Has there been a tee vee show you really loved
that was cancelled after one season, or even just a few episodes?
I was completely taken by Then Came Bronson (1969), with Michael Parks as Jim Bronson, a San Francisco newspaper reporter who got sick of the rat race and rode his Harley-Davidson Sportster XLCH all over the western U.S. it was Route 66 with one guy on a bike instead of two in a Corvette, and I truly loved it. It lasted one season, and I cried at the end of the final episode.
Then there was Bay City Blues (1983), done by Steven Bochco and his Hill Street Blues crew. The Bay City Blues were a minor-league (Double-A, I think) ball club. It had a very good cast of unknowns and virtual unknowns, except for Dennis Franz (Norman Buntz on Hill Street Blues and Andy Sipowicz on N.Y.P.D. Blue) as pitching coach Angelo Carbone (telling a young pitcher how to "load up" a pitch: "You got your spit, you got your snot, you got your hair oil..." ).
Four episodes (of eight filmed) were aired, all at 12:30 a.m. or thereabouts. It had a limited audience from the get-go, and NBC made it worse by not giving it a decent time slot. Pity; it was a good show.
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2000/2001. Starred Andre Braugher. 
It had a bad time slot, so that affected the ratings.
Most of all, I think the reason why it only lasted one season was because it was too smart for most viewers.
It was a brilliant show, led by the finest actor I've ever seen.
If only he were still here to do so.
His death broke my heart. 💔
It's th Holocaust.." 
What kind of breakfast cereal was inside the walls?
(I saw only a couple of episodes.)
because viewers had to pay attention, since so many jokes were visual and in the background, like 1950s MAD. People are more accustomed to punch lines and other audial humor, like stuff breaking, so they can watch passively.
The movies were largely the same, but they also had scenes like Nielsen and Priscilla Presley wearing body condoms, and that guy (Drebbin's partner?) in a wheelchair bounce-rolling down the steps at Dodger Stadium and gettting catapaulted onto the field. 
to know Windom introduced each episode, kinda like Hitchcock, from a comfy chair. 
It says something about Americans that they won't watch critically acclaimed shows (The West Wing being one exception) but put the most inane stuff on tee vee into the Top 10.
... was the one I hear about most. I did not watch it originally - saw it in reruns. A single father raising one daughter. It was a cute show, nicely written, and based on a movie character. Great cast and lead Sally Field as Gidget. But viewers did not watch and it was cancelled early. Then, something strange happened. Some of the single, first season episodes were rerun that summer and it picked up steam. By the time Gidget was a "hit" show, the network had gone forward with a different schedule. The single season episodes were rerun, with much success, for years and years.
... Don Porter. But I can imagine Don DeFore being up for the part, if he had no series at the time.
