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The best series finales OF ALL TIME

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LOST
Scrubs

Never finished the Shield, I made it to season 4 or 5 whenever that stupid lady i hate started being on the show, I quit. Ive only seen like 2-3 drama/action shows that had real FINALES. Other than that I usually watch comedies like Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens.
 
HenryGale said:
Because he's one of the people who didnt get the ending and thinks it was all fake the whole time. It's okay, there's a lot of slow people out there.
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:lol Oh, I see. I thought that might be it.
 
Dinosaurs and ALF had the most hilariously unfortunate endings of all time.

what happens to the Tanners in the Alf movie epilogue is comedy gold
 
Guess I need to watch the Shield and The Wire.

Still, of all the endings I liked LOST the best. Kinda have some warm fuzzy feelings for the Friends one.

Edit: I see Dinosaurs, great stuff! Don't understand the one about Angel, because of continuation of the series in a comic book.
 
Finales are just tricky in any show I guess. So I guess that means I'll throw in Towards the Terra and Gankutsuou but most of all Now and Then, Here and There. I mean damnnnn.

On a British TV note I liked the ending of Messiah even if it wasn't really a finale. I've forgotten so many TV shows I watched growing up but some of them must have had good endings as well..
 
Manmademan said:
Dinosaurs and ALF had the most hilariously unfortunate endings of all time.
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Dinosaurs was the perfect depressing ending to a show that was never ever scared to tackle serious things in a mature, even-handed way.
 
dorkimoe said:
LOST
Scrubs

Never finished the Shield, I made it to season 4 or 5 whenever that stupid lady i hate started being on the show, I quit. Ive only seen like 2-3 drama/action shows that had real FINALES. Other than that I usually watch comedies like Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens.
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I'm not sure why you'd admit to taste this shitty in public.
 
omg rite said:
Barely. He plotted out the first few issues with Brian Lynch, who was then given the ability to do whatever the hell he wanted. And it ended up being a mediocre comic was horrendous art and then in the end, none of it mattered. Then when the series was promoted from limited to ongoing, it turned to complete shit.

It does have some ideas that would have been in season 6, like Gunn becoming a vampire. Of course this is reversed anyway.

Either way, it's pretty much non-canon at this point, as the official season 8 Buffy comic ends up showing that
Angel is the villain Twilight
and the current writer of the Angel comic says he will not be changing his stories to sync up with Buffy.
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It's best to just ignore the comics entirely, they are awful. As I meant, the series was never supposed to end on that episode.
 
The Canadian series The Newsroom (the '90s version) had an absolutely brilliant series finale. One that eerily foreshadowed what TV news of today was going to be like.
 
BattleMonkey said:
It's best to just ignore the comics entirely, they are awful. As I meant, the series was never supposed to end on that episode.
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I think the Buffy comics are pretty fun, if not a little uneven in the middle.

Manmademan said:
Dinosaurs and ALF had the most hilariously unfortunate endings of all time.

what happens to the Tanners in the Alf movie epilogue is comedy gold
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As a small child, the ending to Alf destroyed me. :lol

I kept waiting for the next episode when I watched it in syndication but the next one would always be the pilot and I would be confused.

Ah, the days of watching Alf and Punky Brewster's black friend locking herself in a fridge every afternoon...
 
Jexhius said:
It's weird that people are listing the same shows over and over, I'd think there'd be more variety of shows and experience.
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The Shield was that good.

There isn't a single unexplained detail, every single character's story comes to believable and compelling end, and the intensity that ramped up for that finale will probably never be topped. It's the sort of show you had to go out and exercise and think it over after you watched it because it was so fucking intense.
 
This thread has done its job.
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Oh indeed.

omarwire.jpg


Edit:
I love The Wire but the finale wasn't that great :(
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Lies.
 
Mudkips said:
Also, Futurama. (The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings)
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The problem is since it has started back up, they will need to surpass this ending once everything actually ends.

Answering this thread's question with Cowboy Bebop. Thus far, of all the television shows I've watched, it's the only correct answer.
 
Babylon 5, of course. Season 5 as a whole was rocky and lacked the heart of the previous seasons. But as the season wrapped up, things got better and better. The finale? Pitch-perfect ending to an amazing show.
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
The Shield was that good.

There isn't a single unexplained detail, every single character's story comes to believable and compelling end, and the intensity that ramped up for that finale will probably never be topped. It's the sort of show you had to go out and exercise and think it over after you watched it because it was so fucking intense.
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Pretty much.

Basically, anyone who hasn't listed The Shield hasn't watched The Shield.
 
