3 Great One-Season Comedy Shows You Can Binge In 1 Day

These brilliant comedy TV shows unfortunately only ran for one season each, so you can binge-watch them in just one day. Some of the most memorable and iconic comedy series on TV have comprised multiple seasons, with the likes of Friends, Seinfeld, The Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Parks and Recreation, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and more being lauded as some of best comedy shows in TV history. Not every comedy series has been lucky enough to run for multiple seasons, however, or even gracing our screens for decades, but this doesn’t make them any less funny.

There have been many incredible comedy series that came to an end after just one season, including the likes of How to Die Alone, Freaks and Geeks, Reboot, The Honeymooners, and many more. While any of these shows would be worth the watch if you’re in the mood for a laugh, there are some that can be watched in one day, or perhaps even one sitting. It’s a shame these shows didn’t continue for multiple seasons, but the one season we got cemented important places for them in comedy TV history nevertheless.

3) Police Squad! (1982)

Before the hugely successful The Naked Gun film series, Leslie Nielsen debuted as detective lieutenant Frank Drebin in 1982’s Police Squad! series. The series’ lightning-fast, absurd humor, sight gags, verbal puns, and running jokes all acted as a parody of police procedurals. Nielsen is a comedy legend, often referred to as the “Olivier of Spoofs,” and he infused this gift into every moment of Police Squad!. Spoofing the tropes of the likes of Dragnet and M Squad, Police Squad!’s dramatic opening sequence, overall serious tone, and deadpan delivery makes it jokes even funnier.

Unfortunately, after only four of its six episodes aired in March 1982, ABC announced the cancellation of Police Squad!. The studio cited the fact that viewers had to pay close attention to every moment to catch all the jokes as the reason for the cancellation – one of the most ridiculous excuses for cancelling a TV show ever. Even so, Nielsen returned in three hugely successful The Naked Gun movies in 1988, 1991, and 1994, respectively, and 2025’s The Naked Gun brought attention back to the film series and original TV show, earning it some huge retrospective praise.

2) Selfie (2014)

Another comedy series cancelled mid-season, similarly to Police Squad!, was 2014’s Selfie, which starred Karen Gillan and John Cho in a modern retelling of the 1912 play Pygmalion and 1956’s My Fair Lady musical. Gillan played Eliza Dooley, a sales representative who is obsessed with using social media to achieve fame before she seeks guidance from marketing image guru Henry Higgs (Cho) to realize true friendship. The story of Selfie’s cancellation is a tragic tale, but it seems no network officials expected the huge outpouring of love for the series from its dedicated fan base.

ABC announced the cancellation of Selfie in November 2014, during the show’s release, and while the series struggled to acquire an audience, its vocal fan base didn’t let its cancellation go quietly. A massive #SaveSelfie campaign was started, and a petition for renewal received over 65,000 signatures. Fundraisers, contests, #SaveSelfie merchandise, and fan media convinced the show’s creators to release the rest of the series on Hulu. Selfie became one of the streaming service’s most popular shows ever, so it’s certainly worth the watch if you haven’t already embraced the series.

1) Maniac (2018)

Not your typical comedy, Maniac hit Netflix on September 21, 2018, as a psychological black comedy drama that starred unlikely pairing Jonah Hill and Emma Stone as two strangers who connect during an intense and mind-bending pharmaceutical trial. Owen Milgrim (Hill) and Annie Landsberg (Stone) embark on a surprising, but sometimes hilarious, journey through various hallucinatory worlds, all overseen by the eccentric and controversial Dr. James K. Mantleray (Justin Theroux). With its clever, subtle comedy, stunning and striking visuals, and adventurous narrative structure, Maniac certainly deserves a binge – you won’t actually want to stop.

Maniac’s creator Patrick Somerville (The Leftovers, Station Eleven, Made for Love) always intended the show to be a limited series, so we’ll only ever have one season of this clever and subversive series. The series was based on the original Maniac, a Norwegian series from 2015 which also only ran for one season, so there was no more source material for future seasons. The concept of hallucinatory clinical trials could have been a rich breeding ground for future stories in an anthology format, but Maniac’s one and only season is a masterpiece by itself.

What are your favorite one-season-long comedy TV shows? Let us know in the comments!

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