Tuesday, May 21, 2019

And, For the Grand Finale...

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Close to 20 million people watched the finale of Game of Thrones and at least that many more who followed along casually had heard every detail of the conclusion to the eight-year saga by breakfast on Monday. Indeed, it was hard to avoid as people rioted in the streets took to Twitter and Facebook to express their amazement, agreement dismay or disgust. I don't want to rehash the many arguments about whether the ending was fitting or not (it wasn't; Sansa + Tyrion should have jointly ruled the kingdoms, Jon Snow should have been King in the North and Brienne and Tormund should have ridden off to adventures together) but it did put me in mind of some of the memorable series conclusions I've seen over the years, and how satisfying - or jaw gaping - they were.

First off, I have to acknowledge there are many, many TV series that never got a finale on the small screen because they were prematurely, unjustly yanked. (The other two of you in the US who watched Flash Forward will know what I'm talking about. Back in the sixties and seventies, even shows that knew they were ending  rarely capped the series - production companies had their eyes on valuable syndication rights, and didn't want to lose future audiences who, it was thought, wouldn't tune in if they knew how everything ended. (A similar theory still circulates in the publishing world: editors will tell you not to kill the main series characters off at the end for fear later readers won't start reading the beginning.

But starting in the eighties and increasing exponentially in the nineties, companies began tying a bow on their popular TV shows. Part of it was economic, as always - even flagging shows could pull a startling number of eyeballs for a last hurrah. For some series, everything was pulled together in a bittersweet and satisfying way that left you with a glow of contentment. For others, viewers found themselves saying, "What the @#$%did I just see?" after the closing credits.  Let's look at a few I remember:

1. M*A*S*H: After a run three and a half times longer than the actual Korean War, the doctors and staff of the MASH unit were discharged. Everyone who had ever been on the show appeared (at least in a photograph) and I sobbed my way through the entire second hour, not so much because I was going to miss Alan Alda, but because I used to watch it with my Mom and Grandma at Grandma's house and I was seeing the finale in my slightly crummy student apartment and I was never going to be a little kid perched on Grandma's enormous divan again.


You may have experienced this finale differently.

2. Mad Men: This was definitely a "What the heck?" ending. Don discovers EST? Did Don write the famous Coke song? The acme of Sally Draper's character arc is that she's cooking and cleaning and taking care of her younger brothers? (that really cheesed me off.) On the other hand, I really love the Coke song because it reminds me of my tween years, so overall, I gave this a thumbs up.


I promise not every episode will be viewed through the lens of how it made me feel about my childhood.

3. Quantum Leap. I sobbed at this one, too. After all his humane, wise, helpful adventures, Sam doesn't get to go home? He never goes home?!? But Dean Stockwell is still alive, thank God, so there's still a chance of a follow-up movie. We should start a write-in campaign. I hear Netflix is looking for projects.


Fun fact: I'm pretty sure my son was conceived the night this episode aired. Seeking comfort in adversity and all that. 

4. Newhart: The best absurdist ending ever pulled off in theater, TV or the cinema. After eight years of wacky adventures in a Vermont Inn (oh, how I loved Larry, Daryl and Daryl!) in the show's finale, Bob wakes up... in his New York apartment, sleeping next to his wife, Suzanne Pleshette. Bob's deadpan confusion, Suzanne's tolerant "All right, Bob," and the audience's enormous affection for The Bob Newhart Show makes this a slam-dunk.


5. St. Elsewhere: It's not an easy trick to pull, however, as shown in the baffling discovery that six years of drama, black humor and angst at the run-down Boston hospital actually all took place in the mind of an autistic kid holding a snow globe. Author John Scalzi has an excellent observation that the failure mode of clever is "asshole": this finale is living proof. It's a good thing this happened before the age of the internet, or the writers would have been hounded off social media for life.


