Early Installment Weirdness / TV Shows — #-F

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• In the pilot of 3rd Rock from the Sun, Tommy and Dick use some kind of telepathy on each other so that Tommy can demonstrate the disgusting thoughts which puberty is causing him to have. For the remainder of the show's run, this ability is never mentioned again and the aliens appeared to lack any kind of "powers". Also from the pilot, Dick, wanting to get rid of Ms. Dubcek, pushes her out a door that would later lead to his bedroom. He and Mary also sat opposite of where they usually did in their office.
• Season 1 of 3-2-1 Contact was hosted by three college-age students in a campus workshop, in contrast to the junior high kids in a basement playroom cast of subsequent seasons. To some, it was First Installment Wins.
• The first few episodes of 24 differed greatly from the rest of the season, and had many off-kilter moments that don't fit with what followed:
  • The first season had a title card that read, "Events occur in real time." This was jettisoned after the first three episodes (although it did make an appearance in the second- and third-season premieres, which were aired commercial-free, as well as the seventh). In addition, the first season is the only season to use the word "midnight" instead of "12:00 AM".
  • The first season's full narration is "The following takes place between 'x and x' on the day of the Presidential Primary." All future seasons do not have any narration following the hours listed.
  • The pilot episode had several sequences that emphasize ticking clocks (and the "real-time" aspect of the show). In addition, the "ticking" noise played during the pilot is different from every other episode.
  • In the second episode of the series, Jack drives down an L.A. street distraught after Richard Walsh's death. During this sequence, Jack's perspective shows a time-lapse cityscape perspective - this is the only time such a scene appeared in the series.
  • The pilot is the only episode to feature a shot of something happening in outer space (a satellite passing over Kuala Lumpur).
  • The first few episodes don't have Jack narrating ("I'm Federal Agent Jack Bauer, and this is the longest day of my life."). The opening narration also changes several times throughout the first season.
  • CTU's design greatly changed between the pilot and the second episode (due to switching from an actual location to a soundstage).
  • The fifth, sixth and seventh first-season episodes are the only time in the series when the sun rises in a realistic fashion (it takes just under two hours to go from night sky to full daylight). Later seasons had it transition from night to day almost immediately.
  • A number of bizarre elements in the pilot and second episode (Tony's exaggerated accent, Mandy's meditation scene in the desert) were never referenced again.
  • The first-season finale has the only flashback in the series, when Jack cradles Teri's body while remembering her.
  • In season two, the ticking clock was integrated with the commercial breaks, and reminded viewers that time was still progressing in the show. This format never appeared in any other season afterwards.
  • In season 1, the show's pacing was comparatively slow for the first few episodes before building momentum. Then halfway through, after the first arc had been resolved (the season was plotted this way to give viewers partial closure if the show wasn't renewed), there was a transitional episode with not a lot of action. Later seasons would see the show continually try to top itself in terms of action and cliffhangers. The first episode of season 8 is similar to that of season 1 in its pacing, but then that season followed the pattern of the others.
  • In a sense, the first season is this for the entire series. The first season involves a fairly low-key threat (an assassination attempt on a Presidential candidate), as compared to the nuclear terrorism and biological warfare of later seasons. Consequently, it's the only season of the series which doesn't feature the sitting President of the United States. Also, the season has more of a Conspiracy Thriller vibe than later seasons. Jack Bauer is also portrayed somewhat different. His Rogue Agent and Maverick tendencies aren't quite as developed as they later will be, he's the Head of CTU rather than being just a field agent, and he hasn't quite got the knack for torture that he will later have. Word of God says that losing his wife, Teri, in the first season finale leads Jack to become the character we see in subsequent seasons.
• 30 Rock:
  • Tracey initially has some facial hair and his entourage had several members. Most of them soon disappeared except for Grizz and Dotcom.
  • The running gag that Kenneth was much older than he appeared was not established until the second season. In the first, he actually speaks with his mother over the phone and she sounds like she's sixty at the most. Also, Kenneth was supposed to be a little creepy at first; the only card player that Jack couldn't "read", causing him to proclaim "In ten years, we'll all be working for him...or be dead by his hand." In later seasons Kenneth's friendliness and willingness to do anything for his friends was portrayed as entirely genuine. The gags about his age went from "he's older than he appears" to "he might very well be immortal". It was also established that he had no ambitions beyond being an NBC page.
  • The first season episode "The Fighting Irish" has Jack falling for a con conceived by his brother (Nathan Lane) and father, who actually appears in the episode. Later episodes established that Jack's father ran out on him and his mom when he was young, and he never saw him again.
  • A Running Gag in the first season was that Rachel Dratch would appear as a bit character in every episode, from a Moral Guardian to a homeless bum. This was quickly dropped and she did not appear on the show again for three seasons.
  • The second and third season updated some footage for the Opening Credits, which makes them look different than the rest of the series. Most notably, the season two opening changed the outdated footage of Liz since Tina Fey had a different hairstyle for the first few episodes.

A

• The Addams Family: The first episode has Pugsley's age stated as eight, but he was later aged up to ten in further episodes, despite the characters otherwise not aging.
• The first Afterschool Specials on ABC were far less focused on the youth, often dealing with things like extinction or other more "generic" issues. The first one, The Last Of The Curlews, was actually an animated special instead.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • General consensus seems to have it that the show didn't Grow the Beard at all until somewhere around episodes four and five at the earliest, meaning that the first three episodes are all over Early Installment Weirdness, including odd moments of awkward characterization and expositional dialogue that seem out of place once you've seen the whole thing. That's to say nothing of the fact that the show had a mid-season Retool planned from the start, rendering the first few episodes nothing like the latter half of the series in tone and content, going from a fairly lighthearted Mystery of the Week format to a much darker ongoing mystery with almost no Filler episodes.
  • There's also a couple of more minor ones that crop up by the end of Season 1: for example, the first few episodes have Simmons (played by Elizabeth Henstridge, a Yorkshire-born actress) speaking in Received Pronunciation, which was slowly fazed out over the course of the first half dozen or so episodes in favour of the actress's natural accent. There's also the fact that Simmons seems to have a mild crush on Fitz for the first few episodes, yet most of the season then shows him pursuing her romantically while she becomes actively Oblivious to Love and shows a preference for a couple of other guys.
• All in the Family changed quite a bit from the time it was shopped to studios in 1968 (under the title "Justice For All") to the time it debuted on CBS in 1971. When the show was officially picked up to series, several things changed between the official pilot and the rest of the episodes. While O'Connor and Rob Reiner had their roles nailed down, Jean Stapleton used a very low, non-shrill voice for Edith, in addition to being much more sarcastic with Archie, Sally Struthers' Gloria was much more sexually provocative (wearing hot pants and miniskirts as a sign that she was a sexually liberated woman — at least for her time) and the entirety of the early episodes focused on a single argument between Archie and Mike (with no B-plots). The series also debuted with a "Presented For Mature Audiences" disclaimer (which was jettisoned after a few episodes because there were no audience complaints).
  • Only the first season featured background music, and in the second episode "Writing the President", there's even a daydreaming sequence - the only time the series ever went inside a character's head.
  • Also audience laughter could be heard through the theme song, especially after Stapleton screeches out "And you knew where you were the-e-en."
• Season 1 of The Amazing Race had a couple of features that were changed in later seasons, the most notable being that Phil only showed up at the mat to greet the last team instead of being there to greet every team like he would in every season thereafter. Also, the first episode was edited challenge to challenge, meaning each task was shown to completion before moving onto the next one, making it impossible to tell what order the teams were in; the route flags were yellow and white instead of the yellow and red of later seasons (the yellow and white flags would be brought back for Family Edition, and in countries such as Vietnam, that have a yellow and red flag); and poor course planning resulted in two of the final four teams falling hopelessly behind with no chance of catching up to the two lead teams, something that the producers have taken steps to avoid since then.
  • The first four seasons as a whole had a lot more exposition than later ones, with teams (and Phil) talking about things like rules (both written and unwritten), money usage, travel, and how each little move affected their placement in the Race. Such exposition was cut out in later seasons as that information was expected to be common knowledge among fans by then. Many episodes in those seasons would also start with shots of the teams interacting at the Pit Stop, and Confession Cams were done solo instead of in pairs.
  • Originally, penalties were issued at the beginning of the leg following when they were earned (unless the penalty eliminated the team, then Phil would call the penalized team and the last team to check in into a meeting to tell them the new results). However, after Season 4, the rules were changed so that teams could not check in until all earned penalties had been served.
• American Horror Story: Murder House can seem a bit odd in comparison to later seasons of American Horror Story for a few reasons. For one thing, it's the only season so far that has neither a musical number nor a big-name pop musician in a major role—both elements that would go on to become staples of the series, with every subsequent season including either one, the other, or both. ^note  Adam Levine in Asylum, Stevie Nicks As Herself in Coven, and Lady Gaga in Hotel, with the "Name Game" sequence in Asylum, the "Seven Wonders" sequence in Coven, and five major musical numbers ("Life on Mars", "Criminal", "Gods and Monsters", "September Song" and "Come as You Are") in Freak Show For another, its two lead actors are Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott, while Jessica Lange only has a supporting role, and Sarah Paulson only has a minor role in the second half; Britton would completely vanish from the series after Murder House, while McDermott would vanish after returning for an uncredited supporting role in Asylum, with Lange and Paulson largely becoming the faces of the series until Lange declined to return for Hotel.
• America's Funniest Home Videos has quite a few oddities:
  • It began in 1989 as a standalone special, which has quite a few differences from the actual series.
    • Bob Saget co-hosted with Kellie Martin instead of by himself.
    • There was a singular prize of $5,000 instead of the familiar $10,000/$3,000/$2,000 tier. Also, the producers voted on the videos and not the audience.
    • Bob did not go out into the audience at any point.
    • After one of the clips featured a young boy (Lake Fletcher Jr.) dancing to R&B who made an in-studio appearance dancing to "Dial My Heart" by The Boys. Such cameos never occurred for the rest of the series.
    • The logo was shown on a graphic of a TV, which itself was on a starry sky background. It also appeared on a title card at the start of each segment. For the rest of the Saget era, the logo was instead on a blue circle, and each segment was introduced with a shot of the audience.
    • The theme song was mostly instrumental and had a mellower mix.
  • Saget era (1990-97):
    • The first season had only a $100,000 grand prize tournament, which was an hour long. All other seasons had three 30-minute tournaments held during November, February, and May sweeps.
    • During the first season, Saget would sit down in a recliner during the credits instead of walking off-set.
    • The theme song was a bit longer and had verses not heard in later years.
    • The set was purple instead of blue.
  • Tom Bergeron (2001-15):
    • Tom originally did wacky voiceovers like Bob did and interspersed it with more Biting-the-Hand Humor.
    • The set didn't have any neon in the first season.
    • The audience dressed more casually.
• On America's Funniest People, a Spin-Off of America's Funniest Home Videos:
  • For the first four episodes only, home viewers voted on their favorite clips by calling a 1-900 number, and the winner was announced at the top of the next show. This was changed to have the studio audience vote on the finalists as is done on the parent show.
  • Hosts Dave Coulier and Arleen Sorkin originally made funny quips over the video footage just like on AFV, but this was quickly phased out.
  • The first few shows seem to have been working through a backlog of material originally intended for AFV. Later episodes would obviously draw from casting calls usually held at shopping centers.
• The first episode of America's Top 10 had Casey Kasem behind a desk, making it look more like a newscast. They got rid of the desk in later episodes.
