TV Tuesday: Caption Use

[yourlibrarian]

Shows can change over time, for better or for worse. Which show with an excellent first season shouldn't have gotten a second/more seasons? Which shows had a great comeback season after a disappointing first season?

Comments

[jo]

Shows that had good/great first seasons and then went downhill:

Prison Break: should have been a mini-series. The whole first season was about breaking out of prison, which they managed to do. And then... it didn't have a point anymore.

Heroes: Great first season, and then they had no idea where to go with it. I'd read that the showrunners literally had no roadmap for the series and were making it up as they went along. Not sure if that's true, but that's what it felt like.

Westworld: Brilliant first season. Then it started to go downhill -- I never bothered with the last two seasons.

Altered Carbon: The first season was great. The second... was not.


Shows that started poorly but then improved as they went along:

M*A*S*H*: started as a very slapstick-y comedy that rarely touched on serious stuff, but by season 3, some cast members started to change and it became more of a dramedy, the characters were allowed to grow, etc. It just got better and better.

Black Sails: Not that the first season is bad, exactly, it's just really, really slow and a bit of a challenge to get into. I had to try 3-4 times before I managed it. But each subsequent season? Simply great!

Star Trek: The Next Generation: the first couple of seasons are pretty bad -- weak, often recycled scripts, the characters didn't seem to know who they were, the writing was uneven, etc. But it definitely got better from season 3 onwards.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: It didn't start off as badly as ST:TNG, but it didn't really find itself until the whole Dominion War thing took off. One they worried less about doing stand-alone episodes and leaned into the long-running storylines, it just soared.

Fringe: Started off very "monster of the week"/X-Files rip-off, but then found its groove.

The Last Kingdom: Had a solid first season as a BBC show, but once it moved to Netflix, it just really took off.

[yourlibrarian]

I haven't seen Altered Carbon, but I've heard that about Prison Break from various people over the years. Have to agree about Heroes. By comparison I think Westworld had someplace to go but I agree that none of the seasons were as strong as the first.

I have only seen Black Sails once, but I remember the first season as being very strong (if difficult viewing at times). However I agree it got more complex as it went on and never had a weak season.

Completely true about Next Gen, I may have quit watching for a while. I do agree that DS9 got better as it went along.

[rogueslayer452]

Heroes was one of those shows that I fell in love with instantly, and fell out of love with just as quickly. It's a shame because there was so much potential with it, but it really was clear they had no idea what they wanted to do after the first season. IIRC, there was a plan on having the show be an anthology, focusing on different characters each season and their powers, but the popularity of some of the S1 characters had the show focus on them instead. I didn't even bother watching the revival series, which seemed to not really change much of anything, from what I heard.

[lycomingst]

Sleepy Hollow comes to mind. The first season was all wacky fun but the original producers left. The new ones thought what was lacking more young white dudes as leads. It was bad.

[yourlibrarian]

God yes, such wasted potential!

[rogueslayer452]

God, I'm still so bitter about Sleepy Hollow even after all these years. Such wasted potential. I'll never forgive them for how they mistreated Nicole Beharie, pretty much sidelined her entirely despite literally being one of the two leads of the show! Ugh. I keep wondering what could've been, especially in regards to Abbie/Ichabod.

[china_shop]

Oh yes! I loved season 1!!

[rogueslayer452]

For shows that started out with real potential but went downhill in some form or another:

Yellowjackets. This one is interesting because there are two timelines that are interwoven with each other, and the 90s timeline in the wilderness has been the best and far more consistent than the present day timeline. The first season was solid for both of them, but over the course of the show it became apparent that they had no idea where to go with the adult storyline. In hindsight, the show really should've just been about the teens stranded in the wilderness because that, to me, is the more intriguing part of the show.

Stranger Things. Admittedly I only watched the first season, so I don't have much to say beyond that aside from what others have said (and I'm not going to judge based on individual opinions, so), however I do think the show works best with only the first season as a stand-alone limited series. It was nicely crafted, with all separate storylines coming together in the end, with an ambiguous ending that could have purposefully been left unanswered for the mystery of it.

Euphoria. I really enjoyed show when it premiered, but the momentum was lost when COVID happened prolonging and then limiting its production at the time, and some behind-the-scenes drama that unfortunately shifted the direction of the story and the show in general. I actually recently rewatched season one and it's still a very solid season, it had a lot of good components that went into the making of it that, sadly, for whatever reason, was lost after that. Which is a shame, honestly. In truth, this, too, could've just been a miniseries, or even just a movie.

As for shows that had a great comeback after disappointing or lackluster first seasons:

Parks and Recreation. The first season is quite different in comparison to the rest of the show. It wasn't so much disappointing as it was just odd and lackluster, especially in comparison to the rest of the show you can definitely see that contrast.

Agents of SHIELD. Although I adored the show from the start, many have said they quit watching only some episodes into the first season because it was very episodic and boring, however this is an example of a show that actually picked up that momentum midway through the first season due to plot twist and after that just kept getting better and better as the show continued on.

[yourlibrarian]

I've heard that about Parks & Rec. I did try a few episodes of that somewhere along the way and stalled on them. I think it's now on Peacock but when I get it again, I'll try and remember to start with S2.

[tinny]

My Lady Jane. Still kinda salty about it not getting a second season. <3