My husband and I used to watch the show Pretty Little Liars (PLL) together. He started watching it, and eventually I joined in.  For those who aren’t familiar, the show is about teen girls  tormented by a wicked text messager. The anonymous message sender breaks into their homes,  blackmails them, exposes their secrets and threatens them physical harm. The text messager signs each message with  -A. This creeps the girls out because A is the first letter in Allie, the name of their friend who disappeared and was believed murdered.  If you haven’t seen the show’s theme song, watch it, as that was probably enough to draw me in (“…two can keep a secret if one of them is dead”).
However, tiring of the teases that we would find out who A was, only to not find out, I stopped watching the show. Â My husband still watches, and he told me the other day, “You have to watch the season finale. You’ll be back in. I promise you. You have to watch it.”
So, I’m going to watch it at some point (I can catch it on Hulu). But, this started me wondering about when should we give something we’ve given up on a second chance.
I know with the TV show Revolution, I was all in, and then they took a six week hiatus. When the show came back, the episodes were not up to snuff, in my opinion. I told myself I’d watch one more show and be done if it wasn’t better. Well, it was a good thing the show that aired did, because I was all-in after it. I was like, Booya, they are back! Â If I’d given up on the show, I would have missed a totally awesome second half of the season.
And then, there are authors like that, too. Â I remember reading one great book by an author, looking up others he’d written, and getting two more. The other two were dogs, and I was done with the author. I’m not saying I’d never read anything by the author again, but it would take a bit of cajoling.
I liked PLL at one point, so I’m going to watch the season finale (actually I think it’s the mid-season ender). If it’s that good, I might give the show a second chance. If not, I’m still out.  Most times, I feel like one shot should be enough. If you can’t get me in the opening, then I doubt you’ll get me later.  However, I have been known to fall back in love with a show (with Revolution) or find an opener a bit dull but be completely elated later.  So, I think for me, if something has wowed me once, I’ll give it a second chance.
What about you? Do you give second chances or are you done once you’ve given up on something?
If an author I have liked in the past writes a disappointing book, I’d probably still try the next book, but if that was not up to expectations then I would definitely think twice about the third. I don’t watch much television and what I do watch does tend to be on DVD after the season/show has finished (only just watching the third season of West Wing now!) I think with DVD I’m more likely to give the show longer to prove itself if I start losing interest, but once I give up, I’m unlikely to go back to it.
Mel, I’m with you on second chances. As for TV, I’m tempted to start doing the DVD thing. I really hate waiting to find out what happens next, so the convenience of having all the episodes at my ready sounds awesome (though time consuming, because if I like it, I’m going to want to sit and watch the entire season and ignore all the things I should otherwise be doing.)
That’s definitely the problem with the DVD route – the ‘just one more’ syndrome can easily make an evening disappear! Sometimes it can be hard to be disciplined:)