10 TV Shows That Peaked In Their First Season

It’s easy to mock Glee (Community, in fact, once did a brilliant episode doing precisely that), but the first season actually offers some great television if you’re into the whole big musical numbers thing.

The first run made it clear that these musical numbers were figments of the characters imagination, while later offerings jumped the shark on that completely. While the show was bright and peppy throughout, it was more of a veneer over the darkness. Later seasons abandoned the meaningful core completely and simply went light and fluffy throughout.

Glee seems now, on reflection, a little bit of a black sheep for the show runners who also created Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story and Scream Queens. However, initially it actually sat comfortably alongside them.

With storylines tackling homophobia, teenage pregnancy and much more besides, Glee offered a scathing takedown of typical cotton-candy teen dramas. Early Glee was basically mocking what later seasons of Glee became.

The issue was that the songs were what nabbed the headlines, the viewers and the money. Later seasons were designed with the songs front and centre, without any of the spiky stuff to push away mainstream viewers.

In short, Glee sold out.