What show took you the longest to get into?
I recently decide to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm and I only really started to enjoy the show after season four.
I feel like a lot of dramas like The Americans, Dark, and Narcos take me a little while to get invested but it's typically only a season.
Parks and Rec is a great show....If you just straight up skip season 1. Season one did not have its legs and I can't really believe it didn't get canceled before season 2.
Season 1 was charming but it becomes an excellent show when Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt show up. It starts running on all cylinders. (It's one of my favorite shows.)
Season 1 is terrible, they were basically trying to do a The Office spin-off but the humor fell completely flat.
I can’t really believe it didn’t get canceled before season 2.
I agree ... how did it not get cancelled?
it was only 6 episodes and i guess had goodwill from the office writers? idk NBC tried to cancel parks and rec all the time at its peak so its amazing how it didnt get instantly canned
My friend who recommended it to me before I had ever seen it basically said the same, but I loved it from the beginning.
I still think it's worth watching from season 1 - there are a couple of pretty good episodes and it sets up some stuff that comes back later on, like building the park in the vacant lot. Plus, it's only 6 episodes IIRC.
The expanse
It's very good, has me from very beginning, but there's a lot going on to keep track of. My wife and I have restarted it about 4 times but haven't made it through the first season, so we decided we need to find some time to really sit down and binge it, because if we walk away from it for a few days we lose track of everything that was going on and need to start over again.
I had such a troubled relationship with The Expanse S01 as well.
I read the novel and thought the writing was meh, so I dropped it at some point.
Then my friends were telling me the show was great, so I gave it a go but got bored at about the same point and stopped.
So other friends insisted it was great, so I tried it again with my GF. She complained about the show, but we decided to really see what this show was about and stick with it no matter what.
Turns out I thought the story was heading into some sort of "space zombies" tale, but I couldn't have been more wrong. And the characters I thought were so bland and indistinguishable in S01 gained so much nuance that they're now so clear in my mind years later.
It's definitely one of my favorite sci-fi shows of all time. I guess it's worth listening to your friends and sticking with things sometimes.
I tried watching an episode of Schitt's Creek when it started but it just didn't click for me. My sister convinced me to just watch through the first season earlier this year and it got so much better with each season. So quotable, great comedic timing, character development, loved it.
Going through a similar thing with Star Trek atm. Didn't give it much attention until I passively watched a couple episodes that my boyfriend had on. Hooked on Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks now.
The SNW/LD crossover episode was one of the most anticipated things of 2023 for me and fully delivered, just the perfect loveletter to being a Trekkie whilst also building on a fair number of personal plot developments.
If you've not already watched it I'd check out Prodigy too - it's probably the most underrated Nu Trek series imo being aimed at younger viewers. That said I loved it as an adult (ostensibly) and am praying season 2 gets picked up soon.
As to the topic, I can't think of anything as even series heavy on world building/low on action at the start like Andor or The Expense drew me in from the beginning.
Yeah, I was fully expecting Prodigy to be too childish but they nailed it as an "all ages" feel that even as a miserable bloke pushing 40 I could enjoy. Really hop they get another series as that show is miles ahead of Discovery and is a great entry point for the franchise.
The wire. Think I started season 1 about 5 times. Then I stuck it out. Hands down the best show I’ve seen.
I was hooked by episode 4 when Bunk and McNulty are at the crime scene
Fuck
This was my experience as well. I ended up loving it!
The Office
I never watched much TV, and ignored the hype. Then I tried season 1 while on Netflix, and was bored. Recently I skipped season 1, and really got hooked mid-season 2. Now I have my mom and aunt hooked.
There's only like two series and a couple of specials of The Office anyway, fourteen episodes in total I think.
British version of the Office. Still not into it.
Actually, why qualify it? Any version of the Office...
American Office is a bit of an acquired taste as Dry Humor often is...
The Office UK is where I became convinced that Ricky Gervais is one of the least funny comedians of all time, nothing has been able to change my mind.
Breaking Bad took me a good 6 episodes or so. It starts off so dark and unappealing.
