So much for the happy ending

[gwyn]

Day 22 - Favorite series finale

I think this may actually be the hardest one of all, simply because almost no show that I've ever loved ended well, or they ended before their time and we were left in a terrible cliff-hanging state. So the one I would probably put here is one from a show I wasn't especially fannish about, but did watch, and saw this when it aired: The finale of Newhart, where Bob Newhart wakes up and tells Emily, his wife in his previous series, The Bob Newhart Show, that he just had the craziest dream. It's the stuff of legend now, and for good reason. It was brilliant, and funny, and completely out of left field -- and it was also very, very risky, something I really admire. I might have put one of its companion series from MTM, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, here except that it actually pained me that it was ending (that show meant so much to me as a nascent feminist girl growing up in the '70s).

So many other shows tried risky endings, and usually failed (the rage I still have over the ending of St. Elsewhere knows no bounds), and I found M*A*S*H's finale mawkish. Newhart's was just right. I'd also give a shoutout to Wonderfalls, just because even though it was canceled way too far before its time, the producers expected it and so they created a situation that worked as an ending and a possibility of more to come.

Comments

[varina8.livejournal.com]

Good pick. I'd forgotten all about that finale. I'm still in love with the ending for Six Feet Under. It just seemed like the perfect way to wrap up the series.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I'm probably going to use this example as well, because it really does work better than almost any series finale I've ever seen.

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Wonderfalls is on my short list for this one, too. :)