I’ve been watching The West Wing on Bravo – never watched it while it was on, but I’ve just watched pretty much the entire series, 2 episodes a day, and loved it. Practically obsessed with it.
I did the same thing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer several years ago. Anyone else?
PS – I could also include The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, which I only watched on DVD since I didn’t have HBO, but at least I had a good excuse for those.
I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries back in 2003 and just wasn’t impressed.
It wasn’t until 2008 when my girlfriend re-introduced me to it that I really got into it.
The Wire and Firefly. I bought both because of the amount of positive feedback I had heard. Now I feel foolish for having waited for so long. I picked up Serenity last night, I’ll watch it this weekend.
I only watched Frasier for the first time in about 2002. I’d seen bits of it occasionally but I just didn’t think it was my bag, and I had never been a fan of Cheers.
Now, it’s probably my all-time favourite TV comedy, and I’ve seen every episode, some of them several times.
Quite a few others that I saw as a kid and didn’t appreciate, but now in reruns realise were excellent. I saw the 70s BBC show The Duchess of Duke Street recently, which I remember dreading as a kid because my Mum insisted on watching it. It was really good!
Hitchcock.
Firefly
I only ever watched one episode (“Objects in Space”) when it was originally on the air; as it was pretty far along in the series, there was a lot going on that I didn’t get, and so, I wasn’t too impressed. As it turns out, that was right about the time it got cancelled. Several years later, on the advice of some friends, I picked up the DVD boxed set, and fell in love with it.
Futurama
I don’t think I ever watched it on Fox – I’m not a Simpsons fan, and I figured it was just a sci-fi Simpsons. After Fox cancelled it, I happened upon it once or twice on Adult Swim, was impressed by the smart humor, and started watching the re-runs regularly.
Only started watching Seinfeld seriously near the end of its run, when a lot of hype was made about the last episode. Thought it was kinda funny. Caught the rest of the series on reruns, realized how good it was. Now I watch it every night
Couldn’t stand The Waltons when I was a kid. Now, it’s actually rather pleasant to watch once every few months or so.
That Seventies Show.
The Golden Girls!!!
And Perry Mason.
If they could only make a funny courtroom drama starring cheesy, pop icons…
Oh wait, thats Boston Legal…!
I’ve watched a lot of series on DVD that I didn’t watch during their runs, in some cases because they were on HBO, and in other cases because it’s more enjoyable to compress a season into a couple of months. “24” is a good example of a series that is best watched over a fairly short period (although two seasons was more than enough for me). I watched pretty much all of Prison Break this way and a season or two of The Wire, The Shield, The Unit, Californication, Rome and the Tudors.
Wow, what a long list…my situation is that I usually leave the TV on and then surf online, so I often use basic cable channels which show a lot of reruns. Also, I rarely remember show times or days of the week that original airings are on.
Here’s shows that I loved by watching their reruns first:
Simpsons
CSI
House MD
Futurama
Family Guy
Professional Wrestling (tape trading, back in the day…I didn’t even have basic cable.)
Star Trek: TNG (I hated the original ST, I ignored TNG, but I was a huge fan of DS9, so I started watching TNG reruns, and saw most, if not all, that way.)
MAS*H
I know people bash the later seasons, but this show was mostly really good and I don’t think I ever saw a single episode until around 2002 or so.
It’s one of my favorite shows of all time, now. The fact it is set in the past helps it age well, too.
JAG I got hooked when a cable channel ran it weekday evenings.
Babylon 5 had been off the air a couple years before I started watching it weeknights. I would have hated watching this show on a weekly basis. The plot is too slow. Watching it every night makes a big improvement.
Oh, yes, totally. I only watched this after it had finished.
Every week would have been hard.
I don’t recall ever watching The Rockford Files during its original run, but somewhere in the intervening years I starting catching it in syndication. One of the best detective shows ever.
I watched the pilot of Psych and didn’t like it at all. But after a while I saw it was still being renewed each year, and with the occasional positive mention here, it made me rethink my stance.
I’ve now watched the entire series, over a period of a month. I love it, and am seriously disappointed that it’s on hiatus.
That’s how I thought it was going to be but I did end up watching the first ep when it aired because my brother was watching it and I ended up hanging out with him and seeing it. If I didn’t have a brother who liked animated shows so much I wouldn’t have seen it for years. ::shudder:: Now that’s an alterna universe I NEVER wanna visit!