6. The Sopranos: Love it or hate it, the ending of this ground-breaking crime show/family drama was singular and memorable, not so much for the way it completed hanging plot lines - it sort of did and sort of didn't -but for the last four minutes. Three of the four members of the Soprano family are sitting in a diner booth. The camera widens so we see a man walk into the restrooms. Two big guys approach the jukebox. The dialog is banal and the music is anything except suspenseful, but the tension is almost unbearable. The daughter, running late, crosses the road. We hear a ting as the diner door opens and...slam to black. 

The way writer/director David Chase set the scene is purely cinematic, but the ambiguous ending is very novelistic to me. A tricky choice that had lots of fans yelling, but it worked as art.

All right, dear readers, it's your turn. What are your favorite or infamous series finales?

89 comments:

  1. I imagine everyone has a different take on the endings of their favorite shows. I chuckled over the NEWHART ending and really liked the send-off for THE FUGITIVE . . . LOST tied up most of the loose ends, but I wasn’t a fan of that ending. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA had a reasonably good ending with the wandering folks settled on a planet to call home . . . .

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    1. I almost included BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, Joan. I liked the way they found Earth but didn't ignore the fact there were already intelligent hominids in place. I thought the epilogue was a little bit much, but overall, a satisfying conclusion.

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  2. Julia,

    I loved the endings of M*A*S*H*, Newhart and St. Elsewhere. Quantum Leap's end was good storywise but disappointing that Sam never got home. The rumored follow up movies that never happened had interesting ideas that made me want to watch them. (Sam's daughter becomes a leaper in search of her father was one of the storylines I read about)

    I hated the ending of the newer Battlestar Galactica series (an ending so bad that I will never watch any episode of the show again). The entire final season of How I Met Your Mother was an abomination, made that much worse by the actual final episode.

    As for the Game of Thrones finale, I thought it ended fine given how the last season developed. I want to see that Arya The Explorer series though. I would've been happier if the producers had done their job in a more competent fashion instead of rushing through everything because they wanted to be done with the show, but for what it was, the ending was fine.

    The Buffy the Vampire Slayer ending was great, the end of Star Trek Enterprise not so much. Cheers and Frasier both ended well. The end of 24 was not what I would've liked. Longmire ended well. The West Wing did too. The finales of NYPD Blue and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were good. The miniseries finale of Farscape was called The Peacekeeper Wars and I loved it.

    But my favorite series finale has to be for Babylon 5. That was perfectly done and I can't see how anyone can ever top that one.

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    1. B5 was the BEST series ending. I didn't include it because it's not as well known. Not all the Reds crew are as discerning as you and I...

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    2. It is indeed hard work being this damn awesome Julia, isn't it?

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  3. I agree with you, Julia, on the great endings you mentioned, and I think the winner is MASH, for pure brilliance, plus comedy mixed with pathos. Madmen and The Sopranos were great, getting their win in the form of unexpectedness. These three, plus Newhart, are the ones we talk about at dinner still.

    I'd like to give honorable mention to the original Rosanne series. That gran finale wasn't unlike Newhart, possibly an idea lifted straight from that show. But it was amusing.

    I have no opinion on the Game of Thrones, haven't never watched it. If I ever end up with a long convalescence from something I plan a binge watch though.

    Back to MASH: The chicken, the baby's cry, straight out of Leon Uris's EXODUS, a scene I can't forget after reading the book or seeing the movie or watching MASH.

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    1. Yeah, they really didn't pull any punches with MASH. Makes you realize that for all his comedic turns, Alan Alda is a fine dramatic actor.

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  4. Newhart was such a great ending, perfectly in keeping with the zaniness that marked Bob Newhart's shows. MASH was brilliant, and Quantum Leap made me cry, too, although no children were conceived that night :-) Another personal favorite was the ending of China Beach.

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    1. For some reason, I never saw China Beach, Flora, probably because it came on while I was in law school. I got VERY little TV watching done between matriculation and taking the bar exams!

