Successful Television Shows That Improved Significantly As Time Went On

It is kind of a truism in television production that most successful television shows (lasting more than 4 seasons being the typical number) are at their best quality wise in the SECOND season and then slowly begin to decline.

Of course this is not always true.

Which successful series can you name that got noticeably better in quality years down the road?

My list

1) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Why it improved dramatically in seasons 4, 5, & 6?

The addition of Worf to the cast and the focus then on not one but two major wars. Something that had never been done in Star Trek before.

2) The Big Bang Theory

Why it improved?

The addition of the characters of Amy and Bernadette to the cast and allowing Howard to evolve from a horny troll to a happy married man.

The series ran the risk of going overboard with "geeky, asexual Sheldon" and the near constant Leonard/Penny "Will they, won't they, are they" stories. It turns out relationship Sheldon is even funnier and Howard is infinitely more tolerable now that the isn't chasing sluts and hookers.

3) Law & Order

Why it improved?

They got out of the strict "half hour cops, half hour lawyers" format and added much better character actors along the way. Notably Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston.

4) MASH

Why it improved?

Though many like me like "early MASH" better due to it being pure comedy largely, objectively speaking the later seasons of MASH are probably better. The main reasons are that the series replaced the largely cartoonish characters of Frank Burns, Colonel Blake, Trapper John, and Radar with more interesting and less over the top characters of Winchester, Potter, Honeycutt, and basically had a nontranvestite Klinger take Radar's role. Though Mike Farrell (Honeycutt) never had the same chemistry with series star Alan Alda as Wayne Rogers (Trapper John) did, overall the series became much better.

5) SeaQuest

Why it improved dramatically in Seasons Three (though not enough to save it).

Replacing the way too easy going and tormented Roy Scheider (Captain Bridger) with the far, far more intense Michael Ironside (Hudson).

It seems a repeat theme is that shows often improve by adding new cast members well into the series and in fact moving and expanding the focus of shows.

I would agree with M*A*S*H, especially after the one-dimensional Burns was replaced with the much more complex Winchester as a foil, and after Houlihan started being written as a sympathetic character who happened to have a different perspective from the protagonist rather than a caricature of a humorless martinet.

I would disagree with SeaQuest, which I think was strongest in its first season.

Additions:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- fun enough in the first few seasons, but really got excellent later on.

Star Trek TNG -- almost unwatchable first few seasons, strong third and fourth seasons, and probably hit its peak in the fifth.

I disagree about M*A*S*H. Though I've always liked him as an actor, after about the second season that David Ogden Stiers joined the cast, I found the Winchester-era episodes to be nearly unwatchable. Too hokey and conventional.

The Trapper John seasons had more of the spirit and subversiveness of the original movie. It's not surprising that you don't like them, Dayton.

Angel, even more so than Buffy; Buffy was fun from episode one, though it got a lot better but Angel really only became bearbale some time into season two.

And nuWho took a drastic upswing during its second and third episodes.

Definitely not Happy Days

DS9 was just great the whole way though, thanks.

You're kidding right? Seasons 1-3 and 7 were nearly unwatchable.

I loved the Trapper John era on MASH. But I still think the series was simply better in later years though they ceased to be the falling down laugh out loud funny.

That's exactly why I quit liking it.

You're both wrong. It was abysmal right up to Duet, and became amazing thereafter.

Chuck (no relation) took the show's spirit when he dribbled that basketball up the stairs, never to be seen again.

Winchester was probably the saving grace of the later seasons. Of all the characters, he was the only one who had an evolution worth a damn. Hawkeye became Alda's sock puppet avatar, BJ ws an unlikeable, whiny eunuch after Trapper, and Hot Lips' daddy issues with Potter...UGH!
The duo that Charles and Klinger evolve into is by far the most believable and flat out human relationship in the show-if not 70's TV period. Can you tell me you don't get a Man Tear when they wish each other Merry Xmas by name? Or in GFA when he hears that the NK musicians had died? Pure empathy with the guy as his greatest solace turns to dust forever.

I view MASH as two distinct shows, each brilliant in its own way.

My little pony.

Seinfeld - the first season or two were the worst, no doubt.
Family Guy first two seasons are unwatchable.

Completely disagree. while Season 1 overall was weak, Duet was one of the best outings of the whole series.

They turned the corner with "Necessary Evil" which was the ninth ep of season two and gradually improved until "Blood Oath" (2.20) which was the first of for excellent eps in a row. They never looked back.