BSG (the remake) took me 3-4 episodes. Same deal.
But my god, they’re both pure gold.
Breaking Bad was so depressing. I couldn't binge it - my husband and I could only do an episode at a time once every few days, with sitcoms immediately after or in between. We finished it and it was truly well done and deserves all its praise, but it was a slog just because of how dark it was.
I made it through the first season but wasn't enjoying it enough to continue after that. It seems extremely well executed but man is it bleak, made me sad more than anything
It's the best show i don't wanna watch again.
Yeah, you definitely have to be in that right mood for it. I was so grossed out by the bathtub scene in episode 3 or 4 that I never got past that episode the first two tries. Every few episodes has something really traumatizing. But I took it really slow this time (only 2 episodes or so per day) and made my way through it. It definitely had an addictive feel and I found it impossible to predict, which was super intriguing.
Probably going to be Lost. I'm 3 episodes in as of 2008 and haven't gone back yet...if I ever do, it will be the longest to get into for me by far.
In seriousness though...As others have said, The Office and Parks & Rec took me about a season to get into.
Arrested Development, I admit, took me a few episodes.
Always Sunny took me about a season...I think just to get into a groove of the style or something, I dunno.
Arrested Development, I admit, took me a few episodes.
Arrested Development took everyone a few episodes. Much of the humour is about riffing on repeated jokes set up in previous episodes - you've got to get through a few episodes first for these to start to click.
That's partly why it was never successful when broadcast. It's a show that should have been binge-watched but was released on broadcast TV, an episode a week, but tellingly it only took off in popularity with the DVD release (and later on streaming).
When you reach the point that Arrested Development is dropping punchlines several episodes before the joke, you knew it was too cleaver for normal TV.
Lost was very popular at the time, but it's not a good show at all.
I watched the first four episodes of the Expanse, and then just skipped to the second season.
I know that's not exactly "long", but I didn't want to waste my time trying to get into it and it looked promising. Very glad I did it like that. This was back when there were only 3 seasons out.
I still argue that season 3 has to be one of the best seasons of any show made. Period.
Yea ... for me ... peak modern TV easily.
Not me but a friend of mine recommended a show.... I think it was sons of anarchy. Where they pitched it to me, with no exaggeration on my part, as "you just have to get through the first two or three seasons, then it gets really good".
I have not watched the show.
I get a lot of anime recommendations that come with the same line
The Wire.
I downloaded the entire series in 2010, hoping I could binge-watch it while I'm still on night shift. Couldn't get myself to finish the slow boring pilot, set it aside, and forgot about it completely.
More than 10 years later, I see it on HBO Max remastered. Managed to survive EP1, and quickly after that, I couldn't wait to watch every other episode.
I've always said the best shows are the ones wherein you can name every character to even the smallest one and know why they stuck with you. The Wire is one of those and remains my favorite of all time.
Exactly the same experience for me. I have friends ready to waterboard me over this, but I still haven't made it past ep2
I was the same way! I just finally watched it this year, after about my 5th attempt. Once I got past the first 2 episodes I was loving it lol.
It also has a very high rewatch value. Each time through you notice something you missed the previous times.
I find myself rewatching occasionally it when I introduce someone new to the series.
For me it's "The Mighty Boosh": https://youtu.be/FiU-oCWPhx0
I fell in love with my now ex-wife (then girlfriend) in no small part because she had great humor and I liked a lot of the shows she liked.
So when one day in 2010 she raved about "The Mighty Boosh", of which she owned all DVDs including the live stuff, I had to check it out.
I started watching S01E01 and felt like watching someone's fever dream trying to recreate a kid's show. Same for the second, third etc episode.
Usually I'd have long given up on that show. But there had to be something to it, if she loved the show so much.
So I started watching season 2 ("Milky Joe" or "The Priest and The Beast", I can't really remember) and it clicked immediately. From there I binged all other episodes + season 3 + season 1 again - and I loved it all and couldn't understand how I didn't like it initially.
