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

[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.

[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]

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).

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

The Closer :)

[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!:)