Best and worst TV series finales

Sirs, Madames,

A vote for The Fugitive. Episode was The Judgment. The reveal

SPOILER ALERT















was that JD Cannon, best known as the Chief from McCloud, saw the whole thing (the one-armed man, Fred Johnson, if memory serves). and was ashamed that he did nothing to stop the murder.

Northern Exposure's would have been one of the all-time greats if the show had ended with Rob Morrow's last episode. It was truly magical.

YHS, etc

 

I can't remember the plot of the finale, so I'm going to be stubborn and not google it until after I post this. But I remember the last two minutes, when you watched each character ending their day while Iris DeMent sang "Our Town," and you knew you'd never get to visit Cicely again.

 

Peter and Amanda faking their own deaths in an explosion... and then getting married off the coast of Hawaii.

Top the original Melrose Place series finale in 1999. Just try.

 

Granted the entire show went downhill after it moved away from the satire of the first season, but the Entourage finale was awful.

 

Agreed, especially the bit with Vince getting engaged to Alice Eve's character. The depiction of women on that show was always ridiculous, but never quite that ridiculous.

 

I just rewatched The Wonder Years' finale. The startling part is out of the blue it comes in context; the penultimate episode (counting the two-part finale as one) didn't feature Winnie Cooper, for God's sake. But it's emotional and heart-warming and heart-breaking and really well executed, even if it's obvious the show could have done wonderful things with a seventh season.

It's actually one of the few times in the later seasons where Daniel Stern's narration seems appropriately heavy. I think the show would have benefited as a whole from a lot less narration, though. (Obviously, I'm aware I'm re-inventing the wheel when I say that.)

 

Brian and I had a similar discussion about this awhile back. I find the narration, in general, corny. Which is why I think FNL was ultimately the superior show, although they both had strengths and weaknesses.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/3003819/

 

Holy shit, that Dora thing is awesome. New Amsterdam and Mercy were instances where the production found out near the end of filming that the show was a goner, and they schlocked out the endings.

 

I haven't watched much Friday Night Lights, but I really think you could cut the narration out of The Wonder Years, except in the introductions and a few a of the closing scenes, and be left with a better show. I think the most difficult part of the comparison isn't the narration as much as that The Wonder Years squared entirely around one character; many episodes didn't even have a B-plot.

 

I'd vote for Newhart - nobody saw that coming.

Another good one that I don't think anyone's mentioned is Rome. Excellent wrap up to the show.

 

I loved the Scrubs finale (Season 8, that is. I'm officially calling Season 9 a spin off series, not season). Friends was pretty good, but so are most of the "classic" sitcoms.

The worst are the series finales they don't realize are going to be finales ... they just get canceled in the middle of a storyline (Sports Night, Season 2).

St. Elsewhere might be the best of all time .................

 

(Cringes)

I'm not sure I completely agree with everything I wrote in that thread, and I'm not sure I could've read any smarmier than I did.

God, it's like hearing my voice in a recording...

I like FNL a lot more than I made it sound like in that exchange. And The Wonder Years was often corny.