The earliest episodes are hit-and-miss; the writers got it figured out around halfway through the first season, and most of s2-s3 is good. I think The X-Files

The earliest episodes are hit-and-miss; the writers got it figured out around halfway through the first season, and most of s2-s3 is good. I think The X-Files also really only worked because of it's context and time in history -- there was a right-wing fringe that was terrifyingly paranoid of a Democrat in office after more than a decade of Reagan & Bush (the first movie aped some of that imagery, in a somewhat tone-deaf manner), and the idea of conspiracy hadn't yet morphed from Soviets and aliens into birthers and truthers.