What shows do you consider to have been perfect? Not just good or even great, but perfect. Please use spoilers where appropriate!
Some criteria (in my head).
No growing pains, the show hits the ground running from the first episode.
A satisfying series finale, even if the show itself was strictly episodic.
No “dud” episodes. Even the weakest episodes are still good.
No “gollum” scenarios where the show lives much longer than it should have
There are lots of excellent shows that aren’t perfect. Ted Lasso season 1 is perfect TV, I think, but it went longer than it needed to. So it doesn’t count for these purposes.
My nomination is The Good Place. No notes. Hooks you from the first scene and keeps you there until the end. A show you wish you could scrub from your mind and watch fresh.
You don’t have to follow my rubric, but please show your work and explain why your choice isn’t just great, but is perfect.
I think there may have been a few not so good ones, but not bad enough for me to remember, so they can’t have been that bad, I would go for Frasier, (ignoring the recent reboot). I think I could watch any episode and it’d be better than anything on any recent sitcom I’ve seen.
Also Fawlty Towers and Firefly for shorter run shows.
I will reach way back for a classic that holds a special place for me - The Dick Van Dyke Show. Always funny, with a cast that clicked right away and excellent writing. They also had the good sense to call it quits after 5 seasons because they didn’t want it to get stale.
I shall play the role of middle-aged British man to the hilt and say Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
It has the advantages of being both an adaptation and only seven episodes long* but nevertheless, a perfect shining gem of what television drama can be: character led drama with enough suspense and action to drive the plot but willing to pause and dwell on its themes and dilemmas enough that you actually care, all grounded in a painfully authentic setting..
Also Justified, pretty much any episode of which I can happily watch again because of the characters and commitment to setting and tone, and the best of which offer reasonably serious examination of criminal and lawman psychology, not always to the benefit of the latter.
*This is not cheating, this good decision making. Fewer episodes and fewer seasons = more quality, less filler, fewer mis-steps.
Agreed on The Good Place. It had the benefit of a showrunner who was with the show from beginning to end, and a well-thought-out arc which was stuck to, including a solid ending.
One of my favorite series was Pushing Daisies; every episode was exceptionally well-done. When it was suddenly cancelled by ABC, the producers were able to quickly revise the last episode which had been filmed at that point, and shoot some additional scenes, to wrap up the storylines and provide fans with a “here’s what happened to everyone” ending.
Can a series have just one weak episode? If so the not very stealthy, stealth spin-off episode was the only sour note in the otherwise perfect Stranger Things. They still have to stick the landing, but I think they will.
This was the episode with #8, Kali. Season 2, episode 7.
@kenobi_65; Pushing Daisies is a great example, still sad the network treated that gem so poorly.
I think in American terms, something that short would be either a miniseries or a limited series, and opening the subject up to that expands the options.
Pushing Daisies made me think of another show from around the same time that I would consider for the “perfect” list except, being strangled in the cradle, it doesn’t have a satisfying finale: Wonderfalls.
I think Pushing Daisies fails on the “good ending” criterion, too. They abruptly crammed a season or two worth of plot development into the last two or three minutes of the final episode, and it shows.
30 Rock Letterkenny (Ok, “Fartbook” is considered a weak episode but it exists) Peep Show Spaced
Other than 30 Rock, my list mainly relies on a low number of episodes (as being discussed in another thread) and I think that really helps make for a tight show.