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Great and horrible tv series finales


TexArcher

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Friday Night Lights for a mention and I had forgotten about that.  It should get a mention as well.  Fitting end to all of the characters, especially Coach's Wife.  

Seinfeld's finale was brilliant because it put the show's characters on trial for being vapid, shallow, and self absorbed, which is what they were and what made the show so funny.  There was never any "growth."  That's the point.

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Speaking of recent shows, I thought the Veep ending was just about perfect.

Breaking Bad was very satisfying.

I know lots of people hated it, but I loved the Sopranos ending.

Another controversial one that I really liked was Battlestar Galatica.

And yeah someone said above... if "Larry vs. Michael J. Fox" had been the last episode of Curb, that would have been perfect.

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The final season of The Larry Sanders Show might have been the best of the series, and the final episode was as good as any and better than most. They had the advantage of having Johnny Carson's farewell as a model. But the laughs and the star power...it's tough to beat. It was totally satisfying when it first aired and it's still hysterical now. 

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Sepinwall asked Chase, “When you said there was an end point, you don’t mean Tony at Holsten’s, you just meant, ‘I think I have two more years worth of stories left in me’?”

Chase replied saying, “Yes, I think I had that death scene around two years before the end. I remember talking with [writer/ executive producer] Mitch Burgess about it. But it wasn’t – it was slightly different.”

“Tony was going to get called to a meeting with Johnny Sack in Manhattan, and he was going to go back through the Lincoln Tunnel for this meeting,” he continued. “It was going to go black there and you never saw him again as he was heading back, the theory being that something bad happens to him at the meeting. But we didn’t do that.”

Seitz then said to Chase, “You realize, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene.” After an extremely long pause, Chase’s merely replied, “F*** you guys.”

https://www.inquisitr.com/5245244/sopranos-creator-david-chase-admits-tony-soprano-could-have-died-in-final-episode-cliffhanger/

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17 minutes ago, Red Five said:

 

 

"But we didn’t do that.”

That's not David Chase saying Tony died. You're seeing the answer you want to see. "Fuck you guys" doesn't mean, "You're right! You busted me! Tony died but I was trying to keep it secret. Damn you for foiling my plan!"

How long before the end of the show did you decide that Tony was going to die? Because that's the only way you can conclude Tony died. If you don't care, and just watch the show, and know the language of cinema, Tony didn't die.

If you think Tony died then there's no such thing as an ending to a show and this thread is pointless. The worst ending of all time was actually the best because of the shit that happened after the final frame. 

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2 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

The ending of Deadwood was pretty terrible. Like if da Vinci had spent 3 1/2 years painting the Mona Lisa, then let his 3 year old nephew draw in the face. 

Deadwood was cancelled unexpectedly between seasons.  That was never meant to be the end of the series.  

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It’s interesting how few shows get it right. I think it helps cement the idea that most of the time these writers don’t expect a show to be super successful and aren’t starting with an end in mind, and so then they have to make shit up as they go and then eventually put a bullet in it. GoT is the ultimate example.

That’s why sometimes these one-season shows or miniseries are the best. Russian Doll comes to mind as a good recent example. S1 of True Detective was epic, but even that ending was a bit of a letdown.

I do think Justified did it pretty well. And yes Serenity/Firefly counts in my book.

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Of the shows I’ve watched, Sopranos is the clear #1. I think the ending is brilliant. The work of a creative genius at the absolute top of his game.  Sandy Koufax in his prime, with murderer’s row as bat support. 

 Like Chase says, “it’s all there” and not ambiguous at all. It does take a basic understanding of film language and character POV to fully get his intentions, but his intentions are clear.  It is a bit dense,  but I see it as a great work of art that takes some extra effort from the audience to be fully appreciated.

Chase has also given at least a dozen clues about the ending since it aired. He did some press this year for the 20th anniversary and the new “Sopranos Sessions” book and his comments made it even more obvious.

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7 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Everyone loved Newhart for nostalgia sake but it basically said that the entire series was a dream.I suppose that works with a comedy but it definitely wouldn't fly with a drama.

 

7 hours ago, Bojack said:

I liked St. Elsewhere's ending.  

 

 

Two posts above yours. 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, PilotsError said:

I've never seen the words 'great' and 'SOA' appear in the same sentence.  Until this thread.

I liked the first three seasons.  The last episode of Season 3 would have been a great series finale.  (The one where it looks like Jax had flipped but instead was setting up the FBI agent)

The show went downhill quick after season 3.

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16 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

AH0W90.gif

MASH's finale wouldn't have gone over well in a social media world. "Hawkeye went from the most compassionate surgeon to pushing a woman to killing her baby?" sorry, spoiler alert.

MASH reinvented itself with new characters along the way, so you could argue that there were several finales like Henry Blake, Trapper or Radar leaving.  The overall finale being Hawkeye, Klinger, Hot Lips and others going home.