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    2. Julia, the previews for China Beach caught my attention because the main character was a female nurse--that was unexpected.

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  5. MASH was always my favorite show and not just because I was in love with Alan Alda! I never missed a show. Except the last one! I was taking a graduate class and there were only 2 other students, neither of whom even watched the show, so I couldn't get that changed. This was in the days before everyone had a VCR although I had heard of them and tried to find a place that would rent me one. I couldn't. It was years before I was ever able to see that last episode and by then I guess it didn't even matter.

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    1. I've tried to tell my kids how different it was back when there weren't VCRs and tapes and on-demand streaming and YouTube. If you missed a show, you had maybe one chance to see it in summer reruns, and after that, you had to wait years until it came around again in syndication.

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  6. MASH, for so many reasons. I liked Covert Affairs with Annie, a CIA agent. It ended, without having an epic ending.

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    1. Margaret, I'm not sure if I remember correctly or not but I think the reason it didn't have an epic ending is because when they shot the finale, the show was still in the mix to return for another season.

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    2. There are any number of shows like that. Think of the original Star Wars - they never put a cap on that, and even when the cast grew too old for the movies, they just rebooted the whole thing. (And no, Jay, I don't think the Nexus in STAR TREK GENERATIONS counts!)

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    3. Julia,

      If by reboot you mean the three movies they made with Chris Pine as Kirk, the first two were just awful movies not worthy of the name Star Trek. At a Star Trek fan convention it actually finished below the non-Star Trek film Galaxy Quest in fan voting for all time favorite Star Trek films.

      The third one was actually really good but thankfully, that Trek is a separate universe so it can be ignored rather easily.

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  7. I was okay with the ending of "Game of Thrones". The season should have been a few episodes longer to completely develop the story arcs, as the motivations of characters weren't filled out.
    "Big Bang Theory also ended this week and its ending was completely charming. They hit all the right notes.
    One of the things about the binge-watching ability we now have, is that if the endings of a series aren't just right, I won't bother to watch any of the series. I heard about the disappointing ending of "How I met Your Mother" and decided to invest my time elsewhere.

    A couple of series besides "The Sopranos" and "Mash" I thought got it just right are "Justified", "Breaking Bad" and "The Shield".

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    1. Just my personal opinion, but you should give "How I Met Your Mother" a chance. The ending wasn't what we would have hoped, but it was a lot of seasons of pretty engaging TV.

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    2. The early seasons of How I Met Your Mother were great. The first Robin Sparkles episode was a real high point (Season 2 Episode 9, I believe).

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    3. Jackie, I've actually gone into series knowing I was only going to watch the first or second season. SLEEPY HOLLOW was great - for two seasons. I was okay stopping there.

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  8. this is such a good blog Julia--you're brilliant as usual! I never watched Game of Thrones, not a fan of science fiction or violence. But I'm in awe of how much attention it's gotten! The characters must have been so well drawn for people to be fighting over who has rights to the crown. I will go back and watch all these clips later today after I've written my quota of words! (and ps, how about Downton Abbey??)

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    1. Yes, DOWNTON ABBEY!! I'm so glad it's coming back as a movie. That's a story I wanted to see go on and on.

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    2. Downton Abbey's movie trailer was released today. (Check the official Downton Twitter account.) Also, Julian Fellowes has been answering fan questions this morning also via that Twitter account. I hope the movie can capture some of the magic of the early seasons of Downton. The last season and last episode were not high points for me of the show.

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  9. Oh, I loved Quantum Leap! ! My favorite. What about the ending of Mary Tyler Moore… When they close the newsroom door?
    I am still thinking about Game of Thrones… Even though the ending was not my favorite, I loved the show so much that it almost doesn’t matter.
    Breaking Bad Fantastic in every way.
    Endings are so difficult, aren’t they? Honestly, sometimes in my books I have thought: what if there’s just a bond that blows everybody up? Because I have no idea.
    So my writer heart goes out to the TV writers who must grapple with that.

