The US version of Life on Mars had a different resolution, if a little too literal. But at least it wrapped things up.
One series that had a satisfying answer, but which was not revealed because they didn’t complete the run, was the 1967 series Coronet Blue
The solution:
[spoiler]The series ended before the solution to these mysteries was revealed, but series creator Larry Cohen later told his biographer:
“The actual secret is that Converse was not really an American at all. He was a Russian who had been trained to appear like an American and was sent to the U.S. as a spy. He belonged to a spy unit called ‘Coronet Blue.’ He decided to defect, so the Russians tried to kill him before he can give away the identities of the other Soviet agents. And nobody can really identify him because he doesn’t exist as an American. Coronet Blue was actually an outgrowth of ‘The Traitor’ episode of The Defenders.”[
[/spoiler]
Oh, I would definitely agree Lost is an even better example of “writing oneself in a corner”. No argument there.
The Prisoner reminds me more of King’s Dark Tower series - the build-up was so very clever, so very genre-busting, that any actual resolution was always likely to disappoint; in both cases, one gets the impression the creator simply could not figure out what to do with the wonderful monster he had created.
The problem is that creating a satisfying resolution typically has to be built in from the beginning, before the first episode or chapter is written; if it isn’t, it is really hard to retrofit one in the last book or episode.
Given what happened in Season 2 of Broadchurch, I can’t reasonably say that Season 1 had a satisfying ending.
If the key matter continues, then the whole run concerning it has to be taken into account.
Otherwise you’d allow ridiculous things like Rectify, Season 1, Episode 1 as qualifying for this thread.
It’s better to pretend there is no season 2 of Broadchurch.
I’ll take your word for it - I reacted to the Dark Tower as furryman did to The Prisoner - started it, recognized after a bit that I didn’t care, and dropped it.
Yes, 100%.
With mysteries (just to drag myself back to the OP) I think starting with the resolution in mind is more natural. I would expect that (for instance) Agatha Christie started writing The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by coming up with the idea of whodunit, and then writing everything with that in mind. She would almost have to.
With TV, I expect it more common that they come up with the idea for the series and the first thirteen episodes. Then it succeeds, and they build on that, without knowing why the first thirteen episodes should make sense in light of the resolution.
Regards,
Shodan
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was an anomaly in Christie’s work. Her method was usually to set up the situation with several people who could be the killer – and not decide which one until the book was near the end. She planted motives and clues for everyone so that when she made her decision some pointed to the real killer and the others became red herrings. The resolution of Murder on the Calais Coach/Orient Express benefited from this method, too.
Heh. Slight hijack, but – before Superman was disguising himself as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, and before Batman started pretending to be millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne – Lee Falk was doing a comic strip about the masked hero known only as THE PHANTOM, who rescued and fascinated the lovely Diana Palmer; after all, the dashing mystery man seemed nothing like her foppish suitor Jimmy Wells, who to all appearances was an upper-class twit of the “idle rich” variety. And who, by coincidence, was never around when the Phantom went into action. Always seemed tired the next day, though. Well, maybe he’s just lazy.
Falk intended to reveal that Jimmy was secretly the Phantom; he later realized, no, wait; that’s stupid. Okay, everything I’ve published where he appears to be a lazy twit of the ‘idle rich’ variety? Let’s just – leave it as is, that’s actually perfect.
…and long before Lee Falk was even born, Baroness Emma Orczy had Sir Percy Blakeney fighting for the French Aristocracy as The Scarlet Pimpernel (she evidently first did it as a stage play in 1903, and turned it into a novel in 1905) As far as I know, her hero was the first "hero with a secret identity " in popular fiction. Sir Percy , like many who followed (Zorro, Batman, Clark Kent), was apparently not interested in playing the hero, the opposite of his costumed alter ego.
I wonder if this all started as a sort of mirror image of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde?
:eek:
Well, granted – though John Holloway maybe beat him to it, as the Human Bat.
But my point, in hopes of having some tiny bearing on this thread, was that Falk wrote Jimmy with that reveal in mind – but then later decided that the rich guy who’d been written as never being around when the Phantom appeared, and as popping in and seeming awfully tired after the masked man had left, actually was just some rich guy who got tired easily and happened to not be around at key times; Falk originally penned it figuring the character was offering phony excuses and putting on an act, but then Falk reconsidered and went off in a different direction by making clear that, no, everything simply was as it had seemed: when Jimmy had unconvincingly yammered on and on about having played a lot of tennis, he’d just been blandly telling the truth!
I think the originally planned resolution might have worked better:
With Babylon 5 being destroyed by the Shadows just as Garibaldi’s and Sinclair’s flashforward indicated, only to have Bablyon 4 suddenly appear to replace it. After the issue with the actor playing Sinclair causing him to depart before Season 2, JMS made some remarkably deft footwork trying to adjust everything, even if it all didn’t all make as much sense.
I liked Natalie better, which is unusual for me.
I liked the ending to Twin Peaks, but then, I was going around after the first episodes, telling everyone who was complaining that they never revealed who did it, that they in fact, told us directly who did it. Granted, he was a supernatural spirit, and there were hints that he possessed someone’s body when he killed Laura, and we still didn’t know whose, but that really didn’t matter.
I thought the ending, with the demented look on Agent Cooper’s face, was perfect.
I also thought they did leave one thing unresolved-- what, and how, if anything, did the supernatural spirit do to Ronette Pulaski. Did the spirit possess the same person, or someone else, and if someone else, who? I didn’t especially care, but I was kind of surprised that the way people were beating the stage with their canes after the last season of episode one, and apparently harassing David Lynch, no one else seemed to care about that either.
Did Crossing Jordan ever resolve? I know it got revamped at one point, which involved firing most of the original writers and hiring new ones, so if the original mystery was conceived with a solution, the first writing team may have taken it with them.
I stopped watching the show after Arija Bareikis joined the cast, because I knew her in high school, and I couldn’t stand her. Too bad, because I really liked it before that. I tried to watch the series finale, but too much had happened, and I couldn’t follow it. I think I fell asleep. I tried again in reruns, but my impression is that it was never resolved. Anyone else know more?
I disagree that he is free. He is Number 1.
“The Kiing is a pawn as well, only less active.”
The Perfect Master’s take on The Prisoner
What about the first few seasons of Dexter? I lost track about season four but the first few had pretty good overarching mysteries to resolve.
I drifted away from Castle. Did the show ever resolve the issue of why Beckett’s mother was murdered? And the mystery of Castle’s father?
The first: yes they did. And I forgot it as soon as I saw it, and never rewatched those episodes. 
It was stupid, whatever it was.
The second: he’s just your garden variety superspy, who happened to have an affair with Martha.
I think Monk basically applies, since he was driven to find out who killed his wife, in addition to solving the mystery of the week, but yes, I primarily had shows like Lost, FlashForward etc. in mind.
Depending on how it was shot, that would’ve been a much better ending, I think. More clever; less self-indulgently surreal and bullshitty.
Preach it, brother!
Noooooo! I hated, hated, hated it. Poor Agent Cooper. I was actually upset for a couple of days after that.
Well Psych lasted quite a long time and had quite a satisfying ending, but I think that might have been because, in my mind I always knew that there was space for more adventures with the gang. In any case, its a lot better than killing off characters or permanent farewells.
They did, but I stopped watching almost after Castle and Beckett got together, the show actually started to decline in quality ever since season 2 ended in my opinion.