• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Your favourite seasons of TV?

Can't believe no one's mentioned 24 season 1.

That's a good one.

Some of mine would be:
Star Trek: TOS: Season 2
Star Trek: TNG: Season 5
Millennium: Season 1
Frasier: Season 7
Rescue Me: Season 2 and 3
In Treatment: Season 1
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 3
Newhart: Season 2
Breaking Bad: Season 1
The Simpsons: Season 5
 
Battlestar Galactica: Season 4
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6
ANGEL: Season 5 and Season 4 (tie)
One Tree Hill: Season 2
Las Vegas: Season 3
Power Rangers: Season 17 (RPM)
Survivor: Season 22 (Redemption Island)
Spider-Man (1994 animated series): Season 5
 
Batman: Season 1. It was campy, but not to the level of the second or third season, and many of the plots were actually based on real GA and SA comic book stories.

Simpsons: Season 3. One and Two were a little rocky but the third season was pitch perfect
 
Star Trek TNG Season 3-4: most consistant in quality, the show really hit its stride at this point.

Star Trek TOS season 1: whereas the original hit its stride pretty much immediately.

Outer Limits (60s) season 1: great stories, great atmosphere and great diversity, from sci-fi takes on Freud and Shakespeare to espionage thrillers and gothic weirdness.

The X-Files seasons 1 and 2: closest to its original concept, great, low-key stories and interesting takes on popuar paranormal topics. I love S3 too, but more comedy episodes eventually led the series down paths I personally don't care for.

Millennium season 2

Oz, seasons 1 and 2: before the show went a bit too silly and melodramatic (if still highly enjoyable).

Homicide S1-3: again, a show in its prime before too much network interference.

The Wire, season 4

Daria, season 1-3: this MTV cartoon sitcom has always been a personal favourite, especially before the show made some major changes in focus and tone. I've grown to like S4-5 more recently, but I still think the writers made some bad mistakes. It worked best as a comedy.
 
My favorite 24 season was Three, but I think I'm the only one on that one :lol:

B5 S3 is definitely the best year of television ever. Especially if you add on the first six episodes of the next season!
 
My top five:

The Sopranos Season Six (Parts One and Two)
The Shield Season Seven
Breaking Bad Season Four
The Wire Season Four
Boardwalk Empire Season Two
 
Usually the first few seasons of any show i watch are the best but so far every show has dropped a bit when it went on.. some retain a good level of quality but never capture the awesome of its start and other sharply drop in quality and never recover.

Personal favorites:

Heroes season 1
Damn that was awesome and must see TV back then. It was intricate, cool and had a breakout evil character and actor with Sylar/Zachary Quinto. Best episode was Company Man that managed to turn a sort of villain up to then to a true likeable and heroic character in the space of a single episode and make it believable.. it blew my mind.

Too bad the show went to absolute shit after that (and the season 1 finale was bad too.. i've never seen such a stellar season ending with such a bad cliffhanger episode).


Lost Seasons 1+2
Hooked right from the start.. i'm not that much into mystery shows but this one hit it right out of the park.. likeable/interesting characters and a plot that had you gessing from week to week what was going on and every tiny detail examined that left you only more confused but i loved it. The season 1 cliffhanger was just brilliant and season 2 picked it up and went wild with it.
Too bad it slacked off tremendously after it.. it just chugged along and what made the show so good in the earlier seasons was now beginning to drag. What finally killed it for me was the evident (for me) facts that apparently no one from the writers and producers had a sort of masterplan with the show and a direction to follow because it all became so convoluted and strange that few people actually knew what was going on. Add in the fact that the producers (was it Lindelof or Abrams) stated in interviews that everything was explainable and no supernatural causes were involved only for me to discover that the show has moved to time travel and such via Wikipedia made me glad that i quit it somewhere in season 3 and haven't looked back.

BSG Season 1
Everything was near perfect.. the atmosphere, the acting, the stories and the action. Drawn in from the first second and that was it and i really was shocked by the season cliffhanger because that was totally unexpected (as any good cliffhanger should be). The show slacked off in the seasons to follow and i absolutely despised the Starbuck/Apollo/Anders love triangle (felt much like a soap opera) and i still don't like the show conclusion because i believe the showrunners wrote themselves into a corner (see my thoughts about Lost) and had to come out somehow so we got what we got... also contrary to the claims by Moore during the run of the show that the end would explain it all and there would be no questions left open (also Moore has stated that the end of the show would be all about the story but instead many episodes focused on character background.. something that should have belonged in the start or somewhere in the middle of the show.. a 180 switch to his intentions).

