10 Great TV Shows With Awful First Seasons

5. Parks & Recreation

It feels strange to say it, as the show is one of the best and most rewatchable sitcoms of all time, but there was a time when Parks and Recreation just wasn't very good, and for a number of reasons, yet again many of them come down to character development.

If you look at the later years of the show, there is an entire cast of wonderful characters, with years of experience and relationships to draw from, but this was not the case in season one. Most were largely one dimensional, while certain popular figures weren't around yet, and others may as well not have been.

Add this to the fact that Mark (Paul Schneider), who would later be replaced and upgraded in season three by the Ben and Chris (Adam Scott and Rob Lowe) tandem, always felt like a square peg in a round hole. Leslie's infatuation with him only held her back, which brings us neatly onto Amy Poehler's now classic character.

Once free from the combination of a being love sick puppy that also came off as something of a cringy Michael Scott imitation, she grew into the kind of character that could lead a brilliant and funny show. She remained incredibly cringeworthy, but this was largely down to her untameable enthusiasm, something that made it impossible not to love and root for her. She was the unmitigated and unquestioned MVP, it just took a little while for the character to get there.