Best & Worst Endings to TV Series

[cd637299]

@kirkiefan---

I agree about Bullwinkle. As much as I loved the later more-breaking-the-fourth-wall episodes (and better animated as well), when I saw the final storyline on VHS a few years ago, it was creepy, the implication that Boris was "no more."

(Also, the final dialogue between Rocky & Bullwinkle made no sense to me. I must have missed something there.)

That being said....weren't there other storylines that implied "the end" for Boris & Natasha? For example, there's the one where they are plummeting off a cliff in a car (where Natasha finally tells Boris to "Sharrup your mouth!")...........There had to be a plan to continue the series in reruns, and Boris/Natasha would certainly have to be "alive" for that to happen....

Maybe I am reading too too too much into this.

cd

 

[TexasTom]

Worst Ending:

Quantum Leap -- they had already filmed the cliffhanger for the season end when they got the word that the show was cancelled, so the producers simply added a voice over that that Sam leapt away, never to be heard from again.

Star Trek: Enterprise -- It was a holodeck episode; talk about a weak ending.

Best Ending:

Dinosaurs -- the final episode has the dinosaur civilization triggering an ice age. It was depressing but powerful: what better way to end a series than with total extinction?

 

[onairb]

A number of long-running sitcoms ended in 1992. 'Who's the Boss?', as mentioned, had a disappointing 'let's start all over' finish. 'The Cosby Show', which had really plummeted in quality those last two years, basically did a clip show, with Cliff daydreaming/reminiscing at Theo's graduation, basically an excuse to rerun almost the entire first episode. The 'break the fourth wall' dance by Cliff and Clair/exit and wave to the audience by Bill and Phylicia was a nice touch.
'Night Court' was just lame, after so many good episodes. Supposedly, the writers were expecting to get one more year, and had a number of story arcs building up to a proper finale...but then they had to rush to finish it up when they got cancelled.
'Growing Pains' had a nice, poignant finish; along with 'Happy Days' in '84, it's the only series finale that actually made me cry!
Maybe if 'Cheers' had ended in '92, it would have had a better finish...but we probably wouldn't have had 'Frasier'(and that series ended with a nice twist).

Another inconclusive 'who cares' ending...'Mork and Mindy'. A time-travel episode where they are last scene leaving the Stone Age, but it's unclear if they go directly home. The final scene is a cave-wall drawing of the two of them. By then, nobody cared.

 

[BRNout]

Seinfeld gets my vote as the worst. It was the pits, diverting from the usual formula using 'comedy' that was pretty mean-spirited. And, as I recall from the time when it first aired, millions of fans felt the same way. Definitely did not take the show out on a high note.

As for 'best' - there were many and most of them have already been mentioned above so I won't repeat.

 

[bpatrick]

On the daytime front, I thought "Guiding Light" had a good one,
mostly upbeat; yeah, Alan Spaulding died, but at the same time
some of the former couples were reunited: Ed and Holly, Fletcher
and Alexandra, Rick and Mindy, Phillip and Beth. But the best was
when Josh went away for a year, telling Reva to meet him a year
from that day at the lighthouse. Fast forward a year and, yes,
she's waiting for him. He gets her and her kid to pile into his truck,
tells them they're going on an adventure, and they ride off as the
words "The End" appear on the screen.

I liked the ending of "Search For Tomorrow" as well. Jo is looking
up into the evening sky and Stu asks her what she's searching for.
"Tomorrow...and I can't wait!"

And I know it goes back a ways (1974) but "The Secret Storm" had
an unorthodox but upbeat ending: Amy's husband Paul, a paraplegic
after being shot, gets up, stumbles a few steps, and collapses on the
floor where Amy's playing with their kids. Laughter, hugs, you-name-it.

It'll be interesting to see what "As The World Turns" does for a finale.

 

[imhomerjay]

Dinosaurs -- the final episode has the dinosaur civilization triggering an ice age. It was depressing but powerful: what better way to end a series than with total extinction?

Forgot about Dinosaurs. That was a clever bit from a clever show.

Discounting finales that weren't intended to be such (thus depriving the producers & writers from even trying to produce an actual finale), personal favorites would be M*A*S*H, Newhart, Fraiser and Six Feet Under (honorable mention to NYPD Blue). Least favorite is probably Lost (at least from a disappointment standpoint). I can see how others loved and loathed many of those named. They strike such different chords with different individuals.

 

[evolve991]

I didn't see the final episode of M*A*S*H until a few tears later when it was in sindication. I hate endings,good or bad,and knew it would just depress me. My wife and I both grew up watching MASH and are probably among a very few couples who attach romantic meaning to the theme song....we were dating and knew when the music started we finally had a few minutes alone ( Its 11:30 do you know where your children are ;D) We were married and had MASH on out of habit when I saw the final episode. The network was making room for another late night rerun show,with no warning,and they ran the final to close it out. It was pretty good as final episodes go but I was shocked at how upset it made me when that chopper flew off for the last time. Like I said....I HATE endings.

