This past season finale of One Tree Hill would have made a picture-perfect finale. Having Jamie narrate and explain things that happened worked in a way that seldom does, and everyone got their happy ending, especially Brooke. It left me feeling good about how things were left in a way that finales seldom do.
However, the show will have a short additional season in 2012, and it makes me a little sad because it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to write another finale that will strike loyal viewers the same way. Though I suppose if they could get Chad and Hillary on board for a reappearance it could give such an episode a fighting chance of being better.
I know a lot of X-Files fans who claim that the 7th season finale would have made a great series ender, but I really disagree. Mulder abducted by aliens, leaving behind a newly pregnant Scully, would have been a seriously frustrating ending. “The Truth” was a terrible series finale, but at least they were together in the end (minus their kid, sadly.) Besides, “Invocation” in season eight was one of the best episodes in the last few seasons, and it would have been a shame if it had never been written.
I feel the same way about the finale the season before last of Supernatural since I hated the thought of Dean losing his idiot brother forever. I’m much more of a Dean fan, but I want them both to come out of this as happy as circumstances allow, and for Dean that means still having his little brother to protect and boss around.
So…
A. what episodes would you nominate as great would-have-been finales?
B. what commonly cited - either by people you know or online - episodes do you disagree with being perfect series enders yourself?
I’m willing to bet most of the episodes we come up with were shot when the series in question was endanger of not being renewed, but does it really matter?
Terra Prime would’ve made a fantastic series finale for Star Trek: Enterprise, in fact many fans refuse to acknowledge the canoncity or existence of the actual finale, These Are The Voyages, because it was such a huge, steaming piece of shit. Even the actors hated it.
The only interesting thing about the last MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE episode is that it was a bit lackluster when it came to the assorted specialists Jim Phelps typically plots strategy for: the record-breaking weightlifter isn’t called on to use his strength, the hot chick doesn’t show up at all, and so on.
A little earlier in the final season, though, crooks who’d been conned in a previous episode kidnap the recognizable Phelps and blackmail our heroes into pulling off a heist without their master planner (and while struggling to figure out how to turn the tables on the bad guys who may or may not double-cross 'em). So cue one last spotlight for what everyone does best: the pretty girl makes a perfect diversion of herself, the muscleman beats the living hell out of people – all while Jim devises his own damned escape without a specialist in sight, thank you very much.
You’re confused. “These Are the Voyages” was the last episode of Next Generation, only it guest-starred the cast of Voyager, and all the NextGen cast except for Frakes & Sirtis boycotted out of hatred of its suckiness.
Though I hate to lose “Once More with Feeling,” Buffy the Vampire would be more satisfying overall if it had ended with Buffy’s death at the end of the fifth season. If they simply had to continue the series, they should have done so with Faith, Dawn, or a new character picking up the Slayer mantle.
The Frank Grimes episode of the Simpsons, which came toward the tail end of the “classic” era, would have been a good finale, in that it was a good send-up of just how preposterous the show’s universe can seem to a “real” person.
Two Cathedrals, the last episode of season 2 of The West Wing, would have made a perfect series finale. There was plenty of good stuff in the following seasons, but the first two by themselves would be one of the great shows of all time.
