I couldn’t not hate Altered Carbon because I committed the cardinal sin of having read the books first.
Might as well just post a sticky that says Heroes is the forever answer to this question.
Second and third place are Battlestar Galactica and Westworld.
Maybe tied for second.
Sleepy Hollow. I mean what a disastrous and unnecessary retooling they did for the second season. Minimising the two women of colour, and inserting a white douchebag in their place, then giving the Headless Horseman a head. Horrible!
Yeah, nothing that Sleepy Hollow did ever really managed to match the wonderfully overheated intensity of the first season. But I will say that the near-total reboot they did for the fourth season, with the new partner for Ichabod and the new secret government agency, certainly had its virtues. The scenes that were set in the bad future were very watchable, in particular. If they had bothered to have a fifth season, I think I would have tuned in the see where they took things.
I think the second season also had something like half the budget of the first. At least it felt that way: Season 1 was an visual feast, while Season 2 felt kind of dinky and low-rent.
Completely agree about True Detective.
Fargo has 3 excellent seasons out of 5.
Too soon to say, but House of the Dragon fits the bill so far.
Which 3 do you consider excellent? I haven’t gotten around to watching season 5 yet
2 > 1 > 5 >> 3. I haven’t seen 4.
eta and actually 3 isn’t bad. Part of the reason I have it in a tier lower is maybe just personal to me; I was physically uncomfortable watching the villain.
She Spies. The first season was completely fun and whackadoodle. The second one they made into a disappointing formulaic show.
Bob.
Starring Bob Newhart, it was a very clever and funny show about a comic book artist, created by the people behind Cheers. It was especially great if you knew something about comic books; the main conflict is Bob’s wanting to write an old-fashioned superhero, with the desire to Dark-Knight him.
The second season, they jettisoned the concept and made him president of a greeting card company. Most of the cast was gone and they added Betty White and Jere Burns. It was terrible.
Has anyone mentioned any comedies? My example of a show that seemed great, but then went rapidly downhill after the first season is Mork & Mindy.
I seem to recall Seaquest DSV went off the rails in its second season, then went positively doolally in its third.
I think this owns this question.
Homeland should have ended after season one.
Crime Story, largely because they killed off the main antagonists in the final episode and then tried to bring them back in the second season.
Tour of Duty, though I admit I’ve never seen the third season. I was away when it was first aired.
24 was a clever gimmick, but not sure it needed 9 seasons.
The Americans may have been ok after the first season but stop watching when the pastor becomes a big deal, and I think that’s middle of season 2.
For me, the War of the Worlds (2019 TV series) seemed exciting when it debuted. By the end of the 2nd season, however, it had lost its luster for me. The survivors were fleeing those, for a better term, “dog like robots” and avoiding the tripods. The relationships between the survivors had gotten a soap opera flavor to it that I disliked. It wasn’t going anywhere. I lost interest, and it was cancelled shortly thereafter.
It was basically a one-trick pony. Mork was a funny single episode of Happy Days (I’m assuming-- I stopped watching in after I turned 8).
I remember the premiere of Mork & Mindy being very funny (I don’t remember what happened, just that is was funny), and then that it was disappointing after the first episode.
It probably should have been a TV movie.
It probably also should have had good scripts instead of feeding Robin Williams some Coke, and then letting him ad lib for a few hours, and trying to edit it into something coherent. Basically, the first episode was the only one with a real script.
season 2 of Lost was arguably better in my opinion, but after that, season 3 was a travesty.
I may be in the minority on this one, but Ted Lasso was great in season 1, only ok in season 2, and really quite poor in season 3. I liked it best when Ted and coach Beard were on their own, nobody on the team or the owner really like them or respected them, and they were fighting to get the sometimes selfish players on their side. Once everyone got on the same page in season 2, it became much less interesting.
As did its submarine predecessor Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (quite a few were reality-grounded and dealing with Cold War themes and not rubber leprechauns), and while we’re at it Space: 1999 (ymmv tho on the often-horrific or spiritual 1st season eps.)