10 TV Shows That Pissed You Off Straight Away

CSI, The Office & more - which TV shows made a terrible first impression?

CSI Crime Scene Investigation
CBS

First impressions count for so, so much where our entertainment is concerned. If a TV show can hook audiences in the first few minutes, they just might have fans for life, but at the same time, not all shows have the smoothest of beginnings.

Sometimes TV series go the complete opposite direction and leave viewers with a sour taste in their mouths from the very first scene, episode, or season.

In some cases they had to fight hard to win audiences back and went on to become genuinely great shows, while others sadly never got the chance, or perhaps never even listened to the feedback.

These shows left viewers and critics pissed off from the jump for myriad reasons: perhaps the characters were too unlikeable, the action sequences were lousy, or it just felt like a shameless rip-off of something that came before.

Whatever the reason, these shows earned the ire of the viewing audience from the start, forcing them to make a drastic pivot or risk falling into the inescapable ether of forgettable TV.

If nothing else, many of these shows prove that a bad pilot episode or even a wonky first season need not doom a show forever more...

10. The Roses Are Absolute Garbage - Schitt's Creek

CSI Crime Scene Investigation
CBC

Schitt's Creek is one of the finest examples of a TV show that started off rocky but went on to improve with each successive season, culminating in its sixth and final season winning the most Emmys that any single comedy season ever has.

But those early days were rough, for sure. The primary sticking point for many was the caustic, excessively obnoxious personalities of the Rose family, prompting many viewers to wonder why they should keep watching a show centered around over-privileged, mean-spirited a**holes.

But with each passing season the edges were planed away and audiences warmed to the Roses, whose inner humanity was slowly brought to the fore.

By the end of the show, it truly felt like the family had been transformed through their nuanced respective character arcs, even if those earlier episodes failed to impress that this was on the cards.

If the first season in particular paints Schitt's Creek as a fairly generic fish-outta-water sitcom and its characters as simply too unpleasant to put up with, the seasons that follow do their absolute damnedest to win you over, and it absolutely works.

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Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.