Not sure how to put it... I mean some shows are just good and you knmow they probably don't have it in them to achieve greatness and others are great from the start. Do you know the feeling when you are watching a TV series, you like it quite a bit and at some point you think that it is quite good, but even more importantly, it has the potential to be great.

Sometimes those shows actually live up to that potential and become great, others never do.

Most recently, I felt this about "House of Cards" at the end of the first season, but as of S2, the show has not lived up to that (yeah, I know what you'll comment, Magnus). "Breaking Bad", on the other hand, started this way too and....well, you know the rest.

Anyone here felt that about any TV shows?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine just had a very good debut season with the clear potential to become a classic comedy.

Luck, which, of course, ended after one season due to poor ratings and a troubled production, had enormous potential. It could definitely be confusing and frustrating, but then it also had moments of piercing genius and genuine grit, and Dustin Hoffman and the late Dennis Farina were fantastic together. The portrayal of the horse-racing world and its various athletes, criminals, fans, millionaires, etc. felt so authentic. I believe it could have found a foothold and become an epic.

Rome would be my answer. They only ran two seasons because the budget was too much but it ended up making a killing on dvd. Even HBO admitted that they regretted ending the show in just two seasons. Pretty much Rome went up to bat as the very first big sword & sandal epic and ambitious tv show and paved the way for Game of Thrones.

But you already think that "Rome" is great. That doesn't count.

'Bates Motel' has backed up a strong 1st season with an equal, if not better, second season.

Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23 looked like it could become the best comedy on air. Shame it got canceled.

Boardwalk Empire, but it never happened

Sure, though so many of the great shows I've seen, were ones who already had the reputation l as all time or the new great shows, so it's hard to count those. There isn't that many that are true wild cards going in for modern day TV viewer.

When I saw the Homeland pilot it was definitely an "watching an unknown" moment. All I'd known about the show was a few banner ads and liking both Claire Danes and Damian Lewis having watched Life. The pilot was leaked weeks ahead of the tv premiere so the buzz hadn't really blown up and I think I may have downloaded it like the day the pilot got leaked. Anyways as soon as I saw it I thought the show had potential to be one of the best of all time and made a thread hyping it up here. I saw the pilot 2 more times before seeing the second episode (once rewatching the leak, the third when it actually came out on TV). S1 was great of course, S2 was roughly Dexter level (still good but flawed) and I quit 4 episodes into S3 bc it was some of the most dreadful TV imaginable. I've heard S3 gets better so I may finish the season at some point. But holy god were those episodes torturous.

The other eg is Once Upon A Time where I went in relatively blind, mainly watching it because it was created by two of the Lost writers. Anyways I knew immediately it was a specially written and tight show that had the potential to be a classic and the 2nd episode really confirmed I was all in. I remember thinking near the halfway point of the season after a weak episode that the show wasn't totally reaching its high potential, but then the second half of the season got on fire, and it's been my favorite show since and am a bigger fan of it than I was Lost

Finally as a recent example I saw the first episode of Vikings on a plane, I didn't even realize it was a drama instead of just a historical re-enactment show, and I immediately thought it was awesome and HBO quality. Only finished S1 so far but it's lived up to its promise.

I also saw the first episode of Walking Dead and it was far better and more cinematic than I imagined it'd be. But I've heard from other people that the quality of the first episode is quite a bit different from the rest of the series. Haven't watched anything but that episode though.