[BSG spoiler below]
I wanted to blog about series finales yesterday and then realized that I could twitter individual thoughts on it. It struck me that this is something twitter does well, and I would like to do more of it. Here are the twitter posts:
Worst Series Finales: X-Files. Rejected the idea of an ending in favor of a clip show that was a commercial for a film that never happened.
Great Series Finales: The Wire. Not a soul left behind, and a montage, so rarely done well, to the only song they could have chosen.
Great Series Finales: Seinfeld. Went full circle and insisted on its misanthropy, and the misanthropy of everyone who enjoyed it.
Great Series Finales: Angel. Went out on a high note of frustrated, doomed defiance, which was the mood when Fox cancelled it.
Great Series Finales: The Sopranos. Audacious, paradoxically aggressive and understated. Punched like the sudden death of a friend.
The one I wanted to put up about BSG, but did not because I did not want to spoil it, was inspired by Brad:
Worst Series Finales: BSG. Cavemen and Angels, the equivalent of paradise, and a patronizing message. What show is this?
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5 comments:
I love that you give a thumbs-up to the "Seinfeld" finale. It was a great way to end it. Larry David writes some great finales.
I thought that the idea of the Seinfeld finale was a lot better than the execution. I wish it was even more "Larry David" than it already was (at least, in comparison to the rest of the Seinfeld episodes after Larry left the show). You know? I wanted more "phone faux-pas" and "cell phone walk-and-talk." Those are the lines I remember from the finale.
Cheers - I don't remember much of this finale, but I remember one thing (and I want it noted that I am getting goosebumps typing about it... what, 16 years later?). The very end of the show, where Frasier, Sam, Cliff and Norm are sitting and having a drink. Frasier waxes philosophical about the nature of humanity and the universe, how we all might be coincidences and humanity is just unfortunate to have developed a brain that can actually ponder its existence. There is a knock at the door, that garden view door at the bottom of the steps. There is a shadowed figure there, and Sam goes to the door and tells them "We're closed." He repeats it. The figure's face is never seen as it departs.
There was speculation that it was then-president Clinton. Or some enormous celebrity. It doesn't matter who it really was. To me, that figure was one thing: Death. That scene gave me the creeps badly. I wanted Sam to get away from the door. It was a show about endings, and that ending, "We're closed," repeated to a figure who will always be in shadow, never be revealed...
Yeah. That's a finale that stayed with me.
I loved the series finale of The Shield, especially the final moment. Many fans compared it to The Sopranos with the same outrage, but I loved it, perhaps because of that.
Ooh, yeah, the finale for The Shield, that's how you end a show. That's how you do an entire final season. They didn't falter, they had a last story they wanted to tell, and they told it without any remorse. It was almost unremittingly hard on its main characters, but it was so well done, and rang so true, that all the death and betrayal worked perfectly.
Shows don't have to end happily, I think perhaps BSG was wrong in assuming that they Needed a happy ending. It just has to end well.
Six Feet Under, that's another excellent ending.
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