That goes without saying. My point is, altruistic or not, how did he choose where and when (and whom) to leap to? Or when to leap out?
(Regarding the latter question, I’m mainly thinking of episodes like “How the Tess Was Won,” when he didn’t leap after successfully matching up the vet and the cowgirl, because he had one other task that Ziggy didn’t predict; and “Honeymoon Express,” when he didn’t leap after saving his bride’s life, because his real purpose was to make sure she passed the bar exam.)
The first final episode of Magnum was pretty good (for a finale). Magnum dies, show over, but he gets to go out doing one final good thing. And Higgins is still yelling at him!
The second final episode tied up a bunch of loose ends, but left more hanging. Plus the stupid slapstick wedding of Rick and some bimbo.
While Magnum’s finale(s) were not as bad as some of these mentioned, they should have just ended the show with Limbo.
Not to mention that thanks to her Idiot Sister, Jamie gets Paul to have a vasectomy, then get it reversed, then reverses the reverse…something like six times. :smack:
I’m reminded of when Helen Hunt won the Best Actress Oscar for As Good As It Gets, during the post-ceremony press conference, some reporter asks her if the cancellation of MAY was due to the quality of the writing in the last season. She stares at the guy for five cringe-worthy seconds, then sets phasers on Snark and shoots: "Well, y’know, I had a hand in the writing in the final season, so maybe I’m the reason the show tanked!!"
When Brother Cavil, the antagonist throughout pretty much the entire series, just decided to suck on a handgun, I just threw up my hands in my living room and went, “Oh, c’mon.” Seriously, if that has to be the end of all Brother Cavils, at least let him try to take Adama out, something, something IN CHARACTER.
The final episode of The Big Bang Theory was bit of a let-down. I mean, the series had been in serious decline for several seasons, sharks lying about everywhere, but they there were still possibilities. It was just sad.
Agree about Quantum Leap. So Sam just keeps leaping forever after fixing the life of the one person he cares about, Al?
What about HIS WIFE? When does he go back and fix her life so she never met the selfish prick who abandoned her to hop through time forever?
“God” told him that everything up to that point had essentially been training, and he was now ready to take on the (much more difficult) real work. And, gave him the option of going home, or going on. He either continues to fix lives and history, or died trying.
I don’t have a problem with that ending, even if it was Brother D-Day playing God.
NO one has mentioned the last episode of “True Blood”???
The last season, all the episodes were just awful. The last episode was truly despicable. I won’t give any details in case someone wants to watch it and be surprised, but…I didn’t feel any emotion over what happened. None. And the last scene - WTH, who WAS that guy? I suppose not germaine to the story which went ahead a couple of years?..the best thing about it was a Led Zep song, ‘Thank You’.
It’s kind of hilarious that Bakula-headlined projects made the shortlist twice.
(And, yes, while plenty has been said so far about QUANTUM LEAP, it’s true that ENTERPRISE got a lot better in its final season before that wretched finale.)
It’s a murkier question, but I wonder how many series have been started with any kind of ending at all in mind? And of those that perhaps had a conclusion sketched out, how many made it to the goal, either at all or without changes?
There aren’t many Babylon 5’s out there, which reportedly was sold on the strength of its final scenes (“And now we’ll spend five years getting there” JMS reportedly said.) I’m not even sure shows with an obvious ending like ST:V had one in mind at the beginning.
Even shows that plan to build to a fixed ending over four or five years often blow it; see Battlestar Galactica.
Most shows can’t handle more than a season arc and one ep or a mini-arc that sets up the next season. Many of those don’t even try. So there’s either no final episode worthy of the name, or it’s something cobbled together in a panic and you end up with a… Sopranos, or Friends, or St. Elsewhere, or even a BSG. If not a *Prisoner *because the adults have left and the inmates are running the asylum.
ETA: I thought I had a closing point to make, but I was wrong. CUE THE MONKEYS AND THE SHAVING CREAM!
The problem with the final episode of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER – uh, spoilers, I guess? Kinda figure that’d be implied in this thread – is that they obviously had the finale planned from way back when they had the kids film it, because they weren’t going to still be kids years and years and years later when he finally finished telling the story and they can finally tell him what they think of it.
Which means, to use that ending, they couldn’t ask during the last season hey, should we rethink this? This would’ve been great if we’d been cancelled in another season, but now we’re at a place where – no? We’re sticking with the footage we filmed way back when? Uh, okay.
Eh? Mad Men is on my list of one of the best final episodes.
Then again, I kind of like Seinfeld’s finale. But I also saw it as the creators being somewhat horrified that people were idolizing the characters (and I know plenty of people who did back in the 90s) when they were the most self-centered, shallowest group of people ever. The finale was, in part I think, to hammer home, these aren’t good people (kind of like what the creators of the Sopranos had to do with Tony in the last season)!