• Ancient Aliens is actually a follow-up to a one-off documentary that aired a year prior on the History Channel. The documentary avoided the massive amount of Falsely Advertised Accuracy, Insane Troll Logic, and All Myths Are True assumptions that the series has, by properly presenting both sides of the argument of the existence of Ancient Astronauts, acknowledging artistic license in ancient carvings, and citing properly researched papers. The documentary remained focused, while the series goes on wild tangents ("comic book superheroes are aliens!") for the sake of padding. Fan favorite Giorgio A. Tsoukalos's hair didn't become a major part of the show til season 2.
• Very early on in Are You Being Served?, Mrs. Slocombe was attracted to Mr. Lucas. For the rest of the series (until he was Put on a Bus, anyway) Mrs. Slocombe couldn't stand Mr. Lucas. Mrs. Slocombe was also treated as an attractive older woman in the first season, with Captain Peacock in particular often chasing after her. In later seasons everyone seemed to regard her as too hideous to live.
• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow
    • During the first few episodes when Oliver is undertaking his vigilante mission completely solo, he has a Private Eye Monologue to voice out his thoughts while training in the Arrow Cave, since he doesn't have Diggle or Felicity to bounce dialogue off of.
    • Felicity Smoak doesn't join Team Arrow until episode 14 ("The Odyssey"), and is mostly absent from the series to that point (she was originally supposed to be a one-off character and Emily Bett Rickards is listed as a guest star all season), which can be jarring to those who came in later and know her as the eventual female lead and being Promoted to Love Interest.
    • On the flip side of that, Katie Cassidy earns her second-billed status in season one, as she carries a lot of plot arcs on her shoulders between being an informant for "The Hood", her love triangle with Oliver and Tommy, and being the target of several villains. She's also treated as an undisputed true love for Oliver (as in the comics, as Black Canary), with Helena Bertinelli even breaking up with Oliver over the idea he only has eyes for Laurel. However, the positive fan reaction towards Felicity (and her crush on Oliver) and the icy reception towards the chemistry of Oliver and Laurel had their relationship shelved in the season 2 premiere, with Laurel eventually moving towards supporting cast member as opposed to the female lead that was envisioned. (Ironically, the original premise had to be followed through in the flashbacks during the first five seasons, with Oliver continuing to be in love with Laurel there long after their present day counterparts had decided they were Better as Friends.)
    • The first season is grounded closer to reality; villains tend to be drug pushers or a Corrupt Corporate Executive and fight off Oliver with simple firearms. "The List" tends to dominate the first half of the season, giving the show a Monster of the Week feel before "The Undertaking" arc sets in. Superpowered individuals don't begin to pop up until the second season, when Deathstroke and the Mirakuru are introduced (technically, Slade Wilson debuted in season 1, but didn't start to become his comic character until season 2), while the term "metahuman" is first used in The Flash spinoff.
    • In season 1, there are episodes that are flashback-free and some that revolve around a flashback ("The Odyssey", for example, in which Oliver is unconscious in the present throughout). From season 2 forward, virtually every episode criss-crosses present-day and flashback a la Lost, with some flashbacks in later seasons broken up into 60-second spurts.
  • Supergirl:
    • In the pilot, everyone avoids referring to Superman as "Superman" but instead say "the guy in blue", "Your cousin", "him", etc. The gimmick was dropped by the second episode when the writers realized how narmy it was.
    • Speaking of Superman, he's not really a full character in Season 1, and his "appearances" are always at a distance or angle that he's not really visible from. After the show moved from CBS to The CW, the creators realized just how daft this is and just cast Tyler Hoechlin as him.
    • The aforementioned Channel Hop between Seasons 1 and 2 did quite a bit of shakeup. Shooting was moved from Los Angeles to Vancouver to save budget and better coordinate the show with the other Arrowverse series. While some of the important sets were successfully recreated (CatCo, Kara's apartment), others had to be changed entirely, the most prominent being the DEO headquarters, which is now located in a high-rise instead of a cavernous bunker (this is briefly handwaved when Kara complains to Alex for keeping the new HQ a secret from her all year). Because Calista Flockhart could not commit to working outside Los Angeles full-time, Cat Grant only guest starred in a few episodes of season 2 to pass the mantle of CEO of CatCo to James, but her treatment is better than Lucy Lane and Maxwell Lord, who were both written out with zero explanation.
  • The Flash:
    • The first two episodes feature frequent flashbacks to shortly after Barry's mother's death, and the third one a flashback to the night the particle accelerator exploded. Then they realized they weren't Arrow and stopped.
    • When he first debuted in Arrow and the first few episodes of his show, Barry's Science Hero nature was more at the forefront and we saw him doing Sherlock Scans in his work as a CSI. This was dropped once Barry started prioritizing his work as The Flash over CSI.
    • Barry's running effects were actually different: before production went crazy with the lightning effects and decided we didn't even need to see a person in them, he actually looked like a guy moving fast, generating some lightning effects and leaving behind a more traditional streak effect similar to the effects for Clark wooshing by in Smallville. When not suited, there was sometimes no lightning or streak.
  • Legends of Tomorrow has a very noticeable tone shift between the first and second seasons. The first season is basically The Flash with an Ensemble Cast and time travel, the latter of which has a very specific set of rules governing it, making it rather confusing and pretentious. These rules are dropped come season 2, after the ship's no-nonsense captain Rip Hunter goes AWOL, making the show a lot funnier as the writers are free to explore various time periods without being constrained by limitations. The show also gets sillier as time goes on, which is evident when you look at the episode titles; Season 1 episodes have serious sci-fi titles like "Progeny" and "Night of the Hawk", while Season 4 features gems like "Tagumo Attacks!!!" and "Hell No, Dolly!".
    • With the exception of Rip, every major character in Season 1 (including its main antagonist) had previously been established within Flash or Arrow, meaning some minor plot threads and character relationships were continuations from those shows. This partially continued into Season 2, but as a result of cast turnover and the show's own progression, these gradually faded.
  • The first Arrowverse crossover, "Flash vs Arrow", is essentially two unconnected Villain of the Week episodes in which the titular heroes each happen to make an extended cameo in the other's episode. It wouldn't be until the next series that crossovers would start to become continuous multi-episode stories.
• The Avengers (1960s):
  • The first season, with John Steed paired with Keel, was a straightforward crime drama. Even the early Cathy Gale episodes were pretty much just straight crime stories as well (along with those featuring short-term partners Venus Smith and Martin King). It wasn't till Cathy became Steed's only partner that the bizarre and occasionally SF-tinged stories began.
  • During the first season, Ian Hendry's Dr. Keel was the lead character, so much so that there are a few episodes in which Steed does not even appear.
  • The characterization of Steed in the first two seasons was markedly different, with the character being more brusque and rough-and-tumble and less-friendly. His attitude towards Cathy in her early episodes is also more sexually aggressive than it became later.
  • Several of Cathy Gale's early episodes were actually written for the David Keel character, with the dialogue left more or less unchanged; this led to some characterization refinement as scripts written specifically for Cathy began to emerge.
  • The first two seasons had Steed answering to an on-screen superior; this was abandoned for the better-known Cathy and Emma eras, but it was revived with the introduction of Mother in the Tara era.

B

• Babylon 5:
  • The first season is very different from the rest of the show. There's a different commander in the first season, far more focus on the criminal underworld in Brown Sector, and Delenn still looks completely Minbari. One episode ("Grail") uses an unexplained "cycle" as a unit of time, and that never showed up again (but by the time they decided it wasn't a good idea, the episode was done). The sets are a little different, and the lighting and exposure was changed from the beginning of season 2, giving the show a very different visual feeling. A viewer who started watching the show from season 2 onward might also be put off by G'Kar being a Smug Snake and something close to a villain in most of the first season. This is perhaps due to the first season having a lot of stand-alone episodes written by people other than J Michael Straczynski. Those by JMS himself are still pretty consistent in tone with what comes later.
  • The pilot movie is officially set in the same universe as the rest of the series, but in order to digest this, viewers need to apply Broad Strokes. Specifically, Delenn and G'Kar's alien makeups are very different from their later appearances, with flashbacks contradicting the pilot and supporting the rest of the series (in fact, Delenn was originally meant to be a male character played by a female actor with her voice digitally altered; this was changed last-minute, and Delenn's character was made female). The technology used by Earthforce is slightly different, with huge surfboard-like plasma rifles, and the Earthforce uniforms lack the distinctive broad leather strip down the front. And we NEVER see a Minbari with clan tattoos again outside of the pilot. We're also meant to believe that a Vorlon, who are later shown to be Energy Beings, can become infected by a poison, that their biology includes cellular structures, and that Kosh would show his hand in greeting to (the assassin disguised as) Sinclair instead of remaining within his encounter suit. G'Kar makes a reference to his "mate", who was never referred to again (although later villains do threaten his family in general, and the canonical short stories confirm that his spouse died in the bombing of Narn and their young daughter was believed dead but survived and was adopted by a human couple). The 'special edition' re-edit of the pilot done in 1998 removed the reference entirely.
  • In the pilot movie, aliens in the Alien Sector are shown sitting in front of large windows that look out into the corridor. The intention was for it to be a sort of "porch" for the aliens to relax in. It was dropped when a lot of fans noted that it looked like they were zoo animals on display.
  • According to Word of God, Vorlons and other First Ones do not have to be in energy form all the time, and Kosh wanted to greet whom he recognized as Valen outside of his suit.
  • Kind of a minor point, but the Earthforce uniforms used in the pilot differ from the uniforms used for the rest of the series, including flashbacks that supposedly take place before the pilot. It's not something you typically notice on your first viewing, but the rank structure looks different, and the leather panels on the front of the uniform tunics are not there.
  • Also in the pilot: when G'Kar is trying to convince Delenn to enter in an alliance with him, he notes "the Centauri are beyond the dream of conquest". This has some rather strange implications; one of which is that the Narn may have originally wanted to partner with the Centauri, but their world-weariness prevented it. This is very different from the way that relations between the two worlds are depicted in the series.
  • The pilot makes it appear that Lyta's P5 grade was something she achieved and that it was extremely difficult to do. Later episodes establish that telepath grade levels are set in stone from birth and P5 is a fairly middling level with P12 as the highest naturally occurring level. Only some pretty serious experimentation or alterations by Sufficiently Advanced Aliens have been shown to increase someone's natural telepathic ability.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003)
  • Originally, the humanoid Cylons' spines would glow red whenever they orgasmed during sex scenes. Apparently, the directors decided that this was too much of a dead giveaway (or just too silly) and didn't show it again after Season 1. Although it was always meant to be a depiction of what was happening internally and not visible to observers, but many viewers didn't get that. It's not entirely accurate to say they dropped it, given that a Cylon is never depicted with their back visible during sex again after that point, so there's no other episode where it would have been seen.
  • The miniseries also included a few "Oh my God!"s, and even an improvised "Jesus!" from Michael Hogan, as religious exclamations before the writers settled on Greek polytheism as the Colonial religion, with the standard exclamation being Oh, My Gods!. Only the Cylons and some humans viewed as cultists are monotheists.
  • The finale of Season 1 ("Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II") has a Raptor landing in a Basestar to plant a nuke there. The interior of the Basestar is shown to be partially organic with walls and floors made of moist red flesh mixed with mechanical bits. And all the humanoid Cylons seen inside (all Number Eights) are naked. This does not match any future depiction of Basestars, whose interior halls and rooms are shown to be almost wholly mechanical-looking save for the Hybrids, and humanoid Cylons living inside them dress normally. The Season 3 episode "Torn" did show one Eight doing naked tai chi in a Basestar hallway, however, and there was veininess visible in the rebel Basestar's docking bay in the Season 4 episode "Faith" (the same part of the ship where the Raptor landed in "Kobol's Last Gleaming").
