The Evangelion ending is rather odd. The series ending on it’s own is just a complete sideswipe–the last two episodes pretty much come out of nowhere. I think making the movie was a good move–one, although I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s better, it’s connected to the storyline much more than the series ending was, and two, watching it made me appreciate the original ending more.
Well, I haven’t seen the movie, but Khan comments on it towards the bottom of the first page of this thread. I agree with his statements on it.
I still think Ed and Al should’ve gotten a happy ending. Maybe it isn’t mega-happy, and they leave stuff unfinished (like the Ishbal stuff) for later series, movies, etc. Maybe they introduce the idea of the gov’t entering a period of radical change without wrapping it up immediately. Hell, the whole dad reapppears, but now he’s gone forever thing goes a long way to add mixed results to the ending. But give Ed and Al they’re goddamn happy ending.
Hey, I ain’t disagreeing.
If I had a dollar for all of the anime finales I’ve seen that are “bittersweet” or “vaguely dissatisfying, at best”…
Of course not. Everyone knows that Admiral Tucker died at 86 in a bar fight in a New Orleans house of ill repute.
I heartily disliked the series finale of Voyager. They get home. “We did it.” Fade to black, end of story. No resolution, no “OMG we get to see our families again,” no “OMG Maquis fugitives,” no “OMG this ship is crawling with Borg technology,” no nothing. It was ludicrous.
I was unhappy with Deep Space Nine.
I very much wanted Gul Dukat to have the role that Damar did, of “bad guy turned good”.
They went to great lengths to write the characters into final situations so there couldn’t be a movie. Worf’s fial situation was ignored for the next STNG movie. :rolleyes:
Actually, I appreciated that they never tried that. See this is the thing: Dukat was Hitler for the Bajorans. He was beyond redemption from the time he left Terok Nor. That’s one of the reasons why the chemistry between him and Kira never led to anything: that would have just been gross.
Having him possessed by the Kosst Amojan was pretty melodramatic, but really, who else is it going to be? You have to deal with Dukat somehow. He spent the entire series being the anti-Sisko so having him be the anti-Emissary as well makes sense. And having Winn be incinerated in a petty attempt to seize his power was pretty appropriate to her character as well.
Having Winn be incinerated for any reason was pretty appropriate to her character… 
(And I don’t mind that Dukat was beyond redemption – I agree it was appropriate for him.)
I just thought that Series Finale wasn’t up to par with the recent quality of the series.
No it’s my mistake for not being clear. I meant that they hadn’t laid out ground work for the whole addicted-to-magic subplot.
They had indeed laid ample groundwork for an ‘abuse-of-power’ arc. They even an ‘abuse of power’ arc, or at least what seemed like an abuse of power arc and continued it for a few episodes. So yes, they was a good set-up for the arc that they didn’t end up using and I guess that’s the part that pisses me off so much.
They had this nice arc set-up and then right at the end they cut it off the knees by tossing in some abortive drug addiction metaphor for something that doesn’t need a stinking metaphor.
Up until the inclusion of Rack Willow’s problem is that she’s gotten a real taste for power and likes it. She starts fixing things to her liking with a disregard for the wishes and rights of others. She’s decided that she knows best and magic is the tool she uses to enforce her will.
These weren’t even new character traits. They’ve always been pretty well established in Willow’s character even before she was a magic powerhouse. The only variable was how much influence she had to establish her will as law.
This is what I mean by having great ideas and pissing all over them. They built a sympathetic character with a major flaw and, over the course of numerous seasons, eventually that flaw grew to become a major problem that needed to be resolved… or eventually they* almost *did that.
Instead, right when things were starting to come to a head they tossed out seasons worth of build-up and added in a throw-away drug addiction sub-plot.
My main guess at their rational is that they figured it would be easier to “buy-back” Willow from a magic-induced drug-addiction then it would be to redeem her from a wholly mortal-induced power trip.
Given they’d been shown that they had an audience with the patience to allow a soulless vampire to slowly be ‘bought-back’ this seems to me to be an inexcusable lapse.
The only other real explanation I can see is that the writers had gotten so used to using supernatural metaphors to deal with issues that it didn’t even occur to them this was a case where they would have been far better served by simply being literal.
No, nothing wrong with introducing something new to their universe as long as they treat it like something new. The trouble is that the magic-addiction issue wasn’t treated like something new. It was treated like a pre-existing part of the universe and not even an especially ‘little-known’ one [especially with later references to the issue by Riley’s wife].
No previously characters who would be expected to be well versed in the issue [Giles, Tara] had ever so much as brought it up in passing.
Yes, Giles is concerned about Willow messing with/unleashing dark forces beyond her control and Tara is concerned about Willow using magic to always take the easy way out but no reference to the apparently reasonably well-known issue of magic addiction is ever made.
