Inspired by the recent thread about movies you thought you would hate but wound up loving.
Anyway, my wife has introduced me to a lot of shows I didn’t think I would care for, the original** Melrose Place** being chief among them.
When this show was first on in the '90s I had no interest whatsoever in watching it. But when my wife moved in with me a few years back she insisted we get the DVDs from Netflix. I thought I’d humor her and got a few discs from the first season, figuring that I could just fall asleep on the couch while she’s watching.
Then I got hooked.
Yes, the show is incredibly trashy and over the top, but that’s what makes it so good (or rather so bad it’s good). It got to the point where I couldn’t wait to get down to the mailbox after work to see if we’d gotten the next discs.
Also American Idol. Again another show that I had no interest in at all when it first came on, figuring it was just going to be a bunch of teenyboppers regurgitating the sort of Top 40 pop music that’s been a scourge on radio for the past 15 years. And there is some of that, but many of these kids have genuine talent. And it’s always fun trying to figure out who’ll get kicked off.
And then there’s Sex and the City. I’d actually heard some good things about it, but again, figuring it was going to a soapy, girly show, I never thought about watching it. Then a few years ago I was living in an apartment where the previous tenants had apparently never bothered disconnecting their cable so I was getting it with HBO for free. My future wife came down for a visit and suggested that we watch that weekend’s episode of SATC. I ended laughing my ass off. Yes, it’s girly, but it’s also a funny well-written show.
Based on the pre-season description, we were sure we would loathe Big Bang Theory.
Wrong.
When I was a kid, I would occasionally catch Star Trek: TNG when the new episodes were airing. Once in awhile, I would be flipping through the channels and see something that looked like Star Trek, so I would start to watch it. The camera would zoom out and show Deep Space Nine and I would change the channel, irritated that they nearly tricked me into watching something without the Enterprise. It always felt like Star Trek: Airport or ST: Mall to me, so I never gave it a chance. After years of hearing how good it was, I decided to try it out with Netflix. I’m working my way through the seasons in order and realize I should have been watching it back when it was new.
I think **Dollhouse **has a weird history with my wife and me.
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We assumed, coming from Joss Whedon, that we would love it.
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Then, having seen its early episodes, we disliked it quite a bit.
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Then, after it began to improve, we loved it.
Had a “assumed love”, “real hate”, and then a “love” relationship with it. 
But, the best example for this with me would be** Battlestar Galactica**. I mean, come on. It’s just a Scifi channel remake of a really cheesy show. I skipped the mini-series and didn’t start watching until I heard the early episodes(33 and Water) were good.
Turns out it was the best show ever, pretty much. I was stunned.
Definitely Doctor Who for me. All of my partner’s family are serious Whovians, and whenever it was on at their house a reverential silence was called for. Initially I thought it was boring and a little silly, but after a few episodes I put my book down and started watching. A series and a half later, I asked for and got a model sonic screwdriver for my birthday.
I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Buffy - and that was only after I was first dragged kicking and screaming into Firefly. The one-sentence descriptions of both shows just sounded so… silly. A teenage girl fighting vampires (mit angst)? Cowboys in space? Noooo thank you.
Eventually, my best friend persuaded me to at least see the Firefly pilot, and I was irrevocably hooked from “I’m a bad, bad man.” I watched through all of Firefly in about a week, and immediately started feverishly anticipating “Serenity” (which was as yet still about a year and a half away). Still refused to give the Buffyverse a shot, though, until about a year later, when I happened to catch the musical episode on TV. Once again, instantly hooked, and blasted through all twelve combined seasons of Buffy and Angel over the summer - thank you, Netflix!
Other favorite shows that I assumed I would hate:
The West Wing: Assumed it would be dry to the extreme, was pleasantly surprised to find out that, in addition to being the best television drama EVAR, it’s also hilarious (secret plan to fight inflation!)
How I Met Your Mother: Thought it sounded like a Friends clone, ended up trying it for the NPH and staying for the Josh Radnor and Jason Segel.
Sports Night: Another Sorkin work that I thought I wouldn’t care for, given my lack of interest in sports at the time. Ended up loving, in spite of the laugh track.
