Friday open thread: perfect at one season

[dolorosa_12]

It's blowing a gale in my part of the world, which seems a suitably stormy end to the working week. I hope everyone else in the UK is safe from the two named storms which have swept through over the past few days!

This week's Friday open thread is in honour of the fact that I've been rewatching the first season of Peaky Blinders. Although I will watch the forthcoming sixth (and final) season when it airs, in general I have no desire to rewatch any season other than the first. I feel the show worked best when its ruthless, ambitious, traumatised Birmingham gangsters were fighting for what felt like proposterously small things: control over a few streets and warehouses, the right to operate their gambling business legitimately at one racecourse — and as they sought more and more grandiose things over the subsequent seasons, things became increasingly ridiculous. There's still plenty to enjoy, but Peaky Blinders is one of the many shows that I feel has a perfect first season, and could have said everything it needed to say in those six episodes.

So my question to you is this: what TV shows do you feel are perfect at one season, and then could (or should) have ended?

Other than Peaky Blinders, I feel this applies to Veronica Mars, the BBC Musketeers and Robin Hood shows (both of which are very silly, but were the correct kind of silly in their first seasons), and the original British series of Broadchurch. I feel that popular British miniseries are particularly at risk of this — showrunners get the go-ahead to produce six episodes, they make something that ends up being a huge hit, and then people want them to make more, when the original show was complete in and of itself.

Thank you also to everyone who left comments on my last post. I'm not going to go back and respond directly, but I'm grateful for your kindness.

Comments

[darkmarcy]

Ah, Peaky Blinders! I watched some of it but not all, and barely remember anything of it, but the trend of making everything bigger and bigger is... Often not a creatively good one. (I never watched Supernatural but didn't they like, kill god in the 5th s or somewhere?)

I've been meaning to watch Broadchurch, just the first season though :'D Lesser-known UK crime drama Traces had a stellar season that wrapped up nicely, now it has returned but I am worried if it won't be as good and how they'll continue the story after the main mystery was solved. Main character's love interest now has a beard apparently? Damn, I liked him clean-shaven. xD

I thought Netflix's Russian Doll was perfect in the first season of eight episodes! They made more?? How and why? I don't think I will tune in to find out, sorry.

Heroes was fun for the first season, after that I just... Didn't watch it anymore. Ditto Prison Break. The whole plot was the jailbreak! Sheesh.

[dolorosa_12]

I can't believe they're making another season of Russian Doll: that show is just the dictionary definition of the thing I'm talking about here. It's perfect, self-contained, and says all it needs to say in a single season, and I can't imagine that adding any more will improve it in any way.

I agree with you about Heroes as well!

[pauraque]

The one that comes to mind for me is Homicide: Life on the Street. The first season was unlike anything else on TV at the time, with an approach more like a serious stage drama than an ordinary cop show, and I think it still holds up as a masterpiece. But the network was dissatisfied and demanded changes to the style, content, and cast. Basically, they wanted it to be a bog-standard police procedural, which frustrated the remaining cast members and led to more departures.

The show went on for seven seasons and a movie, and I wouldn't say it was all in vain--the people who stayed still did some good work in those years--but they were never able to recapture the genius of the first season, before the network execs meddled with it.

[dolorosa_12]

I've not seen that show, but from your description it seems a perfect answer to this question. It's such a shame when network meddling takes away everything that makes a wonderful show so special.

[topaz119]

The first season of Friday Night Lights was almost perfect in how it captured the setting of a small, dying town in the Southern US, where everything and everyone fixated on the high school football team. It’s not even about football, though they took care to film those scenes, too. (Disclaimer: I’m married to a Southern high school teacher/coach, so I’m biased to that environment, but there were several times that I nearly fell off the couch laughing at how I’d had the exact same conversation with my husband.)

The second season went off the rails almost immediately but the first season was dead-on.

[dolorosa_12]

I've not seen that show, but it sounds like a great example of this phenomenon. And your own personal circumstances must have given it such depth and richness — I love how true-to-life it appears to have been!

[lirazel]

Yeah, the beginning of season two was terrible. They course-corrected about halfway through the season and the other seasons were good and worth watching imo, but the experience of watching S1 can't be matched. I think that was the "realistic" show I ever watched that blew me away.

[topaz119]

I watched all of it because I cared about the characters so much & while they did sort of settle back into a better groove, it always felt like what people *thought* that world would look like, while the first season felt so true to it, in both good & bad ways.

[muccamukk]

I really liked several things in season two of The Musketeers, but YEAH. The whole We Need to Discuss Serious Topics thing. No, you don't. You're a fucking musketeers show!

[corvidology]

This is why I love the stupid 'Musketeers + airships" Anderson film so much!

Sword fights! Airships! Da Vinci!

[dolorosa_12]

I feel bad for saying this, because he was apparently a lifelong Whovian and a role like that must've been a dream come true, but I've always been so bitter that Peter Capaldi landed the role of the Doctor after the first season of The Musketeers, necessitating his character be written out of the show. He was such a great antagonist for the musketeers, because although he hated them and wanted to bring them down, he wasn't fundamentally evil and generally wanted roughly the same things as our heroes — he just wanted to achieve them in a way that advanced his personal ambitions, which led to them often having to grudgingly work together.

As soon as he left the show, it just got a whole lot darker, and the antagonist characters tended to warp everything around them and overwhelm the show completely.

