TV shows that are good from the start

[Jericho]

Prompted by the Star Trek Discovery thread that I almost diverted...

TV shows that are good from the start...

I think we can all agree that all flavors of Trek needed a couple of seasons to get going.

These days, it seems that shows aren't allowed that luxury, and get cancelled at the first sign of 'failing'.

So what are the shows that were good/great from the start? Obviously "good" is subjective, so I'm fully prepared to have my plebeian taste in TV criticized (I'm fairly mainstream, and haven't seen Westworld, GoT, Man in the High Castle, Stranger things... I want to see them all, just don't have the time...)


1) The Mentalist. One of the best shows on TV. Certainly it got brilliant after season 3, but even if you go back and watch the first season, they are all a joy to watch. Simon Baker plays the charming arse very well, and you never know if you are supposed to like him or not... And then they throw in the episode where he's drugged and imagines his daughter is alive and grown up, and you feel genuinely sorry for him, and you do see that he is completely false, and everything about him is for show. Love the show (Haven't seen the last season yet...)

2) CSI... The original version. Yes it became a parody of itself, and borderline science fiction. But it start just fine out of the gate with a dead character that you weren't expecting, and one of the team to blame for it.

3) Psych... Wonderful nostalgia for someone like me, they were trapped in the 80's, great show from the start. Standout moment for me was the episode with their 'disguises'. Shaun is wearing Apollo's helmet from the original Battlestar Galactica, while Gus is wearing LaForge's VISOR from Next Generation and pretending to be "The black guy from Star Trek".

4) Battlestar Galactica (Modern version). That first mini-series was a masterpiece, followed up by 33 and Water. Shame about the last 2 seasons (I actually rather liked the final).

5) Elementary. I really like Miller's take on Sherlock, and quite like Watson. The police captain I respect for trying something a bit more laid back and probably more realistic, but at the same time, not that interesting to watch. The show is somewhat depressing with the color scheme and drab locations. I suspect that they are going for the metaphor of Sherlock being the personification of Heroin, and brightening up the drab world. But the show feels like "Don't come to New York, it's a dirty brown craphole."


More later, I have to do some work.

[korio]

Here is my list:

1) Fringe: Loved it from the beginning to the end!

2) Silicon Valley: Funny as hell, atleast for me, since the start.

3) Chuck: Starts slowly but i think its a very good one.



Regarding yours Jericho, i cant watch most of them, my GF has a degree on criminalistic and private detective and if i watch any kind of police show with her she is all the time ranting about everything xD

[pjknibbs]

Babylon 5. First season wasn't as good as the later seasons, but considering some of the later episodes (especially most of season 3) are arguably among the best TV SF ever made, that's not such a bad thing.

[burger1]

Fringe - The entire series is free and legal to watch on Verizon Wireless go90 site. (US region locked)

https://www.go90.com/shows/fringe

Chuck - I also liked it start to finish. I think the paid service Fullscreen in the US might have it. AT&T customers can get 1 free year I think. US region locked ?

Reaper- Like Chuck in a few ways. Free to watch on ABC. (US region locked)

http://abc.go.com/shows/reaper/episode-guide/season-01

Pushing Daisies - Free to watch on the CW seed network (US region locked)

http://www.cwseed.com/shows/pushing-dai ... 4315e0a305

Andromeda

Farscape

Big Bang Theory

3rd Rock from the Sun

Red Dwarf

Black Adder

Frasier

I can only guess at some of the older shows like Simon and Simon, Newhart, Magnum P.I., Taxi, Perfect Strangers, Dear John, Moonlighting, etc... Most haven't aged well.

[Jericho]

Fringe - The entire series is free and legal to watch on Verizon Wireless go90 site. (US region locked)

https://www.go90.com/shows/fringe

Chuck - I also liked it start to finish. I think the paid service Fullscreen in the US might have it. AT&T customers can get 1 free year I think. US region locked ?

Reaper- Like Chuck in a few ways. Free to watch on ABC. (US region locked)

http://abc.go.com/shows/reaper/episode-guide/season-01

Pushing Daisies - Free to watch on the CW seed network (US region locked)

http://www.cwseed.com/shows/pushing-dai ... 4315e0a305

Andromeda

Farscape

Big Bang Theory

3rd Rock from the Sun

Red Dwarf

Black Adder

Frasier

I can only guess at some of the older shows like Simon and Simon, Newhart, Magnum P.I., Taxi, Perfect Strangers, Dear John, Moonlighting, etc... Most haven't aged well.

