:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2Fspeculative%20whiteness%20carroll.jpg "Whose Future Is It Anyway?")
Person of Interest’s debut season is one of the better seasons on this list, but it’s difficult to watch it and trust those who insist that this series gradually becomes one of the best sci-fi shows of the last 20 years. Instead, Person of Interest’s first season offers a fairly typical CBS procedural that is occasionally sweetened by its “supercomputer that predicts crimes” plot device. If you’re into that style of show, it offers a pretty good version of it. If not, you’ll really have to have faith that this thing eventually earned its rabid following.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Available on: Hulu (U.S.), Netflix (U.K.)
Many great comedies have bad pilots and rough first seasons. It just takes time for everyone involved – writers, characters, and the audience – to establish that connection that allows such shows to hit their stride. That said, even Always Sunny’s creators have said that it’s hard for them to watch these early episodes and understand how the show was allowed to continue.
This is the only Always Sunny season without Danny DeVito, and you certainly start to feel his absence if you’re only familiar with that era of the long-running comedy. The bigger problem is that Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney were essentially trying to figure out even the basics of making a TV show on the fly. Everything feels like a struggle during this season, and that trickle-down effect impacts jokes and scenarios that are otherwise not too far off from what the show would eventually become. It’s one of the easiest “skip this season” options when you’re recommending a show to friends.
Justified
Available on: Hulu (U.S.), Disney+ (U.K.)
Much like Person of Interest, it’s easy enough to recommend Justified’s first season to someone as long as they’re not expecting much more than a standard procedural crime show. If you don’t have a fondness – or maybe a weakness – for those kinds of shows, then you’ll likely find Justified’s debut episodes to be a wild series of ups and downs that ultimately doesn’t amount to much.
