Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

Favorite series finale

*blinks* For once, I might actually be stumped. I haven't seen that many proper series finales as either shows get cancelled without enough warning to DO a proper season finale or I fall out of love with them long before the end, or most of the shows I'm fannish about are currently still running. SEASON enders, yeh, have lots of faves of those - for instance, The West Wing "Two Cathedrals" is simply a stunning hour of television that Aaron Sorkin never bettered. But SERIES enders, well, that's a puzzle. It's usually easier to point the finger at all the ones that sucked or were just meh.

So of my fave shows, what series finales HAVE I seen? Of the older shows, I don't remember Starsky and Hutch's or MacGyver's. Cagney and Lacey had time to prepare a final ep and it was good but annoyed me because it was one of those endings where they don't actually tell you what happens next. I hate that. Not everything has to be tidy (i.e. completely resolved) but I like to have a sense of what happened after we see the characters for the last time. (To be fair, there were subsequent TV movies but I haven't seen them so..). Charlie's Angels was a sobfest clip show and not one I enjoy watching - they'd lost Kate Jackson by then and I didn't like Tanya Robert's character. Umm, I seem to remember The Waltons having several post series specials that pretty much tidied everything up but I don't remember how the series proper finished off.

I saw TNG's two parter which many fans loved and it did a decent job but it never grabbed me. I have to confess to have never seen Voyager's (really MUST get S7 on DVD). DS9, Buffy and Angel I stopped watching before the shows finished. BSG - yeh, that suffered by being finished in a hurry in S4 before they found out they got an S5. I do love the last lines which make me sniffle every time (about Delenn watching the sunrise every morning for the rest of her life), but otherwise, too many annoying unresolved things that we were supposed to find out about in comics and books afterwards. Bah!

Xena's last two episodes pissed off practically everybody for one reason or another. I didn't have a problem with the idea, per se, I objected strongly to the setting. (Can't be arsed to put this under a cut so won't go further for fear of spoilers). SG-1's ending was, well, truthfully, kinda boring :P Haven't seen Highlander's, haven't seen I-Man or Mutant X's either (I'm told that the I-Man one was a decent send off). I stopped watching Without A Trace long before the final season, too, though that I may yet revist IF they ever bother releasing the DVDs. (CBS are gits about DVD releases.)

Of shows that have ended recently, I stopped watching The Unit around half way through the last season - Spear of Destiny, you are still on my list of Worst TV Episodes Ever. I still haven't seen Cold Case's last ep much to my shame, but I have seen Numb3rs and really loved it. They had time to prepare for that one and it showed, it was very well done. It might actually end up winning by default, although I should watch Voyager's and Cold Case's at the very least before I make a final judgement. Legend of the Seeker's last ep wasn't intended to BE a series finale but actually, it works ok. Enough was tied up that you can just about walk away satisfied.

Criminal Minds, Leverage, Burn Notice, Big Bang Theory, Private Practice, In Plain Sight, Justified, Eureka, White Collar, Nurse Jackie, NCIS and NCIS:LA are all still going. Of that list, I expect Criminal Minds to implode after this next season, giving me another finale to watch!

So the status of this answer is: I don't know! Will get back to you when I've seen a few more season finales!