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Why are all series finales unsatisfying or shitty?

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Sopranos' finale was excellent.

The Wire's was in my opinion the best.

The Shield's, incredible.

LOST's series finale was great, and was everything it should have been. Its final season was disappointing.
 
I understand complaints about BB's finale. It isn't emotionally satisfying in some ways, maybe not what we wanted for Walt and the other characters. But there's nothing else that could have happened with the characters, as they were by that point in the show. And the more I think about the finale, the more impressed I am by its economy. They packed a hell of a lot into that finale episode, from a narrative standpoint. Maybe they had to imply a lot of things instead of showing them, but they did a damn fine job with the time they had.

But I do wish BB had gotten, like, a 2-hour finale, or a finale with limited commercial interruption. (There are one or two tiny things that I think the finale lacked, and maybe those things could have been fixed with two hours instead of one.) Here you have one of the most well-written and acted TV shows that's ever been broadcast, and AMC treats it like it's just another show. (But Low Winter Sun--which I like a lot but which ain't Breaking Bad--gets a two-hour season finale. Why?)

And yes, The Wire's ending might be the most emotionally satisfying ending I've seen from a show.

Jason Frost said:
Seriously, I really hope it won't end with Don Draper committing suicide by jumping out of a skyscraper on Madison Avenue.
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Weiner has said that other people have told him, "you can't end it like that." (The way he's planning to end it, I mean.) Because it will upset people.

So whatever it is, it isn't going to be happy.
 
Home_Movies_finale.jpg
 
The Office had a predictable corny ending but it was a good way to end it, and Nip/Tuck's was okay.

Not every show can end with a troll ending like Sopranos, or go full retard like St Elsewhere lol.
 
So wrong about BB. Wow.

Now I'm thinking of all the full shows I watched recently that had satisfying endings:

(To cover the sci-fi bases)
Star Trek TNG
Babylon 5
Farscape (everyone gets put in their place about the wormhole technology. Very satisfying)
I'm on the fence about BSG.

Some of the big HBO shows had excellent endings, too. SFU and Sopranos for sure.

I liked Lost's ending too but I understand exactly why it's so divisive.
 
Cipherr said:
The Shield and Babylon 5 pretty much stand alone on a mountain top. I would put Six Feet Under there too, but its polarizing for some reason. Lots of people hated and lots of people loved it, same with Sopranos. But Shield and B5 are just incredible finales.
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100% agree, I can not think of a way to end B5 any more perfect than they did. Alone at the top of the mountain is absolutely correct.
 
The problem with the BB ending it's that it made me realize how poorly planned the fifth season has been. From the flashforwards to the "no lose end" thingy. Gilligan needs to realize that sometimes not saying something is as much important as saying it.

I dislike how the Jesse/Walt relationship was handled and the "I did it for me" to Skyler was just too morally black and it cheapened the character.

Not to mention the dumb plan to involve Gretchen and Elliot with the money.
 
Frost_Ace said:
The problem with the BB ending it's that it made me realize how poorly planned the fifth season has been. From the flashforwards to the "no lose end" thingy. Gilligan needs to realize that sometimes not saying something is as much important as saying it.

I dislike how the Jesse/Walt relationship was handled and the "I did it for me" to Skyler was just too morally black and it cheapened the character.

Not to mention the dumb plan to involve Gretchen and Elliot with the money.
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All of those things were preceded by a logical progression of events. Some plot points failing to align with your personal expectations is not the same thing as poor planning.
 
It can be tough to hit the right notes on anything that's been going on for some time and give it proper finality. TV isn't the only one that suffers from it. Manga also has this issue where you try to compress several years of work into a final issue after everything else has been resolved. Expectations are high and some fans just do not want the ride to end.

Haven't seen BB, but I thought Lost did a fine job on its ending considering the direction the final season took and all the stuff we thought was important to the series seemed to end up as just one giant red herring. It all fit within the universe, but didn't matter all that much in the end.
 
I liked BB's ending - or at the very least, I think it made things right.

But it's always sad when you know you won't get anything after that. It's like having a good time with a friend you're not going to see anymore, no matter how good it is, there will always be something sad or unsatisfying about it. I really think it's that simple.
 
I disagree that 24 was meh. It was great.

I agree that BB was meh. It was garbage.
 
Breaking Bad ending worked really well but it was lacking in oomph. The best I can say is that they didn't fuck it up its just, there's no gravity to it. I'm not going to remember the show by it, that's for sure
 
Labor said:
which one was it, meh or garbage
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It's both. On one hand it didn't do anything insanely egregious to turn on people who have kept up with the show. On the other hand, it confirmed to me how poorly this second half of the season was handled. The entire Hank thing was just rushed through, the pacing and events of these last episodes were anti-climactic, and the finale was just too neat. People can defend it all they want with "it had to end that way" or "that's how the characters were" yadi bladi.. it was boring. It was safe. It didn't pack any punch of the previous season finales. They could have just as easily done everything in this episode one episode earlier because it required barely any setup. The only scene that resonated with me was the children, and that's because I'm a father. The rest was so incredibly predictable that I ended up fast forwarding near the end after Jesse gets in the car..
 
