Sentence:  Plenty of past seasons' events could look ill-conceived in the critical eye of Monday-morning quarterbacking, but previously, the show had earned the <WSD>benefit of the doubt</WSD> that missteps on the part of supposedly intelligent characters were a plausible lack of in-world foresight. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A favorable judgement given in the absence of full evidence.