I’d nominate Journeyman; 13 episodes, all on Hulu. Also New Amsterdam.
They both ended in such a way that the writers could have kept going, but they did tie up the majority of the loose ends (both got the axe at about the same length as Firefly).
Millenium was not an X Files spin off. It was a separate show. It was cancelled without a final episode. Somehow, that final episode ended up being made as an episode of the X Files.
Re Sitcoms
I recommend Mad About You. There is no reset button. There are arcs through multiple episodes. Most of all, it had one of the best final episodes I have ever seen.
So I’m going to recommend something that’s sort of a sitcom, maybe. But it’s British, and it lacks a laugh track, and the rhythm is very different from almost all sitcoms:
The original, British, The Office.
It’s full of embarrassment humor, and the camera lingers for a long time during the embarrassment. The boss is much less appealing than in the American version of the show. And it has one of the more satisfying endings of any series I’ve seen, after just 2 and a half seasons (I think).
No? Where do you reckon its end to be? “Objects in Space” didn’t conclude much. Serenity (the feature film, not the episode) did end terribly by many lights.
The first season of Murder One. Just watched it again [for the third time] recently – the entire season, all 24 episodes, in three days – and it holds up extremely well. Made c. 1996, so slightly dated in terms of the technology, but it’s brilliant storytelling: It’s a single murder trial over the course of the season. Stanley Tucci plays a villainous billionaire.
Oh, another one – more like a miniseries, since there were 6 episodes total. “Jekyll,” written by Stephen Moffat (who also wrote the current BBC “Sherlock”). Set in modern England, it’s an updating of (you guessed it) Jekyll and Hyde. Creepy, really good.
Anybody else see anything odd in having these two sentences back-to-back?
I must admit that I am a little confused about an OP that seems to ask for finite TV shows like Dr. Who, given that the show is 50 years old this year. However, if you adore Barney Miller, it might be worth while trying WKRP in Cincinnati. “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Chuck is an excellent show. It’s hilarious, it’s fun, it can even tug on the heart strings. It was a surprisingly brilliant parody of not just the spy genre, but of television and movies in general. And the music used in the show is just fantastic. I could literally list dozens of excellent examples. I’d strongly recommend it to anybody who loves tv and movies.
On the other hand, if the OP hated Buffy I don’t know how she would feel about Chuck. If I had to pick one show that Chuck was most similar to, it would be Buffy. Like Buffy, Chuck is a show that takes a couple of episodes to really get hooked on and you really have to able to accept the intentionally absurd elements of both shows.
On the subject of endings, There are last least 4 different episodes of Chuck that would have worked excellently as final episodes. This was intentional, because they never knew if they were going to get renewed for more episodes. I actually found the final season of Chuck to be a little disappointing. Then again, I found the final season of Buffy a little disappointing too.
Let me suggest Wonderfalls, a 13 part series from 2004 (although not all the episodes were shown in the first run on Fox). It’s quirky, but the full run of episodes does have a conclusion. The DVD is available on Amazon.
That WAS a full ending - it was incredibly rushed, since the creators had little notice that they weren’t getting renewed. They essentially cut ~5 minutes from the last regular episode and shoved all the charactere forward, but they got everyone where they were headed.
Speaking of PD, there’s also Wonderfalls - I don’t get why that’s not available for streaming. Heck, Netflix doesn’t even have the DVDs.