Season 5 of Supernatural is the perfect ending for the series, and what should have been if it was only of Eric Kripke, the creator, deciding.

It's only the last 5 seconds with
Sam coming back and watching by the street
that should have been cut.
 
BB's ending was fine. If you want a bad ending, go watch Chuck.
The show was in constant turmoil over whether or not it would be picked up for the following seasons, so the final few seasons both basically had series finale type episodes. One of them involved his sister giving birth and Chuck asking Sarah to marry him (she said yes), which was fucking perfect, and the other involved them actually getting married. When they got picked up for a fifth season, the writer (who also created the OC, which should tell you a lot) then decided to have Sarah's memory get erased for absolutely no good reason (conflicting with the fiction of the show; Ellie suddenly couldn't make any more intersects to fix her) and then end it that way, with the idea that...maybe they could work it out and maybe she'd remember at some later date? Basically they torpedoed the entire character arc of the show in a bid to be edgy.

I guess that's still not as bad as Dexter's ending, but mannnnn.
 
I loved BB's finale last night. Just as perfect as it could be.

I like The Wire's ending just fine.

St. Elsewhere's ending was so amazing it spawned its own conspiracy theory.

M.A.S.H.'s ending made me cry like a baby.
 
Meier said:
The FNL finale could not possibly have been better. It has everything a fan of the show could have wanted.
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yeah it's still my favourite

haven't seen the shield or six feet under though, need to watch that

breaking bad's is pretty dull. they played it very safe by trying to move towards a happyish ending, undermining much of the stakes they'd built up, and the episode itself is average in isolation. disappointingly tame, though not at least not a show ruining disaster like lost or battlestars
 
Just coming in here to say that Six Feet Under had the greatest series finale of all time.

OF ALL TIME.

Every time I hear Sia's Breathe Me I can't help but cry now.

Edit: Breaking Bad finale was great. The people who thought it was shit don't know shit about shit. Dexter was shit.
 
Jado said:
Just came here to say the Breaking Bad finale was amazing and as perfect as can be for a show.
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Seriously. I don't know what show people were watching that they expected some grand finale with guns blazing and shit. It was a perfect and very satisfying ending for that show.
 
I'm an expert said:
It's both. On one hand it didn't do anything insanely egregious to turn on people who have kept up with the show. On the other hand, it confirmed to me how poorly this second half of the season was handled. The entire Hank thing was just rushed through, the pacing and events of these last episodes were anti-climactic, and the finale was just too neat. People can defend it all they want with "it had to end that way" or "that's how the characters were" yadi bladi.. it was boring. It was safe. It didn't pack any punch of the previous season finales. They could have just as easily done everything in this episode one episode earlier because it required barely any setup. The only scene that resonated with me was the children, and that's because I'm a father. The rest was so incredibly predictable that I ended up fast forwarding near the end after Jesse gets in the car..
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The finale being predictable doesn't make it bad. I feel like people are too obsessed with twists.

Also the set up for the finale was basically the whole season. But I do agree that certain things in the finale felt a bit rushed. And while Ozymamdias felt like the climax for the show to me, I still found the finale to be great. Every thing that needed closure got closure. There was no bullshit either.
 
I hate it when a finale is too self referential. Like, random callbacks to old episodes in a "oh yeah, remember this gag/bit?" all the time.

I enjoyed the IT Crowd finale, but there was a little too much of that, I felt.

A good finale, IMO, should be nothing more than an engaging story that ends on a satisfying note. It doesn't need to be Bigger, Better or Crazier than whats come before, and it doesn't have to reek of Remember This Bit? or what-have-you.

Doctor Who does finales pretty badly, usually way too over the top and contrived. Why can't we have a Blink or a Girl In The Fireplace as a finale? Why does it have to be Daleks stealing planets and trying to destroy reality? So corny.
 
Breaking Bad's ending was perfect.

I value every moment on television and film where all of my desires are completely satisfied. It is very rare.
 
....Breaking Bad had a pretty fucking good ending. It was pretty much perfect.

Best ending though was Spartacus, don't think anyhting will ever top that.
 
Pagusas said:
This was good too, but felt a bit rushed and left a lot hanging (weren't we suppose to get a new series to tie some stuff up?)
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We do have The Legend of Korra, but that's a ways into the future of the Avatar world. In terms of direct continuations of the Gaang's adventures, I believe there are some that exist in comic form, such as The Promise.

And although the finale did leave some things hanging (
Zuko's mother, anyone?
), it did a great job at answering most questions. Besides, it was four episodes long! Four episodes! And all of them were awesome.
 
People are way too critical of endings. Dexter had a truly shitty ending that was well earned from the truly shitty final season. Nothing else I saw on the first page was anywhere near that level. Others in the "awful" category include Full House, Family Matters, and Seinfeld.

Lost, Friends, Fringe, House MD, and Breaking Bad had endings ranging from good to great. I never watched Sopranos, and I know the ending was controversial, but that was a stylistic choice rather than a poor finale overall, from what I understand.
 
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