One Has to Wonder

[kriadydragon]

What is it with me and taking forever to get interested in a show? Every single show I've ever loved I always got into about a season or two or many later. The only shows I got into from the start were Numbers and CSI New York and both shows I ended up losing interest in seasons later. I got into season one of Suits but, though I like the show, I have to admit it also pushes a lot of do-not-want buttons along with my like buttons, so it remains to be seen if it's the exception. But with the shows I absolutely love it's always been the opposite. SGA - got into it around season two. White Collar - the same. Dr. Who - the same. Even shows I like instead of love, like the Mentalist, I got into seasons down the line. Now I find myself getting pulled into Merlin after watching the most recent season (which was, what, season four, five? Yeesh! Took me long enough :P)

And I really don't get why this is. Anyone else find themselves getting into shows only after the fact that they've been airing for at least a season? Any theories as to why this is?

Comments

[black-raven135.livejournal.com]

What is it with me and taking forever to get interested in a show? Every single show I've ever loved I always got into about a season or two or many later.


(((((NODS))))))
Am fully able to relate........it is always that way
for me......and that means I sometimes even miss the pilot which means I am not sure how it all started.
Sighs

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

and that means I sometimes even miss the pilot which means I am not sure how it all started.
Sighs

Yes, I hate that! I didn't get into SGA until season two and it was forever before I finally got to see the pilot of 38 Minutes. I had heard about 38 Minutes and it drove me nuts that I had missed the best whump episode ever.

[octoberdreaming.livejournal.com]

Always, for me, too. SGA season 5 had completed before I watched it on DVD and went looking for the fandom. Doctor Who - I JUST started watching. Merlin, I didn't start until it was well into season 2. Fringe, White Collar, Sanctuary, all the same!

This is the first season that I've watched some shows from the beginning, although I'm not super-fannish about any of them - like Person of Interest (which I COULD get fannish about, maybe), Ringer, Once Upon a Time.

My theory for myself and why I'm usually a late-comer is primarily a matter of access to the media. DVDs made shows accessible that I hadn't necessarily been able to follow before, and now that I have a dvr to record things, I find I have a much easier time finding shows from the very beginning.

The other part, for me, is that I'm sort of reluctant to throw myself full into something these days, since networks are so quick to cancel shows, now. (Like Pan Am, or Hellcats - woe to me, I want those shows back - and they're not even coming out on DVD :( ) So it's kind of like, wait and see if it goes another season and then maybe I'll trust the network isn't totally going to smash my heart to bits if I learn to love it.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I don't know why I always take forever to get into a show. I start off having absolutely no interest in the show, with no intention of ever watching it. Then, suddenly, I'm interested. I know that with SGA it was actually a matter of needing a sci-fi show for a sci-fi fanfic idea, and it was either SGA or Battle Star Galactica. SGA I had access to, so SGA it was and it became my best bud among shows.

With everything else there seems to just come this... moment, I guess - an episode or scene or concept or character - that provokes me into giving the show more of a chance and suddenly I find myself hooked. It's really weird because it's so abrupt. Not even gradual, just this sudden interest followed by sudden love.

[sholio]

I'm very much that way -- although, like octoberdreaming, a lot of it is because I don't often try shows until they have a season or two. It's too disappointing to get into a show that's cancelled six episodes later. But I also have a history of trying shows and abandoning them after the first episode or two, then getting into them later, when there was a bigger chunk of show to watch. (I did that with both SGA and White Collar, as it happens ...) I think that I just need more than one or two episodes to know if I'm going to like a show. Plus, the first episodes in a series are usually the shakiest; the actors haven't quite settled into their roles, and the character relationships haven't really gelled yet. Most of the good stuff is yet to come.

Usually it takes me at least half a season to get hooked on something, if not longer. The only show I can think of off the top of my head that hooked me from the first episode was Lost, but it also happened to come along at EXACTLY the right time for me -- I hadn't really watched TV in years, and I'd just moved halfway across the country and was really lonely, so being able to lose myself in a twisty mystery show with a ton of characters once a week was perfect. (But Lost never really hooked me in a fannish way, and I later drifted in and out of love with the show over the years.)

[swanpride.livejournal.com]

Well, most shows need half a season to set up the world in which it plays - the characters, the rules (if it's a fantasy show) aso. So when I start to watch a show, three things might happen:
1. The pilot is so convincing, I'm hooked - only happened with White Collar so far, though.
2. The pilot is okayish, so I give the show a chance and stick to it for at least half a season, in order to give the writers time to set everything up.
3. I don't even manage to watch the pilot until the end - that happend with "person of interest" and "hustler" (though there I watched, my attention was just slipping). The reason was in both cases the same: I found none of the characters even remotely compelling. With Leverage for example, there were some bumbs along the ways the first two season, but from the very beginning, I liked Parker.

I think that's a general theme for me - I need to like the character. White Collar didn't had me because of the premise, it had me because I saw Matt Bomer und was impressed by his acting abilities (did I mention that I'm a prood owner of a White Collar Neal Caffrey Shirt since yesterday?). With Psych, I mostly liked Juliet. Suits, I still stick around because I like Mike Ross and most of the female characters. With Merlin, my favorite characters were Merlin and Morgana (they certainly have the most compelling stories). ASo.

