"Perfect" television shows

Cafe Society
101

Strong disagree on both Fleabag and the Wire. The first half of S1 of Fleabag is weak, but S2 is maybe the best single season of TV ever. S5 of the Wire is mediocre with the serial killer storyline being just plain bad. S4 competing for best season ever too.

Agree with Breaking Bad, BCS, and Mad Men. I didn’t love The Good Place like other people, but it was never bad. Parks and Rec started slow and probably got a little long in the tooth, by was still good and had good send offs for the characters.

Nobody watched this, but Patriot on Amazon. Too early on TLOU and Andor, but they qualify so far.

102

My first thought when I saw the thread title was The Good Place, so I was glad to see it was named by the OP.

If we’re allowed to name shows that haven’t ended yet, I gotta say Severance. Every episode of that show has been carefully crafted and amazing - even more so on a rewatch. I think if the showrunners and writers can keep up the quality, stick the landing, and not be tempted to stretch it out past the logical ending point, it’s going to go down in history as one of the best TV shows ever.

103

Most of my nominations have already been mentioned, so I’ll go with two that haven’t:

Travelers (Netflix), which I’ve rewatched several times and just love to death. It was part of that whole “AI controls the world” wave of shows along with Westworld and Person of Interest. Except I give Travelers bonus points for all the time travel.

Catastrophe (Prime) was excellent from start to finish. The story of what happens when a casual fling in a different country results in a pregnancy so you try to make it work. I particularly liked how it was about grownups being grownups.

104

Certainly not, it was awful. A main character who looked like Raylan Givens but who at no point in thought word or action did anything reminiscent of the RG of Justified.

Another perfect shining gem.

105

Watchmen was really good too - it knew exactly what it was doing and where it was going, went there and did it, and then stopped.

“Any TV show which goes into a third season doesn’t know how to tell its story” is a bad conclusion but I think works as an excellent null hypothesis which can be falsified only with strong evidence to the contrary.

106

Glad to see Detectorists mentioned, its one of my favourites. Although I thought the final special unpicked a lot of good moments from the series.

I might nominate iZombie. Mixed humour and sci fi really well. Kept the storyline moving and new when to end.

If it hadn’t dragged in too long I’d nominate Orphan Black for the same reasons.

107

I can get behind this too, my only caveat being that if it had originally been about a divorcee, like the producers & Moore originally wanted, it would hold up even better.

I recently rewatched it a few months ago for the first time in a long time, and it holds up well, but there is a certain nostalgia factor that makes it enjoyable-- it’s just so 70s.

Over spring break a few weeks ago, I rewatched The Duchess of Duke Street, and damn was that good. Trying to review it in my mind, and I think it checks all the boxes. There are some hard-to-watch moments, but mainly because the acting is so good, you feel like you are intruding on a private moment-- and as far as the plot information being included in the first place, it is because there are things that really happened in the life of Rosa Lewis, the real person the Duchess of Duke Street is based on.

So I nominate that.

Also, currently rewatching Cagney & Lacey. Not too far through, but it’s pretty good, if you get past the awkwardness of recasting Cagney with Sharon Gless after Meg Foster played her for the first season, and some extraneous knowledge (the producers were afraid the audience would perceive her as dykey) about Foster’s being replaced.

That last bit is a blotch on it, but not on the show itself, if that makes sense. The acting never lets up, there’s not a really bad episode, and the weak ones are better that anything else on.

Another strength was the great work of all the other actors in the show. The secondary actors, and especially the episodes where an actor appears once or maybe twice, those performances are so good. I think, in fact, this is why “even the weak eps are strong.”

108

I would actively argue against it being good, and it more than lost it well before the end..

Ok, so I’m a Brit, so not all of it makes sense (but still entertaining), but after Season 4 it completely went down the toilet, though I think some US viewers were fine with the change.

If you didn’t know, Sorkin got fired as a showrunner in the gap between Season 4 and 5, with pretty much the biggest cliffhanger outstanding (I still would love to hear what his plans were for that).

The cliffhanger got resolved, probably based on what Sorkins plans were (but likely without his style), and then it became a COMPLETELY different show. Before this, it was a bunch of friends sticking together to fight off their enemies and make the world a better place.

