Death Of A TV Series

Cafe Society
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There is a melancholy sadness that comes with a TV series finale; perhaps it was your favorite show, or perhaps it just brings back memories of better times when you were watching the show with someone special. Maybe it was just a part of your weekly routine, or perhaps it was just comforting to hear it in the background when someone else was watching it.

Chance are you have mixed emotions as the series finale approaches – sure, it will be great to see how things wrap up. And sure, there will probably be a few surprises and maybe a laugh or a tear – but then it will all be over.

I mourned the death of great series like The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Rome, Deadwood…I even mourned the death of guilty pleasures like Friends, Frazier, Seinfeld and MASH…we knew the end was coming. For some shows it was time, for others it was too soon, but still – we gathered round to watch the finale, the end came and then it was over.

Desperate Housewives is a show whose time has come – yes, it was fun and quirky in the beginning, then it got tired and not so quirky, but it was still a tradition for us on Sunday nights and we’ve hung in there. Now, come Sunday, the grand season finale- and then this show too will pass.

Oh sure, there are many good/great TV series on the air, so it is not like the torch isn’t being passed. And I am sure I will feel a sense of loss when Justified, or Southland, or Mad Men, or any number of current hit shows reach the end of their run.

Still, there is that melancholy sadness that comes with a TV series finale.

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I teared up at the end of The West Wing

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I’m going to miss House. Only two more episodes to go. Eureka is in its final season. Just a handful of episodes left. And In Plain Sight just had its finale. Another fine show I’ll miss.

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We all have differing tastes, but I have a real hard time thinking Desperate Housewives is in any way shape or form comparable to the Wire, MASH, or Sopranos. Dallas maybe. Designing Women, sure. But actual good TV shows? No way in hell.

One thing that was great about The Wire and some other shows was that it didn’t overstay it’s welcome. In some cases, saying goodbye to a show before it devolves is a good thing.

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I remember as a little kid crying when the Cosby Show (or maybe Full House?) went off the air. I didn’t understand reruns or syndication, and it felt like I had these friends that I would never get to see again. I often feel the same at the end of a beloved book series - I’ve gotten invested in these people’s lives, and now I won’t know anything else about them.

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I think I’ve mentioned here before that I often have difficulty finishing a series. I don’t watch many TV series; when I do, it’s usually on DVD or streamed, often after the series has finished its run. That means that it’s usually possible for me to watch all the way through in a hurry, and I mostly do…right up to the end.

When it comes to the end of a series I like, I find myself stalling. Sometimes I re-watch the rest of the series, or watch something else, or just put it aside. I don’t want closure. I want potential. As long as I don’t watch the ending, the characters and setting I like are still alive, in a sense; the ending sets them in amber, their story complete, but static.

It took me months to “get around” to watching the finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, for example.

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The end og King of the Hill was excellent. Deadwood’s ending was atrocious and was a travesty for such a great show (I appreciate that it was a rushed finale).

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I’m looking forward to the end of House. It is the last “must-see” show on TV for me. There are four other shows that I occasionally watch but I’m never upset if I miss them and I can live without them without any withdrawal pangs. I do enjoy Mad Men but I get that from the web,

The NBC Thursday line-up looked interesting, but they juggled that schedule so often that I never developed a solid viewing habit and could do without them just fine. I think I’ll cancel the cable next month.

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I am the same way. Eureka going this season is hard. Lois Bujold is putting out her last Vorkosiverse novel this fall, hope she continues the 5 gods universe, she only really covered 3 of the 5 gods. Maybe she will come up with a sequel to The Spirit Ring.

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I agree with this. I prefer that a series end with nothing changing. Let me think that Cliff and Norm are still sitting at the end of the bar; that Max and 99 are still chasing the bad guys from KAOS; that Al and Peg are still bickering but secretly in love with each other. That way the series can live forever even with no new episodes.

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I hate to say it, but if The Simpsons end, they should have a 30 minute episode, and have the ultimate couch gag: a couch gag that fills the 30 minutes. The Simpsons could never end any other way.

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I was deeply saddened by the way they destroyed Stargate Atlantis. I started watching the show just because it was a spin-off from SG-1, then someone got me a boxed set of season 1 when I was laid out with a bad back, and I became hooked. Towards the end of season 3 things started to go bad… they killed off a character, then had a couple of crap episodes that served no purpose other than to allow them to mortally wound another character, and re-boot the show for season 4. Seasons 4 and 5 were atrocious, re-hashed stories from SG-1, characters were pushed into the background, other characters were dropped, new rubbish characters were put in their places, backstories were ignored or changed completely.

I still don’t know why I kept watching it every week… it broke my heart to see the show go so far downhill like that.

:frowning:

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I’d rather see a show end than have it go on too long and have it be a mockery of itself.

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I am still feeling “Lost”. I loved it so much and watched every episode, and I actually shed a tear at the finale - and I still miss it.

The same will be with “Desperate Housewives”. Though it has gone waaay downhill for too long, 9 p.m. on Sunday nights is going to have a big hole in it (though that will be filled with True Blood and The Walking Dead).

“House”? Don’t get me started, I am devastated. I’m hoping for a memorable finale, though the producer said it will be not unlike another episode of “House” - what about all those awesome scenarios and guessing about how it ends I read about???

That’s the thing with beloved TV shows, they just…die. And that IS a loss.

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Salingmind - I still miss the characters from Lost. I have almost succeeded in erasing that awful (imo) last season from my memory.

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While I do agree mainly with this view, it’s a thorny problem to decide when a show has gone on too long, even if it has yet to “jump the shark.”

When a show is summarily yanked (best example: Terriers) for some network/studio decision reason, I bitch and moan for months about the mentality of that studio or network.

When we know weeks to months in advance that the show is ending (see House) it’s a little easier to swallow that they’re leaving – with possible reruns out the wazoo to keep supplying the “fix” they created a need for.

Then there are the current shows that – as best we can tell – are still going strong with no obvious threats to their future.

For me those include:

Breaking Bad
The Good Wife
The Mentalist
Blue Bloods
Mad Men
Sons of Anarchy
Justified
and maybe a few others

(I even started a thread last month on “Which of your current favorite TV shows is most likely to jump the shark first?”)

Until things go sour or the studio/network gets the urge to dump them, I won’t be sad. But grieving over old shows is best dealt with as nostalgia than as some great loss to one’s worldview.

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There aren’t too many shows where I feel legitimately attached to the characters. Felicity is the one major exception… when that show ended, I got that kind of queasy “I’m really gonna miss you guys!” feeling.

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I just sat and stared at the TV after the final scene of “Oz” and thought, “Damn. Now I need to get a life on Friday nights.”

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There’s a definite tension involved.

On the one hand, I want the characters and setting to live on, like I said above.
On the other hand, I don’t want the show stretched until the life goes out of it–I want it to live, not become a wraith.
On the gripping hand, I want a good story, which generally needs to have an ending that resolves things.

My favorite series are always shows with a definite conclusion, and I always finish them eventually, so I guess the gripping hand wins in the end. It’s a melancholy sort of victory, though.

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Which is why I’m bitting my tongue while typing this and stating that The Simpsons series finale should be a half-hour couch gag. :smiley: :frowning: