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.