# Why do series finales suck? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 10, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302 "2017-05-10T18:25:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_John_Marcej)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/41 "2017-05-11T15:30:46Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Endings are the hardest part of any fictional entertainment to create. Even if you know exactly how you want your tale to end, making it structurally satisfying and still make sense after all the twists and turns the plot unexpectedly took you down is a bugger to do well. Series finales are a weird thing. They really didn’t exist until maybe the 80’s with the finale to _M_A_S_H\* (I know, the original _The Fugitive_ was the rare series that had a series ending) and they only did it because they had a logical way to end it, with the ending of a war. Now it seems that **EVERY** series that lasts 5+ seasons **MUST** have a huge, ratings filled series finale, even if it really doesn’t warrant one. To make matters worse, with the advent of social media, speculations of said finales abound with many viewers either: • Being disappointed with the finale because it didn’t meet their expectations or • Being disappointed because it ended exactly how they thought it would. One finale that seems to be loved by all is the _Newhart_ finale, but I wonder, how many of those who praise it (and I liked it too, BTW) actually watched it the night it aired? I was a fan of the show, watched the entire run, but I recall it never was a big ratings getter. It was never talked about, the way _Friends_ or _Seinfeld_ would be. It was a simple sitcom with that great Newhart humor (that drastically changed it’s cast and direction after the 2nd season) that ended the show by completely surprising everyone. It was clever. It was funny. But had that aired during the social media era of today I’m sure there would be huge cries of anger that they “insulted the viewers by saying the entire series was a dream”. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/42 "2017-05-11T15:33:25Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > A lot of people complain about TV Shoes being too simplistic… I totally agree! White sneakers, black dress shoes(usually slip-ons), and black pumps-no real variety at all. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/43 "2017-05-11T15:52:50Z")
Shows tend not to get canceled until after the quality of the writing has plummeted (and the audience evaporated) anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/44 "2017-05-11T16:56:04Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > A lot of people complain about TV Shoes being too simplistic, Call me simplistic then, I just wear regular shoes to watch TV. Or no shoes at all. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/45 "2017-05-11T20:22:26Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > One finale that seems to be loved by all is the _Newhart_ finale, but I wonder, how many of those who praise it (and I liked it too, BTW) actually watched it the night it aired? I was a fan of the show, watched the entire run, but I recall it never was a big ratings getter. It was never talked about, the way _Friends_ or _Seinfeld_ would be. It was a simple sitcom with that great Newhart humor (that drastically changed it’s cast and direction after the 2nd season) that ended the show by completely surprising everyone. It was clever. It was funny. But had that aired during the social media era of today I’m sure there would be huge cries of anger that they “insulted the viewers by saying the entire series was a dream”. I seem to remember the last season of _Newhart_ getting progressively more surreal. There was the episode where Dick joins a local gang of middle-aged men who have a rumble with their rivals but it turns into a scene from _West Side Story_ without the choreography. The series did provide a resolution, like having the Darryls finally speak. And since so much of the show relied on Newhart himself, having the real ending be a callback to his other show (and getting the details so right) didn’t feel like an insult. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/46 "2017-05-11T20:31:38Z")
Same reason you don’t learn anyting on the last day of the school year. Everybody just want to go through the motions and get out of there. ---
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/47 "2017-05-11T21:32:32Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > I agree with you. > The way they ended it was unique and IMO kept with the spirit and theme with the show. > Was ever question answered? No. > In life, is every question answered? NO. > > A lot of people complain about TV Shoes being too simplistic, wrapping up characters problems in a neat package, in 60 min. So now if you don’t answer **every** question, people complain. Not to thread-jack though - but was any substantive question answered? Beyond the widely assumed theory that the side-verse where the plane never crashed was actually purgatory. What was the island? Why did it need a guardian? How did it have magnetic/disappearing/time travel powers? What were the Others really after for so many years? What was Dharma really after for so many years and why did they think there was a plague on the island? What was the golden light in the cave and why did the mechanism need to be fixed? Why was letting the Smoke monster off the island unacceptable? The intial character arcs of Jack being the skeptic and Locke the believer did not seem to add to up to much - why not? If the message that believing is good is what was intended, why was Locke unceremoniously killed and replaced in form by his arch-nemesis, the smoke monster? ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/48 "2017-05-11T23:30:52Z")
