One of my very favorite things in life is watching series finales. Favorite. Thing. EVER. I watch them for shows I never even watch. It's the reason I love spring time. The damn flowers make my allergies go haywire, but the finales? Ahhh...
However, this spring there's a problem. Two of my favorite series have ended, and another one ends next week. And so far the finales have sucked. A finale needs to be a culmination of the show, it needs to tie up loose ends, give some promise to the future and still be good and original.
The West Wing finale on Sunday was awful. The episode brought nothing to the table that had not already been established in the preceding episodes. I have no closure. I watched this show religiously, and worried about Donna throwing her life away for Josh. Granted, we saw three years into the future in the first episode of the season, but it wasn't enough. I need proof that Josh isn't going to be Chief of Staff and completely emotionally abandon Donna like a jerk. And I totally don't understand the point of having Sam Seaborn come back if he's not going to do any more than tell Josh to go on a vacation. That was totally not worth the hype.
Luckily I skipped the 7th Heaven series finale because I would have been really pissed if I had to watch a whole episode of the show without it being the finale. Confused? You mustn't have heard, all is not well in the world, 7th Heaven is going to be back next year.
Last night was the finale of Will & Grace and again, I didn't like it. Yes, all was fine in the end, but it wasn't Will & Grace. It wasn't funny. The best line of the whole episode was when Grace said that Lila was so skinny during her first year and Will asked what she fed her and she responded with, "The boob," and he said, "Ah, portion control." I also couldn't believe that they never had their kids meet. And then the story lines about Jack and Karen were just stupid. It was entirely disappointing.
I have That 70s Show on the DVR but I haven't watched it yet. We just aren't on a good roll this season.
I'm really worried about the Alias finale on Monday. I hope it's good. I know that there's going to be a lot of Rimbaldi information in it, so it will be interesting to see how it wraps up.
Nothing can ever compare with the Newhart finale.
Though, the Roseanne finale wasn't as awful as the entire prior season had been. It was original, though not funny. It tied things up and sort of apologized for how awful things had been.
Mad About You was interesting. It was original, a little too sappy, but interesting.
Friends & Frasier & Seinfeld? Not so good. Maybe it's an NBC thing...
Now, The Nanny had an awful series finale. Awful. Awful. Nothing has ever looked so staged as when Fran peered around the entry, sighing and shifting her weight. Or as staged as those awful plastic stunt babies.
Everbody Loves Raymond? I think the problem with the finale was the problem with the show and the reason I didn't watch: it's the same damn thing every single episode.
Sex & the City was pretty good, but that may just be because I was sick to death of Carrie Bradshaw and would have been just as happy if the cast (sans Charlotte) had plastic surgery accidents and left to live in a leper colony.
There are various ingredients a finale needs to have and not all have them and most are just the writers gratifying themselves with poorly written, over indulgent scripts. Oh please, please, please let Alias be good...
