MetaChat - TV Series/season finales

Series finales are such a strange thing. I don't think they're ever perfect. Either they're too tied up and cheesy, or too loose and flippant, almost like the creators are giving us all the bird. I can't think of one I really like.....

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 03 July | 10:26

The Saved By The Bell finale, when Dustin Diamond killed all his co-stars in a hail of gunfire before throwing himself into a volcano.

Oh wait, that only happened in my mind.

posted by jonmc 03 July | 10:30

That's kind of true, PinkSuperhero. Could that partly be a function of (particularly american) attitudes of the network bosses who keep a series alive until it pretty much sucks, before cancelling it at the last minute? So there's no defined story arc of how things are going to end?

My personal two favourites of the past few years have been 1) the end of Angel. Especially seeing as they weren't given too long to wrap up the storylines (and it was starting to get good again! Puppet Angel = awesome!) and 2) the end of The Office (the original). I mean the end without the Christmas special tacked on, although I liked that for different reasons.

posted by gaspode 03 July | 10:30

The ending of "Newhart" (Bob Newhart's series in the 80s) was pretty much the pinnacle of series finales... hilarious, bizarre, and unforgettable.

The end of "All In The Family" was an example of how NOT to end a series.

And although I'm not a huge fan of "M*A*S*H," its series finale was so well done it was almost cinematic.

posted by BoringPostcards 03 July | 10:31

The end of "All In The Family" was an example of how NOT to end a series.

Agreed, but it's still probably the greatest sitcom of all time. Plus the Ralph Kramden-Archie Bunker-Homer Simpson evolution is one of histories great time lines. And both Homer Simpson always wear white shirts and khaki trousers just like Archie.

posted by jonmc 03 July | 10:34

And although I'm not a huge fan of "M*A*S*H," its series finale was so well done it was almost cinematic.

M*A*S*H was better in the early seasons before Alan Alda decided to make Hawkeye into a saint. (I still watch it all the time though, it's like a drug).

posted by jonmc 03 July | 10:36

BoPo: Yup, Newhart. I'm not sure how many other series finales I even remember (except Buffy, which did some terrible terrible awful things).

posted by crush-onastick 03 July | 10:43

I Married Dora (bad show, but when the cast broke through the 4th wall in the finale and informed the audience that the show had been cancelled, it blew my little twelve-year-old mind)

Futurama (Dan Castellaneta is great as the singing robot devil, plus it has my favorite Zoidberg line: "Your music's bad, and you should feel bad!")

Seinfeld (I kind of think it was appropriate that the show didn't end with a bang)

Newhart (a gimmick, sure, but really clever)

The Office Christmas Special (seven words: "If You Don't Know Me By Now")

posted by Atom Eyes 03 July | 10:47

The Office Christmas Special
I bawled like a freakin' baby at the end of that. I love the American version, but don't find the Jim/Pam relationship as touching as Tim and Dawn. (Besides, I like Karen WAAAAAY better.)

MASH was great. (I remember reading leaked details of that finale in my grandmother's National Enquirer. It was such a big scoop that it has made it hard for me to completely dismiss things printed there.)

Newhart was probably the best ever. And Atom Eyes and I may be the only two people in the world who thought the Seinfeld finale was right and just.

posted by jrossi4r 03 July | 11:00

Was the episode of Cheers when Diane left a season finale? Because that made me bawl, too. Ted Danson's gentle, "Have a good life" was heartbreaking. (Almost as heartbreaking as the episode with Alyce Beasley as Coach's daughter. I can't even think about that one without tearing up.)

posted by jrossi4r 03 July | 11:08

I don't have a favorite really. I guess I'll have to say Newhart because it's the only one I've seen that I remember. And Family Ties. I liked that show. I The only bit I remember is the cast out on the stage holding hands.

Husband loves MASH. I just had to ask him what the finale was about.

What happened in the All in the Family finale?

posted by LoriFLA 03 July | 11:24

Newhart was perfect.

The one I still don't quite get was Saint Elsewhere... so that entire hospital was inside of an autistic boy's snowglobe? Wait, what?

posted by miss lynnster 03 July | 11:27

I'm looking forward to the day Rescue Me ends: given the incredible tragedy every other week in the regular episodes, I imagine the finale will involve a solid hour of immolated nuns and the heads of children hoisted on red-hot steel poles.

posted by eamondaly 03 July | 11:36

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by Hellbient 03 July | 11:45

What happened in the All in the Family finale?

Edith died, and Archie basically fell apart without her. It was miserably depressing, and sort of cast a pall over the whole show. (Which for the most part, as jon said, was one of the all-time classics.)

posted by BoringPostcards 03 July | 11:47

I loved Newhart's ending too.

posted by drezdn 03 July | 11:52

i thought the six feet under finale was pretty good

posted by slackshot 03 July | 12:20

@slackshot: I can't believe I forgot about that! Yes, that was my favorite series finale ever, no question.

posted by eamondaly 03 July | 12:36

The Blake's 7 series finale blew my little mind when I watched it on PBS. It was a dark show, but I didn't quite see that end coming.

