Slow-Paced Beginnings in Live-Action TV series.
- The 100 is one of those shows where the first two or three episodes are filled with a lot of exposition, and the writers hadn't gotten a good grasp on the characters' personalities or the dynamics between them yet.
- 24 - The fanbase expressed annoyance with seasons 3 and 8 because they started off on a weak note. The cluster of subplots, pacing problems, and weak Character Development killed the tension 24 is usually known for. Around the halfway point, the writers finally got a grasp on what they should do and managed to produce much stronger episodes until the end of their respective seasons.
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. started things off with many episodes with disconnected plot points that failed to grab audiences. Many of the plot points introduced in these episodes become relevant in later episodes and the series really starts hitting its stride when the plot focuses more on Centipede, introduced in the first episode, and the Big Bad, the mysterious Clairvoyant, is introduced. Events in Captain America: The Winter Soldier had dramatic effects on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. It's entirely possible that there was padding added to the first season while waiting for the film's release. The most common advice seasoned fans give to newcomers is to hang in there past the first dozen episodes.
- Season 4 of Arrested Development starts off pretty slow as it spends most of the first few episodes setting up key plot points that pay off at the end and mostly puts jokes to the side. The whole season should be thought of like a movie with interweaving plots that make much more sense as the story goes on.
- The producers of Arrow have openly laughed that "you look at the first few episodes and it feels like a totally different show." Indeed, Oliver working on his own was handled in a rough way and the island flashbacks were seen as a major distraction and time-waster. It was the addition of supporting characters Diggle and Felicity that began to spark the show up and then the flashbacks becoming just as important to the overall arc that made the show a hit.
- Many fans of Babylon 5 lament how hard it is to get new people into the show. This is because much of the first season is very difficult to get through, being largely episodic and universe-building in nature, to pave the way for later events. And featuring a bland and uninteresting male lead who was replaced in the second season.
- The first 12 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or its first season) had potential and could be fun/entertaining, but had no continuous plot and relied on Monster of the Week episodes, as well as having some cringy humour thrown in and clunky, predictable villains. Trust us that it is totally worth sticking with it for season 2 and 3, which are both full of Awesome Moments, Funny Moments, Heartwarming Moments, and the odd Tear Jerker.
- The story of Cursed (2020) moves very slowly in the first half of Season 1; after the first episode the plot mostly consists of Nimue running/hiding from the Paladins and Merlin's extended quest to steal Fey Fire, with it taking ages for anything significant to happen. However, the pace picks up after the fifth episode, with things getting a lot more exciting after Nimue begins leading the Fey resistance and it's revealed Merlin is Nimue's real father, among other things.
- For this reason, The Daily Show once introduced a story under the title "Be Patient, This Gets Amazing."
- Series 8 of modern Doctor Who is the first season for the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and is a hit-and-miss year. The Story Arc is preoccupied with giving belated Character Development to companion Clara Oswald (who'd spent her first half-season as more of a walking plot device than as a person), leading to some spotlight-hogging and a Romantic Plot Tumor with Danny Pink. Twelve's a broody, dry-witted Byronic Hero with No Social Skills who takes longer to warm up to than most Doctors. And the arc culminates in a gloomy finale that's a Downer Ending for both Clara and the Doctor. But the season manages some fan favorites in "Listen", "Mummy on the Orient Express", and "Flatline", and it's directly out of this arc that a strong Christmas Episode and an excellent Series 9 emerge. A warmer Doctor takes center stage in better-paced stories that have a good balance of action and introspection, and a Story Arc that puts him through an emotional wringer yet ends on a hopeful note twice over (first with a finale that has him separated from Clara for good, second with a Christmas Episode that brings closure to his relationship with River Song).
- The third season of Fargo was initially met with criticism due to being much slower than the previous two, lacking the clear focus, instantly memorable villains, and much of the violence and criminal drama that drove the show prior. After the halfway point brings the scattered storylines and characters together, it ramps up considerably with tons of the show's trademark Black Comedy, bloodshed, and surreal imagery (the addition of the long-absent Mr. Wrench to the cast certainly helped). The season is still divisive, but much more well-liked than at the beginning — with "Who Rules the Land of Denial?" being seen as one of the series' best episodes.
- Fringe had a tough time building an audience during its first season, because its earlier episodes resembled The X-Files a little too much, what with its Monster of the Week plots, and its FBI based setting to solve paranormal crimes and/or mysteries. J. J. Abrams helming the show during its early days may have hurt as well (if the reputations of Alias and Lost were anything to go by). As a result, sci-fi fans tuned out before the halfway mark, which was the point when Fringe revealed that those episodes were mere setup for the real plot that has unfolded ever since. At that point, Fringe carved its own identity beyond the X-Files-meets-Lost that stereotyped the show earlier, and never lost its stride from that point onward.
