I was talking about old television shows with some friends the other day, and in the middle of a discussion about how some shows should have ended, I remembered a show that actually ended-Hank(1965). The show was about a kid that illegally audited classes by impersonating other students. He was caught in the last episode, but was allowed to take an equivalency test. he passes it, gets a full scholarship and becomes a real student.
Are there other shows that had an actual ending that didn’t seem seem tacked on at the last minute that you liked?
70 views, and no one can think of a show that had a proper ending? Was Hank unique?
Does the* Mary Tyler Moore* show qualify? I am a little unsure of your criteria.
Hoe about Black Adder? Definitely had a finality to it, even if everyone dies every season.
I’d say MTM had a good wrap up, but Black Adder falls into a special category, I think.
You’re probably right. And you’re also probably old if you remember watching* Hank*. As I do. I was really pulling for that guy.
MAS*H?
How about The Fugitive?
I’m a bit confused by the OP’s criteria also
Does it include shows like:
‘Home Improvement’?
‘Newhart’?
‘Cheers’
‘Start Trek - Next Generation’ (ignoring the movies and such)
What about ‘Friends’ - the whole last season was more or less a lead-up to the ending.
I think there were lots of such series with planned finales
Six Feet Under - You knew it was coming.
I’m talking about an end that ties up loose ends so that you are satisfied that the story is finished. ST:TNG doesn’t count, because it didn’t really tie up many loose ends, and they could have kept going with more episodes if they so wished.
Northern Exposure? All the couples, well, coupled up?
Oh, wait! The Wonder Years! The Wonder Years!
I win!
I LOVE an epilogue, where you find out what happened to all the characters.
Northern Exposure’s ending was just a tacked on clusterfuck, but I will definitely give you Wonder Years.
The ending of HBO’s Rome was too soon, but it wasn’t bad. There was some ambiguity about whether the one guy survived his injuries but it really didn’t matter.
And now that a few years have passed, I’m fine with the ending of The Sopranos and even Deadwood. At least there were no cliffhangers.
I loved Hank! Didn’t it end mid-season? I vaguely remember reading the synopsis of the episode in which he received his scholarship and wondering where the show could possibly go from there. Nowhere, as it turned out, but it ended without announcement.
Fugitive’s ending was deadly prosaic (as was its entire fourth season); MASH*'s saw the complete absorption of Hawkeye Pierce’s character into the persona of his portrayer (the whole point of the show was that Hawkeye would keep his sanity by being more insane than war and the military itself). So I don’t regard either as having ended satisfactorily.
Mystery Science Theater 3000. The guys get back to earth and end up on the couch watching cheesy movies.
There’s a difference between thinking the ending is flat and the ending tying up the storyline in a satisfactory manner. The Fugitive and MAS*H tied up their plots in appropriate ways.
The final episode of The Bob Newhart Show (the one about the psychologist, not the one about the innkeeper) had Bob taking a teaching job in Oregon and giving up his practice in Chicago. The final episode of the Dick Van Dyke show had Rob’s unsold autobiography bought by Alan Brady, who would turn it into a sitcom. The final episode of Friends had Chandler and Monica move out of the apartment.
Hank was what then was known as a “summer series.” Those were scheduled for fill in until the new fall season arrived, but if they were successful they might continue into the new season.
None that I’ve seen. I’ve been cursed with montages of past scenes in every tv show I watch.
Not only that, but they’re watching The Crawling Eye, the same movie that Joel and the bots watched in the very first episode.