My go-to example for this is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Season one is overall quite rough, however s01e19 "Duet" (second-to-last episode of the season) is IMO the first episode that shows true glimmers of promise. In season two the series starts to find its footing, by season three it's proven itself to be Star Trek gold, and then the series manages to maintain its quality through to its seventh and final season.
this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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Season 1 of DS9 was rough? Cries in TNG… 🤣
It is rough compared to the later stuff but, man, it got off to a WAY better start than TNG did… I mean, Riker had to grow a beard for the show to get good!
IMO DS9's s1 is way worse than TNG's, but that might be because TNG has a nostalgia factor for me from watching random episodes as a kid, and so by the time I did a full start-to-finish watch-thru I already knew the characters well and understood that the series would get better, whereas I was an adult when I first watched DS9 and went into it completely blind (after watching the first two-parter episode I nearly cried, because I was on a mission to watch all of the 20th century Star Treks, and there were seven seasons of this to slog through!? And now it's my favorite Star Trek series of all time.)
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Parks & Recs season one was pretty different from the rest of the show - not necessarly bad, just different, e.g. several popular characters didn't exist yet. TBH I don't remember when exactly they introduced substantial changes, but I think it was the start of season two.
I feel like season one was trying too hard to be The Office, and then in season two it sheds that to become its own entity. I've heard that the writers sincerely considered s1's less-than-stellar critical response and made changes to s2 accordingly (e.g. making Leslie Knope more likable and less dumb). It's definitely a "don't judge it until you've gotten at least part way through season two" series.
Most people say the start of Season 3 as Mark is off the show at the end of season 2 and Chris and Ben become full time characters, but the first Tammy episode is in season 2 so that’s my vote. It’s just too damn funny to pass over.
The Venezuela sister city episode season 2 episode 5 is where it showed its true potential.
The humor lands, the characters have some consistency, and the vibe is consistent with the rest of the show. Yes, it was firing on all cylinders with Ben and Chris, but this episode is where it showed its stuff.
If you disagree, right to jail. Right away. No trial, no nothing. I have the best opinion… because of jail.
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Parks & Recs is a very typical show that evolves from edgy comedy into feel-good romcom. American The Office did the same, Schitt's Creek did the same, Superstore did it. At this point I'm not even sure if it's by accident (the shows responding to what the audience wants) or if it's by design ("let's make typical show that goes from edgy to romcom").
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BoJack Horseman. I don't have an exact episode for you, but the first few seem to be mostly world building and introducing a few themes that will come back later. Later half of s1 is where it starts to get good, and with s2 the show "properly" starts.
Episode 8, The Telescope.
I can narrow it down to one line, too. When Herb tells BoJack, "I don't forgive you." It flouted the usual sitcom formula, and marked a turn to more complex characters and darker themes.
Years ago i saw someone do a breakdown of what you're talking about and if memory serves it's the Herb episode that changes the vibe of the show. Until that point bojack feels like every other crude comedy on air but from that point on it breaks the traditional format. Its the first time on screen, and possibly in bojacks whole life(outside of family issues), that he faces consequences for his actions that have a serious negative impact on him and the fix is out of his control. In the face of this truth he spirals into a world of indulgence and avoidance and we the viewer begin to see the impact that has on those around him.
I think the comedy and overall quality of the early episodes is pretty solid, making those not bad episodes per se but rather deceptive ones. I personally enjoyed how the series takes its time in settling into its drama, and suspect it was an intentional metaphor for how the surface glitz and glamour of Hollywood obscures its dark underbelly.
Hmmm, that would make another good asklemmy thread: series with deceptive beginnings that obscure their true genre...
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The Good Place really takes off at the end of the first season.
Personally I consider The Good Place one of the rare shows that is solid all the way through without a single bad or weak episode, however the end of season one is certainly where it goes from great to fantastic.
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alsimoneau figured it out? That's a new low...
Ted Danson's reaction to that scene is too perfect... That one hurts
No way. Episode one was a banger.
American Dad is a fantastically funny show, but season 1 is basically unwatchable. Season 2 is a mixed bag. I'd recommend people just start watching from season 3 onward and only check out the earlier episodes as a curiosity.
