Favorite: There’s a number, but my favorite is gonna be MASH’s overblown, overwrought Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen as my favorite… but then, I love all things MASH.
Worst: The X-Files Clip Show, er, The Truth, in which, after seeing this special two-parter just last week, my original observation still holds up: Chris Carter had nowhere to go but to pull something out of his ass, and what resulted was a clip show. Given the shows potential and high points, this was possibly the most insulting final episode in the history of TV, a slap at the fans. :mad:
It’s my senior year of high school. All year, my friends and I have spent most of our free time analyzing the latest episode of Twin Peaks. We’ve debated, theorized, and bonded over this show, which is like nothing any of us have ever seen before.
And now, the show is cancelled. I throw a final-episode party at my house. Mom makes a great big pepperoni roll. We are almost unable to bear the suspense. We turn on the television.
Time passes.
We turn off the television, and look cautiously at one another, silent. Each of us is thinking the same thing: Am I stupid? Did they all get that, was it brilliant, and was I too dumb to realize? Or did Lynch just smack us in the face for no reason? None of us can think of anything to say.
We chat awkwardly about gym class for a few minutes, and then everyone goes home.
I think my wife cried at the end of that, for its horribleness. Her reaction to the X-Files finale is of betrayal: when Scully gave William away she gave up on the show for she could no longer emphasize with any of the major characters.
Favorite: Fullmetal Alchemist, Star Trek TNG, Gravitation.
Worst: Macross 7. The entire series is bad, but the last episode is even worse.
The first season of Sailor Moon belongs in both categories. The last two episodes in the original are teriffic. Very moving, and there is one very touching scene where Serena goes to kiss Prince Darien, but won’t because her friends died without knowing love and she can’t be happy without them. These two episodes were cut down to one in the English dub, resulting in a very choppy episode that is difficult to make sense of at times. I watched it a couple years ago, and thought to myself, “How did I understand this when I was 10?”
“The X-Files” was the first thing I thought of for the “worst” category. The disappointment was only heightened because of the hype of having David Duchovny return. Perhaps it was Chris Carter’s secret plan to put together a finale that was so wretched that it would make the rest of Season 9 (and, for that matter, Season 8) seem pretty brilliant by comparison.
I still smart when my watching of the Sportsnight brings me to the last episode. It’s not even a finale. It just ends. In the middle of story arcs, and setting up a potentially very good new story line where the network gets sold to an idealistic new owner. It came at the reasonable end of the second season of the show, but you could tell that Sorkin made it thinking, KNOWING, that he would have a third season. The show was cancelled, and the last episode just sort of sits there, begging for more. Stupid ABC.
Sure, you can say the the whole series was actually an allegory that stands on its own merits, that appears to be an adventure series, but really there was no need for it to be so opaque.
So you watch the series thinking its some kind of surreal adventure series, then the second time becuase the last episode modifies your view, and the central character is actually railing against the things within him that bind him and deny him freedom and individuality - it you want, but really it just becomes a pretty bad hippy manifesto.
Wasn’t the last episode of “The Prisoner” added after its initial run because people didn’t like the ending of the episode before it which was supposed to be the last episode.
Another episode was also filmed to stick in the middle because another character was needed.
Worst: Quantum Leap “…Doctor Beckett never made it home.”
Forever Knight TPTB:“How do we end this show? I know! Let’s kill the whole cast!”
Angel Cut to black screen just when the episode finally got moving.
Buffy How about we make all the girls Slayers!
Best:
Last episode of Newhart “Have you ever considered wearing more sweaters?”
This is the ONLY allowable instance of the “It was all just a dream” scenario.
Seinfeld’s finale was merely anticlimactic; Roseanne’s was an abomination, a display of ego so monstrous it almost becomes surreal.
My favorite final episode was probably to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Not only did it satisfy in that cuddly emotional way that Trekkies like, it was actually a tight, solid story, something that had been sorely lacking in TNG’s final 2 or 3 seasons.
