Life is short. But television, these days, acts as if you had all the time in the world.

The longtime TV critic Alan Sepinwall recently wrote about what he called the “It Gets Good” problem: the tendency of series in the binge-watch era to take ages to find their voice, establish a premise, get the plot rolling. Your friends rave about a show but warn, “It doesn’t really get good until Episode 6!” Or Season 2. Or 3. “BoJack Horseman,” “The Leftovers” and “Halt and Catch Fire” are all great TV — eventually.

The problem (a high-class one, admittedly) is that there’s more good TV these days than time to watch it. When you’re asked to invest 10 hours in the hope that you’ll eventually like a series, it becomes like a rent-versus-buy calculation: Will the equity be worth the down payment?

Of course, that assumes that you watch the entire series. That’s what critics do. But what civilians ask me more often lately is: Couldn’t I just skip ahead to the good part?

My duty as a certified TV professional is to say no. Would you walk into a movie 45 minutes late? A work of art has integrity. Its flaws are as important as its strengths. O.K.? Watch the whole thing!