Others like 'Breaking Bad' get off to a decent start and then build until they really start to soar.
With a second season under its belt, Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler's 'Russian Doll' may well be about to fall into the latter category.
When its first season landed on Netflix in February 2019, Lyonne, Headland and Poehler's 'Groundhog Day' tale was an amusing and sweary New York time loop tale built around Lyonne's risk taking, drug consuming games designer Nadia Vulvokov.
Forced to relive a 36th birthday party to the sound of Harry Nilsson's 'Gotta Get Up', she died a variety of ways - getting knocked down when chasing a cat called Oatmeal, falling down the stairs or into a pub cellar, getting shot or caught in an explosion.
Nadia spent eight episodes trying to figure out why she kept reliving this night and dying.
She also discovered Charlie Barnett's mild mannered Alan Zaveri was caught in the same predicament.
Together they found a way to break out of the time loop.
'Russian Doll' relied on razor sharp New York wit and a brisk pace to make its mark.
Lyonne's sassy performance was so good it earned her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a Comedy and an Emmy nod for her writing.
But while it deserved to be renewed by Netflix for a second season, 'Russian Doll' faced a huge challenge.
Having reached a resolution of the time loop problem at the end of Season One, that trick could not be repeated.
To do so again would have been a retrograde and foolish step for Lyonne, Headland and Poehler's sitcom.
Instead of reverting to the 'Groundhog Day' or 'Edge of Tomorrow: Live Die Repeat' formula that worked well in the previous season, they've gone back to the drawing board and come back with something even better.
They've adopted a 'Back to the Future' style approach, with a bit of 'Quantum Leap' thrown in for good measure.
Season Two begins with Nadia taking her elderly, close family friend and psychotherapist, Elizabeth Ashley's Ruth Brenner to hospital after she is hurt during a fender bender.
A few days away from turning 40, Nadia leaves Ruth in the capable hands of the medical staff and catches the 6 train on the subway.
Arriving at the station, she engages in some banter across two platforms with Brendan Sexton III's mysterious hobo Horse, who viewers will recognise from the previous season.
However from the moment she boards the subway train, something doesn't feel quite right.
The train is grottier, there's a Travis Bickle style punk on board and there are adverts for the Meryl Streep movie 'Sophie's Choice' and Tab cola.
Grabbing a newspaper, the date on it reveals she is being transported to 1982 - the year of her birth.
Getting off the train at Astor Place in the East Village, she is disorientated by this realisation.
Noticing she seems rattled, Ephraim Sykes' Derek, a member of the red beret wearing crime prevention group the Guardian Angels, escorts her to the subway stairs.
Wandering around her neighbourhood, Nadia finds some matches that leads her to her neighbourhood bar which is seedier and now has a stripper.
There she encounters Malachi Nimmons' clever electronic store clerk Danny and Sharlto Copley's scuzzy lowlife Chez who seems really enamoured with her, giving Nadia pills known as "black beauties" and beckoning her to join him in a break-in.
Taking some keys from her coat pocket, Chez breaks into the apartment of Nadia's grandmother and helps himself to a duffel bag, containing a box of 150 Krugerrands.
The gold coins are a family inheritance and Nadia recognises that in 2022 she even wears one of the coins in a chain around her neck, gifted to her by her mother, Chloe Sevigny's Lenora.
Going back to Chez's place to celebrate with booze and sex, Nadia leaves him on the bed to go to bathroom, glancing in the mirror.
Her reflection reveals she is actually inhabiting the body of Lenora and while she is wrapping her head around that concept, Chez makes off with the Krugerrands.
Catching the 6 train, an outraged Nadia finds herself back in the present day and feels compelled to find out more about Chez, the Krugerrands and her mother.
Before consulting Ruth in hospital, she visits Alan to share her experience of travelling back in time.
While Alan is initially reluctant to do anything that could alter a life that has broken out of the time loop they wete trapped in, Nadia argues the fact she has just time travelled through a wormhole on the subway must mean there is unfinished business they both have to resolve.
While visiting Ruth, Nadia finds her in good spirits in hospital - even though there's a hint that her friend may be seriously ill.
During their conversation, Ruth confirms the existence of Chez who she recalls was a conman involved in a relationship with Lenora when the gold coins disappeared.
Determined to right this wrong and retrieve them, Nadia decides to go back to 1982 by catching the 6 train.
This sets her on an adventure that will take her to Budapest and the Nazi occupation of the Hungarian capital in 1944.
Along the way, she will encounter her grandmother, Iren Bordan's Vera Peschauer and her younger version, played by Ilona McCrea.
