It’s too early to tell whether Paramount Network’s new Yellowstone series will be a hit, but reviews haven’t exactly been kind so far. The New Yorker called it “ponderous” and “preposterous”. The Hollywood Reporter called it “a big sprawling mess”. The Guardian gave it two stars.

Which would normally be nothing to worry about, except for one thing. Yellowstone marks the big television debut of Kevin Costner, and you just know he expected more from it. When film stars cross over to television, they’re supposed to be unmitigated successes. Look at Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman in Big Little Lies. Look at Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in True Detective. Anthony Hopkins in Westworld. Ewan McGregor in Fargo. Viola Davis in How to Get Away with Murder. Kevin Costner has won Oscars for acting and directing. He was once the biggest movie star in the world. You suspect that he wanted Yellowstone to be more adored than it actually is.

But it’s fine. Not all film-to-TV transitions work out as they should. Here are some of Costner’s contemporaries who’ve similarly struggled to find success on the small screen.

Naomi Watts, Gypsy (one season, 2017)

Photograph: Alison Cohen Rosa/Netflix

It wasn’t just that Gypsy was cancelled. It was that Netflix cancelled it in such an almighty hurry, just six weeks after it debuted. Some would argue that the cancellation came seven weeks too soon. A sexy thriller that lacked all trace of sexy thrillingness, Gypsy was as preposterous as it was boring. The whole thing was a tragic waste of Naomi Watts, especially given her career-best performance over on Twin Peaks: The Return that same year.

Vince Vaughn, True Detective 2 (one season, 2015)

Photograph: Lacey Terrell/AP

Every actor in Hollywood saw what True Detective did for the careers of Harrelson and McConaughey, but Vince Vaughn was the one unlucky enough to actually get cast in its sequel. The second season was a profound disappointment, baffling and rushed and unfocused, and Vaughn came off worse than anyone. What could have been a defining moment in his career became a brand new low, thanks in part to the ridiculous monologue he delivered to a stain in the second episode.

Robin Williams, The Crazy Ones (one season, 2013)

Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images

This could have been so great. Created by David E Kelly, The Crazy Ones was set to be Robin Williams’ big return to TV comedy after a three-decade absence. But something about it just didn’t work. The single-camera set-up and lack of studio audience left Williams projecting into a void, which gave the show a feeling of unintentional spookiness, and viewers fled in their millions. An upsetting way for such a spectacular career to end.

Billy Crystal, The Comedians (one season, 2015)

Photograph: FX

If you never got the feeling that Billy Crystal loved Curb Your Enthusiasm, then this series was solid gold proof. In the FX show The Comedians, Billy Crystal played Billy Crystal pitching a show to FX, specifically to a character transparently based on FX’s real boss. If it had actually been funny, then Crystal might have just pulled off such a masturbatory premise. But it wasn’t, so he didn’t.

Jennifer Lopez, Shades of Blue (three seasons, 2016)

Photograph: NBC/Peter Kramer/NBC

Quick hands up: who knew there was a Jennifer Lopez cop show on TV? And who knew Ray Liotta was in it? That’s right, nobody. Shades of Blue is one of those weird network procedurals that appears to have been churned out overnight by a machine. Nothing is ever really that gripping. No boundaries are ever really pushed. It’s not clever or funny or sexy or good. And ratings have dropped off a cliff to such an extent that this year’s season has already been called its last. It will die unmourned by all.

Woody Allen, Crisis in Six Scenes (one season, 2016)

Photograph: Jessica Miglio/Amazon Prime Video

And now to the very worst film-to-TV transition in all of history. It wasn’t that Amazon’s Crisis in Six Scenes gave us an imperfect version of Woody Allen, because Woody Allen has already been giving us an imperfect version of Woody Allen for the last 25 years. No, it was that Crisis in Six Scenes was such a precipitous drop-off in quality – badly written, badly shot, badly paced, badly acted – that it made you long for dreck like Cassandra’s Dream, because at least that had the good grace to be relatively short. After he’d signed up to make it, Allen said: “It was a catastrophic mistake. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m floundering. I expect this to be a cosmic embarrassment.” At least he was right about that.