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    1. When I was struggling with the ending of ONE WAS A SOLDIER, Ross suggested a meteor fly in and destroy Millers Kill. I pointed out that, while dramatic, it wasn't very satisfying and it would SEVERELY limit potential sequels...

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  10. The one that stands out to me for a bad finale was "Seinfeld." I just watched the finale of "Big Bang Theory" last night and I agree with Jackie -- it hit all the right notes.

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    1. Seinfeld was awful. They were going for the absurdist, breaking the fourth wall thing, and didn't succeed.

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  11. I haven't watched a single episode of GoT, but The Girl says the writing, especially this past season, is definitely off. I need to ask her opinion of the finale.

    If "Babylon 5" had ended after Season 4, I'd say that was a good ending. The writers heard they were getting yanked after four seasons, not five, so they wrapped everything up. But then "hey presto" they got their fifth season and, um, well it was anticlimactic for me.

    I thought "Longmire" and Buffy had a good endings.

    Add "Firefly" to the list of shows that were robbed of their ending. They tried their best in the movie, "Serenity," but I'm sure it would have been better if Joss Whedon had been allowed to finish as he'd planned.

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    1. Liz,

      The Babylon 5 final episode was actually shot at the end of the fourth episode, but when the show got renewed, they didn't air it until the end of that fifth season. It was as the creator J. Michael Straczynski (who wrote most of the series himself) intended, a five year novel for television.

      Huge Firefly fan here, but since it was cancelled after 1 season, I don't know that it got "robbed" of a finale. And I loved Serenity. It condensed the ending Whedon planned sure, but it was, as I've read, how the story was intended to play out.

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    2. Sorry, I meant to say end of the fourth SEASON!

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    3. I was thinking of FIREFLY when I wrote about series that never got to have an end. Although I do think Whedon did an excellent job with the SERENITY movie - it's difficult to both deliver a compelling story and wrap up dangling plot questions AND leave the characters in a place that seems right and satisfies the viewers (I mistyped "readers" for that at first, which tells you how I think of Whedon's work.)

      Even the bad thing that happened SOB fit well and made sense for both the character and the story.

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    4. By the way, the Firefly story has continued in both comic book form and recently two prose novels.

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  12. MASH - best ever. Still, after all these years. Bob Newhart - brilliant of course. Mary Tyler Moore excellent. Recent Big Bang was very satisfying- I'm going to miss that show.

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    1. I've never followed BIG BANG THEORY and I've heard so many great things about its final season I've decided to stream it.

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    2. The Big Bang Theory, for the length of its 12 seasons was remarkably consistent. There was only one season where I thought they just weren't all that funny. But there are so many episodes that are a laugh riot that you will probably bust a gut laughing.

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  13. Star Trek Enterprise agree with Jay, but like it less. I didn't want to watch another Next Generation wanted to watch the characters bow out of Enterprise. Burn Notice - I hung in for all 7 seasons, and liked that Michael and Fi got a happy ending. Didn't and won't watch Game of Thrones, agree that MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, and Newhart did it right. I think Lemonny Snickets kids falling off the cliff, with the series then ending (gasp!) is the ultimate cliff hanger.

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    1. Coralee,

      The prose novel series from Pocketbooks I believe did a much better job of providing both an ending and continuation of Star Trek Enterprise than the TV show ever could've thought up.

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    2. Indeed, I loved that Trip lived on as a spy (a future Michael from Burn notice?) Hate what they have done to the Julian Bashier character tho.

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    3. Coralee,

      So you read the prose books too? Awesome. I'm behind in my reading of them but I've got them in a stack to catch up on as I can. And yes, it wasn't great what they did to Julian but his actions do kind of fit his character.

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    4. Off the subject, but have you two been watching THE ORVILLE? If you haven't, you must. You'll love it - it's like something Gene Roddenberry would have produced if he'd been born in the 1970s.

