If you've followed these reviews, you know I've a general hatred for most shows' third seasons, simply because I find that network shows, once renewed for a third season (and by default therefore guaranteed a fourth season), tend to put a little less effort into creating quality storylines. Occasionally, this is because stuff that happens early on that has a knock-on effect with the rest of the season, sometimes the arcs are poor, and sometimes it's just down to simple laziness.
Of course, this quality drop isn't exclusive to full-season network shows, and at this point I come to expect a slog in any third season of any show. But rather than focus on the shows who have fallen into this trap, (as I'm sure I've already done regularly here at TVRRoundup), I thought that maybe I should delve into a few shows that did the exact opposite.
Castle
Castle was always likely to pop up here with a great third season - heck, it barely even put a foot wrong before season 6. Which also means there's very little to say about the third season beyond that it didn't take its foot off the gas. Despite giving Beckett a boyfriend that wasn't Castle, the show wisely chose not to continue along the route it took near the end of season 2 by putting that relationship front and centre; in fact, Beckett's boyfriend appeared in just 4 episodes of the season. That meant that while the Caskett relationship we all wanted didn't come to fruition in season 3, our hearts weren't shattered by having Beckett's relationship shoved down our throats all the time.
It also had some of the best episodes the show ever did: the Triple Killer, the mid-point of Beckett's mythology arc (which was its high point), one of the better two-parters of the series and an episode based around the Nikki Heat books Castle had written being turned into films.
Overall, season 3 of Castle was just another in a line of consecutive exceptional seasons of Castle, and it had the best series ending too!
Chuck
Chuck was on the verge of cancellation after season 2, but was subsequently renewed three more times before it finally got the chop. Luckily for fans of the show, because season 3 took the show to another level. Its main storyline featured around a nefarious group called the Ring, for which the team received assistance from Superman star Brandon Routh, before the story took a solid twist and turned Routh's Daniel Shaw into the big season villain. Not only was Routh the best recurring character on the show, he was a captivating villain when he went down that path.
Alongside this, Chuck finally put the love interests Chuck and Sarah together - and did so midway through the season, completely unexpectedly. It was nice to have this finally happen, and the suddenness weighted the decision with much more impact.
Morgan got a girlfriend in Casey's daughter Alex, Chuck's dad reappeared for a few episodes and we got to see Carina and Morgan finally get together, if only for a night. There was so much good stuff in Chuck season 3 that wasn't really beaten by anything that predated or succeeded it.
Person of Interest
If you thought I'd said everything about POI already, you were wrong. Because, while its third season may have had a consistency problem, and certainly didn't open particularly well following the season 2 cliffhanger, it escalated the show towards its ultimate endgame: the introduction and potential activation of a second artificial superintelligence to rival The Machine, named Samaritan, which was the frightening conclusion to the season.
It also introduced and destroyed the brilliant privacy terrorist group Vigilance (who turned out to be unwitting Decima puppets), concluded the HR storyline (which had been running since the first season) with Quinn's arrest and Carter's death, and dropped a fully flashback episode to explain the connections between Reese and Finch's backstories, Decima Technologies and a mysterious laptop.
It may have had some consistency problems, but in terms of the impact it had on the future of the show, the clarity it provided on the mysteries that had come before, the huge moments within the season individually and much, much more, it took the slightly-above-pedestrian first two seasons of Person of Interest and elevated them incalculably.
Rookie Blue
Rookie Blue may never have featured as one of ABC's full-season shows, but it was, in its 6-season run, a solid player for the network. And season 3 may just have been its most solid.
Not only were Andi and Sam, the main love interests, together throughout the majority of the season, new officer Nick Collins was introduced and his relationship with Gail was one of the best parts of the season. Then there was Gail's kidnap two-parter, which saw the return of fan favourite Luke Callaghan and ended with Jerry Barber's murder - which in turn spawned a compelling and heartbreaking episode dedicated to the team (but mainly his fiancée and his best friend) grieving. If that wasn't enough, the penultimate episode was one of the series' best: a cleverly-written tale about an Internal Affairs investigation into a crisis that hit the precinct that night, a tale which was brilliantly told in flashbacks from each officer's perspective.
And it was all nicely bookended with the return of the child kidnapper from the first episode of the season.
I dont think any of the prior or future seasons hit as many high notes as season 3; for me, this will always standout as Rookie Blue's best.
The Walking Dead
If most shows' peaks can be disputed, The Walking Dead's surely cannot - and it peaked in season 3. Before Scott Gimple took over and changed the show's format (which was novel at first but has lost its shine after four seasons), The Walking Dead had season three, where the early cast were making the prison liveable whilst dealing with the threat of eviction from psychopathic Woodbury leader The Governor.
It's not hard to say particularly why this season was the best: it had two great settings, a fantastic villain in The Governor, utilised all of its small main cast appropriately, introduced some more characters to the show in a very organic manner, brought back everyone's favourite one-handed racist Merle and (if you hated Andrea and Lori), also killed off Andrea and Lori. The drama across two half-seasons actually felt heightened by the scenario (which Gimple's format has largely killed), and the midseason cliffhanger and season ending were both excellent.
It's difficult to reconcile as well, the significant main character loss in the first two seasons: we lost Dale and Shane in season 2, Merle, Lori and Andrea in season 3 - and I'm not sure the new introductions offset the loss of all those great characters. As far as I'm concerned, Michonne, Tyreese, and Sasha, made regulars in season 3 to offset some of the previous and upcoming deaths, have never been interesting characters, which is also a part of why later seasons lost their shine - most characters became boring.
But whether you think Lori and Andrea were boring and needed to die, or you disagree that Michonne, Tyreese and Sasha were uninteresting from the beginning, I don't think many would disagree that season 3 of The Walking Dead was its best season to date, something that doesn't look like changing anytime soon.
Final thoughts
I can list a huge number of shows whose third seasons I feel let me down, but there are always some exceptions to rules - and I find that most of these were either not just the polar opposite of terrible, but in many cases the best of their bunch. So if you haven't checked out any of these series, and you have the same concern about third seasons as I do, just know that these shows above aren't going to let you down!
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