I loved Season 7 too, for the record.

As to the original question, i'd submit Fringe, Dollhouse, and NCIS (it was just another procedural until the characters emerged)

Duet was just one episode out of two dozen.

Even producers of Deep Space Nine IIRC later said that in Season 7 they were distracted by the need to "build up" the role of Ezri Dax to make her equal to the other characters and that hurt the show.

Season 7 was fine Dayton. It's your taste that is flawed.

Which makes no difference at all to me.

I liked or loved 10-12 episodes out of that season and at least two of them were among the best the series has to offer.

So you liked less than half the episodes in Season 7?

Hardly a ringing endorsement.

And if it makes no difference you would not reply to it.

Prove it.

that the producers said "we were distracted" is not a counter argument to me saying "it was a good season"

both can be true. As for the "less than half" calculation, when I say "liked or loved" iu don't mean "the rest sucked" i mean "liked" in the sense of saying "that was damned fine television by any standard....a better measure of whether it was a good season in my opinion is how many did i DISLIKE.

But for a point of comparison, and i say this as a person who's willing to put the show in the top 5 SF series i've ever watched, I would identify a similar number of "liked or loved" episodes in each of season 3-6...maybe Season 6 would be a bit above that curve, i'd have to rewatch the whole series to be definite.

On the other hand, there's no more than 3-4 eps in any given season after the first which I actively DISLIKE - and that includes 7

I would argue that all Trek shows improved as time went on, with the possible exception of TOS, which is so episodic that you can watch the episodes in a completely random order and not get lost. Even there, I think that season 2 was the strongest overall.

TNG was very weak in the first two seasons, with a few notable exceptions (the episode with the Binyaari who fell into a coma when their planetary computer rebooted and Unnatural Selection, pretty much the best medical ethics episode in the entire franchise), but it improved a lot when Crusher got back and managed to stop mollycoddling Wesley.

I would argue that DS9 had the strongest pilot of all the Treks, but because it is so character driven, it took a while for the characters to settle into their roles. I really enjoyed the Dominion arc.

Voyager is my least favorite Trek, and I don't think the show was improved by the introduction of Seven. I liked it best in the late third season and early fourth, because I did like Seven to start with, even though the show could easily have accomodated both Seven and Kes. But when the show quit being an ensemble show and became all about the Doctor and Seven, that's when I pretty much lost interest.

Enterprise took a while to get going, I like seasons 3 and 4 best, even though it started with a really great pilot and had a miserable finale (I usually don't count And these are the voyages... but tend to regard Demons/Terra Prime as the true finale of the show).

My favorite sci-fi show ever, Babylon 5, took a while to get going, hitting its stride in the middle of season 2. However, because so much time was spent introducing the characters, subsequent rewatches were for me much more enjoyable, because I noticed the early hints of things to come that I'd missed before.

While there were individual episodes of the later seasons that were...okay...I can't get past the hokey dialogue that became more common as the series progressed. The Potter "witticisms" spread to every character.

TOS definitely got worse in season 3. Just compare Spock's Brain to Amok Time!

And Voyager, of course, took that immense downturn in quality when the ship departed from DS9.

Seriously dude? You asked a question about shows that got better as they continued. Just because you don't like or care for some of the seasons doesn't mean that they weren't good. You've said you will hammer your ideas and opinions in on people over and over again until they accept them or get banned because you want yours to be the predominant one. And here's something I've noticed, once you can't defend your idea/opinion you jump to the "Prove it" defense. Give it, a lot of your opinions and ideas will never be accepted.

Voyager suffered from a number of things:

1) Bad casting.
2) Bad writing.
3) Producers who DID NOT even like their own series concept (by their own admission).
4) A network at that time that loathed their own program. At best.

And the third season of TOS suffered in no small part because of a major budget cut which forced Fred Freiberger to bring in newer, less expensive writers and limit many episodes to ship board.

I've got time.

And opportunity eventually comes to all...

"Taxi", especially after & due to ditching John Burns, & making Reverend Jim Iggy a main character from season 2 till the end.

I'm with shootER about "M*A*S*H", and Chuck about "Happy Days".

Breaking Bad, which started off as just good and got progressively better with each season. Seasons 4 & 5 were masterpieces.

Sons of Anarchy also started off as only okay in it's first season. But things picked up in Season 2 with Gemma's rape and the show got great. While they haven't been as consistently good in every season, overall it's a solid show that's gotten better with time. The current season is kicking ass and taking names.