Iconic TV Series That Got Worse With Time [IMDb Data]

It’s now officially the holiday season and with it comes the perfect opportunity for binge-watching a TV series. To help with picking out what to watch, the experts at Top 10 CasinosExternal Link decided to find out which series got better with time and which got worse, by utilising a seed list of popular TV shows from the past 5—10 years and examining the average rating for each of their seasons.

Here are the series that got better, worse or stayed the same with time … 

TV Series

Duration

First Season Rating (/10)

Final Season Rating (/10)

Overall Trend

State

Fleabag

2016—2019

8.0

8.9

0.142

Got Better

Succession

2018—ongoing

8.3

8.9

0.042

Got Better

The Boys

2019—ongoing

8.6

8.6

0.013

Got Better

Yellowstone

2018—ongoing

8.2

8.3

0.000

Stayed the Same

Stranger Things

2016—ongoing

8.8

8.6

0.002

Stayed the Same

Ozark

2017—2022

8.1

8.2

0.004

Stayed the Same

Peaky Blinders

2013—2022

8.5

8.5

0.005

Stayed the Same

Attack on Titan

2013—ongoing

8.8

9.3

0.009

Stayed the Same

The Walking Dead

2010—2022

8.5

7.9

-0.006

Stayed the Same

The Crown

2016—ongoing

8.5

7.9

-0.012

Got Worse

Game of Thrones

2011—2019

9.0

6.4

-0.014

Got Worse

Westworld

2016—2022

8.9

8.0

-0.028

Got Worse

* If the trend > 0.01 the show got better over time, if < – 0.01 it got worse, otherwise stayed the same. Please find the complete data sheet in this folderExternal Link.

The British comedy drama series, Fleabag, is a show that got better with time. It had a total of only two seasons, with the first one achieving a rating of 8.0 out of 10 and the final one - 8.9 out of 10. Fleabag’s lowest rated episode was episode three in season one (Episode #1.3), receiving an overall rating of 7.6 out of 10.

Peaky Blinders, a crime drama series set in Birmingham, England, is a TV series, which in terms of ratings, stayed the same over time. The series had six seasons and, interestingly, the first and the final season achieved the same rating of 8.5 out of 10. Its lowest point was actually the show’s very first episode (Episode #1.1), which was rated at 8 out of 10. 

A TV show that got drastically worse with time was the fantasy drama series Game of Thrones. With eight seasons in total, the show had its highest rating (9.2 out of 10) during its fourth season and saw that rating decline to a 6.4 out of 10 in its final season. The series finale (The Iron Throne) was the lowest rated episode, having a rating of 4 out of 10.

And the moment each of the series peaked was …

TV Series

S/E

Episode Name

Rating (/10)

Game of Thrones

S3 E9

The Rains of Castamere

9.9

Attack on Titan

S3 E16

Perfect Game

9.9

Succession

S2 E10

This Is Not for Tears

9.8

Westworld

S1 E10

The Bicameral Mind

9.7

Stranger Things

S4 E7

Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab

9.6

The Boys

S3 E6

Herogasm

9.6

The Walking Dead

S4 E8

Too Far Gone

9.6

Peaky Blinders

S2 E6

Episode #2.6

9.5

Ozark

S3 E10

All In

9.4

Yellowstone

S4 E1

Half the Money

9.4

The Crown

S3 E3

Aberfan

9.3

Fleabag

S2 E6

Episode #2.6

9.3

Methodology 

  1. Top10Casinos.comExternal Link sought to find out which TV series got better and which got worse with time.

  2. A comprehensive seed list of 14 popular series from the past 5—10 years was compiled utilising IMDbExternal Link and RedditExternal Link.

  3. Following this, the scores for each episode were scraped from IMDb.

  4. For each show, the 3-episode moving average was calculated as the average of the previous three episodes. This was used to determine where a show “peaks” and where it “falls”.

  5. Additionally, the moving-average delta was calculated as the difference between each 3-episode moving average.

  6. An average rating for each season was also calculated for all shows and a formula was used, where if the trend was > 0.01 the show got better over time, if it was < minus 0.01 it got worse, otherwise stayed the same.

  7. All data was collected on 29 November 2022 and is subject to change.