Inspired by Friedo’s thread, I wanted to recommend the movie Radius on Netflix. The premise was that a guy gets in a car accident, and afterwards any one (or animal) that gets within 50 feet of him instantly drops dead.
I thought it would be really stupid, but ended up really enjoying it.
Got any more?
I will chime in with a show that we’ve really been enjoying on Netflix as well, “Nailed It”. It is sort of a parody of the cooking shows as it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The production value was low. But it is incredibly charming and good natured and fun spirited. Even when contestents get destroyed they have fun and laugh at themselves.
Banshee.
Seinfeld is a perfect fit to the OP.
**Bosom Buddies
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
**
I was quite a fan until about midway through the third season when they stopped sugarcoating how deeply mentally ill the main character was.
Another Netflix film: iBoy. It’s a British film about a teenaged boy who gains psychic technology/internet manipulation superpowers from… uh… having bits of cell phone lodged in his skull. As far as superhero origin stories go that may be one of the most patently ridiculous I’ve ever seen in modern context.
But it’s really pretty good! Not the best, but a very watchable little film with some heart to it.
Time After Time. I saw it at the movies and could not recommend it highly enough. “Well, Jack the Ripper uses H.G. Wells’s time machine and goes to modern day San Francisco, so Wells follows him.”
Avenue Q, which can’t even be explained properly… “It’s grown up Sesame Street done live, and the puppeteers are on stage and the ones that voice the puppets move their mouths just like the puppets.” It became a hit because of that; you had to see it to believe it.
Always my first thought for a sitcom that was horribly premise bound. Eventually they more or less dropped the premise but changed some other things and somehow that made it worse.
If they had just started with the original ad-firm setup with them living poor and interacting with the women neighbors in a normal building it would have been so much better.
Rule 1 of sitcoms: Premise doesn’t mean anything. Forget the “concept”, is it still funny?
I think that **Becoming Human **did a lot more with the worn-out cliche of “a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost get to be roomies” than might be expected.
The Big Bang Theory got middling to negative reviews in the beginning. “Nerd falls for hot girl” was seen as an overdone concept.
HOW-EVER…
Nitpick but the original program was called Being Human. Becoming Human was a spin-off. I don’t remember much of the spin-off, but Being Human was really good. It had horror, drama and even comedic elements. And it was remade for the North American market. The remake was pretty good as well.
Happy. An ex-cop-turned-hitman tries to save a little girl with the help her imaginary friend. Way better than it sounds.
Yeah, that’s not exactly a concept on par with Bubba Ho-Tep. 
I realize it’s an unpopular opinion but…
And Breaking Bad.
I thought the premise was beyond ridiculous, but the general consensus was that it was bloody well done.
Pushing Daisies.
Well, the whole “It’s a show about nothing!” came later. It’s original premise was “How a comedian gets his jokes.”
Quite a few cheesy 60s sitcoms count. Beverly Hillbillies has to be on the list. Really dumb premise, in my opinion, but they had Buddy Ebsen and Irene Ryan so they ended up being pretty darn good. Bewitched was pretty good too, despite the silly premise. On the other hand, you also had shows like My Mother the Car and The Flying Nun, so they didn’t all pan out.
Fantasy Island (the original) was better than it had any right to be, for which I credit Ricardo Montalban.
A comedy about four aliens coming to Earth, assuming human forms, and getting day jobs. It’s one of those plots you wouldn’t expect to make it past a pilot.
But superb casting and great dialog made 3rd Rock from the Sun a wonderful treat that still holds up well.