25 TV series that will/should really be missed

Ponder this -- among anime fans, people whose entire lives are devoted to the medium, many consider this the best ever done. To find out why you have to see it for yourself. Easily the most memorable characters I have ever encountered in film, TV, or real life. Beyond extraordinary.

After hundreds of hours of study, have come to the conclusion that everything JJ Abrams touches is "brilliantly flawed." Of his work to date, this one leans more towards brilliant than flawed, as long as (for the Love of God!) you skip Season 5. Astonishingly engaging and the cast becomes like family. When Anna Torv left primetime, she took with her one of the greatest faces in TV history.

Uber-creepy, intelligent, interesting show from a proven team of producers .. disappeared into the ether, like a story arc from one of its own own episodes

Its a piece of history because it is part of the new wave of absurdist TV that (starting in the 1990s) changed the very nature of television. But it was also great fun with a great ensemble cast that you felt you knew. Muth was perfectly cast as someone who had self-esteem issues when alive and even more when dead. Mandy Patinkin has never seemed warmer or more approachable. Only a two year run? Miss it.

Whedon (before he became a film God) never did a bad series and never started a series without enough arcs to last until the Sun burns out. This series was brilliant but something went wrong in Hollywood and the series was axed like a tree after one year. Whedon did however do a feature called SERENITY which saved for posterity the best bits of S01. Included in my list of "nearly perfect" films.

Similar but different to Touched by An Angel, a cast to die for, great storylines, always interesting, and then .. disappeared

OK, I "get" that digital animation is developing exponentially. Members checking out this list in years to come will be living with tech that can, like the holodeck in Star Trek, create entire worlds that seem real. Yada yada. But if you ever want to see the real deal, cell by cell animation, with some of the greatest writers and directors in history, this is your first stop.

Could be considered an acquired taste .. author of bestselling spy series pressured to adapt his own work for TV ... being the UK, the violence is toned down, the cerebral bits turned up ... watching Woodward twist and turn each week with the agony of having to do a job he hated, but did well ... and the strange friendships we forge when we are loners ... well, it was a #1 hit in the UK for a very long time.

Wondering how it is possible to miss a show that ran for a full decade? Easy. I miss the first few seasons which were sweet and cheery and upbeat. The show got horrendously dark and gloomy as it matured. You can even see it in the cinematography -- all the bright colors and sunny days just ... disappeared. Also interesting to watch how much screentime the astute producers devoted to closeups of Kreuk.

From the dawn of the Canadian film renaissance comes a basic, low-budget, stripped-down, series that has nothing whatsoever to do with its title (or the infamous film) and everything to do with a country trying to launch a new industry. Charming and holds up oddly well.

First year is astonishing -- Walt himself had the show under his wing; and for the period, it was the most expensive half-hour of TV drama ever produced! The show did go on for several more seasons, but Walt moved onto other projects and the accountants took over. First season is the one to watch.

An "outlier" even within the context of the "wild west" craze of the day. A show serially written and directed by some of the biggest names in Hollywood (at the time), starring an "older" ex-Shakespearean actor (who would never have been cast today) playing a gunslinger that lived the high life at a lavish San Francisco hotel while waiting for the job offers to roll in. Not especially violent, not even especially western, and he might have had the slowest draw in history, but somehow even today it epitomizes the uniqueness and experimental spirit of the era.

Who would have thought that a low-budget Canadian sci-fi series could end up a lost classic? Great scripts, good SFX, and Butler may unintentionally have delivered the best performance of her career as the heroine. Can watch over and over.

Never mind the casting -- that the onetime co-star of Dumb and Dumber gives one of the most mature and sophisticated performances in the history of the medium -- it is the writing that shines. For a moment you can almost feel what it was like for first audiences to sit in the Globe Theatre and watch the plays which, over time, were ultimately attributed to the enigmatic ex-actor known to history as William Shakespeare. Aaron Sorkin's dialog steals your attention like a thief in the night.

This was a late addition to this list whereas in fact it should have been a starter. I take the blame. Cowardice compelled me to delay adding Fawlty Towers because, in my head, I could hear members demanding, "How could you add this show and NOT Monty Python??" So, really, adding this requires two comments not one. Fawlty Towers was a one of a kind TV delicacy, not merely a consistently brilliant, hilarious, unpredictable, no-holds-barred comedy, but, moreover, it was the closest thing I had ever seen to peeking inside someone's head. Cleese did not have to bother with conventional "therapy" because every week he showed the inside of his brain to millions -- and what a brain it was! To say that the show holds up over time is understatement - as long as we have winding country roads and inns run by unhappily married men who should not be allowed to operate a can opener without government supervision, this show will contrinue to shine. And, for insiders, the knowledge that, in real life, Cleese was married not to his TV wife but rather to his TV maid ... well, that simply made the whole thing even funnier. AS TO WHY MONTY PYTHON did not make the list ... I watched every episode in real time when first aired. Brilliant, yes. Consistently brilliant, no. Many shows did not make this list for lack of consistency (The massively smug SNL another example). But Basil Fawlty and his adventures were a polished gem each and every viewing.

Find out why the producers of X-Files felt compelled to pay their respects to this series. Timeless and brilliant.

Here is a strange thought. Yanks who pooh-pooh British TV should be tied to a chair with their eyelids taped open and forced to watch this series. By the time they are done, they will be carrying an umbrella at all times and using words like "brilliant" and "rubbish" in the same sentence. This series, from the writing to the acting to the direction, is brilliant. And the closest thing to taking a holiday without leaving home. (ADDENDUM 02-18 -- on this list, the ONLY show where public demand was so strong that the producers revived it every few years!)

Belongs in a time capsule and harks back to an era when "1-man shows" were considered (justifiably) an art form. Incredible and hypnotic.

The closest analog I could find to this unusual show was the original George Burns show (which ran 8 years from 1950 to 1958) and that factoid should tell you how unusual this show was. The idea was not merely that Miller (and his hidden cadre of writers) was smarter than YOU, he was smarter than EVERYONE. Which in turn made it fashionable to hear one-liners from someone who was clearly smarter than you would ever be. (Exactly the same with Burns' act.) However, in this case, either the audiences got crankier or the host got dumber, because the Miller show only lasted a single season. It deserved better.

A mystery worthy of its own episode in X-Files. A-List broadcaster behind A-list production company with A-list writers starring A-list actors and it turned into one of the most engaging shows in recent memory. It should have run for a decade. Instead it disappeared after 2 years, most likely because the stratification of the TV multiverse confused too many overpaid executives. Boy do I miss this show.

Someone went to a lot of trouble to create the perfect vehicle for Wilson, a cast to die for, good fun all around, and then poof gone in one season.

A 1 of a kind show which, being set in a specific time period, will always seem slightly out of sync with the rest of the shows from 2015. It wasn't until months after I watched the first (and only) season that I realized some of the themes and characters were sticking in my brain. A slow burner, but was worth a second season. And never got it.

Gives new meaning to "bringing order out of chaos." The tweeners and twixers who were expecting a Buffy version of JUMPER were seriously unhappy with this show, which barely lasted two seasons. But for those with a discerning eye, the level of dramatic intensity -- with top-notch scripts and acting to match -- reached by this low-budget jewel was something to behold. Hasson, the lead, was never less than astonishing and has a heck of a career ahead of her.

Great premise, great execution, creepy and interesting. Lucas Black steals all his scenes. Cole is brilliant.

Every dollar of entertainment value in the budget made it to the screen. And you can sense the layering in the S01 scripts as they tried to set up arcs for later seasons. But alas. The numbers were not good enough. A very painful cancellation.