In Summary:
They had a fantastic idea that was well in keeping with the “we are our own enemies” subtext of the season. In willow’s case they had an existing ‘abuse of power’ issue which they clouded with a last-minute and wholly unneeded ‘addiction to magic’ issue. Both would have been more or less in keeping with the season’s subtext. However, in the end they didn’t treat them as two issues and in fact they subsumed the AOP issue within the ATM issue before finally pretending that it was an ATM issue all along and allowing the AOP problem to fall unnoticed to the wayside.
Buffy’s problems in this season stemmed from her own inability to adapt to her [new] changing life as well as her inability to connect with the people in her life. Both problems were eventually resolved as internal conflicts not supernatural in origin.
Xander and Anya. Broken apart by internal conflicts rather then supernatural ones [it having been shown that while the fake 'Xander from the future" might have been a catalysts, the source of the problem was wholly mortal with a mortal [non] solution].
Dawn, Giles issues. More internal conflict with finding their role.
Even the “Evil Trio” were shown to all be mortal individuals with mortal ambitions and very very messed up mortal issues.
Willow has some long-standing control issues and a big “I know best” complex which they spent a great deal of time establishing before tossing it aside in favor of a last minute “I’m addicted to using magic and having seasonings in the house is like crack.”
I agree. The fifth season was ok, but it had that horrible Werewolf girl episode early on and just wasn’t as awesome and intense as Season 4.
Hey, don’t go bad-mouthing Nina! She was hot!
Well, at least some of those shows had finales. The Pretender, John Doe, Joan of Arcadia, Wonderfalls- all canceled without any fucking clue as to any answers. :mad:
I was going to mention Joan of Arcadia. I loved that show, and I still mourn its passing. I think Barbara Hall et al was hoping for a renewal, which is why they left the season 2 finale a cliffhanger instead of an ending.
And now we’ll never know… 
I was just jumping in here to moan about John Doe. It’s still my benchmark for network assholeishness. Everytime I hear that a show I like is on the bubble, the first thing I think is “they better not go John Doe on us.”
Ditto Tru Calling. Fox can eat dirt. Although they redeemed themselves a bit by giving Arrested Development a decent send off.
thwartme
From Wikipedia, the Mortal Kombat: Conquest finale.
I heard it as the writers/producers killing all the main characters off in a fit of pique after salary negotiations broke down, but it’s funny either way. 
Finally : someone who agrees with me !!!
I just loved the ending of Twin Peaks.
I thought it provided us with closure on just about everything (except what happens to Cooper, but he would probably just end up in an asylum for the criminally insane).
I have to jump in and defend the Prisoner finale again. While I agree that anyone “expecting a rational end” would have been disappointed, it’s hard to imagine why anyone who watched more than one or two episodes would have expected that. The series was increasingly surreal and otherwordly, with several episodes almost completely defying logical explanation (“Free For All,” “Once Upon a Time,” etc.) in favor of satire and symbolism. I’d say that anyone who watched the entire series up to the finale and still expected a rational explanation was missing the point. (Yes, perhaps even the mighty Cecil belongs in this category, if such heresy may be uttered.) :eek:
Still, it remains possible to criticize the finale even when considered as allegory . . .
Now this I can understand, even though I kind of disagree. There was a lot of surreal “fluff” thrown into the mix, but again, that was pretty typical of the series as a whole. Overall, though, I think the ending works once you realize that Number One was never a “person” at all, but a symbol of Number 6’s/mankind’s evil nature, and therefore the true source of his/our "imprisonment."This interpretation is pretty well-known, and I believe it has even been discussed by McGoohan himself in interviews (there are several good Prisoner companions/episode guides). It works retroactively, too, so you can watch the series a second time with full knowledge that none of it can be taken literally. A much better ending, IMHO, than if they’d have revealed Number One to be some Dr. Evil-type supervillain. Or, as many people probably expected, the Butler.
Not that I didn’t like the episode, but as I noted in another recent thread about dangling plotlines in series finales, among the dangly bits left from TP were:
Did Audrey survive the explosion at the bank? (I was in an AOL interview room with Sherilyn Fenn and she said the plan was yes, but it’s not canon)
Did the others in the bank vault survive the explosion? (IIRC, Pete, Catherine and Andrew were there)
Who’s really Donna’s father?
Did Leo survive the death trap?
Will Ben Horn survive the injuries inflicted by Dr Heywood?
Who’s the real father of Lucy’s baby? (and would she ever give birth on the show, since each episode was one day and a full-term pregnancy would take over ten seasons)
What will be the fate of Ghostwood Estates?
What’s the secret of the Owl Cave?
If the owls are not what they seem, what are they?
Agreed. A season finale with as big a shocker as John Doe had is rare. At the time, I didn’t know that JD was on the bubble… and when Digger looked back at John… wow. Just wow. I’d love to see what they had planned for the next season.
You surely don’t want to know the reason Doe knew everything and who the folks “after him” were, though.
I probably can’t find the link anymore, anyway. 