Conducting a survey.

[hannah]

The topic of skippable first seasons of TV came up recently. It's a common one in fandom - "you only need these four episodes", "grit your teeth and get through it," "just start on season two." Whatever the given entertainment or narrative value of those seasons that varies from person to person, there's general agreement that they're nowhere near as good as what comes after.

It's got me wondering: what TV shows have genuinely good first seasons? I don't mean one-season wonders like Wonderfalls or Freaks and Geeks, and I don't mean premium cable shows like Deadwood and Six Feet Under. I don't mean shows that had wonderful pilots and then never realized that promise. I mean stuff that ran on ordinary networks for at least two seasons.

What first seasons of TV are fully and enjoyably watchable all the way through?

The first thing which comes to mind for me is Scrubs - a little shaky and still steady on its feet, funny where it wanted to be funny and serious when it was supposed to be serious. petra suggested Slings & Arrows, which is a show that never got worse than "amazingly good."

I'm curious what someone else might come up with.

Comments

[corvidology]

I think the first season of Person of Interest was excellent right from the first episode.

Also, Life on Mars (UK) is excellent.

[lilacsigil]

I hated the first episode of Person of Interest, so much so that I didn't watch again for ages, until I heard about the AI storyline. I would say it was great from the second episode, and the first episode has a lot of rewarding things when you re-watch, but it suffers from some major pilot problems which are absolutely not apparent later.

[corvidology]

I've lived in the US for long enough that my standards for pilot episodes may have been lowered. :D

My biggest issue with US pilot episodes is that they're usually 'information dumps' where they attempt to tell you the whole storyline and POI didn't do that.

I'm not one of those fans who can skip episodes/seasons to get to the 'good stuff' so I often don't get past the first couple of episodes.