TV shows that got better after a weak first season

[Chris Lang]

Star Trek: The Next Generation. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. DC's Legends of Tomorrow. What do these shows have in common?

It seems to be the general consensus that all three shows started off pretty weak in their first seasons, but got better as they went along. Star Trek: The Next Generation showed a great improvement in its second and third seasons, bringing us episodes, stories, and character development more fondly remembered than much of the first season. Agents of SHIELD didn't really take off until the HYDRA storyline in the first season's second half, and got better from there. And Legends of Tomorrow, starting from its second season, embraced some of the weirder and sillier aspects of its time travel premise and wasn't afraid to have fun with what they were doing while still providing plenty of character depth.

When it comes to shows that improved after a weak start, these are the three that most easily come to my mind. I'm just wondering if there are any other shows like this - shows that got noticeably and surprisingly better after a weak start.

[TriggerWarning]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. First season is sooooooo BAD. Really hard to believe this show ever got renewed given just how bad so many S1 episodes are. Internet demon. Robots. Xander and the wolfpack. Bug teacher. There were a few good episodes but even those had some cringy moments.

Farscape. For much of the first season it wasn't sure what it wanted to be and came off as a Star Trek ripoff with puppets. D'Argo especially was basically just a Worf knockoff. Eventually though the writers decided to embrace the show's potential for weirdness which made it so much better. Its why I describe it as Star Trek but if the writer's were on acid. And late season one the characters became better developed and the introduction of a series long protagonist in Scorpius helped a lot.

[basbash99]

Star Trek: The Next Generation. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. DC's Legends of Tomorrow. What do these shows have in common?

It seems to be the general consensus that all three shows started off pretty weak in their first seasons, but got better as they went along. Star Trek: The Next Generation showed a great improvement in its second and third seasons, bringing us episodes, stories, and character development more fondly remembered than much of the first season. Agents of SHIELD didn't really take off until the HYDRA storyline in the first season's second half, and got better from there. And Legends of Tomorrow, starting from its second season, embraced some of the weirder and sillier aspects of its time travel premise and wasn't afraid to have fun with what they were doing while still providing plenty of character depth.

When it comes to shows that improved after a weak start, these are the three that most easily come to my mind. I'm just wondering if there are any other shows like this - shows that got noticeably and surprisingly better after a weak start.

I feel like there are a lot of shows that noticeably improve during their 2nd season, but i wouldn't necessarily describe a lot of them as having a 'weak' first season. A lot of sitcoms come to mind (from seinfeld to simpsons). I think both Umbrella Academy and Doom Patrol improved in season 2 but in both cases S1 was still entertaining.

Of course there are tons of shows that go in the other direction, having a stellar first season and then dropping off in quality for S2 (Sleepy Hollow comes to mind, but there are many other examples).

[The Cool Thatguy]

Justified, for me

[Starter Set]

During the first season of Star Trek TNG the problem simply was that the show hadn't found his own identity yet.

It didn't want to be like the original show but it didn't know yet what it wanted to be. They found their marks later on thanksfully.

[DrNewGod]

During the first season of Star Trek TNG the problem simply was that the show hadn't found his own identity yet.

It didn't want to be like the original show but it didn't know yet what it wanted to be. They found their marks later on thanksfully.

Getting Roddenberry away from it was important. His insistence on humanity having achieved a perfect civilization handcuffed writers.

[Jim Kelly]

Obvious examples are THE OFFICE (U.S.), PARKS & RECREATION, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW. I remember back in the day RHODA had a mixed reception when it debuted, but then they changed up the formula and it got better (but never in the same league as THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW). Frankly, I think Lisa Bonet leaving her own show, A DIFFERENT WORLD, after the first season was the best thing for it (hopefully Jason Momoa doesn't come around to my house to beat me up for saying that--but if he does I'll see if I can get his autograph).

[Starter Set]

Getting Roddenberry away from it was important. His insistence on humanity having achieved a perfect civilization handcuffed writers.

Didn't stop the writers from the original show to write some of the best stories ever depicted on tv. But Roddenberry's view was that on Star Trek mankind did make it, did manage to better itself, but even in the original show never was it shown as perfect.

[Gaius]

Second season of Seinfeld wasn't the shows best but easily above the first.

[XPac]

Babylon 5.

First season was honestly kinda boring. Weak might be too strong a word, but a lot of it was build up for what would come later. But it ended up being my all time favorite space sci-fi show.

[Jack Dracula]

Star Trek: The Next Generation. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. DC's Legends of Tomorrow. What do these shows have in common?

Iwas with you right up to Legends of Tomorrow which, imo started off bad and has gotten progressively worse.

[j9ac9k]

A lot of ensemble comedies like "Friends", "The Office" or "Parks & Rec" all improved a lot after the first season because those shows needed time for them to figure out the characters, and then for us to know the characters well enough that they could begin writing character-based humor rather than rely on "funny situations" or jokey lines.

[Zero Hunter]

Didn't stop the writers from the original show to write some of the best stories ever depicted on tv. But Roddenberry's view was that on Star Trek mankind did make it, did manage to better itself, but even in the original show never was it shown as perfect.

By the time New gen started Gene was not the same man he used to be. There is a whole documentary called Chaos on the Bridge that details all the troubles the writers and producers had with Gene that first season of Next Gen. It is a very good watch.

[AndrewCrossett]

Didn't stop the writers from the original show to write some of the best stories ever depicted on tv. But Roddenberry's view was that on Star Trek mankind did make it, did manage to better itself, but even in the original show never was it shown as perfect.

Roddenberry's theory was that humanity could never get it together enough to achieve interstellar space travel unless we put aside all our ancient sources of conflict and worked together. Personally I don't think our species is even theoretically capable of doing so, but that's why it's called science fiction.

Every time we had a scene set on Earth in TNG or any of the movies or TV shows, it was shown as being drab, drab, drab. Everyone wore the same clothes and lived in what looked like hospital lobbies. Any kind of culture or arts were depicted like museum exhibits. I always thought that was due to lack of imagination by the writers or to being forced to kowtow to "Gene's vision" as enforced by Majel and Berman. But really... that's exactly the kind of homogeneous, antiseptic world we would have if we put all conflict behind us. A BORING world. And that's why TOS never had a single scene set on Earth, other than in time-travel episodes. Because the adventure is Out There... it's Wagon Train to the Stars, and in a western adventure nobody wants to see what's going on back east in Boston or wherever.

[TriggerWarning]

Iwas with you right up to Legends of Tomorrow which, imo started off bad and has gotten progressively worse.

Legends has become awesome. When they stopped trying to be a serious show and instead embraced all the goofiness and weirdness that comes with a time traveling comic book show it became absolutely amazing. IMO the last three seasons of Legends are the best seasons of any Arrowverse show to date and its not even close.

So for me Legends absolutely fits this category. I gave up on it somewhere in season II and then skipped out altogether on season III. Then finally I decided to try and catch up. Season II remained a chore and then S3 surprisingly got good and awesome and the climax with Beebo was so amazingly hysterical and awesome.