Yahoo! has had this slideshow with this header:
Of those listed I have only three I’ll be watching:
Justified – must see, even thought there’s little doubt where it will go
Grey’s Anatomy – I’ll see it, but I’m about done with the show
The Mentalist – will see it and have more hope for new and unexpected details than for the other two
The rest – Not my cup of tea.
You?
I always expect cliffhangers and other annoying things, so I tend to not really care much, which is probably the opposite of what is desired, but dangit. I hate the formula of ‘leave them hanging until next season!’ , especially in this new world of ‘seasons? what seasons? We start and stop whenever we want, and now you’re going to have to wait another 9 months to find out what happened!’
Pfft.
Well said. “Season” just happens. What’s worst are those shows that plan a deliberately longish break or hiatus around other legitimate “seasons” like football and basketball. And then there are super-successful shows like House that are on several times a week in syndication or on “sister networks” so that you really have to check the date of the episode to know which are first run and rerun and revived zombie.
And the capper to all the “cliffhanger” finales has to be the number of shows that get cancelled before the resolution to the dangling part(s) ever happens. It must give network honchos a real thrill to be able to say, “Not so fast, presumptuous series, that will never have any conclusion on this network. Maybe somebody else will bring you back. Not us. Bye, now.”
Wonder how many shows went into Finale Land thinking they’d be back, and didn’t make it.
I meant to come in here and apologize for what basically was ‘threadsh*tting’, (and I am sorry; if I could delete it I would) but it’s still an interesting discussion.
I seem to remember ‘Dallas’ being my first experience with serious night-time series cliffhangers, and being annoyed even then. I doubt that was the first, but, aside from soap operas <which do it every week, it seems>, was there a lot of that before ‘Dallas’?
Ever since Dallas did their famous “Who Shot J.R.?” episode, that made the cover of magazines and had the next season opening get blockbuster ratings, it seems every other show now wants to try to bring in the same numbers.
From those listed, we watch Justified, Mentalist, Castle and one or two others occasionally. Would be nice to see some of those stories end and new ones started.
You have no reason to apologize that I can determine. And I can’t provide any earlier examples than Dallas (another series/show that I managed to miss), but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were plenty of them.
The Mentalist, Castle
As far as anything else goes, I don’t think Sportscenter has season finals.
Of the twelve they list, I only watch the following shows:
Castle
The Vampire Diaries
Gossip Girl
Grey’s Anatomy
And of those four, Castle is the only one I really care about. I’m far more interested in seeing how Supernatural and Fringe will end their seasons than anything the slideshow seems to think is worth watching.
And…what do they mean by “must see finales” anyway? Assuming that you regularly watch a show, why would you pick the last episode of the season not to see? And if you don’t watch a show, why on earth would you start watching the final episode? Silliness.
Just “the Mentalist” I don’t watch any of the others listed.
BTW, the whole “air shows as infrequently and whenever we feel like” thing. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I wish there were some way to cure them of that. Cheap greedy bastards! 
To my way of thinking you have summarized the importance of that slideshow: negligible.
The Mentalist is still on? I thought that show had one runaway season, and then tanked?
I’m a bit confused by this thread. Are there actually people who ONLY watch finales? When I watch a show, I COMMIT to it and see every single episode.
My thought behind starting a thread on this issue/slideshow was that of the 12 shows featured, I only care about a few and I was curious how other Dopers felt. The other topics of discussion in the thread have come up on their own and are fair game as I see it.
The fact that other shows I care about (The Mentalist is among my very favorites) are still in progress for a few more weeks, just means that whenever they take whatever break they do, I’ll be more interested in them than with the 9 others in this slideshow that are closing down right away.
That help?
Smallville
Community
Castle
I haven’t bothered with the others since they’ve existed, so I’m not starting now. Smallville is the series finale as well, so I will watch it to finally see the suit and the flying. Community is promising a 2-part finale that should be excellent, and I’m Nathan bitch, so I never miss Castle.
Well, unless you want to limit it to season enders (which we probably should based on the topic, but what the hey) every other episode of Batman ended in a cliffhanger, at least until Batgirl came along. And of course it all goes back to the old movie serials.
But yeah, the only thing worse than having to wait MONTHS for the resolution to a cliffhanger is when the show gets canceled and no resolution ever occurs.
Justified, Castle, The Office.
Community is the only show mentioned in the article I watch (I used to watch The Office, but I’ve pretty much given up on it this season). Dunno if their going back to the paintball well is a good idea, but I guess we’ll find out.
I’ll be watching The Mentalist finale, the only other big cliffhanger finale I can think of that I’ll be sure to see is NCIS, which wasn’t in that slideshow because they figure everyone’s already going to see it (or at least 22 million or so people) anyway.
Not only is it still on, Simon Baker just signed a new contract for $30 million over the next 3 seasons. There was some talk about how that makes him the highest paid dramatic star on CBS, but by my math, $10 million a season, 22 shows, makes a little over $450k per show, and Mark Harmon’s pulling in, rightfully, twice that. Twice the viewership, twice the dough.