It was foreshadowed earlier then a paleontologist found their remains huddles together and kept giving incorrect explanations of dino behavior (intersped with clips of the series).
The finale of Star Trek: Enterprise was pretty considering how little time they had to wrap stuff up. I loved how T’Pol didn’t speak at all in the last scene of the series; she conveyed volumes with her body language & facial expressions as Trip was breaking down talking the memorial service for their “child”. It was a great way to completey end the series.
What about Life on Mars?
Sam Tyler wakes from his coma, but preferring his illusory life in the 1970s, commits suicide by jumping off the police station roof.
Barney Miller’s finale was, IMHO, the gold standard to that point.
I’m one of the few people who thought the finale of Quantum Leap was handled perfectly.
Man, that sounds depressing…
I’ve got to go with The Shield for best series finale. On top of that it also had the best season finale ever, which was the end of Season 5. Whenever people talk about how shocking the season finale of the most recent Dexter season was, I think about how The Shield was 10x more powerful when
Hated the QL finale, but I never saw the Barney Miller one- Being a big fan of that show, how did it end?
The 12th was declared a historic landmark or something like that and the men were dispersed. Barney was promoted, as was Levitt. I’m fuzzy on the details after all these years, but it was an amazingly touching show.
I’ve always liked the finale of Fraiser. Also put me down as liking how The Sopranos ended things.
I’d offer the 2-hour movie done for Homocide: Life on the Streets a couple years after the show went off the air.
It seems to me that the writers, producers and actors wanted to do something more for a really good show that in the last few years of its run had gotten somewhat off target. They do the show great service by getting the principals from all the years back to Baltimore when Giardello gets shot while running for mayor.
The screenplay doesn’t follow directly on the heels of the end of the series. Friction between the older and the newer detectives is clearly evident.
For me, the best parts of the early years were interactions between Tim Bayliss and Frank Pembleton (played by Kyle Secor and Andre Braugher, respectively). In the movie we get to see them back in the box with a suspect and see the actors chew the screen on the roof of the station house at the end of the day when a secret comes out. It shows the two characters’ underlying moral philosophies in contrast; Frank’s Jesuit moral absolutism versus Tim’s uncertain Buddhist searching.
The show had some powerful creators and writers and it is probably due to them that there was this opportunity to put the show back on track once and for all. It’s also kind of cool that all the stars from all the years of a great ensemble cast got to make an appearance. Not all left under the best of circumstances and its a testament to them, too, that they recognized the quality of the show.
I loved the Seinfeld finale. Honestly, people that didn’t like it obviously had absolutely no idea what show they had been watching. It was a perfectly appropriate and satisfying ending to that show.
I agree.
And then the movie changed almost everything that I loved about it…
My log says, ‘what, two pages in and no mention of Twin Peaks?’
That last hour, in the Black Lodge, Coop v. Bob.
Bob wins.
“How’s Annie?”
Some shows give viewers a look at the future of the characters in the finale. The Wonder Years narrator brought us up to date from the 70"s until “today”. It was a satisfying end to that show. Sometimes the whole show is about the future. Will and Grace did so, but the result was somewhat depressing. However, another show that was also past its prime did the same and ended up with what I think was the best finale I have seen: Mad About You.
Although it wasn’t intended to be a finale, the final episode of Freaks and Geeks did a great job of ending the series.
Daniel goes to play D&D with the Geeks and has such a good time that by the end of the episode they wonder, “Is Daniel becoming a geek, or are we becoming cool guys?” Meanwhile the guidance counselor gives Lindsey a copy of American Beauty which opens up some conversations with the school’s Deadheads. She eventually skips out on an academic program in order to spend the summer following the Grateful Dead in their VW Bus. The series closes with “Ripple” playing over a shot of the VW driving off into the distance.
I hated, hated, hated that ending.
You know what’s funny? I’ve never seen a single episode of Six Feet Under. But I flipped through the television one day and this was on so I decided to watch, not realizing what I was watching until the end. The only thing i’ve ever seen of this show is the final six minutes of the finale.
That is better than the ending of the American knock-off of Life on Mars:
Sam Tyler wakes from a long sleep on a space ship filled with other astronauts all played by the other police officers.
In addition to this, each episode of the series began with the death of someone who would come to be serviced by the family’s funeral home. The deaths occurred in a wide variety of ways, some mundane and some bizarre, so showing how the regular characters eventually died pulled it all together.
During it’s run, Seinfeld had an inexorable internal logic. People’s weirdest ideas were rewarded, the most improbable coincidences were guaranteed to happen. It was the opposite of real life in that way.
The finale abandoned that. And they had a perfect setup for it. I can make it better right now. Jerry, et al., are on trial because they saw someone getting mugged and didn’t do anything. They tell their lawyer about all the people whose lives they’ve screwed up in the past by trying to help. The lawyer goes to visit each of them (cue clips from past episodes), but they all refuse to testify for the defense so the gang of four will rot in jail.