“You said I have a secret plan to fight inflation? And you don’t support it?” I have never laughed so hard at any show.
I’ll agree with Dr. Who; I tried watching the old ones but I have a really low tolerance for cheesy special effects (it’s why I have trouble watching Star Trek: TOS), but I was at a friend’s house and they popped in a DVD with one of the David Tennant episodes. I found myself wanting to ignore it and discovering it was quite good.
The biggest one for me, though, is Project Runway. I couldn’t imagine liking it when my daughter started watching it. I hate reality shows (in general) and thought it was silly nonsense like America’s Next Top Model. Now, I’m hooked, and my daughter finds it boring. But I love it.
Modern Family - I pretty much hate any show with tv kids on it, but this one is different - it’s funny. And I don’t want to put a bullet through the head of any of the kids.
I loved Buffy, and I didn’t love Angel at first, but I gave it a second chance, and I think I ended up loving it more than Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar could get awfully irritating at times).
Ghost Whisperer snuck under our defenses, too, mostly because it’s all that’s on here on a Friday night when we’re too pooped to do anything but lay like broccoli.
I could never tolerate JAG, and so I thought that NCIS, an offshoot of same, would be terrible. I was wrong; it’s simply wonderful, reliably amusing, and occasionally brilliant.
NCIS:LA, however, blows chunks. Not only must it be destroyed, but the earth underneath it must be salted.
This is almost word for word what I came in to post. My wife and I started watching it when there was a marathon on USA one Saturday and have been hooked ever since. It has some of the most well drawn and fully developed characters I have seen on a network drama in a long time, and on top of that it’s really a lot of fun.
So I was surprised that I liked it so much because JAG was dull and NCIS: LA is almost unwatchable.
Survivor
Several people who set near me at work back then were crazy about it when it first came on. they used to drive me nuts and i’d belittle them at any chance.
but when the 3rd season (Africa) started, i decided to watch a couple of episodes. been loving it since.
and not being a big sitcom guy, i never thought i’d care for Two and a Half Men. but i got married 3 years ago to a woman who loved it, and it ain’t half bad. makes me laugh
King of Queens. I didn’t actually think I would hate it, but it seemed like just another lame sitcom. I started catching it in reruns and found it to be quite tolerable, and sometimes outrageous.
Magnum P.I. Okay, I didn’t wind up loving it, but I didn’t watch it because it looked like any other detective/cop show. I saw some reruns and found out that Magnum was kind of a screwup and that he was basically a freeloader with the mansion and the Ferrari. It was different and also tolerable.
Everybody Loves Raymond. Same as the others. I don’t love it, but after catching it in reruns I found it had some really on moments. I liked especially that it didn’t focus on the kids and kept them in the background.
In case anyone cares, I have begun a thread to praise Gibbs and his crew. It’s also good for saying cruel things about the spin-off, which is as terrible as NCIS is great.
A big one for me would have to be Heros. I thought that it would be a crappy superhero sitcom like Smallville ended up being, but it had a complex storyline that was constantly going back to previous episodes for support that it was thoroughly enjoyable.
I remember I just could NOT get my husband to start watching The Sopranos. I kept telling him over and over I had read about it and thought we would both love it. Finally, rolling his eyes, he said he’d watch that “opera show” for one episode. Needless to say, he loved it! I tease him to this day.
Survivor and American Idol. I started off thinking of them as vapid reality-voyeur shows.
Somehow, I ignored the drama and changed my perspective to a sports afficionado, evaluating them from the meta-competition level and found huge enjoyment analyzing tactics, strengths and weaknesses, etc like a fantasy football player would. They then turned into good corny fun that we could all enjoy interactively with each other while watching on the couch.
Now if they make a show putting Idol contestants out on a tropical island to survive, they’d have the ultimate show ever 
I totally loathed *Everybody Loves Raymond *after seeing a few episodes. But one night I was in foreign country, and the only English-speaking channel was having a *Raymond *marathon. The episode that got me hooked was the one in which Raymond and Debra had hurt themselves falling out of bed while having sex . . . and made up an elaborate story to explain their injuries to others. When I got back home I introduced the show to my elderly mother, and it became her favorite show.
It’s hard to believe since I loved it so much but for me it was Northern Exposure. The pre-release description made me think it was going to be another horrible sitcom based entirely in a studio with cardboard walls. New York doctor in Alaska! Yuk, yuk, yuk! :rolleyes:
Instead, of course, it was a witty, charming and utterly absorbing commentary on life, the universe and everything. I need to join **Johnny LA **in watching it.
Lost and Heroes
I gave up on both a few episodes in (I think it was after 2 episodes for each), but was pulled back into both by family and/or friends, and found that I truly enjoy them. It took me longer to rejoin (and catch-up) to Lost though.
I hate Cheers. Can’t stand it, don’t like anybody on it. Therefore, I assumed I would also hate *Frasier *since it’s a spin-off. I’m not sure the first time I watched it, but from the moment I saw the chemistry between Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce (along with the witty writing in general) I was hooked. It’s now one of my favorite shows.
Still can’t stand Cheers, though.
Prison Break. I wasn’t quite sure what it was going to be like (Oz? Mission Impossible?) and I am leery of concept shows on Fox, but my roommate watched it first and gave me the thumbs up and I was hooked… until season 2 and 3, that is.
A similar story for me. I didn’t hate Cheers, but I thought that the most uninteresting character on the show, perhaps aside from Carla, was Frasier. So I thought a show with him as the main character would be terrible. But I’ve been proven very wrong.
**Survivor after the first season.
I loved the first season of Survivor when it was all fresh and new and even the idea of an alliance didn’t come up until the second half (and only the people in the alliance knew there was one). But when the second season was going to start, all I could think was “Everyone knows the secret now is to make an alliance. How boring is that?” Little did I know…
I think mine would be Dragonball series, the anime stuff.
I thought it would be lame way back, then I saw an episode of DBZ and kinda got into it, then became a major geek for the DBZ world and history. I haven’t watched it recently but I still remember details and such if someone were to talk about it.
Firefly. “Space cowboys? What is this horrible nonsense?” But it turned out fine.