LOST tied things up in a way that made me angry for having faith in the creators to make some kind of sense out of 6 years of questions.
It was a mess after such a dramatic and captivating series. They may have been trying to give a sense of Hope and Serenity but thats not how I felt after the last shout of BAD ROBOT!

Battlestar Galactica reimagined totally botched the ending. They had some premises that were pretty interesting but it all happened way too fast. The survival of an entire species should have been much more uplifting but somehow it managed to turn me off to SciFi for a while.

The absolute worst ending I ever witness was not a TV show but a radio station. When 99.1 WHFS flipped without warning to a Spanish format I felt as if I'd lost a close friend. Having to hear the new station at work the next day was especially nerve wracking. I had been fighting against being pushed out of my livelihood for years by illegal immigrants. The flip occured during one of the worst jobs of my entire career and that day turned out to be the beginning of a slow motion train wreck that has not ended yet. Coincidence yes but still very depressing.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I remember feeling like I was in the minority when I liked the "Seinfeld" finale. I thought it showed that the 4 main characters were finally being held accountable (at least a little bit) for all their misdeeds.

Here's an obscure classic ending...The final episode of "The Davd Letterman Show" (his 1980 daytime talk show), in which he spent much of the show offering tributes to the game show that was to replace him, "Las Vegas Gambit".

If we are counting talk shows, then the last episode of Stephanie Miller's late-night talk show has to rank right up there.
Apparently she was told earlier in the day that she was being canceled. She was angry, bitter, ripping her bosses to shreds,
barely paying any attention to her guest, Fyvush Finkel. Truly disgraceful! I am sure it is the reason she was never asked to do television again.

 

[Bob1370]

Can't agree with the people who criticize the ending of Cheers. It was the right way to end it...by not ending it.

It's pretty clear from the final episode that life for the Cheers bunch (Frasier excepted) would simply go on, and they'd keep on being a part of each other's lives. Sam locks up the bar after bidding all the regulars good night at closing time, a latecomer is told the place is closed--but it's clear, as he tidies up the place and straightens the picture of Geronimo on the far wall (a gesture to the late Nick Colasanto, who played 'coach' Ernie Pantuso until his death in 1985) that he'll open up again the next day like he always does, the regulars will come back in, and life will go on--only we just won't see it. That, IMHO, is the best way for a series which had become an old friend to a large and loyal audience to end...by not really ending at all, but giving you a sense of continuity...

 

[Ultimajock]

...while considering talk shows, I'll nominate Tomorrow with Tom Snyder as one of the best. He personified class in the way he handled himself and NBC in the final weeks, and the final segment was a performance by Peter Allen of his song "I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love"...

 

[Ultimajock]

If we are counting talk shows, then the last episode of Stephanie Miller's late-night talk show has to rank right up there.
Apparently she was told earlier in the day that she was being canceled. She was angry, bitter, ripping her bosses to shreds,
barely paying any attention to her guest, Fyvush Finkel. Truly disgraceful! I am sure it is the reason she was never asked to do television again.

...wrong on two counts here--(a) Danny Bonaduce did the final week (and therefore the final broadcast) of Miller's show (his own talk show had been cancelled by Buena Vista simultaneously with Stephanie's), and (b) Miller was emcee of Oxygen's revival of I've Got a Secret four years later...

 

[onairb]

Can't agree with the people who criticize the ending of Cheers. It was the right way to end it...by not ending it.

It's pretty clear from the final episode that life for the Cheers bunch (Frasier excepted) would simply go on, and they'd keep on being a part of each other's lives. Sam locks up the bar after bidding all the regulars good night at closing time, a latecomer is told the place is closed--but it's clear, as he tidies up the place and straightens the picture of Geronimo on the far wall (a gesture to the late Nick Colasanto, who played 'coach' Ernie Pantuso until his death in 1985) that he'll open up again the next day like he always does, the regulars will come back in, and life will go on--only we just won't see it. That, IMHO, is the best way for a series which had become an old friend to a large and loyal audience to end...by not really ending at all, but giving you a sense of continuity...

I guess I didn't pick up on 'straightening' the picture to mean the bar would open again; I just remember the episode being not a classicly hilarious on, and everything about the bar's future being ambiguous, best left to the imagination. Most of us would have wanted it to stay open.
I think that, with Frasier, they went out of their way to reassure viewers that the bar was 'still there', and the visiting former regulars were still more or less in touch.

 

[firepoint525]

The absolute worst to me was the last episode of Dallas where Joel Grey portrayed an angel and J.R. had his It's A Wonderful Life experience to see what life would be without him.

I think I had quit watching Dallas by then, so I don't remember that. This topic is about endings, but Dallas had one of the worst "middles" of any TV series, the year that Bobby Ewing was "dead," and the whole season was written off as Pam's "dream"! She must have been some major Rip Van Winkle that year!

