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Best one-season comedy?
I spent the weekend binging You, Me and the Apocalypse, a 10-episode British comedy-drama about a group of seeingly disparate people brought together in the last 34 days before a comet hits the Earth and wipes out humanity. I really loved it, immediately went looking for news on season 2... and learned it's been cancelled. Well, shit.
As well as my new short-lived apocalypse show I'm still sad about Selfie and Trophy Wife (both great shows cursed with terrible titles), and Matthew Perry's Go On (started slow but ended up reminding me a lot of early Community), and going further back, the brilliant The Middleman. What comedies do you miss that were cancelled after their first season?




Aw man I loved Go On! You're too right about it resembling like S1 Community. Probably why it never would have lasted, but still. :P Selfie was great too. I already loved Karen Gillan and John Cho individually and was over the moon when I found out they had a show together. I thought they had really great chemistry, but alas.
I thought Enlisted showed some promise, and I liked the fairly unusual premise of it being in an army training base. I also liked The Goodwin Games, but I think it was ultimately a good thing that got cancelled because 1) Bays & Thomas /shakes fist and 2) it freed up TJ Miller to do Silicon Valley.
There are a few series I like that were cancelled after two seasons, which somehow felt worse because it made me think they had a chance, like Don't Trust the B In Apartment 23 (what is it with comedy writers and their awful, awful titles) and Review with Forrest MacNeil.
EDIT: Also You, Me and the Apocalypse sounds awesome, I'm definitely gonna have to check that out.
Oh, Enlisted! I really liked that show - I feel like it didn't have a fair chance, since it was shown badly out of order. I need to check out The Goodwin Games for TJ, too. Oh, speaking of Silicon Valley people, I completely missed The Grinder in my original post, the Rob Lowe/Fred Savage weird meta sibling comedy (Kumail Nanjiani was fantastic in the first and last episode)
Wow I had no idea they aired it out of order! I caught parts of it on Hulu and then watched the full season after it aired. Suddenly a lot of strange inconsistencies with that show make sense. Now I'm doubly upset that it never got a renewal.
Hah The Grinder was already on my To Watch list but knowing Kumail's in it pushes it up the order a lot more!
Does Freaks and Geeks count? It's kind of a dramedy -- but then, it's a lot funnier and less soul-crushing than You, Me and the Apocalypse. I only watched it this past year -- because Martin Starr; Silicon Valley actors are everywhere -- but I kinda wish I had watched it back when it aired; I remember my grandma really loved it and kept telling me about it but I guess I was too busy consuming all the anime I could get my hands on back then. At least that was a show that didn't have a cliffhangery plot or anything. And I'd rather have a single really good season of a show than have it drag on and peter out into a sad shell of its former greatness.
Speaking of Martin Starr, Party Down lasted two seasons, but it was pretty great and it also has an ending that isn't a terrible stopping point. Apparently they knew it might not get picked up and were prepared, which I guess is a good thing.
Party Down is terrific, and has an amazing cast - I think Kyle is the only one I didn't already love in another comedy (and yet he's my favourite, go figure. And I've since seen him on Burning Love, yet another one with Martin Starr AND Kumail Nanjiani...)
I'm a bad fan, though, I haven't made it all the way through Freaks and Geeks yet. I'm not sure it's on UK Netflix.
I just remembered one I had completely forgotten about: 1600 Penn! It was about President Bill Pullman (who didn't fight any aliens, alas) and his wife Jenna Elfman and their kids, the most central being a kind of slacker type played by Josh Gad. I really liked this show -- it was silly but I liked all the characters. I was really sad it was canceled, because it ended on a note where I really wanted to see what happened next.
I also forgot about Running Wilde! How did I forget Running Wilde??