History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / TVShowsGToO

* The first season of ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' looks different compared to the rest of the series. On top of having a different version of the opening theme, many of the characters weren't completely fleshed out yet. Miss Piggy and Fozzie look drastically different. Miss Piggy was even voiced by Richard Hunt rather than Frank Oz in a few sketches. And a few characters were [[PutOnABus dropped after the season was over]]. Fozzie was almost dropped as well until Frank Oz took some time to develop the character more.
** Not to mention Gonzo. He was quite scraggy in the first season (it makes sense, considering he was a recycled puppet from ''Film/TheGreatSantaClausSwitch'') and he had a permanently sad expression. During the hiatus between the first and second season Dave Goelz rebuilt the puppet to be more expressive and upbeat turning the character into the thrill-seeking daredevil he is now.
** The Muppet Labs sketches only featured Bunsen in the first season, and had Bunsen testing his inventions on himself. When it became apparent that this was not working for his character or funny, Beaker was quickly created and added to the sketches in season two.
** Similarly, the Muppet News Flash segments were also different. The Newsman would report on a bizarre story or interview a guest star playing a role related to said story. It wasn't until season two that the formula began of the Newsman being comically hit by something related to the story he had just reported on.
** There were also several segments in the first season that were scrapped in the following seasons. Chief among them were the Talking Houses and Wayne and Wanda. The At the Dance segments also continually appeared in season two, but made less appearances after that because the writers were running out of ways to make jokes for them.

** The characters were also very flat. Dr. Forrester in particular was stuffy, officious, and serious, later on developing his mincing energetic and more violent persona, possibly influenced by the replacement of his colleague, Dr. Erhardt, with the buffoonish sidekick TV's Frank. Tom Servo's personality changed considerably too, around this time, but this was due to his change of voice actor (from Josh Weinstein, who also played Erhardt, to Kevin Murphy).
** The intro was very slap-dash, with Gizmonics Institute being just a set of crudely-made buildings around a equally-crude volcano. The intro also implied that the Satellite of Love was actually the rocketship Joel was shot up into space in despite the actual SOL being seen at the end. Season 2 would give up a better set up of Gizmonics and have it that Joel was sent up ''with'' the Satellite of Love.

* Early episodes of ''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]]'' were pretty noticeably different from the 'golden' later seasons. The riffing came at a much slower (and poorer) pace, and it wasn't until about mid-Season 2 that the quality really picked up. (This is because the early episodes were riffed {{improv}}-style, with little preparation and rehearsal beforehand) Also, in the first few Creator/ComedyCentral episodes, the focus of the series seemed to be more on the [[MadScientist Mads]] than the Satellite of Love crew.
** The characters were also very flat. Dr Forrester in particular was stuffy, officious, and serious, later on developing his mincing energetic and more violent persona, possibly influenced by the replacement of his colleague, Dr Earhart, with the buffoonish sidekick Frank. Tom Servo's personality changed considerably too, around this time, but this was due to his change of voice actor (from Josh Weinstein, who also played Earhardt, to Kevin Murphy.)

** The late Comedy Central era has an odd case of this with Pearl Forrester, Dr Forrester's mother introduced as a one-off character in the season six episode "Bloodlust" and brought back to replace Frank for the six-episode seventh season. She played a frumpy older character during that period before switching to a younger character closer to her real age for the remaining seasons when she took over the lead Mad spot from her son.

** The second half of Season Five would attempt to keep some of the original aspects despite losing Joel and Gizmonics Institute, including the bright lighting on the Satellite of Love and the Invention Exchange. By the start of the next season, the lighting had dimmed and the Invention Exchange was scuttled in favor of Dr. Forrester showing off some odd-ball science deal or him and Frank (or later Pearl) in oddball hijinx.

* The first installment of ''Series/NightGallery'' had stories that all involved paintings that were in the gallery; after that, not so much.

** The first three seasons feature Grandad instead of Uncle Albert, who came in early in Season 4 after Grandad's actor, Lennard Pearce DiedDuringProduction of the season opener.

