If we’re mentioning anime, the ending of Evangelion has to be included.
The X-Files was mentioned earlier. Every once in a while, I think about getting the DVDs up until the movie, but they’re still like $100 a pop.
I guarantee that nobody will be happy with the series finale of The Simpsons. No, I don’t know anything, I just know the way the Internet works.
Cheers: OK, it was pretty good, but I was watching in a bar, and all of us wanted one final “NORM!”
Married…with Children: After 9 seasons, to kill the series after shooting has wrapped and not give them a proper sendoff was just shitty.
I liked it as well. Very loyal fan, saw the very first TV movie/pilot and watched every episode. Good ending.
No, I like the last episode of Quantum Leap too. I even like the fact that Sam never went home. I didn’t see it as a defeat for him; I saw him as embracing the leaps as something worth committing his life to.
I liked the ending as well. I like shows where they end it and it’s either not a happy ending, or totally wrap things up.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Sam going or not going home bothered me. I would’ve been happy with his continuous leaping.
What bothered me is, I like shows with bibles; that is to say, internal consistancy. The final episode answered NO questions, and just made the entire leaping thing even MORE confusing. I wanted at least some answers, darnit!
Not really, Mrs. ddgryphon and I liked it as well.
Somewhere around here is a link to what is supposedly the original script for that episode. See, what went to air wasn’t what was originally planned. The show was cancelled on short notice and, for some reason, the writers decided to scrap the original ending. If what I saw in that link was the original ending, it would have worked much better–it would have left us knowing Sam was still out there somewhere, continuing to jump from problem to problem, instead of simply stating that he didn’t return home and leaving us wonder if he disappeared.
Well… I will say I started watching Angel early season 3. I thought it was pretty good. (Although the Connor plot being ripped off almost entirely from the X-men comics did bug me). Between season 3 and 4 I caught a lot of season 1 and season 2 episodes… I thought Season 1 sucked. They were barely above syndication quality. Season 2 was much better.
So what was so great about Season 4? There were a few DECENT episodes, a few good ones… but over all… once the Jasmine plot got started I honestly did not care about anything going on. Season 5 only bad episode I think was the Halloween episode where Lorne Hulks out.
I was just coming in here to mention this one.
[spoiler]Technically, though, when they came back in PKW, they hadn’t actually died. They’d just been crystallized and needed to be put back together. And Aeryn’s the only one who ever actually died and came back - one of the third season Johns died - the one on Talyn, but he wasn’t brought back to life, we still had the John on Moya. I was horribly shattered when the series ended, simply because that wasn’t SUPPOSED to be the series finale, and at the time, we didn’t know we were getting the miniseries.
As far as the fourth season, there were individual episodes that I was unimpressed with, and I’m STILL not happy with the way Aeryn became a blubbering mess at times, but I don’t think Scorpius was ever bungled that badly. He was never meant to be a good guy, but after being totally screwed over by Grayza, he was sort of in limbo.
Of course, when we did get the miniseries, I felt much more cheerful about things. I think it ended on a high note. [/spoiler]
E.
You have got to be kidding. The end of Buffy S6 had me in tears. S6 was tremendous, dark and edgy; and I loved it. It beat the heck out of S4, even considering the astounding, mind-blowing Hush. Riley, the Initiative and Adam were sufficient to bring down the whole season despite the brilliant individual episodes it contained.
I’m another.
Willow as the big bad would have worked. Willow getting addicted to power would have worked… if they had strung it out over 4 or 5 episodes.
Willow being “addicted” to magic when they’ve never ever even brought up the concept before… not so much. Then, they whole “end of the world scenario” is spung out in the end with no build up and is un-sprung by a very touching, but 'this episode was written so I could say this" speech.
This is what I’m talking about when I say they had good ideas and pissed all over them. The whole idea of Willow slowly slipping as she realizes she can take the easy way and use magic to solve her problems is a good one. Willow getting addicted to magic is just stupid.
Well, it’s continued in a movie…which also, I understand, has the God of Anime kicking the viewers in the face a few times. I mean, it’s probably a great story and well made, but you’ll probably still want to count all your teeth, afterwards.
Speaking of which, remember Evangelion? There was the series finale, and a movie which was kind of a continuation/remake of the finale episodes. The general impression by fans sees said movie as being somewhere between the creator’s saying “this is the ending I had planned, but we ran out of money, so I couldn’t film it before” and “oh yeah? You didn’t like the first finale? You say you didn’t understand it? Well see if you can understand THIS! [cue boot to the head]”
Anime is kinda like a housecat that shows it’s affection by biting you, purring.
Interesting. I naturally assumed that he didn’t return home because he chose to continue leaping. It was such a sentimental ending that the notion of having him go POOF never entered my mind.
I liked the Quantum Leap finale. It made perfect sense.
Speaking of Quantum, I’ll be the one to give the Enterprise send off a real post. No use trying to pretend it didn’t exist. It did. And it perfectly showed the contempt that the Bergama held Trekkers (and Trekkies) in. It wasn’t a slap in the face as much as it was a red hot fire place poker up the ass, perforating our colons, causing massive hemmoraging and major infection, leading to a painful, yet somehow silly, death. Gods, I hate those bastards for that. Would’ve been more satisfying if they had just left it without a finale. I’m cereal!
Well, that wasn’t supposed to be the last episode. There were supposed to be three two-season story arcs for a total of six seasons. The last episode was the end of the first arc and resolved all of the issues dealt with up to that point, but brought up a bunch of new ones for the next arc. But then HBO cancelled it.
Actually, I see ArrMatey! beat me to this. Ah, well.
Refresh my memory, how did it end?
They did string it out over 4 or 5 episodes. About six, actually, from “all the Way” through “Wrecked,” with consequences popping up in eps through the remainder of the season. Unless I’m not understanding the criticism.
Not sure this is a fair criticism. No concept is ever brought up until it is. It’s almost like you’re slamming them for doing something new.
I liked the Quantum Leap finale, also.
On less-than-satisfying finales, let me chime in with Star Trek: Deep Space 9. I liked the series just fine, but the finale was weak, IMHO.
[spoiler]What with the overly quick / neat / painless Dominion War wrap-up, coming out of basically nowhere. Especially after the previous episode where Bashir and his little gang of genetically engineered socially-inept geniuses had studied “all the possible scenarios”, and they had come to the conclusion that there was no way the Federation could win the war without the loss of way too many lives, and it would takes decades, if not centuries. That was the episode in which Bashir was recommending to Sisko that they surrender to the Dominion.
Ooops! Guess Bashir’s little case studies forgot to include the one in which they convince the Cardassians to switch sides… weak. And that little plot hole wasn’t even the most annoying thing – there’s always the necessary suspension of disbelief when those are encountered.
The main “unsatisfying” aspect was that the End-The-War plot was pretty much done in the first hour, and the second hour was just a bunch of dragged-out teary goodbyes. Snore.[/spoiler]
I thought it was made pretty clear in the context of that episode itself that the freaks couldn’t account for all of the vageries of human(oid) behaviour.
Wasn’t a good deal of hour two spent in wrapping up the Prophets/P’ah Wraith story arc?