I’ll buy that, but making everything part of that kid’s imagination? Sorry, doesn’t wash. Sure, he’d be aware of the goings on at the hospital via his father but not the hospital’s history or the personal lives of its staff. Certainly not the deaths of the Craig’s children.
As for Quantum Leap, the final episode seemed like a cop-out to me.
It’s not that the kid was aware of what was going on at the hospital, it’s that he was imagining his own version of what might be happening there. The Craigs, Fiscus, Dr. Westphall, everything existed only in his imagination (Dr. Westphall, of course, being an image based on his father, who was a laborer). The idea is that we have no clear understanding of the workings of an autistic mind, and an autistic child could very well have a sophisticated fantasy life going on in his head. There were no Craigs. We don’t know anything about what went on in the real St. Eligius, because all we saw was in the kid’s head. I thought it made perfect sense that the entire show was a fantasy.
I do agree with you about Quantum Leap, though.
Ah, OK. I hadn’t seen the episode since it originally aired. Thanks for the explanation.
As metioned, Blake’s 7 certianly had a finality to it. Though I’ve heard rumors of a movie or sequel-Avon somehow lives (???).
How about The Prisoner? on a certain level I can understand series that are supposed to make you think, but I want REAL explanations and questions answered.
I thought the final Around the World in 80 Days (M. Palin travels around the world) was anticlimactic, he wasnt let into the building to complete the journey.
I personally liked the DS9 ending. the Gandalfian jump into the fire and all.
the TNG ending was rather lame. Expanding our modes of thinking with nonlinear time? Been there, done that.
(multiple meanings intended)
Brian
“Little House on the Prairie: The Final Farewell” (actually a TV movie shown a year later). Someone is discovered to be the legal owner of the land of Walnut Grove, so the townspeople blow up the town rather than give it to him. At least there wouldn’t be any sequels in THAT town!
I don’t really care for ambiguous endings, either, but neither do I like having everything spelled out for me. I like it when there is a definite answer to the puzzles, but I have to do some of the work of putting the clues together myself, as in Memento.
That said, I think there is a time for ambiguous endings. I don’t want to be told at the end of Total Recall whether everything was real or a hallucination.
In the case of “The Prisoner”, I don’t think McGoohan himself knew what was going on. It wasn’t possible to reveal what was really going on, because the people making the show didn’t know themselves, so they were left with coming up with an explanation that could never satisfy all of the mysteries posed, or the answer that we have, which really isn’t one.
SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL EPISODE OF THE PRISONER
My theory is that when Number 6 resigned, he was locked up, possibly drugged, by MI6 to prevent his revealing the vital information he has, and everything we see happening is an elaborate fantasy/hallucination that he uses as a psychological defense mechanism. When he sees his own face under the mask of Number 1, that is his own subconscious telling him that he did this to himself.
Or he was captured by “The Enemy” and what happens to him is an elaborate fantasy/hallucination he is employing to deal with the torture and drugs being used to extract the information, and his face on Number 1 is his subconscious.
Or he has gone insane, has no information to reveal, and the whole thing is an elaborate hallucination etc. The circumstances are really irrelevant to my theory; I think the key here is that it’s all in his mind.
Of course, the very problem is that the show supports any of these explanations and others that directly contradict them almost equally. One of the strengths of movies like Memento, Open Your Eyes and Blade Runner, is that, puzzling as they may seem at first, there is a definite explanation that is supported by the clues. You just have to know where to look.
No matter how much you look at the clues in “The Prisoner”, they don’t support any one explanation. This is one of two things about the show that bothers me, the other being Rover, which is just stupid. Unless you accept my theory above, in which case it does make a kind of sense.
This may be controversial (no, Darrell, really??), but I didn’t like the ending to Xena: Warrior Princess at all. The battle with demon whatshisname was pretty anticlimactic. If this were a regular episode, it would have been pretty good, but for a finale, it was…well, flat. And unimpressive. Worse, I didn’t even get how it all shook out. Xena has to stay dead because she has to help a bunch of souls? Exactly how does this work?
What really bugged me was that I hardly recognized anyone in this episode. It was in Japan, for crying out loud, and had none of the familiar supporting characters. Gabrielle is not just the only one who witnesses Xena’s final moments, she’s the only one who ever even knows that she’s dead! No Atolycus, no Palmonius, no Pompey, none of the Amazons…not even Ares, for crying out loud.
