Recent comments in /f/television

Defvac2 t1_j6ojate wrote

Reply to comment by Graaiert in What's with the impatience that leads many to ask if a show "gets better" after just the first few episodes? by TheShowLover

This 100%.

I only have a certain amount of time most nights to watch TV, maybe an hour or two before bed. Unless a pilot is complete trash I'll at least give a show a few episodes before checking out. I'm not going to waste 7 or 8 hours for a show to "start getting good".

I think also streaming services opened the door to a million more options of shows to watch as opposed to 15-20 years ago when it was your standard cable networks and premium channels. So a lot of people's attention spans with "slow burn" shows isn't what it used to be as a result.

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drupoxy t1_j6oisnp wrote

Reply to What's with the impatience that leads many to ask if a show "gets better" after just the first few episodes? by TheShowLover

>Literally one of the greatest shows of all time according to critics and viewers alike. But the first season was really "slow" and "boring."

Rewatch the first episode, and to an extent, the first season, and revisit this statement. Breaking Bad was screaming out of the gate.

There's a huge difference between something that starts slow and something that needs to "get better". Slow is fine if it's interesting. But if the show isn't good for a few episodes, regardless of pacing, I'm not going to waste the limited number of hours I have on this planet watching trash I dislike in the hopes that it will improve.

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apparition13 t1_j6oiqvw wrote

Reply to What's with the impatience that leads many to ask if a show "gets better" after just the first few episodes? by TheShowLover

If you don't like the first few episodes of NCIS, you won't like NCIS.

If you don't like the first few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you still might like Buffy because it doesn't really find it's voice until the last episode of season 1 (my opinion) or even up to the middle of season 2 (a fairly common opinion).

Some shows are all they are from the get go, others take time to evolve into what they wind up being, in which case you might like later episodes when you didn't care for earlier, or even vice versa sometimes.

And not all shows get "better". I thought the first season of the (original) L Word was a really good character driven drama. In season two it switched to a plot driven soap, and I grew increasingly frustrated with it until I quit watching it sometime later after a couple seasons of hoping it would go back to what it was the first season.

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