  • In one scene of the Miniseries, it's suggested by Boomer that Helo Really Gets Around, but this characterization never comes up again and he goes on to have a loving and committed relationship with Athena throughout the series. The most loving and committed relationship in the series, as a matter of fact - which, given that he's a human, she's a Cylon and it started as a Cylon experiment, tells you something about the Dysfunction Junction of the other relationships. A little Early-Installment Weirdness is justified by the fact Helo wasn't originally planned to survive his Heroic Sacrifice of giving Baltar his place on the Raptor when the Miniseries was written; the plotline with him and Athena on Caprica was thought of after the showrunners liked Tahmoh Penikett's performance enough to bring him back for the series proper.
  • Caprica-Six acts more cold and enigmatic in the Miniseries, closer to Head-Six, than in her reappearance in Season 2's "Downloaded" and in subsequent episodes.
  • In Season 1, Overseer Six's beating of Athena on Caprica, and Head-Six outright calling Boomer's model "weak", implied that Sixes hated Eights in general. Beginning in Season 2, they were usually depicted as siding together among the Cylons.
• BattleBots:
  • In the first ABC Season, there was no way to see untelevised fights other than to watch them live. From season 2 onwards, untelevised fights were uploaded on the YouTube channel, but be warned, these fights were untelevised for a reason.
  • In seasons 1 & 2, the tournament was fought in a traditional single-elimination bracket. In all 3 of the Discovery seasons, the competitors had to fight in up to 4 undercard matches and 16 robots were selected for the final tournament based on how many wins they had and how impressive those wins were.
  • The judging criteria was very strange in season 2, with an overbearing “Primary Weapon rule”. This caused much controversy among fans and made the competition extremely biased towards spinners, thankfully the rule was omitted from season 3 onwards.
• Baywatch was originally a serious drama about lifeguards and the threats they face while doing their jobs instead of the excuse to show sexy people in bathing suits running in slow motion it turned into. There were even (gasp!) old people as regular characters (seriously, Oscar nominee Richard Jaeckel had a regular role)! And not everyone had a sculpted swimmer's body!
• Between the Lions: This mostly happens in the first season:
  • In The Lucky Duck and The Fox and The Crow (which may have been the first two episodes ever produced), Leona's hair was light yellow and messier (instead of being orange and neater), Cleo's eyes were a different shape, and Theo's voice was deeper. Also in the latter episode, Walter and Clay's voices were slightly different as well.
  • In the (possibly) first filmed Not As Smart As a Puck segment (despite being shown late in Season 1), Arty Smartypants and Marmy's puppets are noticeably different. Their voices (Marmy's in particular) are not as developed, either.
  • In two of the Fred Says segments, the background is different, implying that they're the first ones to be made.
  • Originally, Heath's body was completely different as it had short, stubby legs, and it looked more cloth-like. It was later redesigned to look more realistic. Also, he was voiced by Tyler Bunch instead of Peter Linz.
• Beverly Hills, 90210:
  • The first season, due to not having fully-developed the ensemble drama it would come to be known as, largely revolved around the Walsh twins, with many of the first-season episodes being self-contained stories that ended with An Aesop and dealt with comparatively small-scale issues. From season two onwards, the plotlines started to arch over several episodes and the friends of the Walsh kids were given some limelight as well.
  • The credits sequence for the first season is completely different from the rest of the series — instead of the famous Opening Credits Cast Party, the first-season credits emphasize various locales in Beverly Hills along with the Fish out of Water nature of the Walsh family, complete with several moments of Amazingly Embarrassing Parents, while the supporting cast is only given the briefest of mentions and doesn't highlight their personalities in any meaningful way. The first-season credits also used an 80's styled pop/dance rendition of the show's theme song rather than the hard rock rendition used from season two onward ^note which was modified slightly in season four.
  • While it may seem surprising now, Dylan doesn't appear in the pilot, despite being the show's Breakout Character, and appeared in less episodes than the other main characters during the first season.
  • Donna Martin was originally "Donna Morgan," and she had a different personality altogether during season 1.
  • Donna and Kelly's mothers in their first appearances are completely different from their later incarnations (not to mention being played by different actresses than their regular ones); the more-laid and implicitly emotionally unstable Nancy Martin is a far-cry from the strict and conservative Felice Martin, for example.
  • The Sequel Series 90210 at first focused partly on members of the original cast; while it the show was always slanted towards the new teens Kelly Taylor was in most episodes of the first two seasons and Brenda and Donna also showed up. After the end of season two this angle was dropped entirely.
• The Big Bang Theory
  • Early episodes have Sheldon, among other things, laughing fairly normally (at a joke he shouldn't even think is funny), willingly cursing, and knocking on Penny's door once and waiting for her to open it. In general, he acts only about half as much of an asocial nerd as he does in the later shows; i.e. he has a fairly solid understanding of relationships(!), and he makes witty, sarcastic remarks on a fairly regular basis(!!!). He also seems a little bit attracted to Penny, trying to draw her attention to his whiteboard over Leonard's. Leonard even jokes that Sheldon is a "semi-pro" at producing sperm samples, something the current Sheldon would never waste his time on. He also seems to speak in a much deeper tone than his usual higher pitch.
  • The opening scenes includes Leonard solving a receptionist's Crossword Puzzle on sight while explaining the logic behind some clues, a gag you'd expect of Sheldon. The same scene their motivation for donating sperm is money for an internet speed upgrade when across the rest of the series money is never presented as an issue and they're shown to live comfortably. Banter in the stairwell also states Sheldon was sent to boarding school (for his work on lasers), something the rest of the series and the prequel show contradict.
  • Even beyond the differences in Sheldon, the first few episodes were very different from what followed. All of the "smart" characters spoke in a "fake geek" dialect, using overly-technical explanations and terms for common things (it was the other guys who referred to sex as "coitus", not Sheldon). And Penny was dumb — not just less-educated than the boys, but truly stupid. While her outfits would remain fairly revealing, in the first few episodes they were practically Kelly Bundy-worthy. She was also much nicer and less snarky in her early appearances.
  • Also worth noting is Howard's expertise on languages, something that appears several times in the first season but is completely forgotten in later episodes.
  • In Stuart's first appearance he is a socially adept guy with artistic talent and a cool job (Owning the Comicbook store). He impresses Penny and dates her for a short time. Leonard finds him very threatening as a cool, socially adept geek. In later appearances he becomes more and more pathetic, eventually becoming someone the other characters look down on as overly pathetic.
  • Amy started off as a female version of Sheldon, even so far as to having no sexual desire beyond having a mechanically-produced orgasm for scientific research. Later seasons show her as incredibly outgoing and wanting nothing so much as her physical relationship with Sheldon to advance.
  • Raj's selective mutism was initially just Raj being shy around pretty girls and there were a few occasions where he spoke to the other guys while Penny was in the room. Eventually, it was established that Raj couldn't speak to any woman except his mother or sister and couldn't speak if a woman was in the room at all (unless he was speaking to a large audience of both men and women), having to communicate by whispering into Howard's ear and hoping it would be repeated. He could only speak normally in front of women if he had consumed alcohol or drugs. This is of course, until he overcame his condition in Season 6.
• The first series of Blackadder is different from the latter three (and the specials) in a number of ways.
  • The main character is almost always referred to as Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh^note and one episode even states his original full name: Edmund Plantagenet. He adopts the handle of "The Black Adder" but no one else uses it.
  • Although he is sometimes shown as fairly rational and progressive regarding such topics as witchcraft and superstition, to the extent of being the Only Sane Man in the Witchsmeller episode, Edmund is generally portrayed as a bumbling, uncharismatic fool, a far cry from the Magnificent Bastard of later seasons.
  • Edmund's servant Baldrick is a Hypercompetent Sidekick, unlike his descendants.
  • The show also differs in its general feel: It had a bigger budget than its successors, allowing larger sets, location shooting and a far greater number of actors and extras. When budget cuts were made for Blackadder II, the writers (now including Ben Elton) compensated by putting more emphasis on dialog and characterisation, which most fans agree was beneficial for the show as a whole. As Elton put it, "Rowan Atkinson falling off a horse in the middle distance is no funnier than anyone else falling off a horse in the middle distance. Get in close and he'll make you laugh."
  • Blackadder's Christmas Carol has Flashbacks to Lord Blackadder and Mr Blackadder, but not to Prince Edmund. Also, the original series is the only one from which no characters returned for Blackadder Goes Forth. Melchett from II, George from Third, but no Richard, Harry, or even Percy^*though the actor, Tim McInnerny, did return in a different role.
• Black Mirror: Before technology became the central theme of the series, rather than "just" an important motif. The first two episodes, by contrast, featured dystopian scenarios where technology was an important element, but certainly not the central focus. The first season finale, "The Entire History of You", was the first story where technology actually had a central role, and the second season cemented and codified the "horror stories about technology" theme that has continued ever since.
• Blake's 7:
  • The first episode is extremely atypical: The Federation are more banal in their evil than the pantomime antics of mid-Season 1 onwards (the Federation commander in the second episode is a downright Punch-Clock Villain), Blake is a passive character who hasn't yet realised what a corrupt empire the Federation is, there's no ultra-powerful spaceship with teleport facilities, and most of the Seven don't appear. (It's the only episode not to feature Breakout Character Avon.) But possibly the real jarring element is the characterisation of Vila, here portrayed as a rather sinister compulsive thief, who says he's being deported because all attempts by psychiatrists to fix him have failed and who casually steals Blake's watch while he's unconscious. He would quickly be reformatted into a Lovable Coward.
  • The early episode "Cygnus Alpha" introduces the Liberator's armoury and shows that each crewmember can only take one gun: If they try to take a second, it's red hot to their touch. (This may explain why Blake runs back into danger to try and retrieve his gun at the end: He can't get another one.) Aside from a Continuity Nod at the start of Season 2 where all the guns turn red hot to stop the crew arming themselves, this feature is never mentioned again. ("Cygnus Alpha" is also the only episode where a character teleports aboard and seemingly arrives somewhere other than the teleport pad.)
• Blue Bloods:
  • The set used for Commissioner Frank Reagan's office looks somewhat different compared to later seasons.
  • The set for Frank and Henry's house is also completely different.
  • Danny has two different investigative partners before Jennifer Esposito's Jackie Curatola was firmly established as his partner.
  • Season 1 is noticeably absent of Frank's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Garrett Moore, who wasn't introduced until the antepenultimate episode of the season. Thus, you have other characters like Frank's Deputy Commissioner doing the duties that Garrett does in season 2 onwards.
  • A minor one is that NYPD squad cars and police officer uniforms in the first two seasons use modified versions of the real deals, with the police cars not using Rockwell Extra Bold for the NYPD lettering, and police officers' shoulder patches reading "Police Department of New York" instead of the real-life "Police Department, City of New York". It wasn't until season 3 that the show began using police cars with the correct font and uniforms with the correct branding.
• Bonanza depicts the Cartwrights as stand-offish and put off by outsiders in its earliest episodes. Also, Ben Cartwright tended to be less patient and in fact, harsher, with his sons in general. However, series star Lorne Greene objected after a few early episodes were filmed and recommended that — because the Cartwrights owned the largest timber and livestock operation in Nevada Territory, they ought to be warming and friendly. The producers ultimately agreed ... and the Cartwright family became the welcoming, heartwarming family a generation of viewers came to know.
• Bones:
  • The first season featured the "Angelator", a volumetric imaging system that can show 3D recreations of victims and how the murder occurred. It functioned as an alternative to showing flashbacks, as a way to visually show the audience the team's deductions about a murder. It was originally used in every episode, but was seen less and less in seasons two and three, without explanation as to why it wasn't being used anymore or what Angela's job is now since that was her only function. She eventually became the computer and technology expert on the team.
