If a crummy show has a crummy finale, everything is on the par. It’s all good. When 2 Broke Girls finally comes to a close (which will be soon because there’s only so many Asian’s are nerds, Russian’s are creeps and black people are cool jokes left to make) nobody will be fussed it it isn’t a satisfactory ending. On the other hand, a good show not managing to deliver can discredit everything that came before it and send the fans in to a rage that will span decades. Speaking of which…
How I Met Your Mother
Over the past couple of years we’ve frequently commented that HIMYM has dragged out the Ted/Robin pairing far to many times. It was established in the first episode that he wasn’t going to wind up with her. But they keep bringing it up again and again and again. Even nine years later with Ted’s future wife in the picture and Robin about to marry Barney they’re still, idiotically, hinting at Ted and Robin. I mean, they’re not about to pull a fast one and throw them together oh you complete fuckers.
After almost a DECADE they FINALLY put Ted and the mother together and within MINUTES of this they kill her off! What the actual FUCK people. Then it turns out the entire ‘story’ being told was Ted trying to ease his kids into the idea that he’s going to hit on their ‘Aunt’ Robin. Again. Except THAT DIDN’T WORK OUT. We KNOW it doesn’t work. They’ve been out time and time again and they wind up hating each other at the end of it. They want different things in life. They are incompatible.
Then there’s the rest of the characters. Because they dragged the show out for years after it jumped the shark the other characters had moved in to a place where this wasn’t going to work. We’d spent three seasons seeing Robin and Barney develop into people that could get married. And then they turned them straight back in to the characters they used to be in the space of a blink.
What a massive waste of time the past four years have been.
Lost
Some people would argue that this was a good closing chapter. I would call them numpties.
The problem with this series finale is the producers. They claimed…no, they PROMISED…that they had it all mapped out from the beginning. They lied to us. They were making that crap up as they went along, and they lost the plot a long time ago. I wouldn’t be pissed off about this is they didn’t tell is that it’s not purgatory, or tell us that it’s not a parallel universe. I’m not even clear on what kind of bullshit dream purgatory crap this was but I wanted a REAL mystery wrap up. This should have been a modern The Twilight Zone, instead it was wank. In hindsight it feels like an experiment to see how long people would defend a show after a good first season as it descended further and further into bullshit.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected much from a show that names a character ‘Christian Shepard’. Subtle.
Dexter
So perhaps fans weren’t sure what to expect from the finale of Lost, but there was something we wanted from Dexter and, surprisingly, it wasn’t him becoming a fucking lumberjack. In the final season the show added a new element, a mentor character who has ties to Dexter’s past. But…it was pointless, just an excuse to bring in another monster-of-the-week serial killer for Dexter to grimace at. Here’s the thing: there’s been one thing hanging over the show that would make a perfect final series. We want to see Dexter on the run from the law.
This would have been amazing. A complete turn around. Dexter’s carefully controlled life unravels as the police cotton on to his nighttime activities and he has to run and hide. Deborah leads the pack, creating the perfect emotionally driven conflict. Will he get caught? Will he get away? Will he be held accountable for his crimes? How did they NOT want to explore this? Fools.
Entourage
For some reason this show used a half season at the end to undo everything the characters have been established as. Vincent Chase, the womanising wildchild whose every serious romantic relationship has been run in to the ground through his own immaturity. There’s been a few relationships where he may have been able to grow in to, but instead they had him meet a random, completely undeveloped character who he loves so much that he has to fly to Paris and marry her after one date. Why? Fucked if we know, we don’t know a thing about her. Eric, who has tried to work past his relationship with whatshername so at the very end he marries her because she’s pregnant. Turtle who has grown as a person in trying to start his own business wins the lottery or some shit so all his work doesn’t matter. Drama was coming to terms with his fading star, but scores a smash hit show at the last minute so that doesn’t matter.
All this fairy tale happily ever after shit was terrible. At least Ari had a good closure, quitting his job and repairing his relationship with his family. Until after the credits where that is undone as well. Fucking weak.
St. Elsewhere
Six seasons of adult drama. Set in a Boston hospital it’s gritty, realistic and heavy. SO WHY THE FUCK WAS IT ALL A DREAM AT THE END? WHY? It makes no sense on any level. It’s not even the dream of a main character, it’s just some kid! Why?! Does this mean that every time the characters crossed over in to other shows are also dreams? Holy crap, that’s almost everything in the 90s…
ALF and Dinosaurs
80s sitcoms are weird. These ones featured a cat eating alien living with a normal family and the other is about a family of dinosaurs (kinda like The Flintstones if the dinosaurs had eaten all the people using them as household appliances). They were both fun shows and accessible to all ages. They were never taxing or dealt with heavy themes…until the last episode. After seasons of protecting ALF from the authorities the Tanner family finally says goodbye to their feline feasting housemate as he prepares to head home. Unfortunately his pick-up doesn’t make it and ALF is captured by the authorities. No doubt hijinks would ensure. But wait…what did the Alien Task Force have planned for him?
“We’ll see how it responds to intense heat, freezing cold, high voltage, toxic substances, pain, sleep deprivation, inoculation [that's needles], and, of course, dissection.”
They going to torture the crap out of him and then cut him in to pieces.
Like ALF, Dinosaurs had an immensely crushing closing note. The head of the family, Earl, runs in to some trouble at work. After wiping out a vine eating beetle (which is a sentient species capable of speech) the world becomes over run with vines. Earl suggests using a powerful defoliant. This destroys all the plant life on the planet, followed by an attempt to coax more rain by bombing volcanoes. In turn this leads to an atmosphere full of ash, an oncoming ice age and the family LITERALLY SITTING AROUND WAITING TO DIE. HOLY FUCK. This was a family show, marketed to kids! Burger King was handing out toys! The last line in the show is the news reader saying “Goodnight…and goodbye”, just in case you didn’t get that everyone was ABOUT TO FREEZE TO DEATH. Jesus, that’s bleak.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Christ on a bicycle, what happened here? The anime show enjoyed by people who didn’t watch anime was a powerhouse drama and action series, not being shy to delve in to theology and philosophy amid the giant robots battering the crap out of monsters who may or may not be angels. Whether you were invested in the biblical subplot or not it was an exciting show, culminating in an emotionally driven clash between Shinji and Kaworu at the feet of the mysterious Lilith.
But there were still questions left hanging in the air, and two episodes left to wrap things up. Instead the show descends in to an abstract nightmare provided mostly in voice-over conversations between the characters. The finale was so badly received that the production offices were vandalised the night they aired.
Seinfeld
Here’s the thing about clip show episodes. We know why they have to happen and we tolerate them…but we don’t like them. Sometimes a show has to cut corners to set up a big episode and they edit together some ‘best of’ bits to fill in a week. But when you’ve waited a week for your new show to start and it turns out to be a clip show it’s downright disappointing.
Imagine sitting down to watch the highly anticipated finale to one of the biggest comedy shows of all time and getting served this crap. It started fine. The gang are talking about nothing in particular and then have the chance to fly anywhere in the world. A mishap on the way lands them in court for a rather unusual crime. Then every guest star and minor characters gets trotted out one by one to frame a bunch of clips from the series.
To rub salt in the already painful wound the network aired a best of clip show prior to the finale. They literally dumped a clip show on us as a prelude to a clip show. Awful.
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