4
Apr
2014
Friday Five – Favorite TV Series Finales
Welcome to the Friday Five! Each week I help you get to know me a bit better with the help of a top 5 list! This week’s category, spawned by How I Met your Mother ending, is: Favorite TV Series Finales
Why is it so hard for a TV show to stick the landing and have a satisfying finale? Endings are tough, and contradictory by nature. It should provide enough closure, yet still be open ended to give the sense that these people have their own lives, and possibilities still await for them in the future. A good conclusion should reward us, the viewer, for choosing to spend our time with the characters of a show and give a meaning to our shared experience. A good finale should show that the people we first saw in the pilot episode have grown and changed, along with us, as we watched them. And most importantly, while it should show that characters changed, don’t change them fundamentally just for change sake. Any changes should be organic, and not an attempt to be clever.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation – The example of a perfect finale. By literally taking place in the past, present, and future, it allows us to see where these people started from and what their possible future holds for them.
- Cowboy Bebop – While Spike may not have a future past the finale, this is a good example of a definitive unambiguous ending. All the little moments about Spike’s past with Julia and Vicious are peppered throughout the background of the series, and are brought together to tell one last epic story. Plus, the soundtrack is amazing.
- The Office – Minus the show not ending at the logical closure point in Season 7 when Michael left, the finale hit all the spots it needed to. It gave us new beginnings (a wedding and new success in Philly for the Halperts), returning favorites (Michael Scott), and wrapped up just enough to leave us hopeful that while we may no longer be following them, everyone
will be just fine. Except for Andy. He was always going to be miserable. - Futurama (The first time) – While it doesn’t tug on the heartstrings as much as say “Jurassic Bark”, it’s quite possibly the most emotionally satisfying ending. Before the reboot on Comedy Central, we didn’t know if Leela reciprocated for Fry after he writes her an epic opera, but their future together was full of promise and possibilities . . .
- Home Movies – While predominantly a goofy cartoon about spoofing movies, Home Movies had some real depth behind in characters. The final shot of Brendon dropping his camera and letting it get run over shows how he’s grown past his need for living in fantasy and is ready to be a more well rounded person.
 JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company.
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