- Game of Thrones Season 1 can be aptly described as Prolonged Prologue in TV form. Most of what goes on establishes the many protagonists and significant locales that will be heavily involved later in the plot. With the exception of some key moments, most of what unfolds is exposition layered on top of more exposition, with not much plot inertia going on. This all changes once the big Wham Episode hits in episode nine, which throws the semi-stable equilibrium of the previous episodes into outright chaos, which defines the following episodes, and never relents from that point onward.
- Season 1 of House of the Dragon sets the stage for the all-out war called the Dance of the Dragons, with a Succession Crisis brewing over twenty years (which results in several time skips), although critics generally think it handled that buildup well.
- Iron Fist (2017) suffers from a lot of pacing problems early on such as stretching the Danny Rand proving his identity plot over several episodes. Once episode six comes along, the pace picks up somewhat, however, it's still largely seen as the slowest of the Netflix shows. This wound up hurting the show's critical reception considerably as the critics only had access to the first six episodes when writing their reviews, resulting in it becoming the first "Rotten" property in the MCU.
- A common criticism of the The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season one is how slow the show is during the first several episodes. The first four episodes are largely setting up the characters and setting, but it takes so long to do so that the show feels like it isn't really moving forward, not helped by the choice to jump between four different storylines that aren't really connected to each other. Since the first season was only eight episodes long, this translates into basically half of the run time being overly slow build-up.
- After Lost season 3 opened up with an awe-inspiring first five minutes, many fans found the first six episodes to be very frustrating and boring, plus a hasty death that cut off a potentially awesome future to an already great character. Some viewers during the season's original airing jumped ship around this time, which is too bad because the following episodes were mostly wonderful, and the completely unexpected season ending changed everything viewers knew about the show.
- Many Power Rangers (and by extension, Super Sentai) seasons can be like this — they're trying establish the usual status quo, and depending on the season there can be a fair amount of Early-Installment Weirdness too. As the season goes on, the action and plot will typically pick up in pace, often as new characters, typically including a Sixth Ranger, make their arrivals. Power Rangers Lost Galaxy is a decent example — the arrival of the Magna Defender and the Lights of Orion are often held as to when the season starts getting good.
- Sense8 has a lot of work setting up eight distinct stories but it's pretty universally agreed that no one can make it through "What's Up?" in episode 4 and not be thoroughly hooked.
- ‘’Star Trek’’:
- Star Trek: The Next Generation isn't terrible per se but the first couple of seasons struggle, with awkward storylines, jerky character development and interaction, and often heavy-handed morals that they don't get away with as easily as the original series did. By the third season, however, they've really come into their own and distinguished themselves as more than just a sequel series for a cult '60s show. Next Gen is now one of the most popular series and is in fact Trope Namer for Growing the Beard.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had similar early growing pains. The writers were riding Next Gen's coat-tails hard early on, with a lot of first-season episodes that had a big "hey, remember this thing from The Next Generation?" hook. It eventually found its feet and had its own story to tell, and did as much to deepen the Trek universe as any other series broadened it.
- Star Trek: Discovery's first two episodes, despite their very obvious attempt at being an Action Prologue, is seen as this, as many viewers and critics felt they were a somewhat lacking introduction to the series, and that they especially fell short when it came to presenting the central premise of the show, due to their massive focus on the character Michael when the show is overall much more ensemble-based that the two episodes in question claims.
- A common complaint about the first season of True Detective is how slow the show is at the beginning, specifically because there are very few dramatic elements involved. The first couple of episodes more or less just revolve around Hart and Cohle discussing clues about the case and interviewing suspects, like a rather slow-paced police procedural. The general consensus is that the show finally begins to pick up steam around Episode 3, and by the halfway point in Episode 4, the show really starts getting interesting. Especially after seeing The Oner at the end of Episode 4.
- The first five episodes of The Vampire Diaries are very slow, due to hardly any characters actually being aware of the vampires' existence. Then Elena finds out at the end of episode five, and the show improves considerably.
- The first three episodes of WandaVision are mostly sitcom pastiches starring the superheroes from the title, that while entertaining, can be grating to those who just wanted some progress in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's story aside from a handful of hints, usually in the final minutes. The fourth just focuses on a character's story before and during being trapped in the sitcom illusion and really kicks in the plot.
- The Wire is known for having a rather deliberate pace and dense presentation for the entirety of its run, but fans and critics generally agree that the first season was most affected by the issue. The first few episodes are largely devoted to introducing the characters and fleshing out the show's setting—and even after that, several more episodes deal with lingering tension over whether the Barksdale investigation will be prematurely shut down. While this provides a necessary foundation for the later episodes (which include most of the show's truly iconic and hard-hitting moments), many viewers might not find them particularly scintillating on their own. Season 1 is also a fairly conventional Police Procedural/Criminal Procedural (just with a more realistic presentation and a more ambitious story than most); the series didn't really earn its reputation as a Genre-Busting exploration of American society until the second season, when it started examining areas of Baltimore other than the police department and the criminal underworld.
