I forgot about that one.


How about Eerie, Indiana? -kd5-

Ah, man...I was gonna put that one.

But then I remembered the thread title says "best" one season show.

If my favorite one-season show hadn't been split into two seasons because of the writers' strike, I would have nominated Pushing Daisies.

Yep. No contest.

Lots of the other suggested shows are excellent ones...maybe even great ones...but The Prisoner is one of the best shows in tv history. It's also one of the most influential & continues to be referenced 40-some years later. Numerous creators such as J.J. Abrams say how much it affects their work.

And one of the best things about McGoohan's series is that it not only had a definite beginning but had a definite ending...although the ending was so controversial that it continues to be debated today. Another nice touch about the Prisoner is that, although the main protagonist is never named, he seems to be the same character from McGoohan's earlier great series Danger Man (AKA Secret Agent). Instead of being a "spin-off" series, it was more of a sequel or continuation (or progression) of the earlier show exploring the intriguing premise: What happens to government agents who "know too much" who resign from their jobs?

Extremely intellectual series (especially for its time) that examined a lot of political & philosophical issues: How much power should the government have? How much of our identity is derived from individual personality traits, and how much from our interactions to community? How much of our lives do we "owe" the government? How much of our individual freedom & liberty are we willing to sacrifice for safety & protection for the community?

If you've never seen it, you can probably tell that the themes still resonate today. It's one show that can satisfy curious people whether they have conservative or liberal leanings.

If a show was good enough for Jack Kirby to ask to adapt to comics (although never published, the artwork for the first issue was beautiful), then that's good enough for me.

In addition to the others mentioned, I'd throw in the great but little-seen Frank's Place. We still quote lines from it several decades later. And Grosse Point is a great little series...if you've never seen it, you might still find $3 copies at Big Lots.

Six seasons and a movie!

I wish. As much as the show has failed to meet my expectation, I still think it is a lot of fun and will stick through to the end.

I enjoyed "Swingtown"

Going through the shows mentioned so far, I came up with my Top 10, which includes one show not mentioned.

Freaks and Geeks
Terriers
Undeclared
My So Called Life
Firefly
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Rubicon
The Chicago Code
The Good Guys
Deadline - Oliver Platt show where he plays a journalist working with his ex-wife. It's available on Hulu.

Seeing Jay Mohr on Suburgatory last night reminded me of another great one-season show: Action.

It looks like we have our next March Madness brackets, the one season showdown.

I thought these were multi-season shows, but they were only a season each. I was really young, but clearly remember the following:

Automan (Desi Arnez Jr, Chuck Wagner) - The hologram guy with the thing called cursor that could "make" anything
Streethawk (Rex Smith) - Motorcycle vigilante
Manimal (Simon MacCorkindale) - The guy could change into a hawk, wolf, and something else.
Misfits of Science (Courtney Cox) - A bunch of "mutant-like" college kids... I think.
M.A.N.T.I.S. (Carl Lumby) - Cool suit made a paraplegic fight crime.
The Highwayman (Jakko, Jane Balder, Sam J. Jones) - Diesel + Helicopter = Awesomeness!

The Fabulous Teddy Z (CBS) and Partners (FOX) were good single season sitcoms starring Jon Cryer before 2.5 Men.

COMPLETELY agree on The Prisoner.


Also, The Prisoner has my favorite opening titles of any TV show... ever:

Freaks and Geeks for sure. If it isn't at least in your top 3, it can only be because you haven't seen it.

The Prisoner was great, or at least it reached greatness in a number of episodes. But it was another show that I felt was loosing steam before it reached the end of it's limited run. After I watched it I read up on the production and wasn't surprised to learn it was originally conceived as a 7 episode run but was extended to 17 in order to be more suited for the US market. And the ending was controversial because it was rightly seen as crap.

Hardly the best (those have all been mentioned) but I always thought that Grosse Pointe deserved more than one season.

Am I the only one that liked this show?

if you read the rest of this topic you would see that you aren't.

I thought of another one: the Middleman

I remember liking Phenom, a one-season sitcom about a tennis prodigy and her family. The little sister was played by the actress who was the youngest Seaver kid on Growing Pains, and the mom was Judith Light from Who's the Boss? The brother was played by an actor whose face you would probably recognize... one of those "that guy!" actors. The brother and little sister pretty funny and the main reason I liked the show.

Forgot about this one, Jeremy Piven's best role before Ari Gold. And no one was hotter than Paula Marshall in this YUM. Great theme song too! Not to mention a great show, the remake couldn't hold a candle.

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I remember really liking Kindred: The Embraced a 1990s FOX soap opera about warring clans of vampires in San Francisco.

Firefly and Police Squad

Would a mini-series count as a one season show, though? I always thought that's what Kindred was, a mini-series.