Series Finales

Films, TV shows, and books of the 'modern' era
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movieman1957
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Series Finales

Post by movieman1957 »

With so many shows ending their terms and understanding that tv series didn't really have the kind of wrap up episodes until probably the 70s I wondered what were some of your favorite finales and some of the worst. I don't remember too many of the bad ones but several were quite memorable.

The recent finale for "Justified" was quite satisfying. (I doubt it will make a best list but enjoying the show as I did I thought it worked well.) Among the more famous (and enjoyable for me) were.....

MASH (too long but well done.)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I didn't get to see it the night it aired but caught it later.
Newhart - I think maybe among the most inspired moments in television came in that last two minutes. All that came before was pretty good too.

Never having seen "Breaking Bad" or "The Sopranos" or "Mad Men" (never mind "Seinfeld" or "Friends" as I didn't find them funny) I'll leave the those to the rest of you.
Chris

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Re: Series Finales

Post by RedRiver »

CHEERS was a good one. I heard BARNEY MILLER was good. Didn't see it. I was disappointed in MASH. It had once been my favorite show; for a while anyway. Later seasons failed to maintain that high quality. The finale re-hashed several plot elements from previous stories. Sent one character away, then brought him back. Featured a lot of talk about whether to say goodbye and how to do it. I didn't mind Hawkeye going crazy. But even that did nothing speed up the pace.

The one thing I really liked was Klinger's decision to stay in Korea! He'd fallen in love and married a national. Of all people to choose NOT to go home...Klinger? I'd like to know how HILL STREET BLUES and ST. ELSEWHERE wrapped up. Those were good shows. But I was working an evening shift at that time, and never watched TV before midnight!

Letterman's farewell show was downright tedious. You can't expect much from a talk show, but please...
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movieman1957
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Re: Series Finales

Post by movieman1957 »

I was not a big fan of "St Elsewhere" but I did hear about the ending and it is certainly an interesting way for it to have ended. (There is probably a Youtube thing on it.) I don't know enough about the characters and to mention what little I know might be wrong.
Chris

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Re: Series Finales

Post by Professional Tourist »

I thought Frasier had a nice series finale.

Likewise for Northern Exposure, which seemed to have two finales, one when Dr. Fleischman left, and another at the end of that last season.

The Waltons didn't really have a finale at the end of its ninth and final season, but the last episode of season seven could have worked very well to wrap up the series.
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Re: Series Finales

Post by Lzcutter »

I really liked the finale to Mad Men and wrote about it in the 2014 TV shows thread. I know some folks who have voiced dislike with the it but I thought it stayed true to Don and the characters.

My favorite series finale is probably Six Feet Under which came off a few wobbly seasons (another show that stayed too long at the fair as I like to say) to end on the perfect grace not with Claire in command of her future and then we see in the final minutes how the characters lives play out.

Another favorite was Breaking Bad which also ended the way I was hoping it would end. Don't want to say too much more than that in case folks want to go back and binge watch it in the future.

Series finales are tough to do. They walk a very thin line that can quickly turn to unbelievablity or schmaltzy on the turn of a dime. Very few go out in ways that make the viewers happy to have been on the ride.

But the ones that do that, here's to them for achieving the top of the pyramid.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: Series Finales

Post by Rita Hayworth »

M*A*S*H Finale
Goodbye, Farewell, Ahem


From Wikipedia:

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen is a television movie that served as the 256th and final episode of the M*A*S*H television series. Closing out the series' eleventh season, the 2½-hour episode first aired on CBS on February 28, 1983. Written by a large number of collaborators, including series star Alan Alda, who also directed ...

I've cried so hard when it's came on for the 1st time when this 150 Minute Episode came on air and I was sadden by the joy of this beloved series came to the close in it's 11th season and it's was a beautiful written show and I remembered like it was yesterday. I just loved the last 30 minutes of the Show - Sergeant Klinger's Wedding to Soon-Lee was priceless and with full of joy and emotions and most of all a startling twist of fate for him. Everything about it was serene and Winchester encounters with the Chinese Men was Excellent with their taste of music.

Those were the highlights of the show - the Breakdown of the Camp was unreal, the closing of the SWAMP of which Hawkeye resides for 11 years was taken down - so many great memories in that hut.

