Favorite Short-Lived TV or Streaming Series?

Guttersnipe

Guttersnipe

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Do you have a favorite series that you think should've been around for a longer time? I'm a big fan of Firefly and Happy!, both of which I watched on Netflix. I feel pretty bad about Firefly especially; I felt as though we were just getting to know everyone.
 
Falling Skies. Okay, they gave it four seasons, but after the first brilliant season, it died an unnatural death. Pity.
 
I was disappointed that Dark Matter only lasted three series. I really enjoyed it and felt it had the legs to go for a five year run.

Also Vagrant Queen only had the first series and was cancelled.

I saw a series called Daybreak which was a Teenage Zombie type thing. It was only on for a single series, but it was a lot of fun.

I would've liked to have seen Last Man On Earth get a decent ending. It was one of my first Netflix watches and as annoying as i find Will Forte, his character did show a lot of growth through the series and he deserved a definitive finalé.
 
Space: Above and Beyond.

Only one series and an excellent show with so much potential. I'd love to see someone have a go at a reboot, but a space show would be prohibitively expensive.

Eerie Indiana.

Another great show that only lasted one series. The humour in this was superb.

Outsourced

Not genre, but this was an excellent comedy about a man who transfers to a location in India. A great cast and a genuinely funny show with some touching moments. I adored this and would recommend it heartily.
 
paeng said:
The Prisoner (1967) and Doomwatch.
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Yes. Thank you. Original Prisoner is still the best limited series to have ever been made imo. Its almost as if the medium of television is not meant for allegory and McGoohan broke a law of reality and somehow had an existential allegory conveyed that exists in a medium otherwise unsuited for it.
 
I was going to start a thread on one-season wonders but here this is. So this is my list of top five shows that didn't even get renewed (with descriptions in case people aren't familiar with the shows - some of the shows mentioned above, I'm not familiar with).
  • American Gothic (1995): Is the sheriff of a small South Carolina town the devil? Is a little orphan boy actually his son? Will the ghost of the boy's sister be able to save him from the sheriff's corrupting influence? Is this the satanic horror version of The Andy Griffith Show? Whatever it is, it's entertaining.
  • Braindead (2016): You had me at Mary Elizabeth Winstead. But throw in Tony Shalhoub as a right-wing nutjob senator who is one of the many people in Washington who have had their brains eaten by alien bugs and now stagger around being insane, keep it working on both a very satirically funny and very scary level, and you have a show that needs to be running today.
  • Firefly (2002): Well, I don't think this one needs any introduction.
  • Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000): After her grandmother dies, high school honor student Lindsay Weir goes through an existential crisis and starts hanging with the freaks while her little brother is entrenched in the geeks. Despite the death-and-angst premise (which does work on a dramatic level), this may be the funniest show I've ever seen.
  • Space: Above and Beyond (1995-96): If you don't like gritty gung-ho space marines, you probably won't like this but if you're neutral to positive, this may work. The two-hour pilot isn't so great but once it really gets started, it's a blast. Be warned, it reaches a new-level with some story-arc developments in the human-alien war that would have made a great second season and even ends on a cliff-hanger just in time to be canceled.
Anyone have any older shows (especially B&W-era) that didn't run long? Those tend to be harder to find out about or notice unless they're something like The Honeymooners but that show wasn't even exactly a one-season or short-lived show, as there were skits in variety shows for years before and after its one season as an independent show.

And what does it say that TV shows that are cancelled immediately are usually one of two things: really awful or really great? Why do so many of the good die young?
 
Green Hornet
The Prisoner
Alien Nation
Crime Story
Total Recall 2070
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
The Level
 
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Rodders said:
Space: Above and Beyond.

Only one series and an excellent show with so much potential. I'd love to see someone have a go at a reboot, but a space show would be prohibitively expensive.

Eerie Indiana.

Another great show that only lasted one series. The humour in this was superb.

Outsourced

Not genre, but this was an excellent comedy about a man who transfers to a location in India. A great cast and a genuinely funny show with some touching moments. I adored this and would recommend it heartily.
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I thought Outsourced was great as well and reminded me of The Office(s). A majority, it seems, disliked it, but who cares?
 
A great, incredibly funny shorter-run sitcom was Happy Endings.
 
alexvss said:
Penny Dreadful. An underrated horror series starring Eva Green. The story is a mix of a lot of other horror classics.
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Does a three season show that finished because it completed its story count as short lived?
 
Caprica was a great series, and it was a real shame that this got cancelled. It's interesting to see that (apparently) the series writers knew their fate in advance, so the final episode ends with a summary of how things would have gone in future series. Something I've never seen before, and it makes the cancellation of the show far less annoying. It's a great accompaniment to BSG.

I agree about Space: Above and Beyond. This show could and should be rebooted.
 
paranoid marvin said:
It's interesting to see that (apparently) the series writers knew their fate in advance, so the final episode ends with a summary of how things would have gone in future series. Something I've never seen before, and it makes the cancellation of the show far less annoying.
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I also like the way the Lyon's Den producers went. After finding out they were to be cancelled they went out of their way to make the remaining episodes as absurd as possible.
 
Penny Dreadful had multiple story lines with multiple famous characters leaving many threads running each episode. Seemed like the episodes had cliff hangers every 15 minutes. There must have been 3 or 4 complete stories running at the same time. I quit cable back then and assumed the rest of the episodes sorted everything out. Gave up looking for it for free, if its free now, I'll have to check it out to see what happened. Same thing happened with Black Sails. Too many times you can see the first season free but then have to pay to see the rest of the episodes.
 
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