These are just my immediate choices.. others include Friends, Mad about you and current shows like Big Bang Theory and such where i think the earlier seasons are better but i still like the shows in general.
 
Archer - Season 1 and 2 - I frigging LOVE this show. It's very funny and has some great one liners. Not only that, but is it wrong that I think Cheryl and Lana (two cartoon characters) are extremely hot?

Battlestar Galactica
- Season 1 - A very intense introduction to Galactica, there was a sense of dread as the Cylons were constantly on the RTFleet's ass, I love how paranoid everybody got (rightly so) when the Olympic Carrier fell behind and finally caught up with them

Breaking Bad - Season 3 - Gus is one of the my favorite villains... he's so nice and unassuming, but he won't hesitate to AK-47 his enemies with a big smile on his face

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 3 - What can I say? Eliza Dushku as Faith AND The Mayor? Sign me up!

Dexter - Season 2 - I loved the fact that the Bay Harbor Butcher was the center of Miami-Dade's attention that season. To see Dexter actually at peace with turning himself in. It was cool seeing his and Doakes' rivalry come to a head, and Lila was hot. I have a thing for women with British accents. Especially if they're batshit crazy.

The Office - Season 3 - Introduced one of my favorite comedic characters, Andy Bernard

Star Trek: Voyager - Season 4 - I used to write Berman and Braga parodies, but I feel Voyager came to its own on his watch. A bunch of good episodes this season with the Year of Hell and the Hirogen and one of my favorite finales, Hope and Fear
 
Last edited:
DS9 S 4 and 5
TNG seasons 3 & 4
Supernatural Seasons 4 & 2
Lost S 1
nuBSG S 1
Walking Dead S 1
Downton Abby S 1
Sherlock S 1 & 2
X-Files S 2 & 3
Game of THrones S 1
TOS S2
Dexter S 1

Those are the ones that just stand out, there are many that almost make but don't quite for various reasons. THose are
VOY S 4 (easily the best and the first time the environment felt different then the alpha quadrant)

ENT S1 & S3 (season 3 is better but the Xindi was never an arc I wanted to see), but I really, really liked 2/3rds of season one a lot. I liked that for the crew everything was new, from the joy of walking on a planet, to seeing a comet, to making first contact for the first time. Trek has never, never managed that type of thrill before. OF course it also had flaws (plots that would be new to the crew, but not to the audience, and with VOY the cast I just as a whole didn't care that much about). I was much less pleased with S 4, as it had stories I wanted to see for example, but all shoved down my throat, and in manner that didn't feel organic (seriously the show should have done those episodes over at least two seasons not shoved into one), and didn't care for the change in colors at all, not one bit).

B5, great premise, some great acting, some terrible production work and some really poor acting and dialogue as well. If it wasn't for issues with dialogue and certain actors seasons 2 & 3 would be on the list above. Add season 4 for three seasons of almost great.

X-Files S 4 & 5 and lets just watch the show get worse and worse.

Buffy Seasons 2, 3, 5. Great characters, but hampered by being utterly unbelievable, and two many characters that were quick on the sound bite. Not everyone should be.

Angel S 2, 3 and 4 Darker then Buffy, thank you. larger town that you can forgive soem of the insanity happening. But still loses out on classic status.

Prison Break S 1 (Add a touch of Oz and it would have ben on the list above).

Heroes S 1. Poor pacing, but give it about 6 episodes and it really starts improving, and does so right until the last few minutes of the season ender. Then its all down hill from here.

TOS S 1 (so close to classic)

NuBSG S 2, 3 and 4 (almost, almost there).

DS9 S 2, 6. Almost almost as good as 4 and 5.

TNG S 5 & 6, both have some really awful stretches that took them out of great status.

Supernatural S 5 (let me edit out 3 episodes and it would be on the list above).

Lost S 4 and 5 (almost, but not quite)

Dexter S 2

Roswell S 1


THose seasons especially the first set I can watch almost anytime. All I consider strong to great seasons of TV.
 
Just wanted to throw out the first 3 seasons of House in addition to my list. I gave every episode an A+ until they decided to "shake things up."
 
I'd say the best seasons of Stargate SG-1 (and the SG franchise in general) was around Seasons Two, Three & Four, when the central cast were at their best, when there was still a degree of mystery surrounding the Ancients and Asgard, when there were very fun time travel episodes like "1969" and "Window of Opportunity", and the Goa'uld and Replicators were still some way away from being eroded as credible threats. In those early to middle seasons it was fun seeing SG-1 creatively branch off effectively from its parent movie.