I have the DVD that I got from Amazon recently and I cried all over again and I felt that 150 minute show was just right and most of all - I just loved the respect of Hawkeye and B.J. to Colonel Potter and his last ride of his beloved horse Sophie.

The finale of M*A*S*H is one of the best of the best that I've seen ...
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Re: Series Finales

Post by RedRiver »

LZ Cutter, I'll respond on the TV SHOWS thread. Anybody who hasn't seen MAD MEN by now probably won't care about spoilers!
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Re: Series Finales

Post by Lzcutter »

OMG!!

How could I forget one of my favorites!

The series finale to Lost!

I loved the show the first season and then after that, it started to go off the rails. It started to become the same old, same old.

They introduced a new character, Ben Linus (a wonderful actor, Michael Emerson) and that character held my interest.

But Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse did the totally unexpected- they set an end date for the show and after the season 3 season finale (which was great), Through the Looking Glass, the show improved dramatically.

It suddenly found its footing again and dramatically became the show that the first season had promised.

Though the last season was a bit hit and miss, the series finale was one of those touchstone moments in the internet.

You either loved it or hated it.

I love it and wrote about my love for the show here:

http://silverscreenoasis.com/oasis3/vie ... iet#p65966

I binge watched the show during my tenure in San Francisco and realized just how much it all circled back and all the homages to all that had come before.

It is one of my favorites and always will be.

And the soundtrack across all the seasons by Michael Giacchino is a work of art!
Lynn in Lake Balboa

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Re: Series Finales

Post by rohanaka »

Several really good ones have already been mentioned. I especially loved the Newhart one too. COMPLETELY unexpected.

Two that stand out for me: Magnum PI (wow.. what a grueling lead up w/ the those last few episodes) and I also really enjoyed pretty much the whole last season (and the last several episodes) of The Closer too. It was a great way to wrap up things for Brenda's character AND lead into the new spin off series Major Crimes. Even if it was hard to see Brenda Leigh go.. It was a "win-win" sort of ending.
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Re: Series Finales

Post by RedRiver »

The St. Elsewhere finale was a disaster, in my opinion. Apparently the entire show had been in the imagination of an autistic boy

You're serious, King Rat? This is not April Fools Day? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! People made fun of DALLAS for attributing one season to a dream. The entire series? That's ridiculous. I probably did hear about this many years ago. I don't see how I could have missed it. In any case, it's still preposterous!
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Re: Series Finales

Post by movieman1957 »

He's right.
Chris

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Re: Series Finales

Post by mrsl »

,
I couldn't believe the final show of Dave Letterman. During his entire tenure he did and allowed crazy and wonderful things. I expected a re-hash of some of the more nutsy moments, like some of the kid scientists (they pulled some good ones), and NO WILD ANIMALS!%? I really looked forward to that so-called hunter who barely knew any facts about the animals he brought on. To dig back 30 years, I'm sure they could have found some real knee slappers that some of us had never seen. In the beginning his list of ten was always sharp and on edge but this final one was like taking a sleeping pill - actually the whole show was.

I agree with Rohanaka that the final Newhart was brilliant, and such a shock, it will forever stand out as the best of the best. After 5 years or whatever it was with Fran, to end up with the Glorious Suzanne Pleshette was award worthy.
Anne


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Re: Series Finales

Post by Professional Tourist »

I had started binge-watching The Good Wife a few months ago, and then watched the last few episodes of the seventh and final season in 'real time'.

Although the fans were advised in advance that not everything would be 'tied up in a bow' and that some would love while others would hate the ending, I found that there was no real 'ending' at all. For the most part it unfolded like a typical season-ending cliffhanger episode, rather than a series-end. Only one big issue came to a conclusion -- everything else was open-ended, leaving the viewers to speculate or guess at what they think most likely to happen to these characters.

I wasn't looking for happy endings for everyone or every situation, but I would have preferred if the writers had brought most of the story-lines to some sort of conclusion, happy or otherwise. I think that's part of their job, and they basically shirked it.

Perhaps they wanted to keep things open-ended for spin-off potential, and there is some talk of a spin-off series for Christine Baranski's 'Diane Lockhart' character, but to my thinking, and as the australians would say, that is not 'fair dinkum'. :x
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Re: Series Finales

Post by CinemaInternational »

Bring this thread out from the dead files because I am rapidly approaching the notorious finale of St. Elsewhere, which I have been watching all week long on Hulu (I had started the show a while back and wanted to finish it beginning again halfway through season 3....although I have already known about the maddening final scene of season 6 for years).

