What’s a piece of media you were expecting to hate but ended up loving?

It’s not hard to understand why I thought I was going to hate The Bachelor/Bachelorette reality franchises, any more than it is for just about any successful yet trashy reality TV series. The genre is still thought of as a disreputable slice of time-wasting nonsense—not without good reason—but it’s also incredibly popular for a reason. The people making The Bachelor (and its spin-off) are very, very good at what they do. If you’re on the outside, it looks like it sucks; yet once you’re in, it’s hard to explain to the others you left behind. Is it mostly frivolous? Absolutely. Do you feel enriched by having watched it? Heavens, no. Does it often come across like the TV equivalent of a bad Greek-system college party? Oh, even when it’s trying to be classy. But those are also the reasons it can be so addictive and fun. To quote another famous fan of silliness: Turn on, tune in, drop out. [Alex McLevy]

It took me several years and several false starts to finally understand why people love The Office. I absolutely cannot handle secondhand embarrassment onscreen; it’s excruciating. It’s almost physically painful for me, so I tend to avoid most pop culture that relies on that brand of humor. Obviously, Michael Scott is the most-concentrated version of that kind of humor, and it was difficult for me to make it past the first episode. During a family trip to Delaware a few years back, the WiFi was spotty and I needed a distraction, so I gave The Office one last shot and this time… I was hooked. And now, ironically, I really do wish I could recapture the experience of watching it for the first time and finally (finally!) getting all of the jokes and references people had been making around me for over a decade. [Shanicka Anderson]

When I interviewed for my current position here at A.V. Club, I had just started watching Gilmore Girls. I told the old news editor Shannon Miller that I was forcing myself to watch it to understand the appeal, but every character was extremely annoying, so I was ready to give up. But here I am, rewatching Gilmore Girls nine months later. As much as Rory still makes me want to throw things at my TV, I now love the show. Sure, it’s pretty flawed. (Why must every character talk that fast and always have a witty comeback?) But it’s so comforting, and I found myself getting unexpectedly emotionally attached to characters like Paris and Doyle. I also have too many strong opinions on why Jess is far better than Dean and Logan. [Tatiana Tenreyro]

By the time Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released, I was totally out on Star Wars. The Force Awakens was fine, I thought, but this nostalgia trip wasn’t for me. Rogue One left me even colder. I was so sick of the franchise and was really ready to hate The Last Jedi, which I saw out of pure obligation. But moments into it, I remember thinking, this is actually pretty good and funny and not at all interested in giving me the same old Star Wars adventure. That position has since become quite loaded, but to me, the movie was a pleasant surprise. I saw it three more times in theaters to confirm that it did, in fact, rock. [Matt Schimkowitz]

I didn’t expect to “hate” Nier: Automata, but I will say that I didn’t expect to have much patience for it. You play as a sword-swinging android girl who happens to dress like a goth maid, and one of the big, um, “selling points” of the game is that you don’t get the “real ending” until you beat it multiple times (a thing I rarely do). I figured I’d maybe beat it once and then say I gave it a fair shot, but then I beat it again. And again. I even got the final ending that requires you to erase your save data (a gimmick it doesn’t really earn, I’ve gotta say), and I was more than happy to do it. [Sam Barsanti]

The fact that I’ve written about it before in an AVQ&A lets you know how dramatically I came around on Schitt’s Creek. The first time I tried to watch it, I couldn’t make it past the first episode: It just struck me as a more irritating variation on Arrested Development, and frankly the Trump years took away whatever affection I once had for comedies about horrible rich people being horrible. But I failed to account for the fact that those early episodes are very different from what the show would eventually become. It took a bit of faith in the many people who recommended it to me, but on a second try, I watched the whole series in a couple of weeks. It’s the character development and story arc that really make Schitt’s Creek special, and you’re just not going to get that by watching one episode. [Katie Rife]