There's also a younger version of Ruth, played by Annie Murphy, and she has to contend with Athina Papadimitriu's Delia, Vera's overbearing friend.
Alan also travels through time but winds up in East Berlin in 1962, inhabiting the body of his Ghanaian grandmother, Carolyn Michelle Smith's Agnes who is involved with students planning an escape to the West.
With Nadia determined to right the wrongs of her family's past, she runs the risk of messing up the present and future.
So how does she avoid wrecking her and Alan's world?
Will the normally cautious Alan use his knowledge of the future to influence events on East Berlin?
And as Nadia embarks on her time travelling adventure, how does she square up to the fact that she is missing out on really important stuff in 2022 - like the need to be there for Ruth who is becoming increasingly frail?
With Lyonne taking on the role of showrunner and directing three of its episodes, Season Two of 'Russian Doll' feels like quite a gamble.
At the outset, you can see how the time travelling, body inhabiting concept could either really fly or go off the rails.
There are risks too in giving the show a much broader canvas to set its action in - hopping between Berlin, Budapest and the Big Apple over the course of four decades.
If Lyonne takes her eye off any of these spinning plates, it could end up a terrible mess.
But she doesn't drop any.
Lyonne and her co-creators raise the bar for 'Russian Doll' by pulling off their daring time travel trick and in doing so, they significantly raise the bar for the show.
Packed with ambition, imagination and whip smart gags, the show continues to thrive on Lyonne's earthy New York wit.
But it also becomes more philosophical, raising fascinating questions about how the experiences of our immediate ancestors ultimately shape our own lives.
Along with her fellow screenwriters Allison Silverman, Zakiyyah Alexander, Alice Ju, Lizzie Rose and Cirocco Dunlap, Lyonne delivers a witty, pacy, thoroughly entertaining sitcom that always intrigues and never shows signs of exhaustion.
Lyonne and her fellow director Alex Buono also do a great job keeping the action rolling along.
The production values are top class, with Diane Ledermsn and Paul Pataki delivering eye catching sets and cinematographer Urszula Pontikos also impressing.
Film editors Todd Downing and Debra F Simone also do a fabulous job keeping each of the seven 24-30 minute episodes moving at a brisk pace.
And while Lyonne sparkles with her wonderfully growly performance, Barnett is again a perfect foil for her as Nadia's mild mannered, very cautious opposite number Alan.
Ashley, Sexton III, Sevigny, Greta Lee and Rebecca Henderson as her pretentious, arty friends Maxine and Lizzy make a welcome return.
However the additions to the cast are just superb.
Fresh from her wonderfully mischievous lead in 'Kevin Can F**k Himself,' Annie Murphy impresses as the younger Ruth.
Copley amuses as Chet who has more than a hint of Dustin Hoffman's 'Midnight Cowboy' character Ratso Rizzo about him.
Bordan and Papadimitriu are good value as Vera and Delia - two no nonsense older Eastern European ladies.
Nimmons and Sykes are warm presences as Danny and Derek, while in the Berlin storyline Carolyn Michelle Smith stands out as Alan's grandmother Agnes.
Eagle eared listeners may also recognise Rosie O'Donnell's voice as the subway station announcer.
Buono and Lyonne's choice of soundtrack is very smart too, with the likes of Depeche Mode's 'Personal Jesus,' the Velvet Underground and Nico's 'Sunday Morning,' Nena's '99 Luftballons' and Pink Floyd's 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' comfortably airing alongside the evocative Hungarian strings of Niko Radic and Laszlo Borteri's 'Bonchida A'.
As the time travelling and body inhabiting of Season Two progresses, though, the show becomes more trippy with the last two episodes a real joy.
Lyonne and her creators may be play with mainstream Hollywood narrative concepts like the time travelling of 'Back to the Future' and the body inhabiting of 'Quantum Leap' but the final episodes are pure David Lynch, veering into 'Twin Peaks' levels of surrealism.
There's a sense that having provided an amusing vehicle for Lyonne in Season One, Season Two of 'Russian Doll' is not content to rest on its laurels and jumps up several gears.
Having found a concept that works, there's nothing stopping 'Russian Doll' from further delving into Nadia and Alan's family histories in future seasons.
Don't be surprised, though, if Lyonne and her co-creators don't follow this rather path.
Season Two is so good it will leave you craving more Nadia and Alan adventures.
Lyonne, Headland and Poehler really couldn't wish for more.
(Season Two of 'Russian Doll' was made available for streaming on Netflix on April 20, 2022)
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