  • In one episode, the "Angelator" was called into question by the government when they suspected it wasn't a reliable tool. Although Angela proved it was, it's easy to assume the government whisked it away out of pure spite. That said, Angela still has a job, ID'ing murder victims. She just uses computer screens now.
  • Cam was absent, and in her place was Dr. Goodman, the director of the entire Jeffersonian Institute, who somehow had lots of time to be involved in murder investigations.
  • Sid, the Magical Negro who owned and operated a Chinese restaurant.
  • In the first season, a major part of Brennan's characterization is that her parents disappeared when she was a teenager and she still doesn't know what happened to them. This mystery is solved in the first season's finale, noticeably changing her characterization going forward.
• The first season of Boy Meets World included several secondary and tertiary characters that disappeared within a few episodes, or at least by the end of the season. Also, Shawn had a sister, Stacey, who was never mentioned again.
• Breaking Bad:
  • The Pilot has female nudity, something not seen in any other episode. The profanity throughout the first season is also much harsher, with several F-words per episode; later seasons are limited to two or three strong swear words per season. The first episode also has Jesse using a gay slur as an insult — again, unique to the pilot.^note  This is a relic from when the show was originally being shopped around for a network, as the showrunners were primarily looking at HBO and Showtime to pick it up. When AMC picked up the show, they adjusted to the basic cable standards.
  • The pilot and first season also tended to be steeped more in Black Comedy, while later seasons are fairly serious. It's especially obvious in Hank, who is played as something of a Miles Gloriosus early on, but turns out to be a very competent agent as the series progresses, though this could be chalked up to Character Development. ^note  Dean Norris auditioned believing the show to be a comedy, and continued playing it that way after being told otherwise.
  • When Saul first appears in the second season, he is an older man, heavyset with a comb over. However when the third season begins, Saul is now much younger looking, thinner and it seems he has a full head of hair. Only two weeks have passed in the story, so it's hard to justify this.
  • When Mike first appears, he is polite, somewhat friendly and in a deleted scene, seems to like Walt. In all subsequent appearances and in the prequel series, Mike is taciturn, gruff and detests Walt.
• Series 1 of The Brittas Empire has quite a few differences compared to later on:
  • Brittas has a more nasally and posher-sounding voice, lacks his "Eeeexcccelleeeent!!!!" Catchphrase, and is much more of a Jerkass than in later series, with it not being until Series 2 that his more sympathetic side really shows up.
  • In the first series Helen was portrayed as someone whose neuroses stem entirely from her relationship with Brittas and who otherwise might be relatively normal. Later on, the show revealed that she was always something of a walking disaster even before she met Brittas and that she herself isn't so easy to live with. Additionally, she came around to the centre much less often in the first series than later on, being only there for a brief scene in "Opening Day" and not appearing at all there in "Bye Bye Baby" and "Laying the Foundations". Finally, her friendship with Laura is almost absent in the first series, instead hanging out with a next-door neighbour called Pam who vanishes after two episodes.
  • Carole wasn't quite living in the centre just yet - that change wouldn't occur until Series 2's "Temple of the Body". Instead, she was on the verge of losing her flat, having to bring in Ben because there was no one available to watch over him - as a consequence of this, she's portrayed as much more of a Shrinking Violet vulnerable to Inelegant Blubbering than in later series. For that matter, when she does fall pregnant at the end of Series 1, it's implied that it was her landlord who impregnated her, with it not being until Series 2 that it was established that it was Brittas' fault.
  • Julie is absent, with her role instead being performed by similarly snarky but slightly less disobedient secretary Angie.
  • Series 1 and 2 had a fair amount of scenes taking place at the Brittas' family house, usually to bookend each episode and always set in the kitchen. After Series 2, the number of scenes taking place there throughout the rest of the series can be counted on one hand, and none of them take place in the kitchen.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine
  • The early episodes heavily Ship Tease a potential romance between Detectives Charles Boyle and Rosa Diaz, but for the most part the audience was not on board (one of the primary reasons being that Boyle's Dogged Nice Guy infatuation tended to come off as a bit stalkery). By the middle of the first season this was being downplayed, and by the end of it Boyle had moved on. The rest of the series makes it clear that they're Better as Friends.
  • Similarly, early episodes emphasise Sgt. Jeffords's fear of being in the field to the point of making him the Lovable Coward. This was done away with halfway through the season because the writers realised that this limited the stories that could be told using Jeffords.
  • In the pilot, Peralta is a lot more openly attracted to Santiago and it's hinted that he's using The Bet between them, wherein Santiago will go on a date with him if she loses, as an opportunity to seduce her. While the Ship Tease remained, a few episodes later it is demonstrated that Peralta is merely using the bet as an opportunity to prank her (the date was actually her idea, as something terrible that would be a good punishment for losing), and the suggestion that he might have real feelings for her comes as a genuine surprise to him.
  • In the early episodes, Stephanie Beatriz used her natural voice to play Rosa Diaz. Over the course of the first season, Diaz's voice gradually got lower and stayed that way.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • There were some things early on that looked out of place later on, such as Xander riding a skateboard. Joss Whedon sometimes recognized these elements and gradually phased them out - for example, Xander was seen carrying a skateboard a couple of times before skateboards ceased to be a part of his life altogether, giving the viewer the impression that it was just a phase he was going through (which is Truth in Television for anyone who went through that phase in their teenage years where they're trying to find their identity, often leading them to do, say, or act in ways that will be considered embarrassing in five to ten years, or if the person gets a girlfriend or boyfriend).
  • While there are references made to Willow dressing in nerdy, uncool, or childish ways at various points throughout the series, the first episode is the only one in which she actually does to any significant degree (with the single exception of a throwback scene in the finale to season 4), excepting the times she wears overalls and pigtails usually worn by kids a third her age. The childish clothing is present even in the later seasons, though it happens less often the further you go into the series, mirroring the usage of Xander's skateboard.
  • Vampires didn't begin showing their skeletons when they turned to dust after being staked until the third season, likely because the show didn't have the budget for such an effect originally. Also when in Killer Mode, vampires' demon faces had a ghoulishly whitish texture to them. This was dropped somewhere in Season 2.
  • The pilot and "The Harvest" are two of the few episodes that feature the upper level of the Bronze. Joss Whedon wrote the script to feature the two levels, but didn't realize how difficult it would be to shoot these scenes. Not only was it impractical in terms of filming and lighting, but it stretched their already nonexistent budget. It shows up a few times in seasons 6 and 7.
  • When a pack of vamps chase Buffy and Angel into the Summers house (in the episode "Angel"), one of the pursuers gets his hand through the door before Buffy slams the door on his wrist and Angel tells her the vamps won't be able to come through the closed door without an invitation. It's later established that without an invitation, an invisible forcefield fills the doorway – like a membrane – keeping vampires out. Angel even leans against one such forcefield in an episode of his own show, and falls in when it disappears. The henchvamp shouldn't have been able to get his arm across the threshold like that.
  • In "The Witch" (season 1, episode 3), Giles seems unfamiliar with magicks, saying "Pretty good for my first [spell-]casting, eh?" and such—which is totally at odds with his rebellious Hellblazer youth period as established in season 2's "The Dark Age". It may be due to the fact that Giles had been trying to keep that he "spent the sixties in an electric-kool-aid-funky-Satan groove" (as Buffy later put it) a secret.
  • Angel's first few appearances have the character affect a rather snarky and smug persona. It isn't until the seventh episode, aptly titled "Angel", that he becomes the dark, brooding vampire with a soul. Every appearance thereafter would exhibit, or poke fun at, the stoic, broody persona that people came to associate with the character. Justified since when he first appeared, he was trying to play the mysterious ally to Buffy while also not giving away that he was a vampire. The writers didn't even settle on the exact nature of his mysterious background and decide he was a vampire until they wrote the episode "Angel".
  • An interesting variant of this is with the characters' sexual orientations. Willow's coming out was written quite well and it doesn't come across as contradicting her earlier character necessarily, though No Bisexuals seems to be in effect and previously she had been shown having a crush on Xander, going out with Oz and even making out with Xander when she was going out with Oz (of course it is Truth in Television that some gay people have heterosexual relationships before coming out, but her feelings for Xander and Oz seemed completely genuine). Even after meeting Tara, she mentions having once had a crush on Giles and says that Dracula is sexy, but is otherwise treated as being all lesbian now. However, the writers did admit that they decided they wanted to make a character gay and it wasn't set in stone, with Xander apparently under consideration also. Given his early characterisation constantly hitting on/staring at girls (especially Buffy) and his (hidden) Masochism Tango relationship with Cordelia, this could have been very jarring.
• Burn Notice
  • In the pilot episode, Michael's mother Madeline is a hypochondriac, and Michael mentions sending money to her regularly to help pay for all the examinations and treatments for medical problems which are not there. This character trait was never mentioned again besides a single reference in season 2. We occasionally see a table in her house littered with pill bottles, but the trait itself doesn't really play a further part in the series.
  • The haircut and the sassier attitude she has from the second episode onwards suggests that they decided to retool the character and dropped the hypochondria because it didn't fit, rather than just forgot about it or couldn't be bothered following up on it.
  • This one could be justified if her hypochondria was rooted in a need for attention. Her son drops off the face of the Earth and she gets "sick". He comes back to Miami and starts seeing her every episode, and suddenly she's better.
  • In the pilot, Michael kills two drug goons. He seems to jump through hoops to not kill in subsequent episodes. Justified in that after the first episode kills, he realizes that he's stuck in Miami indefinitely, and has to keep a low profile.
  • Fi switches from an Irish accent to an American one in the second episode of season 1. In-Universe, she explains it's to blend in. Out of universe, the reason is probably more or less the same; the writers realized she'd have to adopt an American accent for most of her undercover work anyway. That, and English actress Gabrielle Anwar's American accent is better than her Irish.

C

• Charmed:
  • The first episode mentions the Three Essentials of Magic: timing, feeling, and the phases of the moon. It's never brought up again, nor is there any indication in the rest of the show that the moon's phases have any effect on their magic. With the exception of an episode where, under a strange occurrence involving a blue moon, the witches are turned into ferocious beasts who maul whitelighters. It's also commonly pointed out that their powers are linked to their emotions.
  • In the second episode one of the shape-shifting demons held onto the Book of Shadows and tried to get it out of the house by carrying it. Never once did it shock him like the evil-sensing and -shocking Book that would come later. It's heavily implied that the shapeshifter's powers confused the book at first: while it allowed him to carry it, the book did refuse to leave the house, flying out of his hands when he tried to force it through the door, and sliding away when he tried to reach for it again. Likewise, the book is shown to be connected to the sisters' powers, and it becomes steadily savvier and more aggressive to evil as the series goes on. It's therefore implied that it's just the book's defensive capabilities strengthening as the sisters' powers do, as opposed to a complete non sequitur.
  • In the later episodes just about every magical being, good or evil, has at least one of the dozens of teleportation powers. In earlier episodes they aren't as common. It's quite jarring to go back and see chase sequences with the demon of the week running after them, as opposed to just teleporting away.
  • The first season featured spells and potions that were inspired by real-life Wicca and neopagan practices (creator Constance M Burge was inspired by The Craft which used similar ideas). This was phased out around season 2 and more emphasis was placed on vanquishing potions and the sisters' active powers.
  • Although the Girl Power theme was prevalent across the whole show, the first couple of seasons veered more towards the Female Angel, Male Demon side of things. When Leo and Cole became series regulars, the show became more gender neutral. Likewise no empowered male witches who weren't children appeared on the show until the fifth season.