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    5. I have not been watching The Orville. I can't stand Seth McFarlane for some reason.

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    6. Oh my gosh, we LOVE The Orville!!!! I hope it gets another season!!

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    7. Deborah,

      It was renewed for another season. Last week was the Upfronts week for the networks where they announce their planned fall schedules and Fox had that show renewed right quick.

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    8. Yay, thanks, Jay!! So glad to hear this!

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  14. Mad Men's last episode was truly bizarre. And ambiguous. It didn't feel satisfying to me.

    I don't really remember the ending to MASH, but honestly, I rarely watch TV at all, let alone every season to the bitter end. The only reason I watched Mad Men was because I was stuck in a chair with broken ribs for three weeks. Damn horse.

    Julia, to your point about some shows just ending, does anyone else remember the show Yellow Rose? It starred Cybill Shepherd and Sam Elliott, living on a ranch in Texas, and I WAS riveted to that one, but it ended with no resolution at all. Such a disappointment.

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    1. Karen, Yellow Rose was well done--what's not to like with Sam Elliott?! But, yeah, no resolution.

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    2. I could do a whole other blog on shows we'd like to see come back, if only to resolve the never-addresses hanging plot lines. Plus, we just plain need more Sam Elliott in our lives.

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    3. Karen, sorry to hear about your broken ribs. Hope you have recovered by now.

      Diana

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  15. Cannot believe I have forgotten so many finales to various tv shows! I remember the MAD men finale. I had forgotten about Sally. I thought she ran away? I remember Don Draper discovering EST and staying at Big Sur (Esalen ?).

    I have seen some on the shows you mentioned, though I had forgotten the finales. How about Murphy Brown or Friends?

    Loved these series. These days I watch tv series on PBS or streaming tv. I think Murphy Brown is the only show I watch on a channel that is not cable nor pbs now. Yes, they brought back Murphy Brown this year! Once in a while I would watch a show on the Hallmark Channel or starz channel.

    After seeing an episode of GOT from the first year, I did not like how the women were treated so I stopped watching GOT. Sorry if some of you love GOT.

    Diana

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    1. I was happy when they announced Murphy Brown was being brought back. Unfortunately for me, I found that the show forgot to bring the funny. CBS will not be giving it a 2nd comeback season.

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    2. Jay, I see what you mean. The times have changed. Some of my favorite characters are no longer on the series. Believe it or not, Murphy Brown was still better than the other shows I've seen recently.

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    3. Diana, no apoligies needed. I've had a love/hate relationship with GOT all along. If you enjoy alternate historical fiction/fantasy, I encourage you to start reading the books. They're very un-Tolkien like, and the women come across much better, in most cases.

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    4. Julia, thanks! I figured that the books were better! I have seen Tolkien movies and I have nor read the books either. I am going to remedy that soon. Adding Tolkien novels and Game of Thrones novels to my reading list.

      Diana

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  16. You nailed it, Julia! Newhart’s ending was my favorite of all time! And I loved, loved, loved Quantum Leap. I thought The Sopranos ending was brilliant. But GOT felt so rushed and unsatisfying. I’m surprised they were so half assed about a show that is such a global sensation - it just proves the old adage that the book is always better, you know, if GRRM would ever actually finish the book.

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    1. If we could only cross GRRM with you, Jenn, we'd have the completed SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series, all of the Dunk and Egg stories and novellettes, and be four books into the ARYA, WANDERER series!

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    2. Jenn,

      Considering Martin is TWO books from finishing the series, I doubt readers will ever see the end of the book series. That's okay by me, for all its faults, the TV series is MY Game of Thrones.

      I would love an Arya, Wanderer TV series though.

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  17. If I may be picky, the brilliant "Newhart" ending took place in their Chicago apartment, not New York. But yeah, I loved it.

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    1. Oops! Right you are to be picky! Thank you, anonymous stranger!