Cyan said:
Babylon 5, of course. Season 5 as a whole was rocky and lacked the heart of the previous seasons. But as the season wrapped up, things got better and better. The finale? Pitch-perfect ending to an amazing show.
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That was one show that was planned out from beginning to end before the pilot aired right? Been meaning to watch that.

I honestly can't think of a series finale I didn't have a problem with. BSG pissed me off. Lost was good but failed to answer so many questions. Carnivale NEEDED another season. I didn't like how Sopranos ended.
 
I don't understand how people could hate the Seinfeld finale so much. I didn't see it as a cop out or betraying the characters they built up over the years. It's not like they're dead or anything, they just put everything they've done over 9 years and wondered what the consequence would be. Plus, the final scene in the jail cell mirroring the first scene tells us that the characters are going to keep going on as they are, even in prison. No hugging, no learning extends to county lockup for theses guys.
 
Toby said:
That was one show that was planned out from beginning to end before the pilot aired right? Been meaning to watch that.
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Yeah, that's the one. Wonderful show.

Don't know how well it holds up today, when there's been stuff like BSG. The CG in Babylon 5 can't hold a candle to BSG's. But if you can get past that (and get past the uneven Season 1), you should love the show.
 
Cyan said:
Yeah, that's the one. Wonderful show.

Don't know how well it holds up today, when there's been stuff like BSG. The CG in Babylon 5 can't hold a candle to BSG's. But if you can get past that (and get past the uneven Season 1), you should love the show.
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Dated CG in spots and obvious low budget aspects, but the show still holds up. The story is just so good and compelling.
 
I'd like to second the LoM and A2A mentions, but I also think something that has been woefully neglected is a mention of Blake's Seven. Understandably, the series has a bit of a reputation for cheesiness and low-budgetness, but despite this, the finale was genuinely memorable.
 
Six Feet Under - hands down.

Also, as an unintentional series finale (it was canceled), the last episode of Carnivale was amazing.
 
omg rite said:
I think the Buffy comics are pretty fun, if not a little uneven in the middle.



As a small child, the ending to Alf destroyed me. :lol

I kept waiting for the next episode when I watched it in syndication but the next one would always be the pilot and I would be confused.

Ah, the days of watching Alf and Punky Brewster's black friend locking herself in a fridge every afternoon...
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That reminds me no one's mentioned the last episode of SOAP. it ends with the female lead getting shot by a firing squad, and the male lead about to be beaten to death in a raid (?) gone bad.

now THAT's a cliffhanger.

the show was awful by then, though.
 
Futurama's finale always bugged me because of the way Bender was written. He's so out-of-character and just unfunny, it always brings the ep down for me every time I see it.
 
another vote for the Wire - that closing montage is amazing

also, Samurai Champloo - so, so, so great

edit: and for all the people saying Cowboy Bebop - i bought this on DVD but i want to wait for the blu-ray - the DVD aspect ratio drives me nuts. WHEN THE HELL IS THIS COMING TO BLU-RAY???
 
Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:
I also actually like Deadwood's ending, even though it wasn't supposed to be the ending. The final line makes it.
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This actually hurt the show for me. I don't think Deadwood was bad (it was great, in fact), but when people as about shows, I always hesitate to mention it because the ending felt so unfinished to me.

The Wire and Rome were great endings.
 
I think Life on Mars (uk) was the best i've seen. Great finish for his character, beautifully put together and shot and tied up the story magnificently, on top of being a strong episode of the series in of it's own right. I would have been in favour of ending it as he was falling, but they did a great job with the direction they took in the last minute, even though they felt the need to spell it out stronger for the viewers. It's horrible and twisted when you think of what actually happens, yet it makes perfect sense. Loved it.
 
Manmademan said:
St Elsewhere beat them to it, by over a decade.
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Not really.

With St. Elsewhere, the whole thing was what it was. Meh. Newhart was the same way and happened around the same time as St. Elsewhere.

With Roseanne, it was just one season, and the real emotional impact isn't that it was what it was, it was that the reality of the situation was really heavy and contrary to what the season made it appear to be.

My ambiguity here is to avoid spoiling it for the 4 people out there who want to watch St. Elsewhere or Roseanne and have somehow failed to do so by now.
 
Tobor said:
Also, MASH, you heathens. It had the most viewers in history for a reason.
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Lol, that makes no sense.


People tuned in to the finale to see how the series would end, NOT because it was a great finale.



:lol



It could have been the worst finale ever and still would have had the same numbers.
 
ST:TNG/DS9 were great, though I only saw DS9 as it aired live for the first time, having only watched Trek since 1995.

Angel was a great finale given the ultra-short notice they had to wrap things up.

Six Feet Under might still be my favorite though.

Fuck, I can't decide.
 
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