Didn’t Xena want a heroic death? How could she stand for simply fading away for the sake of the already-dead? If this is an appropriate conclusion for the world’s mightiest warrior princess, I’m friggin’ Julius Ceasar.
Yeah, pretty crappy of the Reform Club, but you know how those club Brits are about letting the proles in.
If you read the book, you’ll learn that the journey was not quite so down to the deadline as the series tries to imply. The container ship Palin was on made a stop at Le Havre before reaching England, and instead of deciding to try for a dramatic return by boat or helicopter, stayed with the ship and got liquored up over a French Sunday lunch. Now THAT’S traveling!
Several years back, there was a great cartoon based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game. The 'toon I’m referring to aired on ABC on Saturday mornings - don’t confuse it with the lame, goofy Sonic cartoon that aired on UPN or USA or whatever it was; this was much cooler.
Anyway, in the second season finale, the heroes finally manage to destroy Dr. Robotnik, the main villain. They’re all off celebrating, and then we cut back to Robotropolis. Dr. Robotnik’s sidekick, Snivley (?) is there, and he comes out and does a grandiose soliloquy about how now HE can take over and destroy Sonic and his friends and so forth, with the help of his new friend…and behind him, in the darkness, we can see evil red eyes and hear heavy, ominous breathing.
And over that summer, Sega and ABC had some kind of disagreement and that was the last episode ever. Man, did that ever do a number on my head as a kid…
Seinfeld. Despite my distaste for the whole show after the first two seasons, the ending was even worse than the rest of the series.
Now and Again - was just cancelled and there was no ending. We were left with a cliff hanger. Grumble
Li
I didn’t like the last episode either, just because who needs yet another revelation from Xena’s past, especially one thrown up so obciously as a “way to end the series”? But, I can see where Xena would not want people to know she died. First, many of the people you mention already think she’s dead (she and Gabrielle were MIA for 25 years) and may be dead themselves. Second, Gabrielle can still trade on Xena’s rep while carrying on Xena’s work. You can do more with Gabrielle and the threat of Xena than you can with Gabrielle alone.
As long as everyone here is hating the last Seinfeld, I’ll go ahead and cast my vote too. I loved the begining, where they showed all the memorable scenes, but the actual episode was the worst of the series run, IMO.
Now, I must disagree with the OP here, I loved the last episode of St Elsewhere, what a creative idea…
Am I the only one to have seen the finale of Sliders? That must be the only explanation, otherwise the venomw would be knee deep.
MAS*H- I mean, come on! The war ended? That’s soooo not true. 
Cheers- I mean, come on! The bar closes for the night? Yeah, like that could happen!
Ugh. I blocked out the last Sliders. That silicone chick whining “Remy! Remmmmmy!” :rolleyes:
And I agree, the end of Now and Again was tragic. Sci Fi will be showing the reruns. Let’s hope they pick it up and keep it going, a la Sliders. Except let’s hope it doesn’t start to suck, a la Sliders.
I remember this! Damn that was a good cartoon. One of my favorites, and I never even played Sega games.
According to the head writer’s journal on the sci-fi channel’s official web site, it was unknown whether the episode would be the season finale or the series finale, and the show was canceled afterwards. If this is true, it could at least partly explain why it seems more like a season-ending cliffhanger than a true series finale. In any case, the door is open for a movie to be a true finale. The vortex is apparently available every three days in this world (rather than every 29 years), so it would be a matter of building a new timer, which Diana and Mallory might have the ability to do between.
But there were bigger problems with the show for a while. By the time of the final, the four sliders were from four different worlds, and the “original” world was completely in Kromagg control. Trying to “find home” should have been abandoned as the main plot line long before.
Evangelion.
I am sure I only understood a fraction of what I was supposed to. One of the most vague endings I have ever seen.
Li
I thought the ending to Quantum Leap was incredibly tragic for Sam. I understood it that “God-Al” had revealed to him that is was Sam that was causing all the Leaps and his need to right wrongs where he saw them. He was given the choice, actually always HAD the choice to go home whenever he wanted, but he chose not to, even tho he wanted it. I loved what he did for Al, that was some great tv, but didn’t think Al’s new history necessarily negated the Quantum Leap Project. As sad and disappointing, I thought it was still a great dramatic ‘conclusion’ to the show.
I loved the St. Elsewhere ending. Thru the years, the little boy had always been a background character, something to add more stories, but could never be really significant, and to find out he’d been the most significant character of all was interesting. Yes, there was no build-up to that kind of ending and one would never expect it, but I liked it just the same.