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  18. I remember the happy shock at the end of Newhart, it was perfect. Big Bang closed everything up nicely. I remember MASH as a after thought, didn't see it when it originally aired. Mom didn't understand what had happened to Hawkeye during the beginning. I loved the helicopter lifting off at the end. I don't seem to remember a lot of endings, maybe I blocked them out.

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    1. Maybe you prefer happy beginnings, Deana!

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  19. We only watched Season 1 of GoT. Now I'm wondering if we should go back and binge watch? Opinions, please!

    This has made me realize how little TV I actually watch, sigh. I did love the ending of MASH, and Newhart. And Buffy.

    ER, which was maybe my favorite all-time series, did a lovely job with the final two episodes. The X-Files? Hmmm. It was the X-Files. Nothing every totally made sense, but I loved it anyway.

    My candidate for most-disappointing ending after hours invested--Lost.

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    1. LOST for me was like GOT for you - I saw the first series and then dropped it. After reading about the narrative debacle that was the finale, I was glad I hadn't kept up.

      I would say, give GOT another try. The real problem with the ending is, as several commenters have said here, that it was rushed. If the producers/directors had given in another two hours of story time, I don't think anyone would have complained. As it is, it's like how my novels always look before any editing, when I write the last 8-10K words in a furious rush to get it done. I always have to do a lot of rewriting and usually insert another 3K words to make sense of everything. I think the GOT team could have used my editor.

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    2. Deborah, these days I rarely watch TV because I do not have the patience to watch commercials on tv, though I confess that I watch Hallmark movies once in a while.

      Diana

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  20. The most recent ones I can remember are "Longmire" which I did not like the ending because he ended up with his deputy and I don't think they were a good match, and "The Last Ship" which left you thinking they were just going on to another mission. Both of those shows had great writing, and I loved the characters - kind of like a good book series!

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    1. Pauline, I love the Longmire books so much, I never dared the series. Have you read any of the novels, and does the TV show hold up?

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    2. As for Longmire, the show was enjoyable but has little to do with the books. I love the books! You have to approach it as the show is a totally different animal from the book. I found it to have way too much angst and anger. Walt just isn't that way. Bones was also radically different from the books.

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    3. I didn't read the Longmire books. I agree with Pat the show was full of angst! But I loved the characters so much and it reminded me a lot of where I grew up.

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  21. So much sturm und drang over the ending of a tv show... I do watch tv but I guess I don't get invested in series because I don't remember any of these series endings. I did watch RUSSIAN DOLL and the SEASON ending was absolutely brilliant. Can't wait to see what they do for an encore. Also THE GOOD PLACE has had consistently excellent (and surprising) season endings. It does seem as if television these days is obsessed with death. I'm sure I saw the ending of The Good Wife but if memory serves, it seemed more like a vehicle to set up Christine Baranski and The Good Fight spinoff.

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    1. As TV shows more and more resemble novels (with long story arcs and changing and evolving characters) I see the season endings serving as chapter endings. Wrap up the business of the chapter, set the characters up for the next "scene" and hopefully leave a little sting that makes the reader turn the page quickly.

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  22. I thought Newhart's ending was brilliant. I loved the broad wink to Dallas with the dream bit. Justified wrapped up things pretty well, ending where it began. What a charmer Raylan was. I'm still processing GOT ending. I never saw all of the seasons, so I think I'll binge and see what I can pick up that may put things into better perspective. I still think Jon Snow got screwed over. I never saw the end for Quantum Leap, so thank you Julia! I just saw the trailer for the Downton Abbey movie, so hooray! It ain't over til it's over.

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    1. Going to find the DOWNTON ABBEY trailer right now!

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  23. Perhaps no one will remember, but the worst series ender was Blake's 7.

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    1. The original British series? I've heard it cited as ground-breaking TV SF, but never saw it.

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  24. Thanks for sharing such information with us, The Fate and Furious Deckard Shaw Jacket It was so nice to know about this all.

