I thought the last episode of Homicide: Life on the Streets was pretty good, especially compared with the rest of the last season. Then the television movie Homicide: The Movie reunited EVERY CAST MEMBER FROM EVERY SEASON OF THE SHOW WHETHER THEIR CHARACTER WAS LIVING OR DEAD. How many shows can do that???
The last episode of NIGHT COURT was absolutely atrocious.
Of course, the last three seasons of NIGHT COURT were absolutely atrocious.
Murphy Brown had a good one. The only problem is that it came so late that some of my favorite characters were no longer in the cast.
Also, it came when ratings were down, so nobody much cared.
But it still seem quite inventive for a tearjerker.
In defense of Deep Space Nine: a lot of the threads had a good resolution:
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Odo left. Forever. After he and Kira hooked up.
His last scene with Quark was also priceless. -
Keiko finally whipped Miles into leaving that blasted station.
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Garak was ready to commit suicide, because his people had been burnt to ash. It was one of the finest moments in all of Star Trek.
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Nog got through Starfleet Academy! Makes two sorta not-quite irritating Ferengi, in all of existence.
The only part I didn’t care for, was the stuff with Sisko. Didn’t like that Dukat became a four color comic book villain, didn’t like that Sisko was somehow “half Prophet,” and didn’t like them turning him into a Messianic figure. That was all lame.
But overall, it was better than TNG’s ending (just a regular episode). And as for Voyager’s “Endgame”…it came from where the sun don’t shine. 
I’m with those who revere the last episode of Newhart.
It was the first time I could recall TV being so openly self-referential. A joke about the confusion of reality and fiction amongst viewers and a sly dig at Dallas
i suspect that that’s the problem, that many people didn’t get the reference to the Dallas ending. i thought it was brilliant!!! but i’m old enough to remember the ending of dallas when it was originally broadcast, so i got the reference right away.
For you Black Adder fans…I cannot believe NO ONE mentioned that the devious Black Adder just came back in BLACK ADDER: BACK AND FORTH
Black Adder - Back and Forth was commissioned for the Millenium Dome in London. It was a joint venture between the BBC, Sky Television, Tiger Aspect, and the New Millenium Experience Company. It was shown at the Millenium Dome throughout the year 2000. At the end of the credits the statement appears: “Blackadder Back and Forth 2 … Coming … Summer 3000!”
I watched it on a PBS telethon and absolutely busted a gut. The premise goes that Lord Black Adder and Baldrick decide to warp history to their own ways by using a time machine. They hit everything from the Romans conquering the Guals to Black Adder meeting up with Shakespeare (and kicking him in the ass for every schoolboy who had to listen to his boring tripe…and for setting Kenneth Branagh loose on the public)
And it ends good for Black Adder!
And NO I WILL NOT TELL YOU HOW…only it is so evilly perfect.
Well, there go my chances at sleeping well tonight. There’s something inexplicably, inexpressably disturbing about this. Anybody find any further info yet?
No one rolled their eyes at the Family Ties Curtain Call ending? Though in Michael J Fox’s “last” episode of Spin City, he makes a great Alex Keaton reference.
What about the Cosby Show couple dancing out the fourth wall?
What about Benson where Benson and the Gov. are running against each other? It was a cliffhanger they were SUPPOSED to answer the next season, but they got the ax.
Night Court was bad.
Seinfeld was bad excpet for the button discussion. And yes, I do think of seinfeld everytime I hear that song.
Quantum Leap last episode was hit or miss, apparently. It was a hit with me. I also thought they were trying to set it up in case they wanted to do a tv movie or motion picture. Never happened. Maybe with what’s his name at the helm of the enterprise, they can spark enough interest to film a QL reunion movie.
Magnum was a disappointment. Shoulda ended with him dying. (Note: I once saw an episode of Magnum being filmed when I was in Hawaii. The Jack the Ripper type episode. I was this show came on somewhere.)
Newhart, to me, is the quintessential show that everyone says when they discuss a great ending to the series.
(I love threads that cause me to jot down a few notes on a scratch pad.)
I’m starting a pool on how many episodes it takes before they have Dean Stockwell on as a guest star. 20, 22, 26, and 100 are spoken for.
Or the first episode that deals with time travel?
Given the vituperative insults I’ve heard directed at it, I’m glad I stopped watching after John Rhy-Davies left. With his character gone, the show began to deteriorate.