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5 hours ago, Rougarou said:

As someone who will never watch Dexter, I keep hearing Dexter was horrible. Will someone give us who will never care to watch 1 minute of the show the Derka-esque recap of why everyone hates that ending?

He drove his small boat into a hurricane, somehow survived, and showed up as a lumberjack after abandoning his son.

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23-dexter-1.w700.h700.jpg

Edited by Kel Varnsen
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7 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

The Seinfeld finale has grown on me over the years, but it was a let down at the time.

Same. I think a lot of people listing it haven't seen it since it first aired. It's definitely a grower even though they probably tried to shoe-horn in a little too much. Love the pull-out, closing scene from the jail cell when they're talking about the button on George's shirt and Jerry starts in on the second-button-makes-or-breaks-the-shirt bit and George says, "Haven't we talked about this before?" The first shot of the Pilot from Monk's was them having the same discussion.

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17 minutes ago, Bojack said:

Speaking of the death of Henry Blake and series finales, go to 21:00 of last St. Elsewhere episode.  

Patient 4077, Blake, Henry. Cause of death, thought to be injuries sustained in helicopter crash.

 

so we can add mash to the imagination of autistic tommy westphall:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/500756/tommy-westphall-theory-unified-tv-universe-explained

crossoversfull.jpg

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4 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

AH0W90.gif

MASH had lost it's way (PRO TIP: You were supposed to be a sit com) I had Long since stopped watching it, but definitely watched the last episode.  That departing chopper scene was indeed good though.

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2 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

Of the shows I’ve watched, Sopranos is the clear #1. I think the ending is brilliant. The work of a creative genius at the absolute top of his game.  Sandy Koufax in his prime, with murderer’s row as bat support. 

 Like Chase says, “it’s all there” and not ambiguous at all. It does take a basic understanding of film language and character POV to fully get his intentions, but his intentions are clear.  It is a bit dense,  but I see it as a great work of art that takes some extra effort from the audience to be fully appreciated.

Chase has also given at least a dozen clues about the ending since it aired. He did some press this year for the 20th anniversary and the new “Sopranos Sessions” book and his comments made it even more obvious.

One of the things that makes the Sopranos finale worse is shit like this. The people who try to pretend like it was "all there" and they have it all figured out. 

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12 minutes ago, Paper_jam said:

Horrible: Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. I see someone already nominated Enterprise above

Enterprise’s finale was so stunningly bad, I’ve never bothered going back to rewatch it.  It was like “hey, you diehard fans still watching, we’re gonna take a huge shit down your throat.”

I wish it had happened in the current age of social media.   

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9 hours ago, hookem48 said:

I thought the courtroom scenes were funny as hell bringing back all the characters to testify but the sitting in the jail cell scene was extremely meh. 

And it brought us this...

 

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Of the shows I’ve watched, Sopranos is the clear #1. I think the ending is brilliant. The work of a creative genius at the absolute top of his game.  Sandy Koufax in his prime, with murderer’s row as bat support. 
 Like Chase says, “it’s all there” and not ambiguous at all. It does take a basic understanding of film language and character POV to fully get his intentions, but his intentions are clear.  It is a bit dense,  but I see it as a great work of art that takes some extra effort from the audience to be fully appreciated.
Chase has also given at least a dozen clues about the ending since it aired. He did some press this year for the 20th anniversary and the new “Sopranos Sessions” book and his comments made it even more obvious.


lol

Your entire post is ridiculous, pretentious, try hard nonsense.

If the audience needs clues, interviews, books, and “film language” to get the ending then the writer/director/show runner didn’t do their job.

“The Sopranos” ending wasn’t clever or shocking or satisfying.

It tried too hard to be all of the above and just ended up being dumb. David Chase was too enamored with the smell of his own farts.
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1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

That would make sense, since trapper had a spin off. 

Trapper never had a farewell episode because he left on bad terms ($$$) during hiatus. He jumped ship to NBC to do a 40's LA Detective dramatic series that got cancelled faster than Hello, Larry. That's why the next season opens with him already gone and we meet B.J.

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5 minutes ago, RPM said:

Trapper never had a farewell episode because he left on bad terms ($$$) during hiatus. He jumped ship to NBC to do a 40's LA Detective dramatic series that got cancelled faster than Hello, Larry. That's why the next season opens with him already gone and we meet B.J.

Trapper (Wayne Rogers) was my HS commencement speaker, as his kid Bill was in my class. (/csb).

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MASH is the gold standard. That was pure brilliance. Legendary sitcom + iconic ending = win.

I love the ending of Newhart. Greatest shock, tongue in cheek moment that only works because of the brilliance of two separate shows. But it's a great laugh, not the gut punch & tears of MASH.

 

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33 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

MASH is the gold standard. That was pure brilliance. Legendary sitcom + iconic ending = win.

I love the ending of Newhart. Greatest shock, tongue in cheek moment that only works because of the brilliance of two separate shows. But it's a great laugh, not the gut punch & tears of MASH.

If something like Newhart happen today, the Internet would’ve leaked it.  

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