Loved
How I Met Your Mother's finalé, it tied everything together nicely in a good narrative structure. (But we literally watched the entire series leading up to the last season in 6 months, so our vantage point was different.) I'd been saying through the whole thing he'd end up with Robin, the mom's dead, etc. It was really hard not to "skip ahead" sometimes too. I will admit though that I can understand why some viewers are jarred, it's hard to remember that 22 of the last 24 episodes cover 3 days. (Almost like it takes place in Salem, LOL.) If I'd run the show, I'd have tied up the wedding in the first few episodes and then showed a year or two at a time for the final dozen episodes (failing a season 10 to do just that).
Loved the ending to
The Golden Girls and only in the last few years have been able to watch it without crying.
Empty Nest also had a good finalé.
Married...with Children did not get a proper finalé after 11 years, what an insult from the FOX network. The
Cheers ending bugged me, because as I mentioned in the previous thread, nothing changed to upend the premise, we just don't get to see the bar anymore. :angry:
I think
Parenthood's finalé was really, really great. I'm glad they ended the show on a positive note, in my opinion they kind of wandered there a bit in Season 4/5. Having it be the "last" season gave them some clarity. Another show that had a terrific final year and STELLAR final episode was
Monk.
Never saw
Lost, but heard it stinked.
Really loved the finalé to
Night Court and hated the finalé for
NewsRadio because it was a half-nalé and then got cancelled. About to watch one of my favourite finalés of all-time,
Mama's Family. I think the original
Dallas had a terrible ending, mainly because it was a "half" cliffhanger then they didn't get picked up for another season. (Ditto
Dynasty and
The Colbys.)
Just Shoot Me! ended well after a terrible final year and a half.
Dead Zone had a good finalé, tied everything up, but left it open a crack just in case they got renewed (which they didn't).
In the middle, there's the
Frasier finalé. I don't love it, but I also don't hate it. My favourite final
moment of television probably ever was the last minute of
Star Trek Voyager as the ship approaches Earth. (Still get chills.) Even though it was a wee bit predictable.
And then there's
Soap. Even though it ends on a cliffhanger, it's still one of my favourite cliffhangers of all time. It's one of those episodes that I get tingles
thinking about watching it. Really spectacularly written.