So... We hit our first disagreements

Chuck, yes.
Fringe, good call, I LOVE John Noble in this show, both versions of him. You don't realize what a good actor he is until you see the alternate universe version of him. (Last season wasn't great). He's recently turned up in Sherlock for a few episodes, and makes me want to watch Fringe again.

Farscape I tried to watch, but had to call it a day after the first 6 episodes. The timing of conversations was just off, possibly because of the muppets, it just felt a bit meh. And big beard guy sounded very muffled and bassy (my TV wasn't the best at the time to be fair).

Red Dwarf I really like those early days, a very different show to what it is now, for better or worse.

Black Adder season 1, Hmmmmmm. I try to convince myself that it is good, it certainly has its moments, but overall I think it's more miss than hit (especially the first episode). All the Blessed-Atkinson interactions are wonderful however.

[jlehtone]

These days, it seems that shows aren't allowed that luxury, and get cancelled at the first sign of 'failing'.

So what are the shows that were good/great from the start?

Could any of the shows that were axed already after (or during) first season qualify as great despite their sudden demise?

[Morkonan]

I don't watch TV shows very often. (Hardly ever) I haven't watched any premier episode or season of anything in a long while. Oddly enough, I see more television shows when I go to visit friends than I do at home. They'll ask "have you seen xxxx show", when they already know the answer, then load up the premier/first season and we'll watch. For recent series, from what little I saw of their episodes:

The Americans - I only saw a few of the first shows in the premier seasons, but it seemed to stay strong, throughout. Obviously, it's probably something targeted at an American audience, but it had some really good basic bits that were very appealing.

The Expanse - The first few episodes "worked" after you saw them... IOW, it started out confusing, but once you had a few episodes under your belt, it came together very nicely and, from what I've seen, has stayed fairly strong. It doesn't hurt that its still shepherded by its creators. (One of who'm is a favorite author of mine, anyway.)

Sherlock - I didn't know why, at first, but I really like this modern take. It stays strong and compelling, with just the right amount of mystery revolving around Holmes.

That's about my limit of recent television series, sorry.

One TV series that I think is the best modern dramatic series produced - The original "Law and Order" series. (And none of its spinoff crapola junk that came later!) That series only rarely, and very rarely, ever broke from its structure or focus. When it did, they did a beautiful job of adding just the right amount of "this is different, this time" to it. But, every single episode had a dependable, hard-hitting, story with believable dramatic supporting characters with stories that truly had something for every main cast character in the episode. I can't think of any relatively recent, at any rate, television series that was as well written as that one. Then again, I don't watch many, so feel free to be credulous at that statement.

PS - There are a few of the older shows mentioned by other posters that I certainly agree with. I'm just trying to stay "current" with what I've seen of more recent shows, with the exception of Law and Order, which I can't ignore.

[BigBANGtheory]

Sapphire and Steel

[brucewarren]

Did anyone here understand Sapphire and Steel?

Don't get me wrong. It was a seriously good show, but it was also seriously strange too.

Thunderbirds, UFO. Space 1999. (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of season 2 )

[berth]

My two denarii:

The Wire. Not sci-fi I know but the thread isn't specifically about sci-fi is it?

Deadwood - basically a period drama with "authentic" dialogue, just not Jane Austen.

More recently, I very much enjoyed Hannibal although it went off the boil somewhat in season 3.

Babylon 5 - well, yes, at the time I watched it avidly but it hasn't really stood the test of time, imo. When it was good it was very very good but some of those filler episodes are just awful. And some of the acting.

BSG reboot - see above but not as extreme.

What else? American Gods (so far so good), Preacher (haven't watched the second lot yet) .

[Aken_Bosch]

Keeping more strictly on the topic of "good from the start"? First that comes to (my) mind: The IT Crowd. (it surely deserved some more episodes )

Also The Expanse, first episodes go by somewhat slowly, but I find their quality already very consistent from the start. (and I'd say the same is more or less valid for Breaking Bad too).