[corvidology]

So... can I go with the *two* seasons of Life on Mars?

I've heard rumours about something called 'Ashes to Ashes' but I'm glad they're only rumours.

[dolorosa_12]

Hahaha! I've not watched either iteration of the show, but it sounds as if Life on Mars would fit the question perfectly, for you at least.

[corvidology]

The plans was for two seasons, eight episodes per season. A current day Manchester cop gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1970s Manchester.

They were startled by how successful it was so decided they should make more. John Simm said no.

Then they came up with the brilliant (YMMV mine certainly did) idea of A2A... where the woman wakes in 1980s London. Ack!

[darkmarcy]

Haha, greetings, fellow A2A denialist! LoM was perfect as it was, that's all.

(Actually I own all the A2A soundtracks. But I treat them as just 1980s hit song collections, so.)

[corvidology]

We are not alone, I can assure you of that! :D

[nerakrose]

agreed about Broadchurch. s2 felt unnecessary. I think there's more after that? but I didn't watch it.

I can't think of anything else that fit's the one and done bill, but the hill I WILL die on is that Supernatural should've ended after 5 seasons (and the s5 finale should've ended about 10 seconds earlier than it did - the final 10 seconds were shoe-horned in when further seasons were greenlit). When I rewatch it I only watch the first 5 seasons. I won't say this show is beautifully done or anything, but the first 5 seasons were actually decently written and form a self-contained story arc. everything that came after was...unnecessary and undid a lot of the world-building and sacrifices made in s1-5 and...well, it all became ridiculous.

[dolorosa_12]

I think I agree with you about Supernatural, although I limped on with it until about Season 9, at which point I decided enough was enough. Season 5 would have been a great natural ending.

I watched the third season of Broadchurch, and it definitely wasn't worth it, although Season 2 was the weakest of the bunch.

[lirazel]

I really enjoyed season 1 of Killing Eve but have never felt the need to watch more. I know there's lots of good stuff in the other seasons, but...I don't need it. Season 1 was a perfect experience.

Most Korean dramas don't have more than one season, but they inexplicably made a season 2 of Age of Youth and recast one of the main characters and lost another of the main characters, and I will never watch it and never will.

[dolorosa_12]

I have continued to watch Killing Eve, but I think I'm inclined to agree with you, and wonder if I should stop watching any future seasons.

That seems bizarre re: Age of Yuoth — what weird decisions on the part of the showrunners!

[blackcatofmisery]

I haven't looked up the weather, but there was a hold on an outdoors event at the Olympics, and my area, clear across the globe, has a wind advisory tonight, so I was wondering if there was a massive storm or storm series or something.

As for TV shows, most would benefit from brevity, I think. The longer the show, the more likely there will be cast and staff changes, which can really change the quality of the product. Like cop procedural shows; I watch NCIS. It is an offshoot of JAG. There is also NCIS: LA, NCIS: NOLA, both have more than 5 seasons. NCIS: NOLA ended, which is good. The original NCIS is in its 19th season, and the main character is leaving the show. He's been there from the beginning, and he's been there as his co-stars came and went. He has been The Constant. I don't want to watch it without him.

The episodes all start to become the same, too. There are only so many ways people can kill and be killed.

=^..^=~

[rose_griffes]

I'm nodding my head reading through the comments. My addition: Stranger Things. Great first season, with some okay-to-good subsequent seasons that don't capture the mood of the first one.

[dolorosa_12]

I totally agree with you, although it seems that popular police procedurals really suffer from this — they're so formulaic and widely watched that they just go on forever, even if the quality isn't the same.

[blackcatofmisery]

They really do. I enjoy some of them, but like no episode really stands out as memorable? They're bringing back CSI as CSI: Las Vegas, after six years and fifteen seasons of the original. Is it needed? absolutely not. Will it be any different? Nope. It had been different when it started because it didn't focus on the cops or lawyers, who each have plenty of their own shows, but fifteen years and three? spin-offs have dulled the novelty.

I saw Law & Order is being brought back, too. That show started before I was born and has some spin-offs, too.

So they're not at all unique or edgy, but they're charming? Something to have on as noise after you're through your favorite episodes.

[monksandbones]

I actually have an opinion on this, despite my minimal TV-watching! I didn't see all the later seasons, but based on the ones I did watch, Madam Secretary never really surpassed its first season. Later seasons had good episodes, and some good plot lines, but there was an underlying mystery plot that ran through most of season 1, and none of the multi-episode plot lines later on were quite as compelling.

[dolorosa_12]

It's such a shame when TV shows decline so sharply after such perfect first seasons, isn't it? I've not seen Madam Secretary, but I'm sorry to hear that it suffered from this as well.

[charlottenewtons]

Thankfully all Storm Eunice managed to do was knock over my bins.

I agree that Veronica Mars and the BBC Musketeers (why did they decide dark and gritty was a good direction?) were one season wonders. I'd add Heroes, which really seemed to implode after s1, and Big Little Lies, which resolved all its character arcs yet had a second season that went nowhere.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh yes, Heroes is a great example of this. I know they were screwed over by the writers' strike, but the decline was so sharp and so dramatic that even that isn't a good enough explanation for whatever the hell went wrong.

I agree with you about Big Little Lies as well.

I'm glad the bins were the worst that Storm Eunice did where you were.