Comments on: Best Endings

By: paperboy

paperboy — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:38:48 +0000

DPWally#70- I got to “Cheers” late, so I think of Kirstie more than Shelley, but Sam’s “We’re closed now” last line ranks with Chloe O’Brien’s “Shut it down” for “24″. (by which I mean “high”)

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:35:57 +0000

Tami, as far as I was concerned, E.R. did end with the episode where the helicopter crashed.

Powers, keep in mind that Adult Teena (PostTeena?) seems to be shown in a family photo. It’s my experience that looking Stepfordish in a family photo is a best-case scenario.

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:30:19 +0000

Well of course, DPWally, there are two types of shows: for episodic shows like Cheers, it’s appropriate for their world to go on without us. I think the Cheers finale worked well in that regard: there were some changes; but if we looked in on them a year later, we’d still know the place.

If a series is conceived as a single storyline, like Lost, then the finale should be the end of the story. If you can’t wrap things up in the finale, then you did it wrong. Simple as that, it’s just plain bad writing.

By: DPWally

DPWally — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:23:15 +0000

David #17: The Cheers finale didn’t work for me. They brought back Diane, which seemed like a good idea, but apparently didn’t bring back writers who knew how to write for the character. Shelley Long’s acting skills had declined in her non-Cheers years. So the personal feuds and tension and snappy dialog was missing, all they had was a Diane-shaped space.

Maybe younger viewers were less familiar with the show’s Diane period, that would explain David’s observation.

I like the idea of a finale that says most things will continue as usual tomorrow, the characters don’t have to change just because we’re not watching them. But I was very annoyed that the characters sat down in front of the camera and said basically “Most things will continue as usual tomorrow, we don’t have to change just because the audience isn’t watching”. Even a voiceover “and they lived happily ever after” would have been less insulting to the viewers’ intelligence.

By: DPWally

DPWally — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:12:12 +0000

The “Rosanne” series finale was very well done and impressively counter-formula. Unfortunately I, and probably the rest of the planet, didn’t see it in first run because the last season was so awful after the family won the lottery. The finale makes the entire series Rosanne Conner’s memoirs of her family, then reveals which things she changed. Some were amusing, like swapping her daughters’ husbands because she liked it better that way. The last (awful) season is her fantasy replacement for tragedy.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:34:25 +0000

BOT @38: I loved the Simpsons Series finale where professor frink discovers cold fusion and is forced to sell it to Mr. Burns for a huge pile of money. Then Homer somehow triggers a meltdown at the nuclear power plant destroying the town and everybody in it.

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Thu, 27 May 2010 02:09:55 +0000

Craig, remember that Babylon 5’s fifth season finale was actually written to be the fourth season finale; so if you mercifully eliminate the fifth season and plug in the finale where it should have been, all’s good.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:51:50 +0000

Bill @65 … Well all they had to go with is “You didn’t expect to have EVERYTHING explained, did you ?” BWAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAA

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:43:27 +0000

The problem is, they were still adding “random crap” this season. I figured at least once they had the endgame in sight, they’d jettison the meaningless stuff and focus on what was going to matter.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:34:44 +0000

Patrick @59 … some might say that explanation was the same as no explanation. Still I have to admit they did explain the polar bear.

Bill @29 .. I didn’t realize our opinion of the show was so similar. It is really nice to find out that someone else thinks that at least the first few seasons were just random crap that didn’t really mean anything. I wonder if the writers thought the show would never last so they felt they could do anything because they would never have to explain it.