10 Great TV Shows With Awful First Seasons

Now more so than ever, there is a quite ridiculous amount of impatience in the world of both movies and TV. If a franchise or a series doesn't hit the ground running immediately, chances are it will be cancelled without even a second thought.

It almost feels as though cutting losses and moving onto the next project in line is the expectation here, as TV shows are regularly cancelled after a less-than-stellar first season, before they were even given a fighting chance.

But the thing is, series often take time to truly find their audience and their market. They will evolve and become better as time goes on, and if a sub-par first season is the price that has to be paid, then isn't it worth the risk to pay it? The expectation for perfection straight away has culled what could have been great projects before they had the chance to be great.

There are plenty of examples, before such trigger happy cancellations became the norm, of how a bad first season could still be built on and turned into something special. Just imagine if any of these ten had been axed before hitting their stride.

There was once a time that campy supernatural stories made for great TV. Within the same span from the late 1990s through to the early-mid 00s ran the likes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed, and of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

All encapsulated what made the 90s so cheesy and fun, with Buffy arguably going on to be the most popular. Still to this day the show has a loyal fanbase, equally both excited by its would-be return and outraged by its subsequent cancellation in 2026.

Buffy certainly left an impression, but it is largely the later years that are most fondly looked back on, with season one being the most forgettable of all. It was closer to half a season in reality, boasting just 12 episodes before moving into the more typical 22-entry seasons, and Joss Whedon's creation was far from reaching its peak in that time frame.

In what will be a recurring theme on this list, characters that went on to be incredibly popular were either underdeveloped or missing entirely, the writing was nowhere near as honed as it would become over the years, and it was let down by incredibly shoddy CGI, even for the time. Thankfully things got better very quickly, and though there were certainly some episodes worse than others in the following years, the quality never stooped to season one levels again.