  • Warlocks (who look human) were initially the main threat on the show and demons looked demonic. As the show went on, warlocks became Mooks while demons were the primary antagonists. Demons also appeared more like humans in black leather. This was explained in-show as the more powerful upper-level demons being able to assume a human form - so as the sisters' powers grew, the more powerful and human-appearing demons came after them.^note The real reason of course is that the show's budget was slashed. Additionally when 'blinking' first appears in Season 1, Melinda Warren says the warlock Mathew Tate copied it from a witch. By season 3, blinking is a default power most warlocks have. And witches are never seen doing it. The episode "Bride & Gloom", in which the sisters get turned evil thanks to a spell, signals this when they're able to blink.
  • In the season 1 episode "Wicca Envy" when the sisters have given up their powers, Leo is able to restore them by using his healing powers on the Book of Shadows. This is the episode that reveals him as a whitelighter. Whitelighter lore was explored more towards the end of the first season and Leo's powers seemed restricted to healing only injuries. He does restore the broken P3 sign with his powers in a season 4 episode but doesn't display this elsewhere in the series. This one is especially egregious because a season 4 episode has Phoebe and Paige struggling to stop Piper from being tricked into giving up their powers again. Leo never once mentions he could heal the book^note This can be hand waved with the fact that Rex and Hannah were warlocks who needed the sisters to put their powers in a magical lantern so they could give them to the Source, whereas in the latter episode, the Source himself is beside Piper the whole time and could take control of the powers immediately.. "Wicca Envy" is also the only episode where Leo or any whitelighter who isn't an Elder or part witch is shown using telekinesis.
  • "P3 H20" introduces memory dust, which Sam is said to have taken from one of his witch charges, and is just called "the powder". It would later be retconned to being a default whitelighter item. The same episode also treats Leo taking Piper with him as he orbs as a big deal that the Elders might not approve of, which becomes jarring when every season afterwards shows him orbing with anyone who needs it. He also can't heal Piper's poison oak rashes or Sam as he's dying because he's "not meant to", giving the impression that the Elders can control his powers and how he uses them, which is also at odds with how every other season shows him clashing with them over doing things they don't approve of.
  • "Awakened" hinges its tension on Piper coming down with an exotic fever and risking death because Leo isn't allowed to heal her - since she wasn't hurt by a demon. He has to wait until she's Only Mostly Dead to heal her in the hopes of the Elders not finding out, and even then is punished by being made mortal for a while. Season 3 hangs a lampshade on it when a far stricter whitelighter friend of Leo reprimands him for healing Piper's finger after she cut it making lunch.
  • When the Avatars first appear in Season 5, the second is played by Tony Todd, who doesn't appear again when they reappear in Season 7, and Alpha's other comrades are Beta and Gamma. Could be hand waved with the episode "Charmageddon" showing that there are loads of Avatars, as well as the existence of a rare potion that can kill one.
  • The episode "Astral Monkey" provides a Face Heel Door Slam for Dr Williams when he refuses to drink the potion that would expel the sisters' powers from him. Extremely jarring compared to later episodes that will show a potion taking effect as long as the sisters throw it at the target. Additionally, the potion to separate a witch from her powers first shows up in "How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans" and has to be drunk first, and then the powers must be called via a spell. The Stillman sisters in "The Power of Three Blondes" are able to steal the Charmed Ones' powers with a spell and not the potion, while Zankou in "Something Wicca This Way Goes?" does so with the potion and not the spell (and he merely has to throw the potion at Phoebe and Piper). Could be Hand Waved as Magic A Is Magic A, as the Stillmans' spell meant that Paige kept her whitelighter powers, while Zankou's potion is treated as though it could take hers.
• In Cheers, the entirety of the first season took place in the bar. It wouldn't be until the second season premiere that would show a location outside of the place where everybody knows your name. Also, John Ratzenberger was listed as a guest star rather than a starring role he would have from season 2 on out.
• Chuck approaches this more subtly, but first season episodes tend to be lighter in tone and less interconnected than seasons two and later, with the Myth Arc only minimally referenced until the final four or five episodes of the season. Once Fulcrum is introduced the series begins to become more focused on the Intersect mythology. However even after the emergence of Fulcrum as a Big Bad, the first two seasons have far more unrelated "villains of the week" than seasons three and later, which each focused almost explicitly on one particular villain or organization (the Ring in season three, Alexei Volkoff in season four, and Daniel Shaw and ultimately Nicholas Quinn in season five). The character of Morgan also changes significantly beginning with season two, with subtle changes that had him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. It could be a case of his character Growing the Beard if he didn't already have one.
  • In the first two episodes, Sarah and Casey hated and distrusted each other, to the point of suspecting each other of being traitors.
• During the first season of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert had a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis in the form of fellow comedian David Cross, who played fictional liberal talking head "Russ Lieber", before the character was written out of the series.
• The first episode of Columbo was actually a one-off 1968 TV Movie called Prescription: Murder, which was based off a stage play (which was Inspired by… an earlier TV show—it's a long story). Prescription: Murder has some of the Columbo formula already in place: it's a Reverse Whodunnit, the murderer is an arrogant rich jerk, and of course there's dogged, hyper-observant Lt. Columbo there to follow the suspect around and annoy them while poking holes in their story. But in other ways it was quite different. There was a trippy 1960s-style Animated Credits Opening with Rorschach ink blots, never seen again. The pacing is different, with Lt. Columbo not appearing until 33 minutes into the episode. Whereas the Columbo of the series was permanently disheveled and was once likened to "an unmade bed", Peter Falk in this episode is much neater in appearance, with a close-cropped haircut instead of his later tousled hair, wearing a neat gray suit, and most often carrying the iconic raincoat instead of wearing it. Most notably, Columbo lacks the deferential manner of later episodes and doesn't tell the endless homey stories about his wife and in-laws. He's much more direct and accusatory and actually shouts at one suspect he's trying to browbeat into confessing her role in the murder. Three years would pass before the second Columbo movie, Pilot Movie Ransom for a Dead Man, aired in 1971; by then most of the Early Installment Weirdness was gone and the more familiar Columbo character was in place.
• Community
  • The show gets more cartoonish and absurd after the first few episodes, though it starts off with a healthy amount of meta-humor.
  • There is a much heavier emphasis on Jeff's transition from hot-shot lawyer to lowly community college student. After the first season, he's just another member of the group with his own reason for being in school.
  • Britta starts out as the Only Sane Man before her Soapbox Sadie characterization becomes Flanderized, making her much goofier. Halfway through season 3, as Britta attempts to impersonate a dead student as part of her "grief counseling" training, a dismayed Jeff remarks, "You seemed smarter than me when I met you."
  • Troy starts out as a Jerk Jock, but by the end of the first season he's transitioned into a Manchild uber-geek and best friend of Abed, though this can be explained with the fact that he doesn't feel the need to pretend to be cool around Abed.
  • Annie is dressed much frumpier in her first few episodes before being teased as a possible love interest.
  • The earlier episodes seem to be trying to establish a kind of Odd Couple friendship between Pierce and Troy, rather than the familiar "Troy and Abed!" bromance that would be central to later episodes. This was actually the original plan of the creators, but it was scrapped when the writers realized the comedic chemistry between Donald Glover and Danny Pudi.
  • While the show was always fond of referencing and homaging other works, most of the pop culture references in the first season were limited to brief jokes. When episodes in Season 1 did do longer homages, they were usually fairly restrained and subtle—like "Introduction to Film" subtly parodying Dead Poets Society, or "Contemporary American Poultry" subtly parodying Goodfellas. "Modern Warfare" was the first episode that devoted an entire story to parodying another genre, which is one reason it's often cited as the show's turning point.
  • In general, the first season put a surprisingly large focus on romance, which largely fell by the wayside as the show settled into its familiar groove of self-aware meta-humor and platonic bonding. Of note: the pilot episode largely revolves around Jeff trying to woo Britta, the first season finale revolves around him choosing between Britta and Michelle Slater, and Jeff kissing Annie was important enough to be the final scene of the first season. While the later seasons didn't completely abandon romance, they heavily deemphasized it, often playing off large romantic moments in as deliberately blase a manner as possible.
• The classic example from the first handful of episodes of The Cosby Show is the existence of only four Huxtable children. These lines get a big laugh in the pilot episode:
  Clair: Why do we have four children?
  Cliff: Because we didn't want five.
  • Sondra Huxtable was added to the cast about midway through the first season, because Bill Cosby thought the show needed an example of successful parenting, i.e. a child who'd made it through high school and into a good college, with prospects for a future career.
  • Also, the Season 1 opening segment was the only one not to feature the actors dancing.
  • In the pilot episode, Theo is referred to as "Teddy."
  • A name plate on the door to Cliff's house and office reads "Clifford Huxtable".
  • The inside house set is different in the pilot episode.
• Cougar Town: Ironically, the first half-season or so, when the title actually made sense, the episodes don't match the tone and direction of the rest of the series. What started out as a kind of one-note joke quickly evolved into an ensemble comedy as a survival mechanism and the first six or so episodes really stick out.
• Criminal Minds:
  • It's very clear that the writers were still getting a hang of the series' tone and pace when the pilot was scripted. The most jarring difference for regular viewers is the appearance of voice-over quotes outside of their usual Book Ends, as well as a Cliffhanger ending that featured a new criminal after the main plot had been resolved. Characterization is also still finding its footing: Hotch actually smiles while on the job, Morgan's dressed to the nines rather than the casual look he'd take on in later episodes, and Reid's "autistic tendencies" are much more obvious. All this gets smoothed over by about four episodes in.
  • One that lasts until early season 2 is that when delivering the profile, the show would cut to footage of a generic criminal doing whatever the profile the team was giving said. Start season 2, this was phased out entirely in favor of a "camera pans as each member of the team gives a part of the profile" occasionally with suitable footage of the actual unsub, if the episode's not keeping his identity a secret.
• CSI
  • In the pilot, cases are posted on The Big Board Homicide-style, Brass is a shouting hard-ass with scant respect for the CSIs' work, the ME is a woman named Jenna instead of Doc Robbins, and Grissom flirts personably with co-workers and plays practical jokes. The rest of the season has its own departures: the soundtrack is vastly different, the lighting is not tinged with the familiar blue hue, Sara faces some initial resentment within the group, Catherine had a sister who didn't exist after the first episodes, and the team's methods were more practical and relied less on technological tricks. There's also a heavier emphasis on story arcs at the outset; the first handful of CSI episodes started with a Previously on…, something that now feels jarring for what the audience expects from an episodic Forensic Drama these days.
  • In the first season, you would frequently see the CSIs picking up pieces of evidence with personal items (such as a pen). No real CSI would ever do this, as the item almost certainly has some of the owner's DNA on it and would interfere with a DNA test. Thankfully, this was completely dropped by the second season, possibly due to the writers learning better.
• In the pilot episode of CSI: Miami doesn't feature Horatio's famous Quip to Black. He says, "We got the whole story." Then he looks back at the Miami skyline, and the scene fades out. Then, abruptly... "YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

D

• The first series of Dad's Army started each episode with faked newsreel footage, intersplicing real WWII footage with footage of the main characters.
• The Daily Show was almost a completely different show when Craig Kilborn was host. It was more of a parody of local news programs, with a focus on entertainment. The field pieces generally set their sights on obscure weirdos rather than public figures or activists, so the mockery came across as much more mean-spirited. The show as a whole had a meaner, condescending tone, most noticeably in Kilborn's personality and interviewing style. Each episode was also much more standardized, with Kilborn running through the same named segments in each episode and ending each interview with "Five Questions." There was also no audience for the first season. Once Jon Stewart took over, he shifted the focus to hard political satire, did away with most of the pre-existing segments, and significantly changed the tone.
