Tell us about the TV series finales that most annoyed you, and how you'd want them fixed.

I know the show isn’t over yet, but Homeland is going to get really effin tedious if they keep inventing new problems that they can swing into a new season. While I also know not every show should be Breaking Bad, I think Homeland would seriously benefit from having a static story line that we know is going to end sometime. We KNOW where Breaking Bad is going to end. We don’t exactly how its gonna happen, but I think the whole magic is that we are led along the whole time knowing in the back of our minds that Walt’s story is going to end and it will not be pretty.

Homeland needs to do the same thing. Its not like Homeland is the story of a city or the story of a group of friends. Homeland is about Claire Danes’ direct conflict with Sgt. Brody and that should be it. Don’t draw it out and keep making them go through new conflict to keep milking it. Homeland should be all about a short, intense, and amazing burst of action and suspense and drama. It would be one of the best thriller shows ever if it does that, but, sadly, I think they mind start drawing it out too much.

I can’t believe no one has mentioned “The Sopranos” yet?!

Head of the Class scenerio for ending the show when Howard Hessman left:

Arvid comes running into class. “There’s someone shooting a gun out there.”
Mr. Moore: Everyone stay here, under your desks. I’ll see what’s going on.

Moore goes out, there’s a student with a gun who fires, the bullet moves in slow motion and a voice says “Johnny…Johnny.”

Cut to: Venus Flytrap standing over the couch where Dr. Johnny Fever is waking up.

Johnny: Man, I just had the strangest dream. I was a teacher.
Venus: You’re confused. I was the teacher.
J: No, I was. You were a salesman, or running a restaurant or something. And living with a woman. And you had twin daughters.
V: I don’t think so.
J: And you also had a white dude for a son. Used to smoke reefer with his friends in the basement all the time
V: That’s my boy! What about the rest of the staff?
J: Let’s see…Jennifer was married to some guy with a bad toupee who ran a Florida dinner theatre. But they were getting a divorce.
V: Who would divorce her? What about Bailey?
J: She was married to some guy who wanted to divorce her to marry…Barbra Streisand.
V: Oh, yeah, right. Like she’s ever going to get married again. And what about Arthur Carlsen?
J: He was a washing machine repairman. And a child molester
V: Speaking of reefer…you’ve done way too much.

That’s what I was thinking, the series has certainly gone down hill since the first season. Far too much black screen for my liking.

This is the only answer.

I love most of the finales being bashed here (Forever Knight, Angel, Quantum Leap, BSG, TNG…) and don’t even hate the Seinfeld one.

But Enterprise… unforgivable. Apparently, they wrote a book that undoes the worst part, but I can’t bear to read it because it shouldn’t need to exist.

Could you please expound on this? I don’t remember that episode very well. (Plus it’s always such a pleasure hearing you rant.)

Trip isn’t dead?

Quantum Leap. I felt so betrayed. Yeah, Lost was bad, but I knew going into it that they could never really pull everything together. That whole last season was incomprehensible. But Quantum Leap had the opportunity to finish their story and to reward loyal fans, but chose to shit on us instead.

StG

No, he isn’t. His death was faked. He was recruited by Section 31 and surgically altered to pass for a Romulan in order to infiltrate their Warp 7 project and gather intelligence to pass back to Starfleet.

Cool.

To be fair to Lost, they answered a lot more questions than The X-Files ever did. And at least they didn’t end it with a damn clip show.

It was mentioned in post #46.

I’m someone that really liked the Sopranos finale. I was taken aback by it when it happened live but it worked really well.

Earlier in the season, a couple of characters talk about being shot and how if you don’t see it coming, it’s just lights out.

David Chase has never been explicit but he does say that there is a definite ending and that all of the information you need to know what happened was there for the viewer.

Tony obviously gets shot in the back of the head by the Members Only guy, right when Meadow is walking through the front door. The cut to black is Tony’s view… or lack of one, more accurately.

Uh, there was always a supernatural bent to the show. It was one of the big possibilities always mentioned for why Sam was Leaping in the first place. And what about vampires? Ghosts? Angels? Mummies? The devil himself?

Please tell me that is a reference to a part he played and not something from real life.

The former. By all accounts, Gordon Jump was a pretty decent guy.

“As God is my witness…” will make me laugh forever more.

The second part of that was a reference to a Very Special Episode of Diff’rent Strokes where he played a bike shop owner that spends a little too much time with Arnold and Dudley.

The only problem I have with “All Good Things” is that they goofed on the anti-time thing. When the third Enterprise shows up, the anti-time should be a thing already that they decide to probe to confirm/understand/communicate with/whatever, and then instantly as soon as they probe it, it vanishes to be replaced by normal spacetime.

Temporal causality and antitime are confusing, but they aren’t that confusing.

I agree with Leaper, you appear to have completely forgotten that the supernatural was always an element of the show and from episode 1 they referred to whatever was causing Sam to leap through time as “God, Time, Fate, Whatever.”

Carnivàle.

In their defense, they were cancelled by HBO so all that they did to end the 2nd season, further the mythos of their story, have the big fight between Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin, and the set up for Sophie for the next season all became pointless because they couldn’t continue the story.

Space Above and Beyond.
The writers seemed to kill or wound everyone when they found that they were to be canceled.

Buffy. I would have gotten rid of that stupid joke about them blowing up the mall. “We were on the wrong side.”
I get they were still a little shellshocked having survived the annihilation of Sunnydale, a near miss Armageddon and the deaths of many of their teammates, but the joke just seemed mistimed and callous.
And I would have brought Oz back in for the 7th season. I’m not going to insist he and Willow get back together or anything insane like that, but considering what was at stake, they might have been able to use his help.