How about “Brimstone”–it wasn’t actually bad, but it’s a painful reminder of the wasted potential of the show. It wasn’t a finale, since the show was (completely unjustifiably) canned after about 13 episodes, but “Mourning After” left things agonizingly up in the air–
SPOILERS
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Stone’s widow gets a clue that he’s back, Ash (the primary antagonist) is bitterly jealous of the widow and still on the loose, and Stone knows that the Devil can be hurt the same as the other damned souls. I would have gladly sat through another hundred episodes to watch the final confrontations between Stone, Ash, and the Devil. I suspect that it would have played out with the Devil claiming that Stone himself is the 113th soul that must be banished to fulfill their deal. Stone, of course, would find a way to banish the Devil instead, earning his second chance at life. I can dream, anyway.
Way late to this topic - I have to throw in La Femme Nikita - the first time they ended the series. USA announced they were ending the series - things had slowed down a bit, so I wasn’t too disappointed. Then - the finale screws everything up. Let’s see - Madeline dies, Birkoff died a few episodes ago (hey - he has a twin, so everything is alright! Yeeks), everything between Michael and Nikita was a lie - just an all around episode that basically said - “Hey - remember those characters that you loved? Not anymore!” . Bleah. Then USA had to go back and run a fifth season because people were so PO’d. I never even watched all the episodes in this season - maybe at the end they got good, but I doubt it. Let’s see - out of the regular characters, there was no one episode where they were all there. Bring back O’Brien from first season - and then kill him off rather quickly. I’m Mr. Jones! No, I’m Mr. Jones! Bleck.
Susan
I agree with the kudos for the endings to St. Elsewhere, Quantum Leap, and Newhart.
The ending of Deep Space Nine was terrible. The last season was pretty good for the most part, but the Sisko/Dukat/Winn story line sucked. Ezri was pretty lousy too. The highlights were the Cardassian resistance, Odo, and Worf singlehandedly saving the Klingon Empire. But the Sisko thing had been built up all that time and it was pathetic.
Also, Season Five of Babylon 5 sucked. There was so much they could have done that year, especially when they were so afraid it would be cancelled in Season Four and they would never finish. So they waste half a season with the teeps (Byron the boring), they leave dozens of storylines unfinished (how does G’Kar end up back with Londo? what happened in the telepath wars? when does Bester get his?), and the last episode was mostly boring and only slightly touching. The last episode of Season 4 (Deconstruction of Falling [Fallen?] Stars) was so much better.
The last episode of MAS*H was too long, but mostly effective.
about that mork and mindy thing…
i recalled being quite confused about the very ending of that three ep arc at, and also had assumed it was the last episode. what i was able to determine about the end was that, indeed, they were still going back in time and didn’t know where they would end up, but it seemed to me that the last scene wasn’t them, it was a cave drawing made by the prehistoric people they had come in contact with in one of the episodes of the last three arc. they didn’t have faces, but it was just a painting, not actually them. does this make sense to anyone?
Yeah, it was a bit long, but it probably wasn’t planned to be that way. That forest fire took 'em by surprise.
Ceejaytee~
I will agree that B5’s Season 5 was (mostly) less than thrilling. But the answers to your questions can be found in the three book trilogies (a trilogy of trilogies?) covering Bester’s life, the Centauri, and the Technomages.
I have read all of them*, and they explain things rather nicely.
*Actually the technomage trilogy is only 2/3 complete. The last book should be out next year.
I actually loved the last episode of Quantum Leap.
My nominee for worst final episode: MASH. What a crock! Hawkeye goes nuts from guilt because a woman suffocated her baby to keep it from crying when they feared they’d be discovered by the enemy. I’d seen that plot device in a WWII movie (the name of which I can’t recall), and it was done much better; MASH’s version of it was cheap tugs at the emotional strings. And Charles vows never to listen to music again because a band got shot. And Klinger gets married and decides to stay in Korea a little longer. The show had been sinking rapidly after Larry Gelbart’s departure, and the final episode was just awful.
Ah, Mars Horizon, you have fallen into my trap! JMS said in countless interviews that B5 was supposed to be self-contained and it wasn’t any “deep space franchise” and then tells me that I’m supposed to go and read nine books to get the answers to all my questions? That doesn’t wash, my friend. He should never have hammered home that fact that B5 had a 5-season arc if he wasn’t going to finish it. He wasted all the movies (except for “In the Beginning” and the Crusade pilot) and season 5. He could have answered the questions then, even though he wouldn’t have been able to do so in as much detail as in 9 books, and I would have been satisfied.
B5 is most definitely “another deep space franchise” and it was such a good show that I am very disappointed in the ending.
I didn’t see the Newhart episode. As a Dallas fan, what was the reference?