[sholio]

Yes, although for me, it's not characters but the relationships between them that catches my eye (usually). So it's almost inevitable with most shows that it's going to take a few episodes to build those relationships to the point where they really snag my interest. And a half-season to a season is usually long enough for me to get a good idea whether the show is going to "grow" the relationships in a way that is appealing to me.

The shows that have hooked me in the first few episodes have usually done so on the basis of catchy, compelling plots and intriguing mysteries more than characters -- Fringe and Lost come to mind as examples. (Or humor ... I kept watching Community, for example, because it was funny. Even in a drama, a little humor is a big mark in its favor; all serious all the time will usually lose me too.) In Fringe's case, I liked the writing enough to keep watching even though I didn't really warm up to most of the characters 'til the second season.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I think that I just need more than one or two episodes to know if I'm going to like a show.

I wonder if this is my deal, that the show needs time to simmer a little and get to that point where its potential finally hits me. Thing is, though, I usually avoid the shows I have no interest in, certain that I'm never going to watch them because I don't want to, then suddenly - out of the blue - I want to watch them. Sometimes it's an episode that grabs me, sometimes a character, or like with WC sometimes a concept. But it's the abruptness of it that boggles be, because I will go from absolute dislike to absolute like in the blink of an eye.

[sholio]

Oh, that's interesting, because it's not usually that much of a switch-flip for me. Usually it's a slow progression from "hmm, this show is kinda interesting" to "NEXT EPISODE NOW!"

Though now that I'm thinking about it, I'd initially dismissed WC on the basis of the pilot, then it grabbed me immediately when I started watching in season three, so perhaps I do change that quickly too. :D But it still took me awhile to get actually fannish about it.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's really weird because once I find that little "something" it's like that's it, the show has me. Merlin, for example. I was watching an episode of Merlin because I was bored and nothing else was on. For some reason, this one unremarkable and brief scene made me intrigued in the friendship between the two main characters. So I started watching more and now I'm currently working my way through season one. One iddy-biddy scene and now I have a whole new show I'm into. It seriously amazes me the things that get me drawn into a show.

Getting fannish definitely comes episodes later, though, and I think there's always a bit of a fight before I finally give in. I don't like really fanning over something (to the point of writing fic, that is) since I have so much on my plate already. But, sometimes, it's nice to have another sandbox to play in, even if I only have one or two stories in me.

[swanpride.livejournal.com]

Season four of Merlin caused me to loose interest in the show - I've waited for three season that the show finally reached it's potential, and instead we got an incoherent mess, a villain I still don't get and the total destruction of Morgana's character. Urgh! It's really unlikely that I watch another season.

For me, it differs - White Collar had me with the Pilot. Grimm had me with episode five. Leverage with end of season 2/season 3. Psych with season 2 (still the best they ever did). Sherlock had me with "Study in Pink" (still my favorite episode of the show). Numb3rs had me from the start, but lost me sometimes during season 4 (but then, it became a different show along the line). And my new discovery "Missing", I just marathoned the first five episodes, and I am totally hooked (not as hooked as to Grimm, but it made it on my watch list).

Suits - that's still a "catch it, but not really hooked" show.

Though with all those shows, when I watched it, I watched it from the beginning. The last time I really started a show somewhere in the middle, that was an anime with the title Detective Conan (Case Closed).

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Heh, I think it's season four that drew me in ;)

I seem to be pretty consistent in how I get into a show, because so far every show I didn't want to watch I ended up loving, while those shows I was into from the start I ended up wandering away from. Of course there is the in between, like with the Mentalist. That I didn't get into until later but it's not what I would call a "must see!" show for me. Same with Persons of Interest, Alcatraz, and a few others. They're good shows, just not the kind of shows that I'm fannishly into.

[swanpride.livejournal.com]

I feel similiar about the Mentalist. There are still some episodes I have never seen and most likely never will, and I don't feel that I've missed anything. I catch the show if I have time, but I don't feel a loss if I miss it.

I think the difference between a okayish and a "must see!" show is for me the fanfic potential. Shows like Merlin or, back in its days, The Sentinel are honestly not that well done - they are cheesy, they are lacking in so many aspects that they are nearly a guilty pleasure. But damn, how much story potential is in them! How many good ideas which got wasted on a medicore execution! But I take those shows any day over a show which is perfectly executed, but uninspiring as hell.

At the moment, I have Grimm, White Collar and Sherlock on my "must see" list, Merlin and Psych just slided down from it, and "Missing" is on its best way to become a new show to obsess over.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

The Closer :)

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Aww, I liked The Closer :D

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

And it only took me 5 seasons to start! :)

[tinypenny.livejournal.com]

Starting shows after they have aired for at least one season happens to me all the time. I think some shows have an idea of what they want to be but there is so much backstory they have to put out there before the show gets to do what it really wants. For example, I didn't start watching Supernatural until late...I had tried to watch the first season several times and just wasn't in the mood...but now it is one of my favorite shows. Some shows, in my opinion, just go on too long. I was a faithful watcher of Sanctuary, but I gave up after the 3rd season. I love watching shows on dvd since you don't have to wait to see the next episode!:)

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I think some shows have an idea of what they want to be but there is so much backstory they have to put out there before the show gets to do what it really wants.

Yeah. It's always later that a show really gets it's "personality" and I think that, maybe, once I see the personality, where it's going, what the potential for it is that's when a show has what's needed to suck me (or anyone) in.