Medium : Name a series finale you liked…

I think it must be quite a challenge to tie up loose ends and write a satifying ending to a long running series solely because it hardly ever happens. The final shows for Seinfeld, Roseanne, Lost, Sopranos all disappointed their fans. 24 was Okare there any others?

http://www.imdb.com/board/21216253/

newhart

Wow, good one! Well done!

http://www.imdb.com/board/21216253/

thank you
third rock from the sun? I think they had 2 ep. to rap everything up?

i DID like the end of newhart


sopranos left people talking, so it was okay with me.

i just finished watching all of 6 ft under and although the ending was a little cruelish, it was a good ending.

i was okay with the ending of Buffy and even Angel.

this just makes me cry. i mean, if you are gonna kill him off, okay, but don't make me watch someone mourn like that. omg talk about heartbreaking.

those poopheads.

Personally, I really like Buffy's TV finale (I know Joss continued Buffy in comic form). I may be among the few, but season 7 of Buffy has always been one of my favorites. But I agree with you a lot of my favorite TV shows usually blow it big time in their final seasons. So sad.

They killed Anya though sad face

I too think they did a grand job with Buffy's finale, every season the big bad had to get bigger and badder, and the last battle more and more immense. What could be bigger than the first evil? What could be more immense than blowing up the whole town (rhetorical question, of course) and what could be more final for that programme than having all the potential slayers 'activated' thus ensuring Buffy is not the one and only any more. Cracking stuff!

I also really enjoyed Angel's finale, it wasn't what it should have been given they only had what, half a seasons notice? But its more than many shows get and again they ended on a big battle (though just the start of it, laying way for continuation in comic form) and plenty of energy and hope for the fight against evil. Lovely :)

If the season 5 finale had actually been the finale of Buffy it would have been a great ending.

Blackadder Goes Forth, King of Series Finales.

Also: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine both had truly knockout final episodes (especially DS9's, which was knockout-and-then-some). 3rd Rock From the Sun had a good, fun finale.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation

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This. I didn't see DSN, but TNG's whole series and final ep was fantastic! Medium only now aired its finale where I live, and it was so disappointing to me. Glenn Gordon caron is of Moonlighting-fame also, so maybe he thought for the last episode: "Why not? It's not like it matters anymore." and revisited some of his kookiness (like the breaking of the fourth wall).

But it does matter . Eg, after seeing the finale of Will and Grace, when a rerun would air I'd remember that they grow apart in the end: friendship bye bye. Maybe that's silly, but a bad finale does spoil the earlier eps a bit for me. Now, when Medium is on and I see Joe helping (more like, rescuing) his wife all the time, I think: oh yeah, and how is she going to manage later on? Just a pity they couldn't get it right for such a great show.

'Newhart', 'Mad About You' and 'Six Feet Under'. Three terrific endings.

i DID like the mad about you ending too. it was sweet. thanks for reminding me!

The ending of season 8 of scrubs is really good. That was the real final.
On DS9, was Sisko the dream or the dreamer.
Third rock from the sun was a lot of fun.
Heroes ended on a game changer.

I loved the finale for "Roseanne". Never saw it, just loved the idea of that series having a finale. Then it turned back up on TV Land. Damn!

Good question, though. "Mary Tyler Moore" had a nice finale. "Bob Newhart's 80's show, the Vermont one, had a really fun ending. "M*A*S*H" was O.K.; wasn't a fan of that show, but it was a big event and I thought it was nice and tastefully done. The final "Everybody Loves Raymond" was great. Surprised I'm not coming up with more- the old classic comedies I love didn't really tend to have finales, and I didn't watch a lot of TV dramas until recently, when the whole genre seemed to step up a notch or two.

How about this: what TV series would you have really liked to see all the characters die like last night? "Roseanne" comes right to mind. Hmmm.If Joanie had died eating Jell-o in an assisted living home and the ghost of Chachi was waiting for her, that would have caused some talk. Maybe Roseanne could have died in assisted living eating a triple-decker from Fatburger, and Tom Arnold is waiting for her on the other side, with some kind of a funny weapon.

Northern Exposure? Nice little song showing the people of Cicely going about their business, and Maggie and Chris becoming a couple.

Wonder Years - It wasn't so much sad, but I cried serious tears for that finale.

Everybody Loves Raymond - nice, quiet, low-key, family at dinner scene. Nice!

Unlike most people, I liked the Seinfeld finale (and it's my theory that that plane they were in crashed, and they were in the afterlife - purgatory.)

I just love a finale that gives the viewer a postscript, of what becomes of the characters in the future (and the Wonder Years did this just perfectly - gads, it's 7 a.m., years after the show went off the air, and I'm tearing up!)

M.A.S.H. finale just excellent.

I loved the Charmed finale, it was a wonderful way to end the show. Obvious only thing was that there was no real mention of Prue except for a couple in passing.