Kingrat, I can honestly say that I'm not too keen on the "it was all in the boy's imagination" idea already , and will likely dislike it even more when I get to it. Like you said, it made little sense coming from a show that covered AIDS, transgenderism, rape (including the prison variety), murder, euthanasia, suicide, abortion, and sundry other provocative topics throughout its run. I have heard that the finale truly polarized the cast, and one of the show's writers later walked it back by having Alfre Woodard replay her Elsewhere character in a 1998 guest spot on one of his later shows Homicide:Life on the Streets. I have read where Elsewhere's final scene was conceived as a sort of revenge/middle finger to NBC, as the show spent its entire run on the edge of the cancellation bubble and because the network execs frequently tried to meddle with the show. It had actually been cancelled briefly after its first season, and despite a soap-like cliffhanger moment at the end of the penultimate season, the finale that year had such a degree of finality that it felt as though NBC was planning on cancelling it then. (And with the final season starting with Ed Flanders becoming a recurring player, a newly refurbished set, and cast members David Morse and Cindy Pickett sporting different hairstyles than they had on the rest of the show, it does seem as if that last renewal was a surprise decision.) It still seems a shame though for such a great series to end like that just because of pettiness, although admittedly the show was growing increasingly surrealistic in its last two years on the air. I do feel as though its final antic cost it the Emmy for Best Drama Series that final year, which I have a hunch it might have won otherwise.


As for other series, endings can mean different things.

Newhart's also had the dream finish, but there it was funny, clever, and very appropriate.

The Golden Girls had a very fitting, and rather emotional close, and the same can be said for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Frasier.

The Waltons finale did feel somewhat conclusive in a way, even without Ralph Waite or Michael Learned, but that season closer two years earlier felt like the ideal capstone.

Moonlighting took a very metaphysical approach with the characters running around trying to get it renewed so they could live longer. An interesting idea, but rather a depressing end.

Charlie's Angels and That Girl both had the misfortune of ending with those infamous "clips from earlier episodes" shows. China Beach ended with a partial clip show (the result of a last minute decision to expand the finale to 2 hours), but the surrounding plot thread was exceptional and emotional enough to make it worthwhile

Dynasty's final episode was good, but unfortunately the writers mistakenly thought they would be renewed, and ended on a triple cliffhanger. Whoops.

Falcon Crest had Jane Wyman write her own final soliloquy, and it was a smooth end to a very rough final period for the show.

Knots Landing had a perfect 2 hour finale that did just what it should have done and needed to do (and had some very emotional material when it was revealed that the Joan Van Ark character, presumed dead for most of that season was very much alive), and another primetime soap that ended that year, Homefront, wrapped all its plot threads up neatly.

Twin Peaks' original run had one of the most disturbing endings, filled with bizarre, unnerving spectacles. It left a pretty bad taste behind.

Thirtysomething finished with a good episode with a degree of finality with characters moving away from the main city on the show, but the ending wasn't quite what the writers originally planned, thanks to MGM putting out a cease and desist order when they disapproved of the original script.

Desperate Housewives had a very good ending, but it was botched by an unnecessary final beat that wasn't needed.

Peyton Place had one of the most inconclusive. ABC shut production down because the ratings were bleeding out, but it never resolved its last major plotline with one of its main characters in jail for a murder he did not commit, and ended with a shot of him in the cell. ABC should have just bitten the bullet and given it a few more episodes to wrap things up.

Scarecrow and Mrs King on the other hand reached its natural terminus 4 or 5 episodes before it actually ended.

Designing Women (on two seasons too long anyway) had the worst finale, a distressingly unfunny affair that beached its cast without anything to work with.

Murder She Wrote ended with an episode that could have been done at any other point, but the final TV movie done after the show ended closed with the image of a celebratory toast, which felt appropriate.

Columbo (which was on and off again for years) ended in 2003 with a by then aged Peter Falk investigating murders in a youthful LA nightclub with strobe lights, youthful partiers, and techno beats. It was a very awkward generational clash, with Falk far outclassing his tacky surroundings, with the added irony of both killers in the episode being born after Falk originally started playing the role in 1968.
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