And isn't it quite often that it's usually the early to middle seasons of long running TV shows that are creatively the best? It sounded like that applied to House.
 
In no particular order:

Melrose Place Seasons 2-5--this is how you do a primetime drama--take not Revenge-

TNG S3-5--if you are going to do episodic sff this is how you do it and make it consistently entertaining

The Golden Girls S1-5--sitcom writers need to watch this show on how to be funny without being lowbrow--just smart comedy with great actresses with perfect comic timing

Roseanne S1-7--another smartly written comedy with a great cast. Love this an absolute classic

The X-Files S1-5 Again another sff show that was mostly episodic and worked with an actual romance that had genuine chemistry and wasn't just shoehorned in that dulled everybody i.e. Fringe

DS9 S5 and 7--the Dominion War arc esp in S7 was someof the most exciting and compelling arc storytelling I've ever seen. See you don't need to be an unnecessarily convoluted arc--I'm looking at you LOST wannabes

Ent S3(minus the filler episodes)--this season was fun with a creative adversary, epic storytelling and effective arc storytelling.

Heroes S1--Probably the best season of any tv show in the last decade--no filler, heavily serialized, every episode focused solely on arc threads, great mysteries, intriguing cliffhangers, smart writing in how they methodically brought everyone together, satisfying payoffs and learning from LOST they decided to introduce a series of threads/mysteries resolved by the end of the season

Lost S4 and 5--strong arc storytelling with tight writing--in hindsight a lot of things will be revealed to be there solely for the shock value and never are revisited again but viewed as isolated seasons they are winners.

Supernatural S1 and 4--S1 was great because of the more intimate nature of the show where the guys were still fun and care free just focusing on the monster of the week without a big epic threat to thwart. While I lament the weakness of the standalones in later seasons most in S1 were good to great. If S1 was a strong example of episodic storytelling S4 was great in its arc storytelling. Plus with the addition of Castiel the show became great. Unfortunately it was downhill from there.

nBSG S1--again a tightly written season--no useless filler, the characters were still interesting, the Cylons hadn't yet to be revealed as lame villains, no stupid romantic entanglements and there was a wonderful sense of urgency and dread. Again after this season the show lost focus.

Friday the 13th The Series S1 and 2--A very interesting little show--Loved the cast chemistry and the show was great at being terrifying. After Ryan left the show jumped the shark.
Prison Break S1--
Veronica Mars S1
Dallas S1-7 and 9--I love a good soap and there was none better. Hagman was deliciously evil.,
Murder She Wrote S2-8

And while I'm not a tv season per se I loved the NBC soap Days of Our Lives from 1992-early 2000 which gave us the best storylines the show did--Carly buried alive, Marlena possessed, Kristen/Susan, Hope/Gina. Sadly the show has tried to recapture that heyday in recent months by bringing back those characters prominently featured in the 90s and trying to stir nostalgia for those days but the poor writing has failed.
 
Last edited:
Heroes Season One had tons of filler :) Remember when Hiro lost his powers for no damn reason and was wandering around Las Vegas looking for a sword?
 
Heroes Season One had tons of filler :) Remember when Hiro lost his powers for no damn reason and was wandering around Las Vegas looking for a sword?
Yes it was a useless subplot but considering how crammed every episode was it was tolerable. The point was that for so many shows that pad out their seasons with disposable episodes and spin their wheels to extend the season, Heroes had to be praised in my opinion for its dedication to making every episode focus on threads that were myth heavy and constantly advanced week in and week out--even more astonishing considering it had a 24 episode season. Some 13 episode shows can't even do that--I'm looking at you Alcatraz.
 
Heroes Season One had tons of filler :) Remember when Hiro lost his powers for no damn reason and was wandering around Las Vegas looking for a sword?

But the non-filler was so fascinating, it didn't seem so objectionable. S2 onwards lacked the strong, fascinating plot arcs and just became filler and circular nonsense.
 
I'll pick one season each from my favorite shows:

Sounds like a good idea. I'll go the same route:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S3
Angel S4
Alias S2
Lost S2
Roswell S1
Heroes S1
The West Wing S2
Kung Fu S3
Babylon 5 S4
Smallville S1
Star Trek S2
Star Trek: The Next Generation S5
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S3

....and, most recently...

The Walking Dead S2
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top