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  25. Shout out to John Scalzi (see number 5) for an accurate description of a failed "clever."

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  26. The excitement surrounding the final episode of Game of Thrones reminded me most of the vibe around the finale of MASH.

    As for lousy finales, I guess I'm the only Dexter fan here. That was a crazy awful final episode. Good grief. There was a hurricane and a lumberjack. Kind of sounds like Tyrion's favorite story but without the sporting house.

    Like Firefly, Space: Above & Beyond didn't get an ending, even though its first season ended in a cliffhanger.

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    1. So frustrating! I think that's why fanfic was invented - to correct dumb cancellations.

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  27. As Joan said, The Fugitive. It was probably the first ever series ending with a real ending, at a time when there was no possible way of seeing it on your own time. No VCRs, no internet. You saw it that night, booked off sick, stayed home from your own wedding, or you were lost (might catch it reruns months later, but that would be pathetic).

    And it was a Good Ending. August 29, 1967. The Day the Fugitive Stopped Running.

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    1. I didn't see it in the original, Susan, but I remember reading later about what a splash it made - a TV series that had an actual END to its storyline!

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  28. Besides some of those already mentioned, the only other endings I sort of
    remember liking were Cheers, Frasier, and Friends. I do recall Seinfeld
    "jumped the shark" for me.

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    1. I almost mentioned the infamous "Fonzie jumping the shark" episode as an example of a show that went on WAY longer than it ought to have!

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  29. I agree on the great endings to MASH, Mary Tyler Moore and Newhart. But I have one correction: Bob Newhart's apartment from his first show was in Chicago, not New York. Newhart was actually from Chicago and his entire show was based there.

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    1. Whoops! My bad - I should have looked it up.

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  30. Worst series finale: LOST. Best: MAD MAN. Why? Because it was true to character. My dad was a Mad Man and I grew up like Sally Draper. (Although my dad was monogamous and not a total alcoholic.) My dad worked until the day he died. Literally. We have a photo of him at an event the night before. Don may have been a hot mess and a total f-k up but at the end of the day, what he was was an ad man. He went back to work, said, I've got the campaign, and it would have been like he never left.

    Sidebar: I was working on a show that shot on the Mad Man lot and my TV writing partner and I used to sneak on the set and wander around until security threw us out. It was like being in a time capsule from my childhood.

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    1. Ellen, that's one of the things I loved about that show. Every set, I swear I would see some piece of furniture or decorative accessory my parents had owned when I was a kid. Sally and I had the SAME quilted bathrobe/housecoat!

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  31. I know I'm in the minority, but I don't care for the NEWHART finale. I get why it is funny. I get why people love it so much. But I am a much bigger fan of NEWHART than I am of THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, so I don't want the cast and characters of NEWHART to just be a dream.

    I'm also surprised to see people talking about the ending of BUFFY being great. Honestly, I thought the last two seasons of the show were awful. The only good episode in those last two seasons was the musical. The finale left too much up in the air, although it wasn't nearly as bad as ANGEL. Between that and SERENITY (I count that as the finale of FIREFLY), I gave up on Joss Whedon. He has great beginnings and fun characters, but he doesn't know how to end a series.

    I certainly agree that LOST had a horrible finale. And as much as I love the show CHUCK, I thought it's finally was very disappointing. Especially since the writers knew it was going to be the real true finale and left us with that after crafting so many good finales along the way. (The show kept getting last minute reprieves until that final season when they were told this is it, no more reprieves.)

    Shows that had good endings? I absolutely agree about the MARY TYLER MOORE show. That's a classic. I also love the finale of FRIENDS. And I absolutely loved the ending last week of BIG BANG THEORY. Another great one is BABYLON 5, which I still consider my favorite TV show of all time. I really enjoyed the ending of ROYAL PAINS as well.

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    1. Mark, between you, me and Jay, we have a serious B5 fan club going on at JRW.

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