 

[firepoint525]

...my nominees for best finale: Mary Tyler Moore, Barney Miller and St. Elsewhere...

I didn't really care for the ending of St. Elsewhere, but it didn't annoy me as much as it (apparently) annoyed others, based on what I read and heard later. But it seemed like the 1987 season might have been the last, as it ended with hospital facing the wrecking ball, with Dr. Auschlander wandering about aimlessly inside. (Weren't they imploding buildings by 1987?) Then the next season, we found out that the hospital was saved, and bought by the Ecumena corporation.

I particularly liked the Wonder Years ending, as it tied up a lot of loose ends, but it seems like it should have gone one "wonder" year longer, to give them time to graduate high school, and go their separate ways.

Some similar, unresolved, "cliff-hanger-ish" endings from largely forgotten shows:

Freaks and Geeks ended with Lindsey going off to see the Grateful Dead, apparently never to return again, and American Dreams, with Meg riding off with her bad-boy boyfriend on his motorcycle, also apparently never to be seen again (although I am told that that one was resolved on the DVD of the show, which I don't have, and have thus never seen).

 

[FreddyE1977]

If we are counting talk shows, then the last episode of Stephanie Miller's late-night talk show has to rank right up there.
Apparently she was told earlier in the day that she was being canceled. She was angry, bitter, ripping her bosses to shreds,
barely paying any attention to her guest, Fyvush Finkel. Truly disgraceful! I am sure it is the reason she was never asked to do television again.

...wrong on two counts here--(a) Danny Bonaduce did the final week (and therefore the final broadcast) of Miller's show (his own talk show had been cancelled by Buena Vista simultaneously with Stephanie's), and (b) Miller was emcee of Oxygen's revival of I've Got a Secret four years later...

I stand corrected. I am not in the target audience for Oxygen, but I did see an amazing clip from I've Got a Secret
in which Terri Garr nailed the guest's secret identity right out of the box on the first try! Does not change the fact that Miller's last appearance on her talk show was totally classless. (I did not see Bonaduce's week because I believe our local affiliate dropped it immediately after that)

 

[anotherguyTN]

The absolute worst to me was the last episode of Dallas where Joel Grey portrayed an angel and J.R. had his It's A Wonderful Life experience to see what life would be without him.

I think I had quit watching Dallas by then, so I don't remember that. This topic is about endings, but Dallas had one of the worst "middles" of any TV series, the year that Bobby Ewing was "dead," and the whole season was written off as Pam's "dream"! She must have been some major Rip Van Winkle that year!

This was supposed to at least in part be the inspiration for Newhart's ending, only to play it totally for laughs.

 

[milwaukee_dave]

One of my favorite finales is "Everybody Loves Raymond." The show ended fairly quietly, and I loved the final scene -- where the entire family are at the dining room table, about to eat a meal, and the camera begins to pan out. Through all the craziness in those 10 seasons, you got a sense that family really did love one another.

I'm an admitted diehard fan of "Three's Company" (going back to the reruns I consumed in my teenage years). I loved the series through all three blond roommates, but have always been disappointed by its ending. It was way too rushed with Janet and her whirlwind marriage and Jack coincidentally falling head over heels in love with his new flame. Terri, meanwhile, heads off to Hawaii, though it's barely a mention. It would've been nice if the producers/writers could've fleshed some of this out throughout the last season, rather than planning the ill-fated "Three's a Crowd" spin-off in private. (I could see why some of the "Three's Company" cast were disappointed!) I also would've loved to see some former cast members turn up for Janet and Phillip's wedding -- Mr. and Mrs. Roper, Cindy, Lana, maybe even Chrissy (though that would've been unlikely with all the behind-the-scenes trouble between Suzanne Somers and the producers years prior).

 

[onairb]

I think Janet's new beau was introduced the week before the finale, making him a 'second-to-last-minute' idea. ;D But, agreed, that finale was weak.
'Alice' was another show that ended roughly the same era ('85), with a rather 'rushed' episode, Mel being forced out of business and closing the diner so that a new highway can go through.

 

[milwaukee_dave]

I think Janet's new beau was introduced the week before the finale, making him a 'second-to-last-minute' idea. ;D But, agreed, that finale was weak.
'Alice' was another show that ended roughly the same era ('85), with a rather 'rushed' episode, Mel being forced out of business and closing the diner so that a new highway can go through.

Oh, yes, I agree about "Alice." I remember watching the finale in reruns. It annoyed me as much as the "Three's Company" ending because it was so unrealistic. Everyone suddenly, and coincidentally, had all these new circumstances crop up that were about to take them down new pathes. It probably would've been best if just one of the characters -- Alice, perhaps -- wound up leaving the diner and pursuing her singing career.

 

[imhomerjay]

I'm amused by the idea that the ending of Three's Company (among many other shows) wasn't realistic, as if the rest of the show was.