Sir, This is a Wendy's

[author_by_night]

  What are some shows you expected to be completely different from how they turned out?

 

- I've never actually seen it, but I assumed New Amsterdam was a period drama about the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now New York. I was very sad that it was a medical drama, which I have never seen out of sheer embarrassment. (In my defense, this was when TV was churning out period dramas and historical fantasies left and right - Downton Abbey, Mad Men, Outlander, Sleepy Hollow. So it wasn't that much of a leap. Or maybe it was, and I'm just a nerd. LOL.)

 

- I thought Brooklyn Nine-Nine was another dramatic police procedural. I did actually watch that one, I loved it, I just wasn't expecting the laughs. (If I'd seen the name behind it, I would have.)

 

- I also expected Our Flag Means Death to be intense and violent and angsty. (You could argue it went there in season two.)

 

- I wasn't into Buffy back when it was first on, but I knew enough Buffy fans that I learned a lot through osmosis. Except my interpretation of what I learned was completely off. I thought along with Willow, there was a character named Ivy (no idea where "Ivy" came from), I hilariously got Angel and Xander mixed up, and I thought they were in high school the whole series.

 

What about you guys? And this is ONLY shows, of course, as per the purpose of the community. :)  This also isn't intended to bash any TV shows, I'm just curious to hear about expectations/assumptions versus reality! 

Comments

[lilysea]

There are actually TWO TV shows called New Amsterdam, not related

one is about someone who has been immortal since the 1400s/1500s

[lilysea]

Okay, New Amsterdam (2008)

A New York homicide detective is cursed with immortality

Mostly set in the present day, with some flash backs

https://youtu.be/JbU0vAUDakw?si=YPnAhrSCSWFRnx64

[author_by_night]

Interesting! I was definitely thinking of the medical drama, but I'll have to check that one out. :)

[lilysea]

I remember enjoying it in 2008 when it first came out

There are only 8 episodes

you might also like Forever (2014), another story about an immortal man living in New York

https://youtu.be/-JmVnyJ16d4?si=Xsp85WTaTYZJnurN

[ganseyisms]

I was just going to post a "I'd have two nickels joke" about Forever :P

[rekishi]

I get Forever the New Amsterdam (both of them) mixed up whenever I remember one of them exists, usually thinking they're the same thing until I remember...no.

[olivermoss]

Advertising for Castle, before it came out, made it sound like Richard Castle's characters were literally coming to life and no one believed him. I do like spooky and fantasy stuff, but that premise combined with what I though the show was about made me not watch for years. I thought it was some super cheesy satire.

I feel like for a while shows had ads that were more meant to grab attention than tell us what the show is, and I can rarely get the vibe on an anime before watching, but for some reason Castle is the one that jumps to mind.

[author_by_night]

I just went and watched a promo, and you're right, it gives absolutely no context for what the show actually IS.

[olivermoss]

There were also some weird print ads with an open book with characters literally coming out of it that just stuck with me. Every time someone mentioned the show to me I thought about it. That is one reason why I like to give shows a try to just see what they are like

[jo]

I don't think this has ever happened to me because I always learn about shows before I watch them -- either I see promotional ads for them on TV and look up info about them online to get an idea about what they're about, or I read reviews, etc. I don't think I've ever just blindly started watching something knowing absolutely nothing about it.

[yourlibrarian]

This has probably happened to me, but chances are I don't remember because I probably stopped watching shows that didn't go where I was expecting. However another way of looking at the question is shows that started out as one thing that become something rather different in focus (if not cast) a season or two in. I'd argue that Good Omens, Sherlock, and Supernatural were all like this.

[mxcatmoon]

The first two are good examples. ;) I was under the impression Good Omens was a comedy...up until the end of season two... 😉 And I'm not sure I can put into words WTH Sherlock turned into. I have a feeling those are common fan sentiments. LOL.

I tried to watch Supernatural and just couldn't get into it. Being on your list though, makes me wonder if I'd like later seasons better.

[yourlibrarian]

Maybe -- I mean, that show went on so long it was kind of like 3 shows.

[mxcatmoon]

I was so envious of the SPN fandom for having a show that was on for so many years. ;) That's what originally made me check it out. Honestly, I can't even wrap my head around it. LOL. But I can imagine after all that time, there would have been changes.

