I wish I could come up with a better title. Inspired by the end of BSG and the notion that it’s impossible to please everyone, what is your favorite series finale to the type of show with a mythology, with big questions that need answers, that tie up all the loose ends to your satisfaction, etc.? In other words, I’m not looking for “Newhart”, brilliant as that ending was.
For me, I’m going to say the original British version of “Life on Mars” – two seasons of excellent episodes, and in the final episode we finally learn
[spoiler]Sam has indeed been in a coma the whole time, and he finally snaps out of it, just as his friends in 1973 are about to be killed. After spending a little time in the “real” world he can’t shake his sense of loyalty and responsibility to these people, and kills himself so he can get back there and save them.
I’m probably not doing this justice for those of you who haven’t seen it, but it worked wonderfully for me.[/spoiler]
Although I loved the BSG finale, I think my favorite is still B5’s “Sleeping in Light”. It just hit all the right notes.
I’m also quite fond of the Due South finale – Frasier and Other Ray riding off into the northern sunset together seemed perfect. (Due South may not have been question-driven, but was certainly Mountie-mythologized)
I know some people hate it, but the finale of Quantum Leap is still the touchstone series finale for me. It solves a problem that has been a regular element of the entire series, it addresses fundamental questions about the mythology of the series, and it simultaneously closes one door while opening another.
“All Good Things” from ST:TNG would be perfect if it didn’t have that one giant temporal inconsistency. And it would have been so easy to fix, too.
Sleeping in Light is the best finale I’ve ever scene. Everything is just perfect, from Sheridan saying goodbye to Delenn to the final shot of Delenn reaching for the star. Her narration at the end of the episode moved me to tears.
The closing credits compare characters from when we first saw them to how they looked in the end. The physical change in the characters was amazing and it just ended it perfectly.
Skip to 2:50 on this Youtube clip to see what I’m talking about.
The ST:TNG finale was good but (a) wasn’t the kind of mystery-driven show the OP is talking about and (b) was only good, not great. (Although I liked the ending at the poker game!)
But the finale makes it so (heh). Although neither the audience nor the crew (nor, obviously, the writers) knew it, the entire show was about Q watching, judging. That should qualify it as a mythology-driven series, if only in retrospect.
I’m going to preemptively say LOST, because honestly, even though people complain about it sometimes being slow and meandering, the characters and just overall feel of the show is good enough that it doesn’t even matter if the big mystery is “it’s aliens!” Just as long as Jack and Kate stop being such whiny bitches before the end.
It is my favorite Series Finale too. Babylon 5 was a wonderful TV show in my own opinion. The philosophy of the show was thoughtful and interesting too.
[last lines of the series]
Ivanova: Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future…and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others would do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most…unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope—that there can always be new beginnings…even for people like us.
Ivanova: As for Delenn, every morning for as long as she lived, Delenn got up before dawn and watched the sun come up.
Yeah I did watch the finale of Battlestar Galactica. It was really good finale in high-definition glory. Mitochondrial Eve was really interesting connection between real world genetic theory and BSG mythology.
**Ahem. I’m sorry, I missread this as Season finale. Well, here’s my list for the best mythology season enders. Sorry bout that. **
Lost season one. Whatever that show became, the end of season one with it’s peer down the hole was fabulous.
Supernatural, season three. Yeah, you know that thing that you were sure all season that we couldn’t possibly do? We did it, bitches, and we don’t care how many fangirl tears you shed. Even now, when putting in a Supernatural DVD, I won’t even consider “No Rest for the Wicked.”
Buffy, Season five. Okay, this one’s like Supernatural season three (or vice versa, really), but I don’t watch “The Gift” lightly. It’s very good, of course, but it’s not entertainment. It’s something to be suffered.
It’s been so long, but I know that some seasons of the X Files fuckin’ killed me. There’s a series I’ve got to watch all over again someday.
Unfortunately, the funding for the series was cut, so they had to fast forward through the second season’s worth of storyline in a two part miniseries sort of thing.
Except the niggling problem that the science made no sense whatsoever.
mEve is an artifact of population genetics, not something special or objectively notable directly about the individual in question. It’s only designated in retrospect, given the population currently alive when it’s assigned. Even if you could sequence mDNA from a 150,000 skeleton buried in dirt (which simply is NOT an environment that preserves even traces of DNA), the most you could tell was that the individual is related to the ancestors of currently living humans rather than from a female line that eventually died out.
