And we never did.”
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13. Josh Schwartz, the creator of The O.C., wishes he had not murdered Marissa Cooper.
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Schwartz responded “yes” when asked if he regretted his decision on Instagram Live. “You know, it upset a lot of people in a way that the show was designed to bring pleasure,” the actor said. “It was quite final in the sense that we could never resolve it. “It was a decision that was made for many reasons that seemed to be informed at the time, but then you know…
14. Amy Sherman-Palladino laments the attention the Rory/Jess/Dean love triangle storyline received on Gilmore Girls.
![](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/15.jpg)
“It is only a little aspect of Rory’s personality… Sometimes I wish the Dean and Jess story wasn’t so prominent because, in the broad picture of Rory’s life, who her boyfriend was when she was 16 is such a minor event,” she told Time Magazine. “She chose certain boys for her based on who she was at the moment. It was part of her personality. “It was part of her development,” she explained.
15. Chuck Lorre regrets killing Sheldon’s father in Young Sheldon.
![](https://www.stationreporter.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/16.jpg)
Lorre said in an Instagram post that was shared by actor Raegan Revord, “Eighteen years ago, when we were writing and producing The Big Bang Theory, it seemed like a good idea to imagine that Sheldon’s childhood was deeply disrupted by the loss of his father.” Nobody could have predicted that we would later come to regret our decision. “That someday is now.”
Do you have something to contribute, or do you have an opinion on whether the writers were correct to dislike their storylines? Please let us know in the comments below!