das Monkey

Inspired by another thread, I'm curious what are some shows that people intentionally avoided for a significant period of time, but once they actually watched it, the show became very beloved. And as a related question, what made you ultimately give in and give the show a chance?

I ask because I often see posts about shows like Buffy where someone says "I tought it would suck, what with it being on the WB and being called 'Buffy', but my [insert something here] forced me to watch the DVDs, and now it's my favorite show and I had to get an R2 player to catch up." I'm interested what other shows have a quality that initially pushes viewers away.

I guess I'll start off. When I was a kid, I used to avoid I Love Lucy. For whatever reason, it just seemed really annoying (probably because I was too young). Somewhere along the line (in my teens I think), I forced myself to watch it again, and sure enough, the problem was me, not the show, and I've loved it for decades since.

das

Copenhagen

Right now I would have to say Alias. When it first aired for some reason I never had any interest to watch it, but I've started recently and I must say it is one of my favorite shows to watch on TV. I just wish I'd started sooner

Btw, great thread das

Charlie Goose

I initially didn't watch "24" because it was scheduled against "NYPD Blue". A few weeks into the season, I realized it was repeated on Fox and FX Network several times, but by that point I wasn't interested. I started this season and I'm hooked now.

A year ago, I had not seen more than 2 or 3 episodes of "ER". I caught a few reruns on TNT in the mornings and now I have seen every episode.

I did the same thing with "Mad About You" on the Lifetime network. Helen Hunt always annoyed the crap out of me, and I'm still not sure she doesn't, but the show was very well written and acted.

Guilty pleasure that I just started watching:


Honk!

HN

The West Wing. Thought i'd be lost in all the political mumbo jumbo but the show is so much more than that. I regret not seeing the first few seasons.

--HN

Kudama

I totally used to hate Dragonball (and Dragonball Z), but my pal loved it.

Did anyone ever play that superhero game Champions? Well, he compared it to a Champions tournament and I realized that the ridiculous carnage of that stupid game that I used to love was what this cartoon was all about. After watching it for a while, I even learned to enjoy the fairly crappy artwork (those ears!).

areacode212

I still don't watch the first-run episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (because I want to watch them all in order), but seasons 1-3 on DVD are probably the best & most satisfying TV I've ever seen.

I didn't watch the show in the beginning, having seen the campy movie in 1992. I was pretty skeptical that the concept could carry a TV show. And even once the critical "buzz" started building, I worked nights so I never caught Buffy in its early days. I couldn't get into the show the few times I managed to see it ("Anne" was the first full episode I saw); you can't really appreciate the show from watching random eps here & there.

Which is why I wish they had released the DVDs earlier. Releasing the 24 season 1 set between seasons was an awesome idea. A lot of people (like me) heard good word-of-mouth about the show, but it was too late to "jump in". Buying the DVDs was a great way of getting up to speed before the second season started.

Static Cling

Scrubs. I was such a fool.

Quake1028

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Red Dog

Oz.

I was back and forth and back about NYPD Blue. I loved it the first few seasons, then I tuned out during the last Jimmy Smits year and the Ricky Schroeder years, but now I am back and Blue is one of my favorites.

ChefWinduAZ

The Shield
24
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (thought it was gonna be like the movie)

Tscott

I'm sorry to say I've been going the opposite route lately, I've been giving up on once liked shows like "The Practice" and "John Doe" this season. In the past several years I've had about 20 hours a week of "must see" shows to watch. But many of those are now gone (X-Files, Xena, Ally McBeal, etc.) and there's no shows replacing them for me. Currently there's only about 8-10 hours I must watch now- all watched from the beginning (except NYPD Blue which wasn't aired the first season in my area because of it's controversal nature ).

However, there are some bright spots.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show - I love the Dick Van Dyke show, but never gave Mary a chance. I picked up the first season of this show on DVD with Christmas gift cards and now can't wait for the rest of the sets to come out.

Coupling - caught an episode of this on BBC America this weekend. I plan on getting the DVD this Tuesday and catching the new episodes as they air on TV.

Babylon 5 - I avoided this show when it was first on TV for some reason, but after reading about it in the "vs.vs.vs." thread (the thread that I believe inspired this one) I'm interested. I just need figure out how to budget in an extra set of DVD boxsets in my current economic state.

The Mole - I HATE reality TV. However, I caught the last three episodes of The Mole 2 last season and actually found it interesting, and plan to watch the new one when it comes out (I'm not watching the Celebrity version though).

MrX

Angel. I usually only used to watch it when it had a crossover with Buffy . Then I became hooked in season 3.

B.A.

Alias - I think I have watched every ep this season, but I only watched it sparingly last season. I know, I can be a fool.

The Amazing Race - I don't necessarily hate reality tv, it's stupid and cheesy as hell, but I watched this show last fall for the first time when they aired back-to-back episodes and I was simply amazed at how fun and addicting it was to watch. Now I can't wait for the next Race.

Gilmore Girls - didn't watch the first season or two, but when Smallville came out last year, I became hooked and now I try not to miss an ep. Some of the best writing on tv, imo, and a great cast.

raKim

ST:TNG
I thought it was quite possibly the geekiest show on tv, and now in a cruel yet satisfying twist of fate, I am the geek since i now watch all things star trek

GuessWho

Everybody Loves Raymond

JMLEWIS1

I've had HBO for years and always avoided The Sopranos because the number of characters confused me, now I love it.

