Series...

From the Fannish Friday Five on LJ for May 28, 2010: List the 5 series (tv, book, or movies) that best kept their quality, from beginning to end.

This is a hard one! How many books are in a series? Is a trilogy a series? How connected do they have to be - is being set in the same universe enough to make a series? I know the question didn't include comics, but I think that's just because comics tend to be overlooked - and comics include the best serial fiction I know of. So I'm including comics.

1. Concrete, comic book by Paul Chadwick.
   
2. The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. (The Game of Kings, Queen's Play, The Disorderly Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle, Checkmate)
   
3. The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner.
   
4. Grainger and the Hooded Swan series by Brian Stableford.
   
5. Firefly TV show.

You know, that was actually a lot easier than I thought at first. I could go on. It's easier to think of comics and books that are sustained - most movies are not, though I think a case could be made for the Die Hard series, and James Bond.