And thanks to that I discovered other gems from the same "circle" like "Snuff Box", "Garth Marenghi's Dark Place", "Luxury Comedy" and "The IT Crowd" (some episodes haven't aged well, but others are just filled with gold).
For some reason it took me a long time to click with Schitt's Creek.
I finally started GOT when season 7 started. I got to season 5 when season 8 ended. I didn't finish watching the show after that.
I wonder what other shows people stopped watching because they heard it had a bad ending.
Does source material count? I watched Attack on Titan and loved it and when I found out the final season was not the final season I read the Manga. Was disappointed by the last arc and haven't picked the anime back up, but at the same time was glad I got through it quick as opposed having the conclusion dragged out over years and then being disappointed like I was with Game of Thrones after a two year long wait. Which wouldn't have been as disappointing if the wait wasn't so long, and not a week by week slow delivery of disappointment over it being released all in one day for people to get over quickly.
It played a determining factor of whether I would watch House of the Dragon or not. Had the book not been complete I would not have watched the show not wanting to go through another multi year investment into stories and characters with a one to three year long time gap between season ending in disappointment.
My colleague at work told me to stick it out through the first season. Neither of us were really into fantasy, so it was kind of odd at first. But man, it was worth it. Seasons 7 and 8 were a bit rushed, which really fucked with the cadence of the timeline. Seasons 1-6 are still my favorite show ever. May be a bit of a hot take, considering the books are so awesome, or not idk.
Interesting ... I'm in a kinda similar boat with GOT. I watched S1-S2, roughly when it came out ... and didn't like it that much. I could see the appeal, but it generally felt like the whole thing was drawn out for the sake of making a long fantasy series without that much character growth or compelling plot lines.
I looked up a summary of plot points from the books that follow and it didn't really change my mind.
Fast forward to season 6, and I end up at friends house watching episodes together. I haven't seen any of it since S2, but figure I'll watch with them. I watch a couple of episodes, and start asking questions generally about how it really wasn't hard to catch up from S2 ... like, it didn't seem much had really changed apart from the Red wedding ... over 3-4 seasons.
And however valid a critique that is ... what was interesting was that many of the fans I was asking this of got really awkward about the questions. They had no answer, no defence, and it seemed apparent to me that their excitement about the show was entirely about expectations for what was to come and that they were mostly ignoring how they actually weren't enjoying the show that much any more. I now know that the show is widely regarded to have gone downhill after S4, though many hadn't really acknowledged that, and that feeling was the nerve I had probably touched. Fastforward, and S8 is coming out, so I figure I'll watch it to see the end ... may as well. And we all know how good that season was.
So, after basically being part of the GoT generation, and watching a lot of it, including the beginning when it came out ... I never got into the show and always thought it was shit.
Funny, my first experience with the show was similar to yours - watched the first season or so and wasn't into it, then started watching again in season ~five with someone else - but I actually started to really enjoy it from there. Granted it only took like a season for it to really go downhill, but it got me interested enough to watch from the beginning once it was over. Despite the knowledge of the terrible conclusion the first few seasons ended up being some of my favorite TV.
Breaking Bad. Watched the first 10 minutes or so of the first episode then gave up on it for over a year. Eventually gave it a second chance and couldn’t binge the whole thing quickly enough…
Yeah Breaking Bad and stranger things are those shows that everyone else loves, that I just can't get into. I have been meaning to go back to them though.
I don't know that I ever will.
Succession. This show was so boring I didn’t even bother to watch the final ss.
I watched everything and I'm of the opinion that it's an amazing show, huge production, great acting but it's definitely not for everyone. Even as a fan of the show you still look back at every episode / season and are like: "What did I even watch?" :P
It's very unique.
The Americans. But boy once we got into their world, we couldn't stop.
The Wire. I tried watching that show like four times, and only ever made it an episode or two. it starts so slow and boring.
The Wire for my parent and myself also.
