[mennis16]

Anthology shows might be a decent balance between the two. At least personally an existing show has to be getting really good reviews for me to care enough to catch up on previous seasons, but if it's possible to jump right into season 3 then I'd be more inclined to check it out.

IIRC American Horror Story had increased viewership in the 2nd and then again in the 3rd season, but it did eventually go downhill. Ryan Murphy shows are also pretty weird though, it would be nice to see the seasonal anthology format in broader contexts. I'm optimistic about the Haunting of Hill House series but that's again horror.

[netcan]

Yep... but does this work in practice?

Whether or not you need to see season 1 to get season 4, do people who haven't watched earlier seasons generally watch a season 4?

[leetcrew]

I think they do if they understand the anthology format. I actually started watching AHS in season 3 and then went back to watch the previous seasons.

[Izkata]

Used to be normal for that answer to be "yes" - series were largely episodic so you could jump in at any point, with the longer plots lightly threaded through the episodes. Then, later in the season once people had settled in to their weekly shows, those longer plots could become more prominent and get resolved in/around the season finale.