• The first season of Dallas (in 1978) had quite a different feel to the seasons that came after it (largely because the creators weren't sure whether it would be picked up to series or not).
  • The main characters are largely limited to the Barnes and Ewing families, and the majority of the first season focuses on the marriage (and challenges) between Bobby and Pam. J.R. and Sue Ellen are merely supporting characters in the early episodes, although this changes later on when the plots start shifting to focus more on them.
  • Southfork Ranch clearly uses a different building than the one seen in later seasons, and it's notably winter outside (a scene in the pilot has J.R. and Jock smoking outside in the winter air).
  • In the first few episodes, Ray Krebbs is seen having an affair with Lucy Ewing (who was a teenager at the time). This was swept under the rug not long after the first season. It was odd then, and made even less sense when it was revealed three seasons later that Ray was an illegitimate Ewing heir (making it that he slept with his niece).
  • Cliff Barnes starts out as an attorney for the first two seasons of the series, investigating Ewing Oil and working as the Head of the Office of Land Management. This is a far cry from his regular role of CEO of Barnes/Wentworth Oil (and later, CEO of Ewing Oil) for the majority of the series. Not only that, but Cliff is much more restrained in the early episodes (and practically docile compared to his actions in later seasons).
  • The season-ending cliffhanger of the original first season (Pam discovers she's lost the child she was carrying while at the Ewing barbecue) looks quaint compared to the over-the-top cliffhangers that would begin with J.R.'s shooting in Season 3.
• Dark Shadows: For the first year, the show was a fairly straightforward Soap Opera; it wasn't until they were nearing cancelation that Dan Curtis said what the hell, and threw in a ghost. The rest is history.
• The Degrassi franchise had some examples of this:
  • The Kids of Degrassi Street (and its immediate telefilm predecessor, Ida Makes a Movie) were about kids in elementary school, not the middle-graders and high-schoolers who would define the later series of the franchise. In addition, Ida Makes a Movie was adapted from a children's book about anthropomorphized cats, and follows a kid who creates a documentary about garbage that gets misinterpreted by a judge at the National Film Board of Canada as being a war film(?). Kids of Degrassi also had actors who would go on to play lead roles in Degrassi Junior High playing different characters in this first series.
• Dexter
  • In the first episode or two, Lt. LaGuerta is portrayed as she is in the source novel, namely as an incompetent detective and glory hound who makes inappropriate advances on Dexter. Captain Matthews, meanwhile, is shown to be a Reasonable Authority Figure who is forced to sort things out whenever she screws up. It didn't take the producers too long to figure out that viewers might have an issue with an incompetent Latina officer having to be constantly babysat by a white man, and so the character dynamic was switched around early in the first season, with LaGuerta instead becoming a highly competent and dedicated officer (albeit still prone to the occasional bit of publicity-seeking), and Matthews being turned into an Obstructive Bureaucrat and all-around Jerkass. In the show's latter seasons their characterisations drifted to somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, with LaGuerta still being shown as generally competent, but increasingly power-hungry and prone to making bad judgement calls under pressure, and Matthews mellowing out somewhat.
  • Dexter's M.O. is also different in the first episode. Rather than inject his victim with a sedative, he garrotes the man and forces him to drive them both to the kill site. He also digs up the bodies of his target's victims, something that the obsessively clean Dexter we know now would never do^note This is Dexter's actual M.O. in the books.
  • The main set for Miami Metro Homicide wasn't established until after the pilot. Initially, the characters are shown working in a much larger and open office space and Dexter didn't have a backroom. Presumably, the writers needed a convenient excuse to have Dexter access police databases for criminals he was targeting without having his colleagues literally looking over his shoulder.
  • In the first two seasons, Harry only appears in flashbacks to Dexter's (and Debra's) youth, and doesn't begin his more familiar role as Dexter's Spirit Advisor until early in Season 3.
• To the many fans who like A Different World's later seasons, the first season, before Debbie Allen's Retool, seems like, well, a different show: Lisa Bonet (reprising her role as Denise Huxtuble) in the lead role, a racially integrated background cast, and more standard college humor as opposed to addressing social issues. Among the early season aspects:
  • The show’s original theme song was performed by Phoebe Snow^note rearranged by Aretha Franklin in seasons 2-5; Boyz II Men in season 6.
  • The inclusion of a Token White character, Maggie Lauten (played by Marisa Tomei).
  • In the first season, Jalessa's roommate(s) were Denise and Maggie, not Freddie.
  • Although Whitley didn't have a roommate, until Kim arrived in season two, she was instead often accompanied by her own Girl Friday named Millie. (Both Millie and Maggie vanished following the season.)
  • In the first few episodes, the dorm mother at Gilbert Hall was Stevie, played by Loretta Devine (replaced midseason by Lettie (Mary Alice), who continued into the second season).
  • Aside from Jaleesa, the only other characters from the more familiar ADW cast, in this season, were Ron (who had no mustache), Walter, and eventual de-facto leads, Dwayne and Whitley. Kim, Freddie, Colonel Taylor, and Mr. Gaines were not yet present until the second season’s revamp.
• Doctor Who was originally fairly different.
  • The Doctor was not conceived as the sole main character but one of several and was originally intended to be a character who kept getting his companions into trouble. Indeed, in the third episode ever aired he almost brains a caveman to death with a rock, only to be stopped by Ian at the last second. It was Ian who was intended to be the show's protagonist, and his and Barbara's professions (teachers, the former science and the latter history) are clear indicators that it was supposed to be an Edutainment show. As well, all four of the main characters were to represent the viewing audience: older viewers (the Doctor), younger adults (Barbara and Ian) and teenagers (Susan).
  • In particular, have a look at the pilot episode, which was later remade in its entirety. Had it been retained, the programme would have been rather different. Details here.
  • Most of the "adventures" happened because the cast had gotten separated from the TARDIS and, for one reason or another, couldn't simply leave and escape from whatever perilous setting the ship had stranded in this time. Likewise, due to the fact that the Doctor seemed incapable of properly piloting the TARDIS, simply trying to move around to pick up stranded crewmates was impossible as there would be no guarantee of landing where needed.
  • It was conceived of as a series designed in part to educate audiences as to history. Many early stories, which fans call "Historicals", feature the characters meeting and interacting with famous historical figures and events, with no science fiction elements beyond the presence of the time travellers, and the Doctor either being extremely reluctant to make any attempt to change history or writing this off as impossible. This formula gradually became less common until, after "The Highlanders" (early in the fourth season, and the Second Doctor's second story), it was dropped entirely, never to be seen again. Subsequent stories set in the past featuring historical figures or events have also included some kind of alien menace or futuristic intervention (while there is one later historical story which features no SF elements aside from the TARDIS crew, the Fifth Doctor story "Black Orchid", it also has no historical figures or events, making it more a unique period piece than anything else). In "Defining the First Doctor" Steven Moffat justifies the Doctor saying history can't be rewritten in "The Aztecs" by claiming that as he is just starting out he hasn't quite got the rules of time travel, but we can assume Aztec civilization being destroyed is a fixed point in time.
  • The second serial "The Daleks" has the moral "War and genocide is bad. And so is pacifism!" Additionally, the Doctor and the others act more pragmatically and more out of more blatant self-interest. This was before the Doctor became a Badass Pacifist.
  • In the third serial "The Edge of Destruction" the Doctor scoffs at the idea that the TARDIS is sentient.
  • In several early serials, the TARDIS is referred to as "the ship" or "the spaceship" even by the Doctor himself. Today's Doctor would never use such an impersonal term for their beloved TARDIS.
  • Another early story, "The Aztecs", has a romantic subplot between the Doctor and a guest character, something that for most of the 1963-1989 show would be unthinkable. (The show has come full circle on this, with romantic or at least flirtatious subplots involving the Doctor being commonplace since the show's 2005 revival.)
  • The companion variety also followed a very rigid formula in the first Doctor's tenure with one or two female companions and at least one male companion to handle the action scenes. This was gradually phased out during the second Doctor's tenure before cast aside entirely by the Third doctor's era, as having the Doctor played by younger and more physically able actors allowed for more variety in the companions.
  • When the Doctor first regenerated in "The Tenth Planet", his clothing appeared to automatically change as well. This was quickly dropped, and now a major tradition of regeneration is the Doctor picking his/her new wardrobe. (It was brought back for Thirteen to Fourteen as part of the mystery hanging over that regeneration; out of universe, Russell T Davies wanted to avoid giving the transphobic British media a target with a man finding himself in woman's clothing.)
  • The early Daleks were extremely unpleasant creatures but acted mostly out of paranoia, very old and ancient feuds and naked self interest, also being a lot more talkative and eloquent (a memorable scene where they dictate a letter for Susan to write to the Thals comes to mind: "WE CAN AL-SO SU-PPLY QUAN-TI-TIES OF FRESH VE-GE-TA-BLES..."). While they hated their enemies the Thal race, their main reason for wanting to shower their planet with nuclear material was because they were dependent on radiation to survive and needed to do this to terraform their world, with the side benefit of killing the Thals. They were also portrayed as being very vulnerable – heavily armed, but dependent on powered floors for movement and very weak and pathetic in nature. Later Daleks were much less reasonable and much more angry, with the primary motivation for their evil being genocidal racism against everything that isn't Dalek in origin. They also became a lot less talkative, probably because their screechy voices were just horrible to listen to, and a lot less pitiful. Daleks that showed up later still were even more dangerous, having almost destroyed the nigh-omnipotent Time Lords, and they were now willing to play pitiful and vulnerable if it was the only way to get what they wanted (such as the one in "Dalek", which borderline seduces Rose into feeding it energy).
  • Regeneration is one of the most iconic tropes of the series and yet it took the writers a long time to figure out what it was and how it worked. The Second Doctor ambiguously remarks that he's "been renewed" and implies it was a function of the TARDIS rather than of his body. The Third Doctor was forced to change his form by the Time Lords offscreen, in a manner achieved ambiguously. The regeneration of the Third to the Fourth Doctor marked the first time that regeneration had been explicitly analogized to death of the old self (due to a producer who decided to combine it with his Buddhist beliefs), although some writers seemed to think that the Fourth Doctor was actually playing a younger version of the Third Doctor, The Other Darrin style (such as the Target novelization, where the Brigadier watches the Doctor change and observes that although he gets younger his features stay mostly the same except his hair suddenly turning into twisty curls). The twelve-regeneration limit wasn't established until "The Deadly Assassin", where it's key to the Master's motivation. By the new series, the Tenth Doctor explicitly compares it to his own death, which makes it retrospectively rather jarring how blase both the Second Doctor and the Time Lords are at what amounts to an execution.
  • In "The Edge of Destruction", Ian checks the First Doctor's heartbeat and only notices one heart. Adding onto this, it's not hard to watch the first two Doctors' runs and get the impression that the Doctor is not an alien being, but is in fact, a human from the future. Since the first episode, it is established that he and Susan are from another world in another time, but as we know from several episodes throughout the series, humans in the show's universe eventually spread out and become a universal power, so the Doctor and Susan could have simply come from a colony world. In addition to the First Doctor's aforementioned one heart, he also refers to himself and his companions as "we humans" in "The Sensorites", and even his ability to regenerate is at first said to be a function of the TARDIS. (Writers of original novels have since tried to rationalize this continuity issue by suggesting that Time Lords don't grow their second heart until their first regeneration. They apparently forgot that the Second Doctor has his heartbeat checked by a human doctor in "The Wheel in Space" and no second heart is noticed then either. The second heart isn't established until the Third Doctor's debut story, which would imply that it was the Time Lords who gave the Doctor a second heart as part of the Second-Third regeneration.)
