As far as long runners go I think Law & Order qualifies. The show really did NOT come together until Jerry Orbach joined the show during Season 3.
I would say Seasons 1 & 2 are probably the worst of the show. I don’t think they were BAD though–it’s just that they were weaker than the rest of the show.
The second season did indeed lose focus once the mystery was solved. The next couple of episodes weren’t very good, but it found its stride and was just fine but it had lost audience and was cancelled. People hate the final one, but the see it as a series finale, but it was intended to be a season finale.
Bob was an excellent Bob Newhart series with him as a comic book writer. CBS sabotaged it by switching the time slot and insisting it be revamped, adding Betty White and Jere Burns. It was awful and was cancelled in a few weeks.
The same happened to the Fred Savage show “Working”, which legit had a chance to be The Office before Office even came on the air. First season was sharp and funny. Second season, tons of cast members had been swapped around and the whole show was kind of reworked. Lame.
Heroes was definitely my first thought. But there have been a fair number of shows recently where my wife and I had watched and enjoyed the first season, and then gave up relatively quickly after starting season 2. Already mentioned: Killing Eve and Westworld. But also, Russian Doll.
In all three case, I wouldn’t necessarily say there was a decline in quality, as much as it just felt exhausting to try to remember everything that had happened the previous season, who was who, what we did and did not know, etc.
Heroes is the series I first thought of. The first season was so good. It was like they just didn’t know what to do with the second season. And that make sense if it was never written to have a second season.
The second season of Heroes was basically fanfic because all the writers were on strike.
The writer’s strike didn’t start until half the season already aired. They just had to cut it short.
The Walking Dead started out with a very strong first season, and while season 2 had its moments, it was very, very boring. From what I’ve read, the producers were balking at the expense of the series and wanted them to cut down on the special effects heavy episodes freating lots of zombies, stunts, and location changes. So we got a rather slow season taking place mostly on a farm though when things actually did happen it was at least interesting.
I agree that the second season of Heroes was vastly worse than the first. That said, I think the problems really started at the end of season 1 with the extremely underwhelming final confrontation between the goodies and the baddie. Frankly, I felt like season 1 of Heroes was good almost by accident. Like, the creator thought that this whole business with the eclipse and the mumbo jumbo was really interesting, but no one cared, we just liked seeing appealing and fun superheroes.
(That said, it was a long time ago.)
That’s often the problem with shows. The first season is mysterious in some fashion, the bad guys are BAD, and the good guys are on the ropes. Makes for great drama.
Then in the second, or sometimes third season, the good guys either get the upper hand or draw parallel to the bad guys, the mysteries are revealed, and the show seems to invariably devolve into infighting and political nonsense.
Battlestar Galactica did it, The Walking Dead did it and Jericho did it. I’m sure there are more, but all three of those did that about-face from the implacable, mysterious outside enemy to being shows about interpersonal/political drama within the survivors in the second (or third, in Walking Dead’s case).
Says you… Princess Ardala’s scenes were some of those early moments when I realized that I was most definitely straight at about 7-8 years old. I was most disappointed when we got Hawk, Crichton and Dr. Theopolus instead.
Eh, she’s just another hollywood blonde.
Now Erin Grey in spandex…yea, I guess I like women, Strong women who are in charge.
I think it was the conventional wisdom to blame the hot mess Heroes became on the writers’ strike, but then what’s the excuse for the later Heroes Reborn sucking so much? They had all the time in the world to prepare for that one. So I don’t think the writers’ strike is to blame, I think we basically just got lucky with a great first season and it wasn’t ever going to approach that level again no matter what.
Huh? She was very definitely NOT blonde. She was the villain for most of the first season- a very vampy, slinky brunette.
Yes, Princess Ardala was brunette. It was Wilma Deering who was blonde.
I think season one of Heroes was great due to the whole Syler storyline and Zachary Quinto, mostly. The dread and menace inspired by Quito’s performance and the storyline were really what made season one great for me. Maybe they had no hope of recreating that.
I’d go so far as to argue that, even if you’re wrong, you’re right. I mean, yeah, if continuing that would’ve been the key to making Season 2 great, they zeroed that out — but if continuing one of the other stories would’ve done it, they zeroed those out likewise.
To offer up a spoilery quote from, well, me from back when,
My memory was faulty. It’s been several years since I watched the series.