Someone mentioned King of Queens. How did that finally end?
I liked the finale of Fringe. Satisfying. I felt complete.
They adopt a Chinese girl and the wife gets pregnant. The father-in-law I think gets married. Flash forward 2 years later, and they are busy parents, and the father-in-law comes back to live with them as his marriage didn’t work out.
I liked the Seinfeld ending. I think that plane they were in crashed, and the courtroom scenes and their all being in jail together (talking about nothing) indicates the four of them are in purgatory.
Me too. The bit where the car when it was above the leaves caught fire and was just gone.
Agreed. That was a brilliant show that just sort of stopped, at least as I remember it.
As a sideline to all of the above… what was the first show anyone can remember that had a “final” episode? I seem to remember (or not remember) that the shows I watched growing up in the 60’s & 70’s didn’t have a finale, they just didn’t show up on the lineup the following season.
Obviously now the reason for a goodbye show is hoping to attract a lot of attention (and sell more expensive adverts) on that final night.
That’s a good question. Looking through the list at TVTropes, it looks like the earliest may be The Fugitive. (“This was almost unheard of for a show in the 1960s, and it only came about because David Janssen wanted to quit.”)
There were a few. *Hennesey *ran three seasons and ended with the title character and his love interest getting married, Leave It to Beaver ended with a look back (actually a clip show), The Phil Silvers Show (noted upthread) ended with self-referential wink to the audience.
The first show I can remember with a finale that actually and officially wrapped up a story arc was The Fugitive.
And then a great postscript made for Comic Relief featuring Victor’s ghost.
Considering that it wasn’t the intended finish, the end of Deadwood was pretty good.
Oh, and Blackadder Goes Forth’s ending was brilliant.
Just thought of another one - Great or lousy, depending on your PoV - the original Prisoner (*not *the rubbishy remake)
Thanks for the recap! That sounds like a pretty silly ending. (was never a regular viewer)
You forgot the part where Barney got promoted to Deputy Inspector. 
How many cartoons had a “final episode”? Most just seem to just end.
Did **King of the Hill **have a good ending?
Beavis and Butt-head had a “final” episode, (before they started making new ones), where everyone thought B&B died. I can’t remember if it was any good, since I’ve only seen it once when it first aired.
Did Inspector Gadget ever catch The Claw?
Speaking of Inspector Gadget, Did **Get Smart **have a “final episode”? Did Max ever do away with KAOS? I think I read that they gave Agent 99 a real name, was that in the final?
The Dick van Dyke show also ended with a clip show. While it’s not an actual ending to the series, it does provides some of kind of closure regarding that book Rob Petrie was writing about his life in the Army, courtship of Laura, and so on–the clips are all from those flashback sequences in earlier episodes.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show had a good finale, with the WJM team all having a group hug and having a good-bye-cry while singing “It’s a long way to Tipperary.” It was very funny having the new station owner firing them all except Ted Baxter. 
Yes, To Sirloin With Love was a nice little bow on the series… However, Fox ended up not airing four other episodes from the final season, so there were four “unaired episodes” that debuted in syndication and/or Adult Swim after the finale so those were the actual last episodes so appear.
Oh yes. Heartbreaking. It reminded me of how I felt when I read Robert Graves’ Goodbye to All That, also about WWI. Blackadder Goes Forth- and the punchline is death.
I disagree with this - I thought the ending of 3rd Rock was near-perfect.
“Blah blah blah blah - spaceship.”
Regards,
Shodan
I might be mistaken, but I think they were hoping Deadwood would continue for another season or two, but the plug was pulled before they had a chance to write a real series finale.
I was upset at the time, but since then Timothy Olyphant went on to do “Justified” and, well, if they have to shut down one good show, at least he went on to do another GREAT show, so I guess it was a wash.
There was a pissing match between HBO & David Milch about a 4th season. HBO only wanted to commit to a partial 4th season (cost, probably?)… Milch eventually agreed to do two Deadwood movies instead, but obviously they never happened. Milch moved on to that awful John from Cincinnati project and that was that. Apparently the Deadwood set is still in place, so the window isn’t closed on those two films getting made, but it’ll probably never happen. After Luck, I see Milch has yet another project in development with HBO called The Money… maybe this one will work out okay…
A few weeks after it was announced that the third season would be the last, Milch and the then-prez of HBO, Chris Albrecht, made a handshake deal to do two Deadwood movies. They really needed to be done right away, because most of the major cast members were already getting gigs.
The following spring, Albrecht punched out his girlfriend in Vegas after a boxing match and got shitcanned. The new HBO execs wanted no part of the Deadwood movies, and Milch had lost interest by then anyway.
The exteriors were done at the Melody Ranch in CA, but the Deadwood-specific parts of it were dismantled years ago.