American Dad is so underrated. Seth McFarlane is very funny, but you can tell that Fox saw Family Guy taking off and basically took it away from him, and he knew there was no sense in fighting it. But he started American Dad, and that's where you can really see his comedy come through.
So many great episodes. In Country... Club is probably my all-time-favorite. So many others though, Irregarding Steve, The Abusive Terrestrial, The Vacation Goo, Spring Breakup, and Shallow Vows. And really anything with Roger
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I remember watching American Dad's premiere and being excited for the concept but disappointed by the execution. You can tell there's aspiration to be a good parody of the contemporary political climate in the first episode, but iirc it's undermined by its crassness.
The Orville also struggled to get its footing in the early episodes; maybe Seth MacFarlane just does better once his series gets established?
I think they struggled early on for different reasons.
American Dad was too laser focused on being a political satire show and I just don't think the writers were equipped to write a good political show. It just comes off as angry and with unlikable characters. Once it loosened up a little bit, having that political satire premise as a foundation gives the characters a baseline to work from and they all feel distinct because of it.
The Orville feels like Seth didn't want to make a comedy. It feels to me like he just wanted to make Star Trek, but because he's "a comedy guy" a lot of the humor, especially early on felt like it was put in to meet some expectation of Fox that a Seth show be a comedy.
I forgot the exact episode, but I felt The Expanse was pretty mediocre until one of the last episodes of S1. I stuck with it because I was told prior to starting that it takes a while to get going. I'm glad I stuck with it, as it's my favorite sci-fi show.
For me its' the opposite, it started strong (complex politics, realistic space travel) and by the end it turned into just another space opera about hardy space ship crew fighting space battles.
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Expanse is a slow burn start. I personally think it was great from the start but will tell anyone to watch at least until E3 or 4 (episode called CQB). At that point if you don't want to keep watching it's likely not a good fit.
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King of the Hill is pretty dry in the first season. It has some good jokes, sets up the premise, but it's hard to "get it". The humor is very dry, and to some I assume it's easy to take it as "It's some uptight white guy who likes his job I guess".
Texas City Twister is when all of a sudden the humor just made sense to me. Still very dry humor, but it was so funny. So many great jokes.
Sir if you're calling me a liar you better be holding something stronger than an umbrella. 9 iron ...Y'all have a nice day
I can't live in a beer can I can live in a trailer but I don't have a trailer because the trailer tipped over!
Speaking of Hell, if I wasn't so in control of my emotions I might be so inclined to suggest that's the sort of place making a.. a visit towards!
Fuel Filters?! Honey quick that jackass is buying all the fuel filters! I need a fuel filter what are they for I need one!
I love you! And Bobby! And Luanne! To a lesser extent!
All of these are 100% out of context, but it just hits everything that makes king of the hill funny. Everything is so tongue-in-cheek
I recently rewatched King of the Hill, and I definitely did not appreciate the humor when it originally aired. It is a truly funny - but definitely dry - show about a decent man and his family. He’s conservative, but he is not a hateful man. He wouldn’t like MAGA. He takes care of his neighbors like they’re family - including immigrants - and the community around him looks up to him as a leader.
I wasn’t super prepared for how much I would come to love the show now that I’ve watched it as a middle aged dude.
Mike Judge did a great job with the show, and I genuinely enjoyed the new season too.
Hank is an annoying boomer but he lives his values, which makes him endearing. There's an episode where he notices the tile in his bathroom is faded and says it was guaranteed for 20 years and its only been "what 17, 18 years? Where's that receipt?" That's an annoying and obnoxious boomerism. On the other hand, if Hank guaranteed something for 20 years, even as an unofficial offhand comment, and somebody called him on it, he'd go take care of it.
Same thing with tools. Many boomers pretend to have any idea what they are doing when really they don't have any tools or skills. Hank had enough tools and skills to teach an entire shop class in his garage.
He believes in the idealized idea of America. That means he works hard and to a high degree of craftsmanship and honesty. It also means he can get scammed and taken advantage of with his expectation that other people are doing the same.