** While the look and layout of the titular office remains mostly the same during it's 9 season run (excluding the exterior), the lighting in Season 1 is ''extremely'' poor in quality. This was likely deliberate, to match the intentionally bad halogen quality of the original UK version. Gradually throughout the later seasons, the lighting would improve to studio level lighting. This move also coincided with show beginning to film in High Definition.

** In the very first episode, Jeannie mentions she was a normal human woman who was [[WasOnceAMan transformed into a genie]] by the Blue Djinn after she refused to marry him. This was pretty much ignored later and [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] that Jeannie was a genie from birth.

** The differences aren't quite as noticeable as other examples, but watching a current episode back to back with one of the first few episodes can be a little jarring - the director isn't a major part of the activities, making just a couple of appearances over the course of season one, Gibbs is a little more... sociable, there's the mysterious [[HeroesWantRedheads redhead]] he occasionally hitches a ride with, Tony's regularly the sole butt of jokes (no [=McGee=] for him to pick on), Abby's voice is a little huskier, Ducky's assistant is a man named Gerald, lab assistants can be seen in the background of Abby's lab, and, most jarring of all, Tony does ''not'' constantly make movie references, even being confused by one made by a guest character. By the end of the first season, though, things have just about settled in to something close to what we get now.

** Frank is entirely absent from the cast in the first season.

** Dennis and Charlie are a lot closer in early episodes and share quite a few plotlines together. Most notably, "Mac's banging the Waitress" is about how Dennis is jealous of Mac and Charlie's friendship and tries to "seduce" Charlie into becoming his best friend. This would be unthinkable in later seasons, where Dennis is constantly shown to be annoyed with Charlie's stupidity. Reasons for this are probably a combination of changes in the cast dynamic after the introduction of Frank, as well as Charlie's {{Flanderization}} into a ManChild.

** We don't even hear "Henshin" or see the kind of elaborate poses the old Riders were known for until the episodes are in the teens and Hayato Ichimonji, Rider 2, comes along. The driver (oh, don't expect to hear changing devices called "drivers" for about 30 more years. The [[Series/KamenRiderFaiz Faiz]] Driver was the first, and the ''last'' 'til the Decadriver.) was powered by wind, so simply exposing the belt while moving at a sufficient speed (if you're on your bike, just lift your shirt and reveal the belt. When on the ground, Hongo revealed the belt and then jumped through the air.) was all it took to initiate the transformation. Nothing was said; no poses done. Then Ichimonji came along. His driver was like Hongo's, but with a cover. The pose and "henshin" command opened the belt, whereupon he'd also flip through the air to change.[[note]]You know how other old riders do their poses, then jump to initiate the StockFootage? The jump is TheArtifact of Ichimonji's time as sole rider, when the "Henshin!" call opened the belt and the jump was required for wind power.[[/note]] The "Original" Rider Henshin pose, oh-so-often homaged and parodied? It's actually the second. When Hongo ''returns,'' he's suddenly posier and [[ByThePowerOfGreyskull Greyskull]]-ier. Look for it shortly after the episode count tops ''fifty.''

* The first season of ''Series/MissionImpossible'' contains several oddities that did not appear in later seasons, including missions that focused on a single agent, and one episode that featured [[HowUnscientific genuine supernatural activity]].

* Five seasons in, this is already somewhat apparent when you watch ''Series/ModernFamily'''s first season over again: a different set of twin girls playing a much more deadpan infant Lily, and much more open antagonism between various pairs of characters (especially Jay towards Phil. He flew a model plane right at him in season 1, something he'd never think of doing later on).

* ''Series/KeepingUpAppearances'' went through some tweaks after the first series. Rose was initially played by Shirley Stelfox, who was replaced with Mary Millar for Series 2. In addition, the earlier episodes had more focus on Onslow and Daisy instead of Hyacinth. In a few episodes of the first series, the show's theme played during driving scenes (which was quickly dropped).

* ''Series/HorribleHistories'' didn't introduce the memorable pastiche songs until series two. Furthermore, there's much more toilet humour than in later series (yes, even more [[CoveredInGunge people caked in excrements]]) and the presumably lower budget is also quite visible. A somewhat odd type of sketch featured the imaginations of the Rattus the rat, which was phased out after series two.