[adafrog]

I was so disappointed when I found out the Yellowstone wasn't actually about Yellowstone National Park. Still am, really. ;)

[misbegotten]

Hee!

[starfleetbrat]

Stargate SG1. When I first watched it I was bitterly disappointed that is was so different to the Stargate Movie which I loved. So much so that I avoided it for a time. It was only a couple of years later at the encouragement of a friend that I watched it with fresh eyes and it ended up becoming one of my primary fandoms. Still is today!

The Orville - I almost didn't watch because I expected it to be stupid and have the same kind of awful (imo) humour I saw in Family Guy/American Dad because Seth MacFarlane was involved and I honestly had not liked a single thing he had written/produced, but I watched it to see how bad it was, and was surprised at how much more of a Star Trek show it was than some Star Trek. I'm really disappointed now that its ending!

[naushika]

Same on Orville for me! I actually watched the first episode way back when it premiered, and I felt like it was making a mockery of Star Trek. So I was disgusted and dropped it immediately. I finally came back to it years later and after pushing through the first handful of episodes, I discovered it was actually a great big love letter to Star Trek, and it was so, so good. I'm sad we never got another season.

[lycomingst]

I watched a few episodes of the British show The Office and it was so much like the horrible office jobs I've had that when the American version was announced I thought, no way. But I watched one or two shows and when the episode "Booze Cruise" aired, I sort of fell in love.

[rekishi]

I thought Queer Eye would be more along the lines of Queer As Folk.

And it's...not. Well.

I also expected Queer As Folk (US) to be more like its UK original and I still don't know whether I'm disappointed about that or not, which is strange after two decades (I also didn't watch the whole US run, just on and off, because back then US tv was still not easy to come by in Europe).

[queer_scribbling]

Under The Dome: From what I'd heard about the book, I thought this was going to be darker. (That's not to say I think it would have automatically been better if the show was darker. I feel like it's pretty common to have something not make it to the screen from a Stephen King book.) I think the reason behind the dome appearing was also changed for the show, especially as things deviated from the book after the first season, but I'm not sure about specifics with how long it's been since I saw the show.

Manifest: The first season absolutely does cover "airplane mysteriously vanishes and lands several years after its disappearance" as advertised, but I feel like I wasn't prepared for later details (one scientist tries to test whether the plane disappearing was a miracle by, like, finding a piece of Noah's Ark or something like that).

The Strain: I had not read the book series before seeing the show [2014 - 2017], so I was just expecting a regular virus based disease. The take on vampirism was not on my radar initially. (I've heard that a woman character was created just for the show, so I have been meaning to go back and read the books to see how things differed without Dutch [her name].)

Midnight, Texas: The main guy wore a black ring on whichever finger was associated with ace signalling, and he had like one line where the gifset going around on Tumblr seemed to support a canon ace character. Granted, this was not the fault of actual advertising setting up an ace friendly expectation, but I was not prepared for a rather major plot point to be that the still-a-virgin-as-an-adult witch needed to have sex in order to not be a virgin sacrifice for the Bad Guy. Knowing the tropes that were being played with a bit, it wasn't entirely unexpected, but after going in with an impression that a character might be ace, I was not interested in all the virgin jokes and sex.

[ruuger]

When the first season of The Mandalorian came out, I was under the misconception that it was about Boba Fett, who I thought was probably the most boring character in existence, and so skipped watching it even though I love Star Wars. I only watched after I rewatched The Mentalist during the pandemic and remembered how much I like Pedro Pascal.

(and then The Mandalorian also made me like Boba Fett, which was unexpected)

And speaking of The Mentalist, I originally watched the pilot for it because I mistook Simon Baker for David Lyons (who I liked on ER).

[naushika]

I thought True Detective: Night Country was just going to be basically the same as other intense solving a murder mystery type tv shows (eg Broadchurch, The Killing), and did not expect the strange atmosphere and potential supernatural and spiritual stuff. It added a great edge, though.

[saddlerfan]

I thought LOST would be basically Cast Away or a more serious version of Gilligan's Island, only as a series. (I guess I was sorta fooled along with the rest of the audience tho, I don't think ANYONE expected for the show to turn into the show it turned into, lol.) I mean it kinda was, but also really not.

[author_by_night]

Exactly! It was set up as being a more serious version of Gilligan's Island, but even not having ever watched it, I know there was a lot more to it.