It only ends once. Anything that happens before then is just progress.
Finales are tricky things. For the vast duration of their run, television shows are expected to provide satisfying stories that never reach a conclusion. Situations and people may change over the course of the series, but they are always attempting to maintain some form of status quo. That's why when producers are asked to place a capstone on their long running series, so many find themselves completely unsure of how to do it. They have just spent dozens, maybe even hundreds of hours putting off this conclusion, its no wonder the list of failures outnumber the successes.
To a certain extent its unfair to put so much emphasis on just one episode. If the journey up until that point was enjoyable, does a less than satisfactory ending really change what came before? I watch and laugh at Seinfeld reruns almost every night, yet I haven't watched their disappointing finale since it first aired. Seinfeld however didn't have a serialized story, so its easy to ignore episodes that don't work. A show like Battlestar Galactica, however, can have its entire run ruined by mediocre ending.
Its now been a week since the LOST finale aired, and by now anyone who cares knows that *SPOILERS* the flash-sideways that have taken up the majority of the season are actually a form of a purgatorial way station that our characters have reached after they died, and that once they all realize this, they can move on to the next stage of existence (I swear, it made sense in context). It was a bold choice, and not one that everyone liked. Personally I loved it, but I won't deny that it has a whiff of "it was a all a dream," one of the hoariest of tv tropes.
In the next couple of weeks, I plan to take a look at some of the series finales that managed to do justice to what came before them, as well as some that managed to retroactively ruin the show. All my opinion of course, but then in these matters, I am always right, and if you disagree, you are always wrong.
To a certain extent its unfair to put so much emphasis on just one episode. If the journey up until that point was enjoyable, does a less than satisfactory ending really change what came before? I watch and laugh at Seinfeld reruns almost every night, yet I haven't watched their disappointing finale since it first aired. Seinfeld however didn't have a serialized story, so its easy to ignore episodes that don't work. A show like Battlestar Galactica, however, can have its entire run ruined by mediocre ending.
Its now been a week since the LOST finale aired, and by now anyone who cares knows that *SPOILERS* the flash-sideways that have taken up the majority of the season are actually a form of a purgatorial way station that our characters have reached after they died, and that once they all realize this, they can move on to the next stage of existence (I swear, it made sense in context). It was a bold choice, and not one that everyone liked. Personally I loved it, but I won't deny that it has a whiff of "it was a all a dream," one of the hoariest of tv tropes.
In the next couple of weeks, I plan to take a look at some of the series finales that managed to do justice to what came before them, as well as some that managed to retroactively ruin the show. All my opinion of course, but then in these matters, I am always right, and if you disagree, you are always wrong.
