"It's the End Of the World As We Know It," Vol. 6.

Third and final part of the best "one-season-and-done" gems.

I felt the urge — and the need — to wrap up this particular subcategory in my ongoing suggestions for shows to escape into and save your sanity. The world is still seemingly falling apart and awful, so the series as a whole will continue, but this subcategory always seemed to find its thriving life based on nostalgia, and I do wonder if anyone has ever gone back to watch the small percentage still available for streaming, or if this was just a minor joyous detour into that period where network television was still important and transitioning into the cable and streaming eras ever so slowly.

I believe there are still interesting thoughts to share on the whole collection, so I’m planning a summation podcast on that (but doing the Q&A podcast first, of course). As a reminder, here are the first two parts of the one and done, canceled-too-soon collection:

---

---

OK, let’s wrap up this memory jog-a-thon; we’ve got other lanes to venture down soon enough.

“Police Squad!” 1982. ABC. Six episodes. Streaming: Hahahahahah. No.

Still funny after all these years and somehow still planted as a memory in my very young brain at the time. I remember watching this as a kid and thinking it was the funniest thing ever. And then of course it led to the “Naked Gun” film series. As someone who still remembers laughing at the “Airplane!” movie two yeas prior, it’s probably not a shock that I loved this series. The thing I absolutely did not remember? Only six episodes! What a crime. It was yanked after four episodes and the final two were burned off in the summer. Maybe ABC just didn’t know how to market this or maybe viewers were just not in the mood to laugh.

Who knows? And yet, still ridiculously funny. You’ll have to try YouTube for the other bits. I’ll be there with you.

“The Tick.” 2001. Fox. Nine episodes. Streaming: No.

I was very grateful that 15 years after this one-and-done Fox series, Amazon brought it back to life with a new cast and let it go for two seasons. That said, there was really nothing like this first live action version (which you can buy on Amazon!) starring Patrick Warburton as a perfectly clueless Tick and a wonderful Nestor Carbonell as Batmanuel. There was joy in every episode (the pilot was directed and the template set by Barry Sonnenfeld), but this series never had a chance.

I remember it all too clearly because I was a champion supporter of it, to no avail. Bad time slot. No promotion. Nobody in American really understanding what it was or what the source material was. Just a classic case of a good idea crushed under the wheels of an industry with no patience (and often no plan).

You can find some episodes on YouTube.

---

“Ben Stiller Show.” 1992. Fox. 13 episodes. Streaming: No. Available to buy on AppleTV and Amazon.

This series, which has become a cult classic, was well before my time as a TV critic and since I was not watching much television back then and immersing myself in music, I came to it late, just as you might after reading this. A version of the series aired on MTV in 1990 but a completely reworked version got a green light and little else on Fox two years later, lasting for a mere 13 episodes. I think most people have found this gem on DVD and love it for the filmed bits and the cast and guest appearances, including Bob Odenkirk, Janeane Garofolo, Andy Dick and writers Judd Apatow, David Cross, Robert Cohen and others. Everybody looks so young!

This was a low-fi production if there ever was so it couldn’t have cost Fox that much to make. And yet, one and done. Some of the episodes can be seen on YouTube but the quality is suspect.

“Lights Out.” 2011. FX. 13 episodes. Streaming: FX.

I like to think of this is as the coming out party for actor Holt McCallany rather than just another in a long, disappointing line of series I liked and championed getting canceled after one season. Pablo Schreiber, Stacy Keach, and a host of familiar character actors brought real grit to this boxing series, but it was McCallany (“Mindhunter”) who kept it all together. And honestly, this was way more than a story about boxing. It was a man adrift, bad decisions, desperation and the physical fallout of all of it. The ratings were never great but the show was one of those solid gems that I wished had a chance at another season to see what it could become. Instead, here we are. At least you can stream it!

“Cupid.” 1998. ABC. 15 episodes. Streaming: No.

Before Rob Thomas made “Veronica Mars” or wrote the pilot for “Party Down” and subsequent shows, he made “Cupid” for ABC and it helped launch the career of Jeremy Piven (and also to a lesser extent Paula Marshall) but it wouldn’t be on this list, of course, if it wasn’t a one and done — with a huge twist.

Let’s just start by saying the premise is that Jeremy Piven thinks he’s actually Cupid, the god, and Paula Marshall is a psychiatrist in the mental hospital that Cupid lands in. Cast out by Zeus, apparently, he’s confined to Earth and must unite 100 couples — which, if you’re being cynical, is also the 100 episode goal of fives seasons for most TV series. Yeah, it never got there. Even if your tolerance for Piven is up for debate, there’s no denying he really had it going in this series. He lit up the small screen but, unfortunately, the show did not, even though it was highly entertaining. The twist mentioned above is that Thomas would go on to have a LOT of credibility and bankability so he got ABC to redo the show in 2009 — 11 years later; are you kidding? This time starring — wait for it — Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson.

That version lasted just seven episodes. So, yeah, TV is hard, even if you have enough power to pull strings like Thomas did back then.

“Luck.” 2011. HBO. Nine episodes. Streaming: Max.

Perhaps a top contender for greatest misnomer ever on show titles? There was, indeed, not much luck for “Luck.”

Beyond that, it had everything.

The series was created by David Milch, it was top-lined by Dustin Hoffman and it was executive produced by Michael Mann, who directed the pilot. Set in the world of horse racing, with down and out gamblers, trainers and breeders and the mutual interactions of all, “Luck” had one of those casts where you just shake your head at the all-star line-up of it all: Hoffman, Dennis Farina, Nick Nolte, Michael Gambon, Kevin Dunn, John Ortiz, Richard Kind, Jason Gedrick, Jill Hennessy, Kerry Condon, Ian Hart, Ted Levine and others.

I mean, you could do a lot with that.

But not when three horses die during filming of the first season.

“Luck” was a critical darling and HBO had already renewed it for a second season but there was no escaping the fact that horse racing is already a controversial sport and when you have three horses die during filming then you’re going to get a lot of unwanted harsh criticism. HBO didn’t want its reputation tainted and that second season never happened.

There were other issues, as well, a lot of them behind the scenes. How does a show only air nine episodes? By having a lot of setbacks, obviously, and the horse deaths undermined Milch’s romantic notion of the sport and that world.

Well, that’s it on the one-and-done series. I could have made the list longer, but there’s something slightly depressing about it all. And as I mentioned way back, it’s a lot to ask people to go back and sample something they know will end abruptly and likely without satisfaction. But if you did/do ever get around to watching some of these shows from all three parts, let me know in the comments.