Arrested Development: The guy who recommended it to me is the most pretentious douchebag I know, and I unfairly jumped to the conclusion that the show would be similarly pretentious hipster trash. Ended up missing out on the best sitcom of the past ten years until three years after its untimely demise.
Veronica Mars: You think I would have learned my lesson with Buffy, but once again I gave this an initial pass based on its seemingly-silly premise. Ended up watching the pilot on DVD while the second season was airing, and instantly fell in love. Out of all the shows I’ve seen, I think this remains the most underappreciated - it doesn’t have the cult following of Arrested Development or Whedon’s shows, but it’s every bit as intelligent and character-driven, and adds to that some of the most intricate and deft plotting I’ve ever seen on long-form TV.
Angel.
I was completely ambivalent about Buffy before I started watching it a year or so ago, but totally expected to hate Angel. I think it was all the Batman references in the early episodes that won me over.
I didn’t watch “Married with Children” at first because I assumed it was a dopey show like “Bill Cosby”, “Family Ties” or “Eight is Enough”
I ended up liking “Ally McBeal” more than I thought I would. It still had problems but that was part of the charm. But somebody get Callista Flockhart a Big Mac and shake…anorexic is not sexy.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My fiance got into it about a season and a half before I even gave it a chance. I soundly mocked him for watching it and would go do other things when it was on. But then I got lazy and started watching it with him, and then I got hooked.
Leverage. When my sis first told me about it, I thought “A Team revisited? Count me out”. When she finally practically tied me down and I started watching it, though, loved it!
SpongeBob Squarepants. Got stuck babysitting my nephew one day and he put it on so I reluctantly watched with him. It’s brilliant.
Oh, I should add to my reply: my then-wife and I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries and saw no reason to spend any more time on it.
A divorce later, and my wonderful girlfriend urged me to give it another try. I am so glad I found her.
Arrested Development
Pushing Daisies - Didn’t think I would HATE it, just was very dubious. Started watching as a favor to supervenusfreak and ended up adoring it with the very first episode.
Ugly Betty - did think I would hate it, given the premise (oh, a show where a relatively normal-size woman has to make her way in the fashion industry), but caught up when ABC Family did the marathon of the first half of the first season a couple years ago and loved it. Then it just became kind of “meh” and I haven’t been watching this last season at all (I did catch “The Kiss” on YouTube…)
My wife is a big Golden Girls fan which isn’t a show I ever thought I’d find myself watching but it’s actually pretty good times.
Speaking of my wife, for years the show The Ghost Whisperer was completely off our radars. A couple years ago I saw it on TV at a restaurant and said “Really? That show is still on? I figured it went away ages ago.” Recently, my wife came across some satellite channel that seems to show four hour blocks of the show on a regular basis and she now watches it all the time.
Funny, my wife, who was unemployed for awhile, used to watch Golden Girls all the time. It seems to me that between Lifetime, Hallmark and WE, it’s on pretty much all day.
But you’re right, it is a pretty good show.
Outer Space Astronauts
I wouldn’t use the word love, but Desperate Housewives got quite watchable after my wife insisted on seeing the first few seasons.
Somewhat of a “me too” on this. I had somewhat of the same opinion you did, but after paying some attention this season thanks to my fiance, I—well, I still don’t love it, but I both respect it more and find it more interesting than I thought I would.
Yeah, I was leery of it too (A show about politics? Bleah, I think I’ll pass), but I totally agree with your assessment. It’s very entertaining, and it makes me feel smarter for watching it.
I never saw the movie “Buffy”, but thought it sounded like a lame “Fright Night” rip-off. I had no intention of watching the TV show, but…I was bereft of cable TV for several months during the mid-late 90s, and the only reception my crummy little box picked up was the WB. And rather than do something drastic, like read a book for og’s sake, I ended up watching it. I think it was right about the time that Jenny Callendar got killed that I realized with a start that I actually cared about what was going on!
I watched the opening episode of Once a Hero with very low expectations, but back then I tried to watch every SF show on TV (there were fewer of them back then).
It was amazingly good – a riff on comic books, heroes, and metafiction, with some very sly jokes throughout, the type thing that Joss Whedon made a trademark several years later.
The show was cancelled after three episodes. A damn shame, since it already was on the road to being a classic.