While a lot of people like to point to Hank as a caricature of conservative values, I really feel like that misses the mark. Hank is a great example of someone who doesn't compromise morals for values. A big part of the show revolves around Hank being subject to things that sit far outside his limited world view. Each time he goes through an arch of emotions, initially reacting with the confusion and fear you'd expect from a middle aged white Christian man finding out that his wife's new friend is a prostitute or that his friend's dad is fabulously gay, before having a contemplative moment where he either talks openly with peggy before bed or works on something mechanical. He then ultimately recovers from the situation and while he may still feel uncomfortable with the topic he always resolves to approach it from a place of earnest understanding. He does not let his political, religious, or societal values trump his moral imperative to treat people with the respect they deserve and to help a person in need.
Watching in its entirety for the first time as an adult, I made the other common mistake in thinking hank was a bad character because despite being conservative coded he frequently makes what I recognized as being incredibly progressive and left leaning decisions. I couldn't decide if it was the writer's secret goal to try an reeducate the bigots of the right by tricking them into relating to a man who can be ok with drag queens. That is the common folly of trying to understand a creature while you stand beside the monster wearing its corpse as a disguise. Conservative doesn't mean what it used to, it doesn't mean anything. None of our political terms do. But King of the Hill came out when they still did mean something and was made by people who lived through time when it actually matched the definition of the word. Conservative used to mean Hank Hill. Conservative used to mean hating the idea of Walmart killing local businesses. It used to mean focusing on your community. It used to mean striving for a simple world, not fighting against anything that expands it. There is a lot that the show can teach us about political discourse but I honestly don't think anyone is ready to really learn it.
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Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Starts like the average random magical girl anime until episode 3, then suddenly deconstructs everything giving you an amazing whiplash. I had to beg a friend of mine to watch until ep3 because he absolutely could not stomach the first episode. He thanked me later
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Every one I have forced to sit through the first 3 episodes of Red Dwarf has gone on to watch every episode and now incorporates quotes from the show in normal conversation.
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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had to vamp for too long before "Turn, Turn, Turn" but it got better and better the loopier it got, and the farther from the canon universe. And yet it's worth watching the early eps because things are set in place that the show runners fulfill later. In some cases much much later, and in some very satisfying ways.
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Letterkenny, I think it gets good around the end of season 1 or beginning of 2. You still have to watch the first episodes to get an idea of who everyone is and their relationships though. Might have to do with just how strange the characters are in this random small town in Canada. It's pretty tough at first, but once you get to the end of the first season, something clicks and the show becomes pretty hilarious.
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You should do a reverse one lol. For me that would be family guy: first few seasons are funny af then...a very steep drop
This is called "Jumping the Shark" after a Happy Days episode where The Fonz literally jumps a shark while water-skiing, and the show was mostly downhill in quality there and after.
The opposite, and an answer to OP's question is "Growing the Beard" due to Star Trek: The Next Generation's apparent increase in quality after Will Riker grew a beard.
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Not TV, but I've told people to skip the first two books in the Discworld series, Sir Terry doesn't really get into his stride till a little later, but book three is where his talent starts to shine.
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Technically a streaming series rather than a TV series, but the second campaign of Critical Role (Mighty Nein). I started watching the series after seeing how popular Critical Role was online and that Mighty Nein was recommended for CR beginners, but I really didn't get it at first; it seemed so boring and slow. Still I stuck with it (listening to it in the background while I did other stuff), and I remember there were two specific moments where I finally understood its popularity:
spoiler
episode 7 "Hush" when Nott kills the manticore baby (which was my first "holy shit they did what" moment), and episode 12 "Midnight Espionage" during the hospital heist (I could not stop laughing at the debacle and completely lost it at Nott's negative charisma roll).
In other words, thanks Sam Riegel for making me a fan!
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Jericho only lasted 29 episodes, and while I enjoyed them all (plus the graphic novels that continued the story), I will admit it had a shaky start.
It was a mid-2000s CBS show, so it had to appeal to a wide audience, the kind who'd tune in to CBS of all networks during primetime. The show's overall premise had me hooked, but some of the side plots and characters are... distracting, early on.
Most people agree that the show picks up steam partway through the first season, though I haven't seen a consensus about a particular episode. My pick though, episode 7, "Long Live the Mayor".
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The Sopranos, when Anthony Jr. starts piecing together what he's a part of at Jackie's funeral.
When I switched from the One Piece Anime to the One Piece Manga. I am sorry, but the Toei adaptation is a fancy power point presentation. So. Many. Static. Shots.
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