  • The Second Doctor story, "The Evil of the Daleks", has the Daleks wanting to test Jamie because he is special among humans as a result of having travelled in time, but when the Doctor asks why the Daleks don't just test him, they inform him that he has travelled in time too much and is consequently "more than human", which seems to imply that the Doctor was somehow changed or mutated by his excessive exposure to time (an idea that would resurface much later on).
  • And while we do meet another renegade Time Lord (who, notably, is fixated on altering Earth's history, and is not distinguished as being an alien) during the First Doctor's run, it isn't until the Second Doctor's very last story that the Doctor is established as being a member of an alien race known as the Time Lords. Combine all of this with the fandom-despised assertion that the Doctor is half-human from the 1996 TV movie, and one could actually make a compelling case to say that there is more humanity to the Doctor than most suspect.
  • Early episodes sometimes imply that the Doctor is trying to find his way back to his home planet, which has little in common with the later characterisation of the Doctor as someone who never actually liked Gallifrey that much and would much rather be meandering through spacetime getting into trouble. The shift seemingly happens sometime during Patrick Troughton's tenure, as the end of "The Faceless Ones" has the Doctor express a certain measure of regret that he "never got back to" his home planet, whereas "The War Games" has the Doctor treat any contact with the Time Lords as a last resort, and then Four through Six would typically end their adventures on Gallifrey by leaving in a hurry.
  • Except for two standalone episodes (one of which was feature length), the classic series consisted entirely of multi-part stories. While these were generally called "Story Name, Episode/Part X", the first 2 seasons and most of the 3rd had individual episode titles.
  • The Doctor is seen smoking a pipe in the first serial. They kick the habit thereafter. (The Fourth Doctor assembles and lights a hookah as part of a disguise in "The Deadly Assassin", but complains "this is a no-smoking compartment" about a burned-out computer later in the story.)
  • The first episode featuring each incarnation of the Doctor frequently has justified early installment weirdness regarding the new Doctor wearing the "wrong" clothing, as, having just regenerated, he/she is still wearing the previous Doctor's last clothes (the exceptions are Two and Fourteen, who had their clothes change with them, and Nine, who was introduced already in his outfit).
  • In a meta example, the Christmas-set "The Unquiet Dead" is the only Christmas Episode (as it were) of the new series that is a) an ordinary episode of the series as opposed to a special, and b) aired in April.
  • The Slitheen's first appearance, the two-parter "Aliens of London"/"World War Three", has a number of differences to their later appearances on Doctor Who proper and spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures. Most noticeable is how the Slitheen blow up when doused with their Weaksauce Weakness: In "World War Three", the remains look like overcooked spaghetti in green Jell-O, while in later appearances it looks like actual slime.
  • "Father's Day" introduces a species of Clock Roaches called the Reapers, which feel like they should be an important addition to a show that revolves around Time Travel. However, they have never been seen or mentioned again, even when a paradox would plausibly lead to their appearance. The episode also suggests that merely seeing or interacting with your past self, even if it doesn't cause a Grandfather Paradox, is inherently dangerous. This has never been mentioned again either.
    • Finally alluded to again in "Demons of the Punjab". A companion wants to go back and meet her grandmother when she was a young woman, and the Doctor is very reluctant to grant the request.
  • The Doctor's regeneration in "The Parting of the Ways", the first appearance of the new series' usual regeneration effect, an explosion of golden light, also shows the Doctor's face shifting from Nine to Ten, instead of changing in an instant as with the regenerations of the Doctor's after it. The Doctor's hair is even shown growing out. It is also the only time in the revival where the Doctor regenerates in a regular episode; later regenerations in the revival all happen in specials.
  • "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone" was the first Eleventh Doctor story to be written and filmed. As a result, the Doctor comes across as noticeably more short-tempered and prone to moments of jerkassery than he does for the rest of Matt Smith's time on the show, while Amy seems a little more subdued (apart from the final scene) compared to the rest of the season.
  • "Twice Upon a Time" references this trope constantly, making little comparisons to the Hartnell era and elements of the show added later that we take for granted.
  • The sonic screwdriver plays a much lesser role in Classic Who than the revived series, and isn't even introduced until the Second Doctor's tenure, before being destroyed in the Fifth Doctor's and not being reintroduced until the revival. Even when it is, it's portrayed as more or less Exactly What It Says on the Tin: i.e. a simple tool for manipulating matter with sound waves, such as (un)fastening screws and bypassing locks, plus a few other Not the Intended Use type things like disabling land mines. Far from the indispensible wonder-tool that seems to do everything except make the tea and open deadlock seals that it is in the new series, which seems to be linked to the Doctor's psyche.
• Dollhouse has a few:
  • Early on, the series was mostly episodic, giving way to longer story and character arcs. This isn't quite Cerebus Syndrome — the early episodes were still serious, but they focused more on the Dollhouse's clients and were meant to explore what kind of "desires" (sexual or otherwise) people would be willing to pay for. Though most fans think the later episodes are better, Joss Whedon has commented he thinks the change made the show lose some of its original point. Some fans underestimate how important these early episodes were to establishing the series premise and introducing us to the various personalities that Echo would later switch into.
  • In the pilot episode, Topher explains that he deliberately worsened Echo's vision and gave her asthma in her hostage negotiator imprint, because that was the case in one of the people the imprint was built on, and to get a a copy of such a person great in their field you need the entire package with their flaws as well as their strengths. However, this does not appear in any later episodes. The only one where a doll is given a deliberate flaw is a later episode where Echo is made blind, and this is only because her eyes are basically serving as cameras, making direct vision for her impossible.
• Donkey Hodie:
  • In the first episode featuring Gregory, he is depicted as having eyelids covering the top half of his eyes, and the pupils are animated. All future appearances of Gregory, save for "Pet Elephant Camp", lack the eyelids and animation for the eyes.
  • Purple Panda's original voice sounded very similar to Ernie and was low-pitched, which was noticeable in the songs when he has a deep voice. Starting with "Mooing Moon Moths", his voice is higher-pitched and he no longer has a deep singing voice. The only remnant of his original voice is his utterances of "Hey-o!", which sound out of place compared to his other lines in these episodes.
• The first five episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard look very different from the rest, because they were actually filmed in Georgia. In addition, there were more "rowdy" scenes at the Boar's Nest, mild profanity was used more freely, Daisy was often more scantily clad than in episodes from Season 2 onward, and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane was a fairly serious character and not the dimwitted man-child.

E

• Endurance: Season 1 had just ten pieces, whereas Seasons 2 and 3 had 12, Seasons 4 and 5 had 13, and Season 6 had 14. Season 1 also had multiple prize trips that the teams could win. Finally, the way the pieces (and prize trips) were given off was a lot more complicated than in every season afterwards: on E1, they would be up for grabs in the next Endurance Mission.
• The Electric Company (1971):
  • The first few Friday closing credit sequences of Season 1 (all aired in October through early December 1971) had a different end theme, which was a longer version of the corporate credits theme used in the first two seasons. By Christmas 1971, the bright marching theme was used for the credit roll.
  • A few scattered episodes during the first month used uncredited children to help the adult actors with various sound cluster lessons. Most were matching or multiple-choice questions.
• Entourage: In the first episode, Ari boasts about sleeping with a starlet, while in later episodes, it is clear that adultery is the one line Ari won't cross. Also in this episode, a room in Vince's house has four electric guitars on stands. In a later episode, it is shown that Vince can barely sing, and he is never shown playing any musical instruments.
• ER :
  • The pilot episode alone has so many off-kilter character moments that, when viewed in retrospect of the rest of the season and series, it comes across as an almost-completely different series. Peter Benton, the resident Dr. Jerk, is outright laughing, smiling and joking with other doctors — a far cry from the ultra-serious, moody doctor he would become for the rest of his tenure on the show. Doug Ross is played up as a Functional Addict who is often brought in due to drinking off-shift, a character trait that is essentially dropped after its Establishing Character Moment in the pilot. Nearly the entire main cast is shown lounging around in the staff lounge, while on-duty, and snark about various parts of the hospital and other staff members — every episode after this would explicitly show that most of the characters were far too busy with their work to meet en masse, with their only outings being after their shifts are done / away from the hospital.
  • Carol Hathaway, having originally been planned to die via overdose in the pilot episode, loses any sense of depression or negativity after this, with the rest of the show generally playing her character as an upbeat, bubbly (and sometimes reactionary) managing nurse — and the notion of her having attempted suicide (over Doug breaking up with her a month prior to the events of the pilot) is outright defied midway through the season, where she casually drops jokes about how Doug seduced her for Lydia, Bob and Carter's benefit.
  • At the end of the second episode, "Day One," Carter accepts an invite back to a female patient's house after she stalks him back to his car. This is at odds with his later characterization as someone who Likes Older Women and subverts The Casanova stereotype (he typically tries to be friends with his potential romances first before making the leap). Early episodes would also depict him as a Butt-Monkey, who is routinely mocked by other staffers, suffers several pratfalls (being shocked by a defibrilator, fearing he has an STD, having the staff wrap his leg in a cast during a snowstorm, and being the "butt" of a joke where Nurse Haleh and Deb Chen pretended to do a rectal exam on him). Tellingly, most Naïve Newcomer characters are never subjected to the same kind of treatment as Carter was, and their training is played much more realistically and reserved.
  • In the first-season episodes "Chicago Heat" and "Luck of the Draw," Doug claims that he has a son he has never met. For the rest of his time on the series, however, this subject is never brought up, and Doug will claim in later seasons and episodes that he has no children.
• The first season of The Eric Andre Show was filmed on suitably 80's TV equipment, giving it a true SD look worthy of an Abso-Lutely production. All of the sketches were written by Eric himself, as opposed to a more conventional team of writers, leading to the show having a slightly tighter feel. Also, the show had more celebrity impersonators as opposed to real ones (everyone in Season 2 played themselves, while Season 3 only used impersonators for Reese Witherspoon, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, with the latter two having already been in a previous episode).
• The Everybody Loves Raymond pilot is very weird compared to the rest of the series: First of all, Ray's house looks somewhat different to the one seen in every episode afterwards, while Frank and Marie's looks very different. Secondly, the baby twins, Geoffrey and Michael, are instead named Gregory and Matthew in the pilot only and are played by different babies. Ray also has a good friend called Leo in the pilot who is never seen or mentioned for the rest of the series. Robert's voice is noticeably different here (Brad Garrett uses his natural speaking voice for the pilot, and deepened it gradually until it turned into the dopey, deadpan low voice everyone knows well). The characters also seem to act differently in this episode. Marie for example complains about Raymond in this episode twice: first, to make Robert feel better, claiming that his sportswriter job is a waste of time, and one day later actually scolds him for setting up a monthly delivery of useless fruit to her house. She very rarely has anything bad to say about Raymond after this episode. Frank, on the other hand, demonstrates a grandfatherly love of Ray's children in this episode that is almost never seen in later ones, where he instead dislikes Ray's children and rarely shows them affection.
  • The early seasons also seemed to have a different feel from the later seasons. Some people like the tone of the early seasons better, when the comedy seemed a bit more subtle, and Debra wasn't mean (yet). In the earlier episodes, Ray and Debra were in it together against Ray's marauding parents and brother. In the later episodes, the show was more or less a collective of neuroses played up against each other — Ray was more of a mama's boy and idiot, and Debra became meaner and nastier.

