"Perfect" television shows

Mindhunter.

Fun Fact: Andy Renko, the Good Old Boy in the Shitkicker boots, was DOA in the original version of the pilot. Test audiences didn’t like it, so he was resurrected and made a permanent member of the cast.

Hill Street Blues had a female public defender and a police force full of women cops. In what way was it sexist?

На вкус и цвет, товарищей нет. :grin:

Off the top of my head currently is Andor and Better Call Saul.

Probably Breaking Bad too, though the borderline episodes for me were the ones related to the airplane crash, not Fly. They…probably are still good episodes though, just the low point of a great series.

I’ll take the third path on The Good Life. I loved it, but felt it was a bit of a slog to get to the end.

And what are we saying about the short-run shows? Pretty easy to have all good eps when you’re just doing a handful of them.

Even the first season, when Blackadder is basically playing the Baldrick role?

Good call. Agreed. The last season was definitely weird, but still good.

For me, the high watermark of that show had to be when Toby ruins it for everyone:

Carnivàle was a terrific show. And it brought to mind another show that I thought was fantastic, called The Riches, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver. I was distraught when it was cancelled. Also, honorable mention to Picket Fences which was quirky in sort of a Northern Exposure way, and had wonderful acting, but a lousy time slot (Friday nights) and never really caught on.

I have a couple of thoughts if we include mini-series or limited runs, such as the Moffat effort Jekyll (6 episode mini-series). But those are almost cheating, as others have mentioned.

So, probably surprising NO ONE who has seen my avatar, I’ll nominate Samurai Jack. Story was actually completed with the 5th season, even if it was 12 years later. It had the advantage of being a thing of many parts, so it wasn’t limited to serious, comedic, or action based episodes, so it had a bit of everything for everyone, including some real pathos. And overall, the animation was gorgeous even when stylized and simplified. Even the worst episodes were good fun, just not great.

Yeah, I’d say The Good Place was more perfect, but it also had episodes I liked better than others, and some characters I loved, and others I couldn’t wait to get off the damn screen.

So when I think about perfect, I’m using the metaphor of USA school grading. An A+ for example, normally runs between a 97-100% score. Samurai jack is probably at the lower end, say 97, The Good Place probably 98-99, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 100% where every single beat lands (and the OP acknowledges it).

I will nominate Coupling, which had a fourth season that seemed kind of pasted on, but it held up well, IMO.

I wanted to nominate Monk, which is strong for its full run and has a lot of inventiveness, but honestly, the whole solving a murder in every episode just starts to become tedious.

I’ll submit Terriers for consideration. From the wiki article: " Ex-cop and recovering alcoholic Hank Dolworth partners with his best friend, former criminal Britt Pollack, in an unlicensed Private Investigator business." Sort of a low-life Rockford Files set in San Diego. Sadly it only lasted one season, but maybe that was for the best…it didn’t have a chance to go downhill in season two.

Inspired by this thread, I took my DVDs of Dead Like Me off the shelf, and am watching them tonight. Probably later than I should be, but it’s been a few years, and I am enjoying them.

The falling piano was in S01E01, in 2003. There has also been a woman on a fence trying to get a cat out of a tree and slipping on a weak picket fence, and a shaggy dog story about a botched bank robbery where an honest depositor slips on a banana peel and gets his head crushed in a revolving door. Like I said, these are Looney Tunes kinds of things, and tragedies all, and it sounds morbid, but it’s they way they’re set up like in cartoons, that adds the lighter touch.

Plus (for me, anyway), the series is set in Seattle, but filmed in Vancouver BC. I spent a lot of time in Vancouver some years ago, and it’s nice to see some familiar places again.

My suggestion here is Ghosts, great episodes and fun to watch.

No love for Big Bang Theory?

I never watched it when it was live, but caught up on pretty much every episode when TNT (or TBS?) started it in reruns. I don’t recall any episodes I didn’t enjoy.

Конечно, для некоторых — ни одного. :wink:

I have huge love for TBBT, and when it was good it was great-- I think it has my very favorite series finale ever-- but it did have a few clunkers. The one where they go to sing karaoke to celebrate the first Rostenkowski-Wolowitz pregnancy, is gawd-awful.

They also have a few guest stars who fall flat-- mostly now, considering how many they have, but it kept the series from being perfect by the OP’s standards.

Now, IMHO, is doesn’t get to be perfect, because it took a lot more chances than other shows, but it is what it is.

Didn’t nominate another beloved show of mine, Xena, Warrior Princess for the same reasons.

My god, they marched Bill Gates in there like a massive advert for Microsoft, which if any sort of geek credentials, would be Linus Torvalds. It was shameful.

I missed that Musk was in there as well. I probably didn’t know who he was.

I admit that I missed that past tense in the initial line - likely because so much of the rest of the OP was written in the present tense. Such as:

Under your criteria, I’m not sure how well I could participate in this thread. I think I’d still stand by Firefly, but not sure I could stick with Freaks and Geeks because I did not see it when it came out. I watched it some time after, so I could not comment on how it was when released. I do recall looking forward to Buffy and Angel each week. I imagine at least once or twice I may have felt, “Well, THAT wasn’t their best ep!”

But other than that, I imagine I thought most of my favorite shows were pretty much perfect when I was watching them. Looking back - I watched - and enjoyed - a lot of crap.

I assumed the tense was because we were only considering shows that were “over” (no longer making new episodes), because we can’t tell if a show is “perfect” unless we’ve seen every episode.

I’m not sure of that.

IIRC, TL has been renewed for another season.

Either way, I think the OP/thread ambiguous enough that my post might not have entirely merited a “Wtf”.

Moderating:

Just a reminder that this is an English language board.