[ul]
[li]Twin Peaks[/li][li]Pushing Daisies[/li][li]Now and Again[/li][/ul]
The first two have already been mentioned. Now and Again was a good show. IMDB gives it a rating of 8.3. It was cancelled after 1 season and ended with a cliffhanger. IIRC it was on at 7:00 Friday nights, which probably explains its untimely demise.
Lou Grant ran for five seasons.
I’m not sure if it was cancelled by the network or if the producers decided to pull the plug after five seasons.
My question is, “Is five seasons enough to be considered a success”? How long does a show have to run in order to be considered a success?
I once read that a TV show has to run for seven seasons before the actors and other behind the scenes people would get residuals and the show could be sold in syndication.
I don’t know the truth.
100 episodes is (or was) the convention.
My top picks have already been mentioned: Firefly, Freaks and Geeks, and Pushing Daisies.
The Crimson Field was a BBC period drama about nurses at a field hospital during WWI. I think it was intended to last 4 or 5 seasons, one for every year of the war. Unfortunately it was cancelled after just one series of 6 episodes.
The Dana Carvey Show was a sketch comedy show that lasted only 8 episodes. It was funny but in retrospect not a good fit for broadcast primetime TV. It probably would have been better and more successful if it had aired on HBO or cable.
Another 70s time warp for me… Life on Mars. I know it was a remake, and apparently a pale imitation at that, but Michael Imperioli rocks. It only had 17 episodes, but as time traveling shows go, I liked it anyway. 
One. season of Kolchak: The Night Stalket is enough to rank it as the best tv series of the 70s. More entertaining than The X Files, no moral conflicts like breaking bad, great acting by the cast and guest stars. The somewhat campy villians that marked the age before digital enhancement was forgivable.
Oh yes, I didn’t think it was a failed show.
I think that contractually they can get residuals any time an episode runs (or is watched, sold, etc.). The problem is that a show with too few episodes generally doesn’t go into syndication, so no residuals.
Of course all of that may have changed now that there are so many ways to view old episodes.
And what’s the deal with Sherlock (Cumberbatch and Freeman)? It fails after three episodes, then they bring it back for another try and it fails after three episodes AGAIN. And then it comes back a THIRD time, and AGAIN only lasts for three episodes.
And now I hear they’re going to be bringing it back for a FOURTH try?
WTF, Brits? It’s an awesome show; just keep it on the air, all right?
I thought of that, but I’m pretty sure that Day Break was never intended to last more than a single season of 13 episodes. Only 6 episodes were aired but the rest were available on the ABC website shortly after the cancellation, so I didn’t feel cheated.
I thought of another. James at 15. I was pretty young when it first aired, but I seem to recall that it was good. I don’t think it has ever been released on DVD
Alien Nation was one of my favorite series back in the day. It lasted only one season.
I kind of had mixed feelings about it, but I thought that Time Trax deserved more than two seasons.
ABC has been really stupid in recent years. They cancelled two good shows.
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Take the Money & Run (2011–only 6 episodes)
The show gave a team of 2 people a suitcase containing $100,000. They had one hour to hide it. Then they were taken into “custody” and 2 real-life police interrogators had 48 hours in which to figure out where the suitcase was hidden. If the officers succeeded, they got the money. If they failed, the team that hid the money got to keep it. -
No Ordinary Family (2010-2011–one season)
This family was on a plane that crashed in the Amazon, and they were exposed to a previously unknown chemical that gave them superpowers. It co-starred the wonderful Julie Benz, and it also had Kay Panabaker.
If I ever come across the idiots responsible for cancelling those shows, they’re going to get a tongue-lashing they’ll never forget.
The Prisoner - 17 episodes (1968-1969). McGoohan went off the rails at the end but the episodes earlier were fascinating.
Daybreak tied up the plotlines for the first day that kept repeating, but they also incorporated backstory indicating that there were other Daybreakers (the screaming homeless guy, for one), and iirc the last ep kicked off another day that started repeating. I liked the show a lot, but I’m a big fan of the time-bounce subgenre.
This isn’t right, is it? My assumption was that rather than being a weekly profit machine, US-style, the show is intentionally three great episodes per season.
he was joking
Wonderfalls was awesome. Pushing Daisies was even better.
There’s been many over the years, but I’d second Carnivàle, Almost Human, Pushing Daisies, Jericho and Firefly as some of the more noteworthy ones. There was a study this year that certain customers can act as harbringers of failure
in predicting a products failure. I wonder if I’d qualify for tv.
Some of my other picks have already been mentioned (Carnivale, Police Squad, Chicago Code), but here are a couple more:
Push, Nevada: A bizarre, Twin Peaks-like series that lasted for only seven episodes in 2002. The plot involved a nerdy IRS agent investigating mysterious goings-on in a very peculiar small town. There was also a solve-it-yourself mystery, with clues hidden in each episode and a million-dollar prize. The final six unaired episodes have never surfaced.
Nowhere Man: a 1995-96 series on UPN in which a photojournalist’s life is “erased” (his wife and friends don’t recognize him, his credit cards don’t work, etc). The series follows him as he attempts to unravel the mystery. Fascinating show, although I’m convinced the writers were making it up as they went along.
I am really BAD at this “joking” thing…