Too often, TV shows retool characters and storylines in detrimental ways, and without ever finding their way back to supremacy. But every so often, those changes compound and multiply in unpredictable ways that actually work to a series’ advantage, giving a more positive connotation to the phrase “going off the rails.”
Over on Reddit, the question was posed to the TV community to name shows that managed to actually get better after swerving completely away from whatever their starting points were. I went into it with the hopeful expectation that someone would namecheck Fox’s lunacy-encouraging Batman prequel Gotham. And I didn’t have to go far at all before that wonderfully zany show came up. But more on that shortly.
