TV shows that got better after a weak first season

[electr1cgoblin]

Homicide: Life on the Street
Babylon 5
NYPD Blue
Barney Miller
All in the Family
Millenium (then got worse after Season 2 again)
Taxi
Simpsons
Family Guy
King of the Hill
STS9
ST: Voyager


I always think of the life of TV shows like the life of a person. The first few years are spent finding out how to walk, "getting your legs", so to speak, finding out what works. The second portion is the glory portion; ;hitting your stride, having formed a real identity. The last portion gets weaker again as things begin to wind down and forward motion slows a lot. It's pretty much like that for most (though not all) shows.

[Sacred Knight]

American Dad. First season was mostly super conservative dad butts heads with super liberal daughter. The show was transformed though when they hit upon the idea of Roger and his personas, and of course giving the rest of the cast more personality.

[Immortal Weapon]

Star Wars Rebels. First season of Rebels cookie cutter Saturday morning cartoon fare and was too small in scale. Things picked up a bit when Vadar showed up and when the second season rolled around it felt like the show was firing on all engines and kept that momentum until the end of it's run.

[MyriVerse]

Doctor Who (reboot): 1st season is unbearable for me. Style, plots, everything.
X-Files wasn't really bad to start, but very unrefined.
Fringe went from ho-hum to WTF!
Simpsons were far from tuned.
Angel: Doyle died to make this great. I didn't really know what Cordy's purpose was until this.
Cougar Town was almost completely redesigned after the first several eps.

[Synestra]

Others already named most of the ones I would've (Simpsons, Buffy, Angel, The X-Files). Funny enough, I still enjoy the first seasons of all those, even though the shows improved afterwards.

Additionally I'll add Supernatural. The first season felt like a chore for me to get through, but I definitely improved up through season 5.
Charmed also improved after season 1, but despite liking it I admit its quality fluctuated throughout all season in general.

[Totoro Man]

I've been told that "Star Wars: the Clone Wars" got a lot better. in the middle of the first season. I gave up after four episodes because I got tired of the formulaic stories:
Jedi is sent to lead stormtroopers on a mission. they get in trouble. the clone troopers whine that nobody cares about them because they're clones. the Jedi initiates something like a group hug. deus ex machina victory ensues and they win. after three or four episodes I was afraid they were going to use this formula for the ENTIRE JEDI COUNCIL and gave up. but friends and family told me that they actually got a lot better later in the season.

"Beast Wars" season 1 ranged from passable to downright wretched UNTIL the last three or four episodes.... then it actually got interesting. fortunately season 2 of Beast Wars was an exponential improvement over the first.

[Jackalope89]

While I wouldn't call Avatar the Last Airbender season 1 "weak", just in comparison to seasons 2 and 3. Especially when Toph joins up, the series truly shines.

[Jim Kelly]

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

The first seventeen episodes of SEINFELD were spread out sporadically, on an irregular schedule, from July 5, 1989, to June 26, 1991--before it got a full order for the so-called third season.

And those episodes stand out for me, because it was the underdog, like supporting a losing team. Nobody else seemed to appreciate it, but I was hanging in there, willing it to succeed. And I'd say that's when it was really a show about nothing. When it became popular, it was more like a regular sitcom, with a predictable plot structure. I still liked it then, but there's something appealing about those years when it struggled to be seen.

THESE FRIENDS OF MINE was like a SEINFELD clone. And after the first season it dumped most of its cast and became ELLEN. That's the version that became popular. But I actually liked the first season and I felt sorry for the cast members that were dumped by their boss.

[DrNewGod]

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.

S1 was cringe worthy. However, it installed some really important infrastructure (Earth's slide into totalitarianism, the lurking Big Bad, organic technology, the unilateral authoritarianism of the Vorlons, the Mimbari knowing but withholding key info, the hunger of the Centari to return to greatness). You can follow B5 without enduring S1, but the story is somehow less rich.

[Synestra]

While I wouldn't call Avatar the Last Airbender season 1 "weak", just in comparison to seasons 2 and 3. Especially when Toph joins up, the series truly shines.

Yeah, ATLA season 1 came to my mind, but I refrained because I also don't consider the first season weak, especially with episodes like The Storm and The Blue Spirit. It just that season 2 really propels the show like you said, with Toph and Azula coming in.

[K7P5V]

Definitely Season Two of Iron Man (1994):

[K7P5V]

Definitely Season Two of Fantastic Four (1994):

[Frontier]

Star Wars Rebels. First season of Rebels cookie cutter Saturday morning cartoon fare and was too small in scale. Things picked up a bit when Vadar showed up and when the second season rolled around it felt like the show was firing on all engines and kept that momentum until the end of it's run.

I think the show picks up when the Inquisitor finally shows up, but it definitely comes into it's own by season 2 and when Ahsoka and Vader show up.

[ChrisIII]

Season 2 of TNG pretty much put the crew in their regular places for the rest of the series (Worf as full security/tactical, Geordi in engineering, Riker with the beard, Quinan etc.) and introduced the Borg but still kind of suffered a bit.


Despite some strong episodes (Measure of a Man, Q Who, Elementary, Dear Data etc.) there were also a bunch of forgettable and bad ones, and also one or two scripts that were recycled from the Phase II series. This was mainly because of the writer's strike that year I think.

There's also Shades of Gray, the season finale, which was a clip show.

It's kind of weird that most of the Treks take until season 3 to get real good, when season 3 was arguably when TOS started to really decline.

[godisawesome]

Yeah, ATLA season 1 came to my mind, but I refrained because I also don't consider the first season weak, especially with episodes like The Storm and The Blue Spirit. It just that season 2 really propels the show like you said, with Toph and Azula coming in.

That’s a good way to look at it; the first season was good, but the follow up season was fantastic.

Another example to me would be The Spectacular Spider-Man - the first season is still great, but Season 2 goes up a significant level.