The CW series Riverdale ended season 6 on July 31, 2022, with season 7 to debut in 2023 and set to be its last. Riverdale has long been considered a show that started off strong but has since seen a downturn, but it is far from the only TV series to have this reputation.
New shows such as 13 Reasons Why and older ones like Star Trek: Enterprise have also been considered missed opportunities that failed to build on promising starts. Fans on Reddit have been vocal about why such shows failed to impress after their original seasons, along with naming which TV series they feel qualify for this metric.
The first season of Heroes kicked things off with a bang by focusing on individual characters' superpowers, only for the second to severely slow down the pacing. In all fairness, Heroes was hit hard by the 2007-2008 writers' strike, which cut down its episode order from 23 to just 11.
Redditor egnards writes that they "wonder how this show would have turned out if not for the writers strike." The second season focused on research on the Shanti virus, whose slow storytelling affected the following seasons that attempted to reinvigorate things to little success.
The concept of Prison Break was solid for a season-long arc but not suited for multiple seasons. After escaping the prison at the end of the riveting first season, it seemed that the show kept phoning it in over, giving the brothers a challenge to face.
Redditor MechanicalHorse sums up the gradual decline by stating that the "first season was amazing, the second was meh, third was ok, fourth was atrocious." Removing the original season makes Prison Break a relatively average show, which is a shame since it started out as a genius series about characters figuring out how to penetrate the prison's walls.
Redditor ravenscroft12 writes that Riverdale's "first season was riveting, but the second season I lost interest within two episodes." The show started out as a dark teen drama, which was true to the original source material and tackled heavy subjects that viewers could relate to.
However, the following seasons jumped the shark by making Riverdale into a blend of horror and supernatural, initially becoming somewhat a murder mystery before fully embracing over-the-top aspects like magic. Fans still turn to the first season to speculate on what could have been had the same tone carried forward.
Viewers enjoyed Supergirl's villain-of-the-week style when it started, and the show didn't waste time in making Kara out to be such a romantic. Season 2 introduced Mon-El into the mix, for whom Kara had feelings that a lot of time was spent.
Redditor saveahorserideaponi felt that the series "forced Kara into a romance and felt the show shifted." Fans wanted to see Supergirl make her own decisions and grow into an independent person, but the romantic overtones interfered a lot. Even Mon-El's departure didn't hark the series back to its original state.
13 Reasons Why's first season was a gripping drama that detailed Hannah Baker's story through tapes, explaining why she took her life. Fans appreciated the sensitive themes until season 2 went a bit overboard by bringing Hannah back as a manifestation.
Redditor Supra_fun thinks that "bringing Hannah Baker back as a ghost slowly killed the show." Main character Clay Jensen was reduced to moping around due to Hannah's presence, leaving the show very uneven in execution. Moreover, 13 Reasons Why later became a crime drama, straying further away from how it had begun.
Homeland's first season had the overarching mystery of Nicholas Brody's loyalties and whether he had nefarious intentions or not. Redditor OofBadoof offers an explanation for the show's downturn by asking that "once they answer that question where does the show go?"
Brody's grand reveal in season 1's ending then led to Homeland pedaling along for several seasons but without a mystery holding everything together. The series didn't receive nearly as much critical acclaim afterward and was much less popular by the time it ended.
Redditor CrispyOrangeBeef liked Sleepy Hollow's original premise when the show focused on the mystery of the Headless Horseman, writing that it turned bad when it "became all about how annoying Ichabod's wife was." Ichabod Crane's wife was revealed to be a witch who constantly antagonized him.
The show's following seasons left the initial outline behind to become a police procedural with supernatural elements that failed to capture the original charm. Even the departure of Ichabod's wife after season 2 didn't bring back the presentation the series had starting out.
Redditor MenudoFan316 writes that the developers of True Detective "just didn't know what they were doing" after the first season. The show started out with Rust Cohle and Marty Hart solving a crime across decades, with the following seasons attempting to befuddle viewers more than delivering the same entertainment as the first.
True Detective's season 2 had such a mixed response that it took years before the third arrived, which got a better reception but still didn't reach the original's lofty heights. There's hope that the Jodie Foster-led fourth season will revive the series that is currently seen as a missed opportunity.
Redditor salajander feels that it's immaterial to rank all the 24 seasons because "it became a farce of itself, completely derivative" after the first. The show had an entirely original premise of Jack Bauer stopping a terrorist attack within the span of 24 hours, with each episode detailing a specific hour.
The show continued with the same outline each time to relatively diminishing returns. It was difficult to follow through with a story that took many pleasantly by surprise, so 24's seasons since the second seemed to place Jack in essentially the same situations, just with a different villain to face.
While many fans debate which between Star Trek and Star Wars is better, Redditor floydfan feels that Star Trek: Enterprise didn't make the most of a solid first season because it "went into a really bad multi-season story arc" that hampered its quality.
Star Trek: Enterprise's season1 generally focused on singular stories based on episodic content. However, the following seasons had the crew of the Enterprise stuck in lengthy arcs that trapped them in stories that took a long time to resolve. It couldn't go back to the individual story style because the later seasons had the task of tying up loose ends rather than delivering new adventures.
NEXT: 10 Best Television Quotes From 2022 (So Far)