Mahaloth: > [@](#): > > I’ll duck the tomatoes for this, but I also think LOST had a great finale. I’ll back you up on this, to a point: I thought it was a great way to resolve the character arcs, and I don’t feel that every mystery in the show needed to be explained. But I felt that it was a major omission that it never clarified which party was in the right (i.e., acting in the interests of the island’s well-being) in the conflict between Ben Linus and Charles Widmore. That was pretty much the central conflict of the show, the fulcrum around which all else revolved, but we’re left wondering whether the right party won in the end. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/49 "2017-05-12T00:19:14Z")
I liked the finale of **Justified.** Boyd: “We dug coal together.” Raylan: “That’s right.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/50 "2017-05-12T23:05:24Z")
I just don’t think it’s true. Most finales that I’ve seen tend to be pretty good, with the exceptions just being the ones everyone talks about. The only thing they need to be is to provide some sort of feeling of finality (even if things continue). And it’s not that hard to do. I admit that shows with a ton of continuity have a harder time making good finales. But that’s because they don’t plan the full arc of the show, and thus can’t wrap up everything properly. Oh, and All Good Things was not only a good finale, but better than 3/4s of the movies. Of course the time travel isn’t consistent. Q was causing it, in an effort to allow Picard to beat the test from the other Qs. Now the DS9 finale had the “black man abandons his family” problem. Voyager had a “weak Borg” problem, but that had been happening for the last two seasons, so it fit. And Enterprise’s was a disaster because they killed someone out of misguided necessity, because it was just a TNG episode, and because the how had finally gotten good, and thus was not ready to end. But the TNG finale was good, as was the movie that was the actual finale for TOS. (The TNG movies are best seen as an alternate continuity, really. Only First Contact fits in continuity, and even it wasn’t as good as the TV finale.) ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/51 "2017-05-12T23:34:26Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > But the TNG finale was good Not by any reasonable definition. The arc of the episode is fundamentally incompatible with _itself_. The very moment the phenomenon arrives in the present, the future time period _must change completely_, or else the entire crew of the Enterprise are shown to be complete and total idiots for ignoring Picard. The same thing happens to the present when it reaches the past. ‘A phenomenon that propagates backwards in time’ is not a macguffin that can be used lightly. It takes a deft hand to either make it work logically, or to reasonably remove the need for logic. ‘A [del]Wizard[/del]Q Did It!’ is not a deft hand. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/52 "2017-05-13T21:15:17Z")
Geez, no love for The Sopranos. The whole 2 part season 6 was dark and increasingly depressing. Much of the dark humor and just about all of the colorful characters had disappeared. And Bobby Bacala kicking Tonys ass?? I believe that David Chase really didnt want to do the last season and make it as painful as possible. And the series suffered when Frank Renzulli departed. ---
**Author:** ![HowSoonIsThen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@HowSoonIsThen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HowSoonIsThen)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302/53 "2017-05-13T22:05:48Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > I bailed on Buffy before the end so I don’t know if that was a good finale or not, but I can see the **potential** there for something good. I see what you did there. Even if you can’t… Because you haven’t seen the finale so it was obviously unintentional… > [@Sauron](#): > > On the flip side, I think _Angel_ did a fantastic job with its two-part finale. They had roughly six weeks (if memory serves) to write and film the finale, because everyone involved with the show fully expected it to be renewed for a sixth season. When it wasn’t – and that announcement came in mid-February of the final season – Joss Whedon and the team scrambled to bring some closure to the show. > > The fact that they did it – and did it brilliantly, in my opinion – in such a short timeframe remains one of the most creative efforts I’ve seen from a television show. I hated the ending at first, but in retrospect it’s actually the perfect ending to the show. Buffy was always about defeating your demons. Angel was much more pessimistic and about the ongoing struggle against them. With that in mind, the ending fits the tone and themes of the show so well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-series-finales-suck/786302.md?page=2)