idk man, at least in games first impression is everything - if you give players a shitty experience right off the bat it kills interest for the majority of people, since they think that's what the rest of the game will be like - and that could have consequences like a shit ton of refunds, tons of negative reviews, etc.
i wouldn't expect a show to be that much different - if the first episode sucks, but the other 5 are great you're still killing off a large part of potential sales, because that's the first impression you gave
if some episodes after the first couple of episodes are not as good then it doesn't matter - by then you've already gotten people invested and secured more sales than if you started weak
they should've put ep2 as ep1 honestly, would've gotten the show more hype and sales, as while i found ep1 to be good, i found ep2 to be great