Best series finales

Not sure if makes a top 10, but not wanting to copy everyone else so I'll throw out there Magnum P.I.

Funny, thinking about it, most shows don't get a shot at a series finale.

 

As a Trekkie who has watched all the shows but owns no merchandise or has ever dressed as a character, I agree that the Deep Space 9 and Next Generation finales were excellent.

The Voyager finale is on right now (thank you, Spike TV) and today is the first time I've seen it since it aired. It's also very, very good, but they wrapped up way too much in the final 15 minutes.

Voyager, like the other two shows, got much better after a few years. Jeri Ryan had a lot to do with that, but the plots improved, too.

 

Can't believe no one mentioned the end of St. Elsewhere where it turns out the entire series took place inside a snow globe and its characters were all part of the imagination of an autistic child who held the globe in his hand.

 

Right, it was a two-parter. The Tuesday was in fact the date mentioned in the closing narration, as Kimble walked out of court a free man at last - "Tuesday, August 29 - the day the running stopped."

Supposedly the producers had wanted the show to keep going but David Janssen was just too worn out. From what I've read, he worked upwards of 60 hours a week in order to produce 30 one-hour episodes in each season (today's shows produce 22 per season, on average).

He appeared in pretty much every scene of every episode and it must have been incredibly taxing. If he were working like that today he'd be getting $5 million per episode and be worth every penny. Unfortunately, all Janssen got was old before his time - he never even won an Emmy Award - and he was dead at 48 (although he looked a fuck of a lot older than that by the end).

 

Yeah, that was some pretty dumbass shit.

I liked the final scene of NYPD Blue. After all the tragedy Sipowicz had gone through [enough so that Job would've felt sorry for Andy] the show ended with him at his desk, finishing a report on some collar. I thought the message was simple, but effective--this is who he is and this is who he'll continue to be, a cop.

Charmed had a dumbass finale where the three gave themselves totally different faces so nobody would hassle them anymore. The show had sucked for years anyway since Shannen Doherty left. SD being a witch is still a great job of casting.

 

Well, it wasn't much of a stretch for her, we'll say that.

 

The Happy Days finale was fair-to-good, not great, and could have done without Tom Bosley (Mr. Cunningham) toasting the audience in the final scene.

Agree that the Cheers, ST Next Generation, and ST Voyager finales are up there.

Mixed on the MASH finale... I loved the show, but thought Alda overacted with Hawkeye's crying breakdowns. In short, it was a solid finale, but short on the laughs that MASH is best known for and too much time on the war is hell message.

 

Agreed. My only problem with The Next Generation finale was that it wasn't really the finale because of the movies, but it had a big enough story and the kind of small character moments a finale of an action series like that needs.

Deep Space Nine was excellent in that they had the "goodbye" moment with the main cast all together in the bar that would have been the ending on many shows. But they follow that up with Sisko sacrificing himself to stop Dukat in the Fire Caves (there was a lot more to it, more than we need to get into here). No neat and tidy happy endings.

 

I agree it was better than any of the episodes in "Dawson in LA, Joey at Worthington years" (mostly because Williamson came back to direct it I believe), but I just didn't like the whole fast-forward five years part.

It was information overload in my opinion ...
- Hey, remember when Pacey was always cracking jokes on his brother about his sexuality... wouldn't it be great if we made Pacey's brother actually gay. Even better, let's have him dating Jack! But let's not have him out of the closet.
- We'll make Jen a single mother struggling to get by, because that's what we always expected to happen to Jen. And we'll give her a terminal illness ... because we need to kill off the best character on the show. I will admit ... it got dusty in the room when Grams said to Jen, "I'll see you soon, my child," just after she passed.

At least they got the Pacey-Joey pairing right for good. The best year of that show was the slow build-up between those two, then the tension between Dawson and Pacey shortly thereafter.

You're the doodoo head ... doodoo head.

 

Yeah, I heard about how that went down as well ... but for some reason I enjoyed the simplicity of how it ended and the revelations from the narration:
- Wayne takes over the furniture plant (or whatever it was) ...
- Shortly after Jack passes away
- Kevin greeting Winnie at the airport on her return .... with his wife and children.

Then having his son saying, "Dad, want to play catch?" ....... outstanding wrap on the story.

 

I quite enjoyed the O.C. finale this year. Liked the idea of saying 'Hey, after four years of putting these people through everything you can imagine, they're going to be ok.'
West Wing was very good, but should have been two hours. Was very, very dusty in my living room when Bartlett gave Charlie the bible.
I liked the idea of Seinfeld, but the expectations were so big it could never match them.
I think in Wonder Years they actually had Daniel Stern come in and lay down that voice-over the last montage, which was just supposed to be the season finale shot with music dubbed in. I remember watching Mrs. Arnold absolutely bawl about it a year or two ago on Vh1.

 

what... no comments besides mine on the Happy Days finale?
Yes, the series jumped the shark when Fonzie did (or when they had Fonzie become a teacher).. but the series finale brought everyone back together for a happily ever after ending.. or so we thought until Joannie Loves Chacci came out.