I also liked Buffy's. It could have been better but I loved the final moments.

The finale of Sabrina is also lovely. Couldn't have ended it any better.

The finale of the Golden Girls comes to mind as one of my favorites. I also enjoyed ER as they really spent the whole last season wrapping things up with the characters old and new. The Shield had a hell of an ending.

Friends
Six Feet Under
BTVS (even though it was a little bit too preachy and borderline misandrist with the whole 'every girl is a Slayer' stuff)
What I Like About You
ER

Saito: I bought the airline. It seemed neater.
Inception

Best

For a comedy, definitely Newhart.
For a drama, MASH was great, but the best finale was Third Watch. That one was definitely written for fans.


Worst
St Elsewhere hands down.


January The ground is full of slush and sleet and I can barely feel my feet.

I thought Six Feet Under was beautifully done, and I also really enjoyed the Friends finale, it wrapped everything up really nicely. As far as finales that I hated, I'm still fuming over Roseanne.

http://fictionisparadise.blogspot.com/

BEST:

Six Feet Under (Just the last 7 minutes)
Buffy (Not a fan of Willow becoming a Goddess or every girl being a slayer though)
Friends (I pretend Joey never happened)
Golden Girls (I pretend Golden Palace never happened)
Third Watch (Just totally awesome!)
Medium (I laughed, I cried, it was so sad)
Crossing Jordan (Woody and Jordan!!!)
Arrested Development (Still hoping for that movie though!)
Dinosaurs (So sad for a kids show! Totally unexpected!)

WORST:

Roswell (Everything happened way too quickly to be believable)
Dead Like Me (The wrap up movie was just awful!)
Charmed (Waaaay too sappy for me)
The Practice (It was just a set up for Boston Legal, which I hated!)
Angel (A total cop out. I wanted to see that final battle!)

^^i actually liked the heroes series finale; it was very fittingWell the last minute of it, was perfect.

The sixth season of LOST DID happenit wasn't a dreamscape. The flash-sideways was purgatory after they all eventually died on the island.

OMG I forgot about Dinosaurs! I loved that show so muchI even still have my talking Baby Sinclair doll. I did love the Charmed finale though, even if it was a bit sappy and corny. Also, I enjoyed the Alias finale but since Victor Garber was my favorite character, I didn't love it. The Tudors, which has been my favorite show of the last decade next to True Blood, was also well done.

http://fictionisparadise.blogspot.com/

"dinosaurs" was no more a "kids show" for the animatronics than The Simpsons is for the animation.

The series finale to Golden Girls was definitely one of my favorites! I have probably seen it 50 times, and it always makes me cry :). I also liked the finales to Friends, Buffy, M.A.S.H, Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, Knots Landing, David the Gnome (a little gem on Nickelodeon :), Wonder Years (very sad!), Seinfeld (it actually seemed fitting for the characters), and Medium (even though it breaks my heart).

The finale to Roseanne was depressing but more realistic than the final season (which was horrible). The Angel finale left me disappointed, as well as the ending to X-Files. I also loved the show Missing (on Lifetime), but the show was canceled after one season. The final episode of the season was so sad, especially since it was not meant to be the final episode! I vaguely remember the ending to Dawson's Creek with Jen dying I think.but I was just so tired of all the whining on that show that I was glad it was over! I don't remember the finales to Everybody Loves Raymond or Frasier.

I get sad thinking about the day when they end Grey's Anatomy, I am sure Shonda Rhimes will tear our hearts out at the end of the show (if last season's finale was any indication!).

-Lost (which is weird because after the second season I barely even liked the show even though I kept watching)

-Medium (Depressed the hell out of me)

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer

-Roseanne (Also depressing)

-The Golden Girls

-Firefly/Serenity


Unfortunately, that's all I can think about as far as television show finales. When it comes to wrapping series up, I think anime does it the best.

Dinosaurs was a nice pick

I don't follow that many TV shows.
But Buffy has to be one of the best ending. (Spoiler) Throughout the series, Buffy has wondered about her fate and how she had to relinquish so many of her dreams and aspirations. In the end, she was finally free to do whatever she wants.

Otherwise, shows like
Murphy Brown
and
McGyver had okay endings. In case of McGyver, they invented this backstory of his out of nowhere to give a good conclusion.
Wonderfalls was good, but I think most of the fans wanted more episodes!

Arrested Development's ending was pretty bad cuz it was rushed. But for a canceled show, it wasn't that bad.
Pushing Daisies was abysmal. The last three episodes of the show was really, really, bad.

That being said, Medium has to be the worst series finale by far.

I never saw the Ghost Whisperer finale because i stopped watching the show when the husband died, his spirit inhabited the body of another person played by another actor, then all of a sudden the original actor is playing him again. I stuck with it during the time the ghost had no memory of either life, but when it saves Melinda and the spirit remembers who he is, then that was it for me. And the kid was way too creepy.