After this it was a craphole show of the same characters suddenly just arguing with each other over anything and everything. It was clear the new writers really didn’t have any idea how to write it as well as Sorkin, and just defaulted to a template of “here’s an issue, make the characters take opposing views to make their point”. It went from a whitehouse of friends to one of enemies and it was horrible to watch.

I don’t think I made it past middle of Season 6 and I had slept through about half of that seasons episodes.

109

Been a while since I watched it but my recollection is The Shield was always good. I felt the ending worked as well. Vic left a sequestered pariah.

That said many will question my taste and judgement. I started watching Breaking Bad after the show had completely finished in America. I thought the first episode was terrible. It was only the shows reputation that made me keep watching and it got very good. But that’s just my opinion.

TCMF-2L

110

I’ll nominate Blackadder.

Also Police Squad.

111

(Emphasis mine)

It’s a lot to ask that an entire series be absolutely ‘perfect’. You, sir, are a tough OP taskmaster :face_with_raised_eyebrow: :slightly_smiling_face:

112

I think The Andy Griffith Show deserves some consideration. The only flaw I can recall is the brief time that Don Knotts left the show with a very forgettable replacement. Other than that, the writing and acting was first rate and the show has aged much better than most.

113

Batman

OK, maybe the show’s format defies criticism – a colorful villain threatens Gotham City, Commissioner Gordon calls Batman, the Dynamic Duo fight the villain and his or her minions, Batman and Robin are caught in an elaborate deathtrap cliffhanger, they escape, they track the villain down again, fight, and the dynamic duo emerge triumphant. Add in a pinch of Aunt Harriet and Alfred, Batgirl if you’re season 3, and perhaps a celebrity cameo and you’re golden.

And it was a hot show for a moment - a lot of celebrities wanted to be either a villain or in a cameo. Not every villain was as captivating as the Joker, Penguin, or Catwoman, not every death trap was as chilling as Robin caught in a giant clam, but the campiness gave adults something to enjoy as well as the kids.

114

Eh, I wouldn’t say that. There has already been one episode of season two (“Sweet Vitriol”) that was IMO pretty poor. Looking at the reviews on IMDB that episode has a 6.7, the lowest rated of the series by far. When I rewatch season 2 I really have no interest is seeing that one again.

Even the Fly episode of Breaking Bad (which I thought was great but is commonly thought of as their weakest) is at 7.9

115

I really liked that episode.

116

I disagree here. I loved the AGS, but once Don Knotts left (and they went to color), it went downhill. The show lost something huge without Barney Fife. Howard, Emmett and Deputy Warren weren’t able to bring the same magic to the show as ol’ Barn.

117

I haven’t given this a lot of thought but want to second Call The Midwife, that is an excellent series in so many ways.

118

I think a show’s ending is an integral part of the equation. There are lots of excellent shows that get canceled (Hello, Firefly), and endless more that jump the shark and then drag out for years in ever-increasing mediocrity.

119

One I don’t think anyone has mentioned, which used to be frequently mentioned in the same breath as Freaks and Geeks is My So-Called Life, which had one nearly-perfect season and was then cancelled. Granted, I haven’t watched it in two decades, not totally certain how it would hold up. But, I think, quite well.

Two other fantastic shows that no one here has yet mentioned, I think, are Bojack Horseman and Somebody Somewhere. Both came out of the gates knowing what they were trying to do, and then just nailed it perfectly.

(There’s an interesting distinction between shows that are consistent and shows that are great. For instance, I think both Severance and Succession have frequent peaks that are as good as anything that’s ever been on TV… but also have issues that crop up from time to time which keep them from quite reaching perfection. Whereas a show like Derry Girls was incredibly consistent, but was, in my opinion, consistently very very good, but never really great.)

120

I agree with most of the above and won’t list them again. One I didn’t see above was The Larry Sanders Show, a send-up of late night television and the egos involved. Six seasons without a clinker and funny from beginning to end. Garry Shandling, Jeffrey Tambor (pre-scandal), and Rip Torn absolutely nailed it, as did the supporting cast. It was one of our on-the-road sets for the RV and we laughed every time.

I’ll also nominate Flight of The Conchords. Two Kiwis in NYC trying to make the big time. Worth it if only for the scenes with Rhys Darby. It was cut short because the musicians ran out of material (my understanding).

Much as I would like to include Fargo, the casting of Chris Rock in S4 was a poor decision. But seasons one through three were brilliant.