F

• The first season of The Facts of Life concentrated on seven girls and none of them were Jo (although one of them was Molly Ringwald). The show also took place in the dormitory for Eastland with Mrs. Garrett as the housemother. Also, the dean of Eastland was a regular. On top of that, the theme song had different lyrics.
• In the first few episodes of Family Matters, the front door of the family house opened out into a corridor, suggesting that they lived in an apartment block. Later on, it opened onto a front porch, suggesting a house.
  • Their youngest daughter disappears from the show without mention. Also, the show's focus was much more on Harriet early on as it was her character being imported from Perfect Strangers. Later even among the original cast she was losing out to Carl due to the humorous dynamic he had with Urkel.
  • Urkel didn't appear on the show until about halfway through season 1, and was not originally intended to make too many appearances, but this changed due to his immediate and immense popularity. He even became a main character the very next season and soon became the show's breakout character. Nowadays it's hard for anyone to imagine that there was ever a period on the show before Urkel.
• Even though Alex P Keaton is a major focus in the pilot episode of Family Ties, the whole incident is shown from the POV of the parents, Steven and Elyse. We only get to see the controversial club when Alex is being picked up there by his parents. Also, in the very first episode where Skippy Handelman appears, Alex treats him with just as much contempt as Mallory does — and it's only later established that they were friends from childhood.
• Farscape:
  • The first half or so of season one has a much different feel to it than later episodes (corresponding about with the airing of "A Human Reaction"). Even with the introduction of the Myth Arc, the rest of the first season differs notably from the rest of the series.
  • Noted by the cast, especially Ben Browder (playing John Crichton), with the shorthand of "white T" and "black T" episodes. The episodes where Crichton wore black T-shirts were darker than others, and the series had more "black T" episodes as the series went on, until Crichton is only wearing black T-shirts.
  • The production quality improves significantly as well after the first season. Perhaps the most noticeable example is D'Argo's appearance, which changes drastically at the beginning of the second season. They also totally re-do the CGI model for the Marauder-type of Peacekeeper ship (the small ship, but bigger than their Prowler fighters, that functioned like an armed shuttle or transport for commando squads). Some fans assume there are two different types of Marauders (the boxy one from Season 1, and the more aerodynamic craft from later seasons and the miniseries), due to this discrepancy later being compounded by the show's extensive use of Stock Footage.
  • The facial expressions of the Rygel puppet are much rougher in the earliest episodes. It seems they were still in the process of refining the animatronics at the time.
  • During her first few episodes Chiana keeps switching between Australian and American accents because the directors kept changing their minds about which one Gigi Edgley should use. The crew eventually settled on her using the American accent which remained for the rest of the series.
• The pilot of Father Ted is the episode in which Jack "dies" (the 6th episode broadcast) and there are notable differences — the parochial house is different, Ted quotes James Joyce, and at the end they plot Father Jack's death. The first episode of the series also featured an animated scene, something that would never appear again during the entire rest of the show. The first few episodes also featured an aborted attempt at a running joke based upon Dougal staring out of the window to see some implausible stock footage apparently happening outside the house (a massive storm or some implausibly giant ants who are apparently invading Craggy Island (again)).
• In the First Wave pilot, the alien impersonating Cade's wife sprouts some tentacles that nearly choke Cade to death. This is the last we see of any tentacles for the rest of the series.
• The Flash (1990):
  • The pilot is the only episode to include Iris West, Barry's love interest from the comics. The writers wanted to do Girl of the Week stories and also develop Barry's tension with Tina McGee; they decided keeping Iris as well would be overkill.
  • It's also the only episode to feature Barry fainting after going fast for too long, although many episodes feature him to be a Big Eater (often using superspeed to eat a lot) to compensate for the accelerated metabolism.
• Forever:
  • The pilot has Henry quite nonchalantly asking Abe to kill him so that he can solve the week's mystery. Later episodes, however, have him say that he still fears death and show that he fights to stay alive even if dying and coming back to life would be a simpler option. (Possibly justified in that this particular case seems to involve someone who has found out Henry's secret, and Henry is thus more motivated than usual to get answers quickly.)
  • In the pilot, Henry's basement lab is reached through a trap door in the floor of the shop. In later episodes, characters enter the lab by coming down what appears to be an ordinary staircase with light coming from a doorway at the top and no sign of anyone closing a trap door as they enter, and the hidden entrance is never seen or referred to again.
• In the early years of its existence, Fox News used to devote ten-minute segments of its daytime programs to call-in segments in which viewers were patched in to give their opinions on certain stories, similar to a radio talk show. These segments were eventually phased out.
• The general air of season 1 of Frasier was far more like Cheers (in that it was a spin-off of Cheers) and other '80s sitcoms — mainly, in its treatment of emotional issues in a comedy. The second and third seasons would perfect the show's trademark use of taking complex or emotional issues and events and making them funny through complications, character reactions, or exaggeration, rather than alternating between emotional character moments and shallow humor moments, which can come off as kitschy.
  • There was also Daphne's "psychic abilities", which are made much of earlier on, but come up much less frequently in the later seasons (though still occasionally focused on).
  • At one point in the first season, Martin says that Lilith is much weirder than Maris. This wasn't unfounded at the time, since Lilith was coming off of a New Age Earth Mother phase that even weirded out Sam Malone when she offered to let him touch her breasts and initially left Frasier to live in an underground pod. Eleven seasons later, Lilith is a fairly sympathetic recurring character (she's still the butt of jokes from Niles and Martin, but they now seem like playful exaggeration), while Maris was so strange no human actress could portray her and she was once mistaken for a hat rack.
  • The first season mostly keeps to the same standards as the rest of the show, but certain shots of Frasier's apartment are unique to that season (the show almost never shows the top of Frasier's Antique Shelves or the wall with the fireplace after this period), and Martin's chair has a "vibrate" setting that never reappears. In the first episode, Daphne's room was said to be next to Martin's, but later on, Martin's room is next to Frasier's in the left hallway while Daphne's room is the only room in the right hallway. Also, the studio audience acts more like that of a traditional sitcom than the more "classy" vibe this show had — they would "woo!" and catcall if there was a sexy scene, something that feels very odd having seen later seasons.
  • The first two seasons often suggest that Niles truly loves Maris and that his feelings for Daphne are just a superficial physical attraction. It wasn't until the third season that the writers began to play up the idea that Niles and Maris's marriage might be in serious trouble, or that he and Daphne could actually be a couple.
• In Fresh Off the Boat, the real-life Eddie Huang narrated the first season. When he left the series the following season, this element was dropped entirely.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is a good example. In the first season, the show clearly hadn't found its feet yet, and many of the early episodes seem rather awkward and forgettable. In addition, the earlier episodes also dealt more with the show's gimmicky Fish out of Water premise, with "straight-out-the-hood" Will causing some sort of ruckus within the prim and proper society the Banks family was a part of.
  • The layout of the house was completely different from how it would be in seasons two through six.
  • The iconic Theme Tune Rap also included an extra verse in the first season's first few episodes.
• Friends
  • The first season feels quite a bit different from the other nine seasons. The plots are more slow-paced and episodic, scenes start and end abruptly, and the characters are less quippy and there's quite a bit of a Sentimental Music Cue. There are a lot more group scenes with all 6 friends together and less focus on singular pairings with separate subplots. The fashions look a bit more plastic/artificial than they would in the next nine seasons, and it's probably the only season where Matthew Perry has long (or, at least, long-ish) hair.
  • Not to mention that Ross' ex-wife Carol is played in her first appearance by an actress who looks nothing at all like the one who took over the role for the rest of the series.
  • The first season appears to rely a lot more on Girls vs Boys Plots, often pairing the three girls and three boys together, and when they're all gathered they often discuss differences between men and women.
  • The pilot episode also has hints of Joey/Monica which was almost immediately dropped in favour of Ross/Rachel and later Chandler/Monica.
  • As a result of the planned Joey/Monica relationship, both their characterizations were subtly different: Joey was more jerkish and a Handsome Lech, while Monica was a lot more sexual. They settled into their normal characters pretty fast though. This change was partly due to Matt Leblanc and Courteney Cox's take on the characters. The writers admitted Matt gave Joey heart and Courteney softened Monica a lot and made her more of the Team Mom. (These changes meant she was better matched with the adorably awkward Chandler than with the confident Joey).
  • In the first season, there was no street outside the Central Perk set, only a painted backdrop in the window.
  • The first couple episodes actually portray Monica as the show's lead. Granted, Friends was always meant to be an ensemble series (Schwimmer himself reportedly refused to do the show unless it was such), but the writers have openly stated that they originally weren't sure of how to properly make such a series. And so, in the first few episodes, Monica is portrayed as the everywoman lead while the other five characters are portrayed as her "wacky group of friends." She was even listed as the show's lead character when The Pilot was screened for critics. It might have been because of Courtney Cox being the most famous cast member at the start of the show. The show's ensemble format didn't really take off until "The One With George Stephanopoulos."
  • The show was a lot more blatant about its NYC setting in the first season. Most of the side characters talked in thick, stereotypical New York accents and were often portrayed as snide jerkasses. The stereotypical NYC sensibility was much more muted from season two onward.
  • Rachel wears an MC5 shirt in an early episode. This seemed incongruous even at the time, but while it's not inconceivable that someone who grew up as a privileged New Yorker would be into Detroit proto-punk, the notion was never explored later on.
  • The decor of Joey and Chandler's apartment looks much more homely early on, almost like they bought their living room set from a Goodwill.
  • The first character to say the words "We were on a break!" is actually Rachel, whose tone indicates she considers it a weak excuse for sleeping around. In all subsequent episodes Ross believes they were on a break and Rachel suddenly doesn't.
• Fringe
  • The show starts off as a primarily Monster of the Week show with hints at a government conspiracy and an FBI agent who possessed her dead partner/lover's memories (with the actor playing the dead partner in the opening credits of a dozen or so episodes). It gradually evolved into a heavily serialized show, where the only government conspiracy came from the United States government of one universe conspiring against its counterpart in another universe, and the storyline involving Olivia's dead partner/lover quickly became an Aborted Arc.
  • Early on, it was heavily implied that some shadowy organization caused the Pattern, and that John Scott was somehow connected to it. By the end of Season 2, it was decided that the Pattern happened because Walter's attempt to travel between the two universes caused reality to break down.
  • The alternate universe is first seen in season 1's penultimate episode "The Road Not Taken", and it's much more similar to the prime universe than how it's presented in later seasons. For instance, the Fringe team is still working for the FBI in the alt-verse and are dealing with a case involving Cortexiphan, while it would later be firmly established the FBI ceased to exist in the alternate universe years before the start of the show, and the Cortexiphan trials never happened there either.
• Full House:
  • The third episode depicted Danny as a bit of a slob who was reluctant to clean up his house, preferring to hire a maid to do so. This is the same Danny Tanner who, a few seasons later, is known for cleaning his cleaning supplies. The same episode also had appearances from the mothers of all three of the men—Danny and Jesse's moms would get Darrin'd later on (looking nothing like the original actresses), while Joey's mother never appeared again at all.
  • The sheer fact that Michelle was a baby used mainly for cheap laughs in the first few seasons can count as this to some, due to the character's well-known status as a Spotlight-Stealing Squad once the Olsen twins became old enough to actually act.
  • Jesse's last name in the first season was Cochran, but this was later changed to Katsopolis due to John Stamos wanting the character to reflect his Greek roots. Jesse was also more stereotypically macho in the earlier seasons and enjoyed watching and playing sports, while in later seasons he's more whiny and both hates and is terrible at sports. Though perhaps the biggest change to the character is that he was clearly established as having graduated from high school (one episode even had him attending his 10 year reunion, with a flashback of his graduation), but much later on he is retconned to having dropped out.

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