I loved that show for the first two seasons (was it 2?) when she had her friend Andrea working with her. It was so sad when she died. Never cared for Delia. They had no chemistry as friends. And then didn't Ned age like 6 years from one season to the next.

I could believe in ghosts and mediums enough to enjoy the show, but they lost me with the dead/not-really-dead husband and rapidly aging boy.



January The ground is full of slush and sleet and I can barely feel my feet.

Medium, as sad as it was, was still an amazing finale. Also loved

The Golden Girls
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Buffy
Newhart
Mary Tyler Moore
Third Watch

Can't think of any others right now, but those rank up there as the best finales in my book.



The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell. - Andre Malraux

The last 5 minutes of Mystery Science Theater were as perfect as can be.

Unfortunately, I put the Medium finale in the "fail" category. Allison, Joe, and especially the fans, didn't deserve that.

Third Watch had a truly fantastic ending. They ended it very nicely and left no loose ends. They tied up all of the story lines, but in a very tasteful and simple way. One of the all-time best series on American television, period.

Interesting you mention Third Watch because it's one of those shows that had a last minute cancellation and the writers were able to shift gears and put together a great finale. I would imagine it's much easier when they know its the last season as it was with Cheers and Seinfeld and a few others. What must be impossibly difficult is ending a long running soap opera, which is what recently happened with As the World Turns and Guiding Lightthey were on 40-60 yrs! I admire Ricky Gervais' Extras since he never intended it to be more than 2 or 3 seasons and had a vision from the beginning for where/how he wanted it to end and it was awwwwesome:)

http://www.imdb.com/board/21216253/

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Third Watch had a truly fantastic ending. They ended it very nicely and left no loose ends. They tied up all of the story lines, but in a very tasteful and simple way. One of the all-time best series on American television, period.

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Probably in my top 5 favorite shows of all time. Great ensemble cast. Good continuity throughout. The last season was a little rough, but overall a really consistently good show.

The finale was everything a fan of the show could want. Told where each person ended up and for each one it was exactly where we thought they'd go or wanted them to go.

And the very last word/line of the series crap!

perfect!




January The ground is full of slush and sleet and I can barely feel my feet.

Two things about the otherwise wonderful ending of Third Watch bothered me:

1. They should have shown Cruz getting a full honor burial. She deserved that.
2. Doc forgot his own wife's name? He said "Linda" instead of "Debra" when he was talking to Carlos.

Other than that, very well done ending.

Wow, I never even noticed that. Must have been some hell of strong meds Doc was on

A good finale doesn't have to tie up all loose ends, but it does have to move the characters to a different point where they could no longer have the adventures we were used to seeing them have. A finale should place the characters in a situation where if another season were to be written it would have to be radically different from what we have had in the past. I also think a good finale should draw on the main theme of a show and tie into old episodes.


Great finales:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Perfect. It concluded a major concept of the show (the Hellmouth) and made a dramatic shift in that all the potential vampire slayers in the world have been activated. It also destroyed the characters' homes. Going back to norm for those characters would be impossible.

Charmed - It's been a while since I saw this, but their finale was excellent and their other finale (the season finale they thought was going to be a series finale) was great too.

Star Trek: TNG - Even though this wasn't really a finale since a movie series was in the works and there's no dramatic change at the end, it still worked because it drew so much from the show's rich history.


Good finales:

I also liked the finales of Star Trek DS9, Star Trek VOY (even though Janeway really violated a lot of her moral beliefs), a bunch of sitcoms that I have forgotten, and Angel's could have been good if it wasn't a cliffhanger.



In a way I thought the Seinfeld finale was good because it did what I thought a good finale should do. Unfortunately it didn't do it very well.

As for Bloatsanne, I was hoping that loudmouth hog would bloat up and explode but that wasn't what happened. All I remember from that was the twist at the end which did nothing but explain why that entire season sucked so much.


I think Medium's finale fits in with what I expect a finale to be, but I really just didn't like the idea of Joe having to die.
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Mixing Hollywood idiocy with politics is an Obamanation.

six feet under. best ending to the best series. no contest.

Nip/Tuck - thumbs up. Storylines wrapped up nicely and a relatively positive, hopeful ending to a dark, dark show.

I'm a sucker for sappy endings so I really loved the Life Unexpected finale! And Charmed, Six Feet Under, Buffy and Third Watch. I think most finales disappoint their fans- it's got to be hard to end something that may have lasted for years within a single episode


http://www.fanfiction.net/~tutorwife93

Six Feet Under had the best series finale I've ever seen.

Charmed

Lost
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
Six Feet Under
Sopranos
Medium
The 4400
Friends
ER
Medium
Life on Mars (UK)
Ashes to Ashes


EAMES: You mustnt be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.