If miniseries count, the end of The Lost Room was pretty cool.

I jump on the Newhart love bandwagon, it was a really nice send-up of the Dallas storyline.

posted by King of Prontopia 03 July | 12:47

I loved the Buffy finale. I still get goosebumps when I think of how they activated all the slayers around the world. Seriously. Go ahead and laugh; I don't mind.

posted by jokeefe 03 July | 12:51

Six Feet Under, totally.

posted by safetyfork 03 July | 12:51

Futurama (Dan Castellaneta is great as the singing robot devil, plus it has my favorite Zoidberg line: "Your music's bad, and you should feel bad!")

What was the last line? Something like "don't stop, I want to see how it ends"

posted by Capn 03 July | 12:54

Last episodes of:

Babylon 5 (if you commit to the entire show and are not crying like a baby at the end of "Sleeping in Light" you are a cold heartless minion of the Shadows)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Q with an ear trumpet)
Sports Night (Two words. Felicity Huffman.)
Newhart (WTF PLESHETTE???)
Mary Tyler Moore Show (GROUP HUG!)

are classics

Best season-ending things: (cliffhangers for me usually)
Soap (Jessica Tate did not murder Peter Campbell ... one of these five people did...)
Dallas (who shot JR?)
TNG again ("Mr. Worf ... fire")
The finale for Lost just past. (WTF LOST????)

the last episode of the 3rd Season of AbFab would have been a good place to end the show, but they kept milking the horse who'd been beaten to death for laying golden eggs.

posted by WolfDaddy 03 July | 13:41

Oh Blake's 7!! That was the first ever ending that totally blew my mind. I loved it so hard.

posted by gaspode 03 July | 13:48

Felicity. (I even liked the cheesy going back in time thing).

Six Feet Under.

posted by Lola_G 03 July | 14:39

I think I blocked out Six Feet Under because it was so traumatic. It aired right around when my grandfather died/was dying and sent me into a "Holy Crap! Everyone I know is going to DIE including ME!" freak out.

posted by jrossi4r 03 July | 14:48

I finally saw the six feet under finale last month. I felt pretty depressed for days. 'cuz... damn.

posted by miss lynnster 03 July | 14:50

Sports Night.

I'm not ashamed to admit that the end of Six Feet Under made me bawl like my own family had died.

posted by muddgirl 03 July | 15:45

I was assigned to write a spoileriffic review for a Series Finale a few seasons back ("Frasier"), so I'll just cut and paste a few comments from there...

I have a long history of problems with the series finales of shows I like. Maybe I was spoiled, since the first one I saw as a child was Patrick McGoohan’s “The Prisoner.” The image of the automated door closing behind the escaped Number 6, as the Free World merged with the surrealist prison called The Village, haunts me still.

Nothing has disappointed me more than Big Gimmick endings, like when Bob Newhart closed out his "Newhart" series by waking up beside Suzanne Pleshette, his TV wife from his first series, declaring everything that had happened for the last eight seasons a dream.

Looking back, I can't believe I used the phrasing "haunts me still". Urp.

posted by wendell 03 July | 17:01

If "Abyssinia, Henry" (YouTube parts one, two, and three) had been the series finale, M*A*S*H would've been the greatest show that could ever be on TV.

I have a message. Lieutenant Colonel... Henry Blake's plane... was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip just had a confusing series finale that improbably wrapped up multiple grim story lines that happened over a grueling five-episode story arc that covered maybe 12 hours of story time and didn't really have a lot of continuity with the rest of the show. It's like Sorkin just said "screw it, I'll do West Wing episodes" once the show got cancelled. I only kept watching out of affection for the cast and the misplaced hope Sorkin could do something good. Still, as one commenter said on the Television Without Pity forums, it beat the shit out of onion rings and Journey.

posted by kirkaracha 03 July | 19:17

so that entire hospital was inside of an autistic boy's snowglobe? Wait, what?

I don't think taking that literally is really in keeping with the obvious intent.

To me, it was more about how snowglobes snow for a while and then stop, every time, and how their job as producers and writers was to shake the snowglobe once a week for half a year for seven years. And a nudge to the viewers to not take it too seriously, because it's not like they were really geniuses.

TNG's "All Good Things..." was really far better than I ever expected it to be. For one thing, it made me appreciate "Encounter at Farpoint", which I had always hated. For another, I get a catch in my throat when Picard sees Tasha Yar again.

I did a scan of google results and found several board threads. Interesting that there isn't a lot of variation, and the same ones come up again and again.

posted by stilicho 03 July | 22:43

03 July 2007