Nobody could cut his own child out of his sister’s womb and eat it quite like John Hurt 
Yes, that is a good one, and the end does work. My headcanon is Lindsay leaves to follow the Dead, gets pregnant, but then goes to nursing school and gets a job in Chicago.
As long as we’re doing Canadian comedies: Kim’s Convenience. There are 5 seasons, so some episodes are stronger than others, but I don’t recall any real clunkers. I rarely re-watch shows, though, so I tend to just forget the forgettable episodes.
Corner Gas - sheer perfection from start to finish
The characters were high school girls. The actors were not even close to that age. Two of them were 35 by the time the series ended. It didn’t bother me but to comment that puberty made the later seasons worse doesn’t make sense since all of them were well into adulthood when the series started.
Bravo.
I will have to disagree. The two leads were fantastic from beginning to end. They made the show watchable. But the show was far from perfect. There was a huge decline in quality in season 2. Season 3 was a bit better but no where near as good as season 1.
Offering an inside look at the LAPD largely without any inconvenient considerations of their long and tortuous history of civil rights violations, Dragnet, in both its 1951-59 and 1967-70 incarnations, hit the ground running. Having started on radio in 1949, the first series followed the same format. Stories were tightly written, performed by a proficient stock company of actors, with banter fast-paced and action quite violent. The second series toned the violence down, but added late sixties social concerns as seen through the show’s conservative’s perspective, making for some highly entertaining overwrought TV drama. Jack Webb was awesome throughout, rarely losing his cool or ability to verbally pwn criminal scum. With a winning formula and two spin-off features, the overall quality of Dragnet remained at the same accomplished level for both its runs.
I do not recognize any other show named Dragnet that didn’t star Jack Webb.
Well, yeah, that was the whole point - they were supposed to be throwaway comic episodes, nothing more. It was the later series that made the mistake of taking the Mirror Universe seriously.
This may be a little controversial, but I periodically rewatch (like every couple of years for the past twenty years) Wonderfalls, a 13 episode show that only managed to have 4 (out of sequence) episodes broadcast before being cancelled.
Despite that, the 13 episodes (which were meant to be standalone by the showrunner) are all perfectly aligned with a satisfying arc, peopled by engaging, funny characters. I like this show much more than Pushing Daisies by the same showrunner, because the main characters all have an acerbic edge that balances out the whimsy of the plot(s). Pushing Daisies was sometimes so sweet it made my teeth hurt.
Another near perfect show was Saving Grace (2007-2010), which was nominally a “cop show”, but was really a sometimes surrealistic narrative of a fierce, flawed protagonist (Holly Hunter in a balls out performance) and her journey as she wrestled with faith. As I recall, my reaction to the finale was less satisfaction and more stunned acquiescence.
I found the mirror universe episodes of Deep Space Nine tiresome.
That’s OK, to each their own. (And it’s OK to be wrong 
)
Another import on PBS: Reilly, Ace of Spies. Sam Neill was outstanding and entirely believable in the series, which was set in a largely overlooked period of history that I’m particularly fond of. I was not expecting it to end the way it did.
I had no interest in this series, but we’re working to see anything vaguely well-regarded on Acorn before dropping it. As it turns out, it’s fantastic end-to-end, and I’m sorry to be watching the last episode soon.
Does anyone remember the Italian series (dubbed into English) titled Leonardo da Vinci? I first saw it on PBS back in the '70s, and bump into it occasionally in other markets. It was a great biography of Leonardo narrated by a dude from the 20th century who just kind of blended into the period scenery.
I still hum the theme music to myself every now and then.
(The dubbed dialog could sometimes be amusing too. The actors reading the script really went at it!)
I excluded Futurama for the same reason. I’ve enjoyed every iteration, but the series has been resurrected three times and it’s never managed to be as good (and as perfect, and as complete) as the very first go around.
I do seem to recall that Scrubs seemed to be straining and wheezing a bit in its least (real) season and, of course, Futurama isn’t ‘over’ yet. So neither count, I sez!
The Life of Leonardo da Vinci. I re-watched it a year or so ago, and recalled it again last June when Phillipe Leroy died.
M.A.S.H. was a great show from start to finish with a really great cast. There was some turnover of cast members but their replacements were just as good if not better than the original.
Sometimes it may come off a bit dated with the audience laugh track and drab green colors but the plot of each episode dealt with some really heavy ropic matter that didn’t receive enough attention back in its day.
I just did a quick check, and it’s on YouTube (apparently without the opening theme 
).
Mad Men is the only candidate I can think of that ran for more than a couple seasons.
Another vote—this was what I thought of when I saw the thread title.
The OP nailed my first one on reading the title of the thread (The Good Place), but my immediate second thought was this one. And then I remembered the Netflix stuff…
Also a great call. I think the key here is a show that didn’t run for very long. Too much time to fuck it up.
Yes, this and Rome. Getting cancelled quickly is a great way to maintain a golden record.