Also used to never watch law and order (or any of the variations) but now I'll watch them if they're on

kcdny

Seinfeld, I NEVER watched this show while it was on the air. Once it went off the air I seemed to start watching it and love it.

tofu

Law and Order

LBPound

I won't say I "love" the show, but I do enjoy watching it, and I avoided it for years. This is the one I thought of when I saw the thread.

the narrator

All in the Family- thanks to Nick at Nite

Everybody Loves Raymond- always thought this looked horrible, but i started watching reruns and now i like it.

movieking

Buffy The Vampire Slayer
King Of Queens
Scrubs
Law & Order

Shamu

Another vote for Everybody Loves Raymond...I used to think this show looked horrible and stupid, but now I like watching it.

Arcade

Buffy was probably the first show to really take over my life.
I did not start until early in Season 6 but I became hooked. I have now seen all of seasons 1,2,5,6. Still half way through season 3 and waiting for season 4 on DVD.

Next would be "24".
My friend watched the DVD's and said I had to get it.
Well, he was right. One of the best shows I have ever seen.
I am currently on disk 5 of 6.

nny

Man, das, you stole my idea for a topic. I think I was inspired by the "Are there shows that did not improve after Season One?" thread and the realization of how much I'm enjoying Scrubs. I couldn't think of the best way to word this topic and wasn't sure if it had been covered before.

As for mine, Buffy is of course the biggest because I now consider it to be the best drama ever on TV. I didn't watch it for the obvious reasons at first, but during season 4 of Buffy, aintitcool.com added a guy to start covering TV shows. He constantly plugged Buffy and before the Halloween episode aired, he said that would be a good episode for somebody who had never seen the show to watch. So I watched it and was surprised at how it was filled with jokes, but I didn't think any of the jokes were that funny. So, I figured it wasn't for me. Then, I saw the ads for Hush and they intrigued me enough to watch again. Once again, I could see it was a well-made show, but I still didn't like it that much. Oddly enough, Dawn is what hooked me on the show. I read reviews of the first 2 episodes of season 5 before episode 2 aired and when I read that Buffy suddenly had a sister and about the homeless guy saying, "You don't belong here", I was intrigued. So I watched episode 2 of season 5 and haven't missed an episode since.

Another one was Angel. Surprisingly, I didn't watch Angel when I started watching Buffy. The first episode I remember watching was Darla because it was a 2 parter. I wasn't that impressed but I watched The Trial after it got a good review on aicn. I really didn't like that episode, but I guess at this point Buffy had hooked me and I kept watching Angel. I really starting getting into it a couple episodes later when Angel went a little darker and fired everybody.

Earlier I said Buffy was my favorite drama ever on TV. The show that previously held that title for me was My So-Called Life. When MSCL originally aired, it was up against another show I watched; I think it was Mad About You. I would catch some of MSCL during commercial breaks or re-runs or even during the second half hour when Mad About You was over. But for some reason, I probably never watched more than 10 minutes or so. It seemed like a show I would like, but for some reason I couldn't get into it. When MTV reran the episodes, I fell in love with the show and it became my favorite show ever. I still have no idea how I made such a radical change in my opinion of it.

Like Buffy and Angel, I didn't have any interest in Scrubs or Farscape when they started, but then they both got a lot of critical and fan acclaim. For some reason, I could never watch more than a couple minutes of Farscape until I downloaded some episodes from the beginning this past summer. With Scrubs, I kept trying to watch it and just didn't find it funny. Then, the beginning of this season, I set my vcr to tape the season premiere of Friends and I heard it ran long so i just set it for an hour. I caught the first half of the season premiere of Scrubs and loved it. I couldn't get that Colin Hay song out of my head and downloaded the episode. Even after that, the show still had to grow on me, but now I love it.

Oddly enough, there's shows on right now that I don't really like, but think I might change my mind later. I haven't been able to watch more than a few minutes of West Wing or Babylon 5, but I plan on giving both shows a chance from the begining eventually.

The show I've given the most chance to is Sopranos. I've watched all of season 1 and half of season 2 and it just doesn't do anything for me. I can see the quality, but I also see a lot of mediocrity. The most annoying thing is it really seems like a show I would like. In the "Best show on TV" thread, I commented that The Shield and Angel are my favorite shows right now partially for 2 things that seems fairly unique to them. One is that they're both pretty dark and they both have storylines that go on for long periods of time. Sopranos seems to fit both of those criteria. Also, what the show is about is really appealing to me. Actually I don't like the mob stuff that much, but I've always felt a show featuring a therapist would be great. The other major aspect to the show is all the stuff with his real family and I've always enjoyed dramas about families more than about cops, lawyers, doctors, etc. After all, my favorite dramas besides Buffy are the four Herskovitz/Zwick shows: thirtysomething, MSCL, Relativity, and Once and Again. I'd probably be more eager to give Sopranos another chance, but most people didn't seem to like season 3 and 4 that much. Of course, I have weird tastes, maybe I'll really like season 3 and 4.

Kal-El

Glad I'm not the only one. Although in my case, I didn't really "avoid" it. I think another show that I watched clashed with it at the time. Then I caught some summer reruns and wanted to kick myself for missing most of the 1st season.