10 Amazing TV Shows With Surprisingly Weak First Seasons

5. Seinfeld

Although Seinfeld hasn't aired a new episode in sixteen years, you can still watch it on television every single day. That's how big of an impact it had on television. It was tremendously innovative, creating a show that didn't need to have major issues for the characters to deal with every week, and comprised of a group of individuals that were so hopelessly self-involved that they never learned or grew from their mistakes. But although the influence of Seinfeld is far reaching, you wouldn't know it from the first season, when the show was actually almost cancelled. The pilot episode didn't even feature Elaine, one of the most famous and popular characters from the show. It was met with extremely negative feedback from test audiences, and the entire format of the show depended too much on Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up bits that serve as bookends for the sitcom. But they tweaked Seinfeld over the course of the first season, and after a while it became the iconic show that it is known as now.