We watched it once, got a few episodes in, and we were like “we’ll come back to this I’m sure”
Seven years later, we finish The Sopranos. “Well I guess this is kinda like it…”
Nah, but we got through season three at least!
West Wing. When it came out years ago, (24 actually...) I saw a couple episodes and it didn't interest me. But about 8 years ago I ended up watching every episode on Netflix and loved it. But wow, if I had to slog through to season 4 of a show to enjoy it, I would never get there.
I've been using Trakt and I now have a tag for all the shows I dropped.
Ones I stuck with might be the office or Parks and Rec
Jersey Shore. I never understood the hype and never watched it. I still haven't.
One Piece. It took like 300 episodes.
The funny thing is I haven't gotten to the good part yet.
For me, if a show isn't good during the first season, then it's very unlikely that I'll watch the rest of it. I'm really not someone who plays the game of skipping seasons, unless it's absolutely called for.
That said, Deep Space Nine is an amazing show, but one that has a bit of a rough Landing. It feels like the show legitimately did not understand that Sisko and not Quark was the main character until a producer cleared up the misunderstanding with the writers. And although Quark is the best part of the show, it does get a bit more interesting when the events revolve around the cardassians and bajorans, after all there are only so many ways you can raise the stakes of a show from inside of a bar.
That being said, when it comes to Classic mst3k, I find the Mike years to be vastly superior to the Joel years, to the point where if I'm rewatching the series just to have noise in the background while I'm doing something else, I'm going to exclusively choose from the list of Mike episodes. If I'm watching it just watch it though the Joel episodes actually have a chance to shine. I understand this is a bit of a controversial take. That being said if we are talking the modern incarnation of the show, then I'm definitely going to go for a Joel episode over anything having to do with Riff trax.
I mean RiffTrax isn't bad per se, but sometimes I get a aging Rockstar trying to relive The Glory Days vibe from it.
While on the subject, having someone start It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the first season is just setting them up to writeboff the show as jist "meh"
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
Caught a few episodes of the first season but it never stuck with me.
I was told that it gets better after season 3. It did get better in season 2.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of those shows where I definitely recommend skipping the first season. Normally even if the first season is kind of bad, I still recommend people watch it in order to familiarize themselves with the show. But the jump in quality after Danny DeVito joins the cast.. really is that severe, especially since he brings a whole bunch of other changes to the show. Such as Deandra no longer being the voice of reason, but being just as unstable as everyone else, which is a very welcome change because the woman being the one smart person is a sitcom cliche that is honestly quite tiresome. Plus her delusions of grandeur are funny as hell.
I would dare say that the first season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is painfully unfunny aside, where is the rest of the series is just downright amazing.
I recently decided to dive into It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I always knew I'd like it, but goddamn is it funny. I'm currently at the end of season 4.
I don't think you understood the question. Lol
Oh shit, I'm so baked. Yeah oops. Oh fuck. Umm. I don't really give a show a chance if I even suspect I'll dislike it. So I don't think any show.
Got into deep space 9 about ten years ago. It was on TV when I was a kid but it never clicked. The environments and characters were too weird and I didn't understand wtf was going on. Well, people seemed to love it so I decided to start watching from the beginning, and... Yeah. My only regret is I'll never be able to watch it for the first time again. ;_;
ok but why did you watch 3 seasons of a show you didn't enjoy
It's not a show I disliked and it wasn't a show I needed to pay incredibly close attention to so I watched it while I ate breakfast
I think the later seasons are better than the early ones.
extreme boredom and “everyone seems to like it, I must be wrong” are dangerous bedfellows
That's how I feel about arrested development.
It was just five seasons of watching horrible people be horrible people with like one funny event or joke per episode at best.
I regret the time I wasted watching that show.
Sometimes there's some elements that really shows the potential and brilliance that is interesting enough to keep pushing forward. So while it might not hit the point of must see TV right away, going in with the knowledge that it hits its stride in season X helps keep things in perspective. When I'm informed of something like that I'm willing to put up with the slow burn if the pay off is to be great, and there's at least some redeeming qualities about the show until then.