** The "sexposition", a character rambling about backstory or motivation while a scantily or nude clad female (or occasionally male) is seen, usually in a brothel, were much more common in season one than the later seasons. This has two reasons: first, characters seem to have less time to go to brothels (what with many of them being too down on their luck to do so) and second, much of the backstory is already covered and many motivations are either clear or more interesting if left unclear. Also, the writers have taken a hint from some fans [[DistractedByTheSexy complaining that you can't follow the details of the plot]] with all the {{Fanservice}}.

** In the first three seasons of the show, characters didn't have much of a resemblance to their Disney counterparts. Princess Aurora for example is brunette and has a sleeveless purple dress, unlike [[WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty Disney's Aurora]]. Starting in Season 4 (when the cast of ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen 2013}}'' started showing up), this changed. Tellingly, when Maleficent made two appearances in Season 1, she had an original look. When she returned in Season 4, it had been retconned to match the Disney film.

** In general, Season One was more PG than the rest, and relied far less on ribald humor. It was there to some degree, including Al's fondness for dirty magazines and Peg's sexual frustration with Al, but later seasons would pour on the cheesecake, regularly featuring scantily-clad women (often played by Playmates) and nearly every other joke was about sex to some degree, either Al's inability to enjoy it with Peg, Peg's inability to get it from Al, Bud's inability to get it from anyone (and his frequent [[ADateWithRosiePalms dates with Rosie Palms]]), Kelly getting it from just about everybody and Marcy going from uptight and prim to repressed and wanton. Season One would never have involved a plotline such as Marcy orgasming while giving a speech, or the Bundy's realizing their "romantic getaway" was being filmed.

* The first few episodes of ''Series/MiamiVice'' form a conventional FiveEpisodePilot, which focuses on Crockett and Tubbs (who have just been paired up) working to find Columbian druglord Jose Calderone. The biggest difference in these five episodes is the character of Lt. Rodriguez, Sonny's (original) commanding officer who got directly involved in the action on a weekly basis. Other elements were significantly toned down after the first few episodes, including the length of the montages, Tubbs' heavier accent (seen in the first few episodes), Zito and Switek's comedy routines (which used to take up entire segments of the show) and the length of the before-credits teasers.

** "The Confalones" has Otto mentioning that Sabatino Confalone should take his report of a robbery to the police. Future episodes would show that ThereAreNoPolice and Odd Squad serves as the next-best equivalent to a police force.

** At the start of the series, the protagonists were [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Jerks with Hearts of Gold]], similar to (but somewhat toned down from) the movie. As the show went on, the heroes became more and more moral as the series itself became more and more serious. A case in point is the show's portrayal of adultery. In the first season, it was implicit that all the men on the show were married and cheating on their wives back home. The only thing which made Frank different was that he was a hypocrite about it. The exception was Hawkeye, who was only "engaged" (because the network censors wouldn't let him say that he was "married" while hitting on Lt. Dish in the pilot). After the pilot, Hawkeye never mentions being engaged again and thereafter appears to be single. As early as the second season, Henry went from merely dallying with nurses to preparing to leave his wife for a much younger woman, but was talked out of it by Hawkeye and Trapper. Following that episode, Henry appeared to mostly return to being faithful to his wife. Following the departure of Trapper at the end of the third season, Frank was the only cheater left on the show. At this point, adultery started being portrayed as something which only a horrible villain like Frank would do.

** Cpl. Klinger was originally just a guest character for one episode, but was popular enough that he was brought back for many more, eventually joining the regular cast. While his first appearance showed him dressing in skirts in an attempt to pull a Section 8 and get sent home (which became a running gag), his second appearance had him wearing fatigues and the only accessory he wore was a handkerchief his mother gave him. It was the handkerchief, not women's clothes, that Frank Burns insisted he remove while working with patients or in the OR. The cross-dressing was brought back in his third appearance, to the point where he later develops a psychosomatic rash when forced to wear fatigues. In the same episode, Klinger becomes so angry with Burns's blaming him for a dropped tray (he actually knocked it out of Klinger's hands) that he was going to threaten Burns with a grenade. Such an outburst, not to mention casually playing with patient care (as he was going to do this in the OR) is entirely unlike the Klinger of later episodes, who respected life above all things.