[pjknibbs]

Babylon 5 - well, yes, at the time I watched it avidly but it hasn't really stood the test of time, imo. When it was good it was very very good but some of those filler episodes are just awful. And some of the acting.

What else? American Gods (so far so good)

You take that back about B5! (OK, I will admit that it had the occasional duff episode, but is there any TV series ever made that you can't say that about?).

American Gods--I watched the first three episodes and just could not get into it at all. The ostensible main character wasn't relatable, and would just go along with whatever anyone asked him to do without really questioning it--the bit in the second episode where he played checkers for his life being a particular low point, because there just didn't seem to be any justification for him doing that.

[BigBANGtheory]

Did anyone here understand Sapphire and Steel?

Don't get me wrong. It was a seriously good show, but it was also seriously strange too.

You have to fill in some blanks yourself, what is clever about the show is that its genuinely scary in places having built suspense up to breaking point rather than relying on horror. If you watch Conjuring 2 (which is a decent film) its like an extended episode of S&S they've copied the formula to a tee.

Imho the best mini-TV series ever still remains a close tie between Das Boot (TV version not the film) and Edge of Darkness (which they tried to make into a film). Band of Brothers probably comes next though it does drag in places.

Most of the long running series have their high's and lows, I quite like Lost but again the padding can leave you numb. I wonder if sometime we will see an edited series of B5 & Lost that focuses on the scenes relevant to the story and chops out the chaff. Breaking Bad is good but imho ran for too long...

Westworld is I think the best of the recent efforts. Game of Thrones and Walking Dead are entertaining but like junk food satisfying for a short period.

[berth]

Babylon 5 - well, yes, at the time I watched it avidly but it hasn't really stood the test of time, imo. When it was good it was very very good but some of those filler episodes are just awful. And some of the acting.

What else? American Gods (so far so good)

You take that back about B5! (OK, I will admit that it had the occasional duff episode, but is there any TV series ever made that you can't say that about?).

American Gods--I watched the first three episodes and just could not get into it at all. The ostensible main character wasn't relatable, and would just go along with whatever anyone asked him to do without really questioning it--the bit in the second episode where he played checkers for his life being a particular low point, because there just didn't seem to be any justification for him doing that.

Heh, I knew dissing B5 would be controversial round these parts. It was the drink talking

Suffice to say that we rewatched it earlier this year - the first 4 seasons anyway (couldn't be bothered to finish number 5) - and then gave the box sets to charity.

Fair comment about American Gods. For my part, it had enough weirdness going on for me to want to see where it was going.

[Golden_Gonads]

Space: Above and Beyond. A fantastic pilot, followed mainly by very good or pretty bad episodes. I'm still grumpy over its cancellation (Though I can fully understand why, and even agree with it).

[mrbadger]

Superior Donuts has done a good job of being great right out of the gate, but with as veteran actor like Judd Hirsch leading the cast it's possible not surprising.

[Morkonan]

Space: Above and Beyond. A fantastic pilot, followed mainly by very good or pretty bad episodes. I'm still grumpy over its cancellation (Though I can fully understand why, and even agree with it).

That's a good call as it held a good pace from the start. Sadly, it was probably only something a science-fiction fan could really love.

I bet it would do pretty good as a Netflix or Amazon production, though.

[muppetts]

Loved Firefly out the gate 1st episode (watched in right order!)

Still amazed it was cancelled.

[burger1]

Did anyone here understand Sapphire and Steel?

Don't get me wrong. It was a seriously good show, but it was also seriously strange too. :gruebel:

Thunderbirds, UFO. Space 1999. (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of season 2 :P)

Sapphire and Steel, Space 1999, UFO, Thunderbirds are free to watch on Tubi tv US region since content changes with regions. I guess they outbid Yahoo View for the content.

https://tubitv.com/series/206/space_1999

https://tubitv.com/series/1026/thunderbirds

https://tubitv.com/series/998/ufo

https://tubitv.com/series/1023/sapphire_and_steel

[greypanther]

I can remember liking: Space: Above and Beyond, from the outset and was baffled they did not do a second series. I have also just noted that it is available on Amazon for £15.99, think I might have to revisit that. I have also just noted that I have quite a lot of the Babylon 5 set to re watch yet, another superb series.