The End Is Meh!

         Not this one, though.  This ending was far from meh.         

It goes against my better judgment, but there are spoilers contained within.  Happy?

Every year now, we TV watchers must watch another one of our favorite series come to an end.  Most of the time, we have fair warning.  A date is set, and we know the story is winding down and the characters we love will cease to exist.  It is the life of any story.  It has to end.

So why do the finales of so many TV shows suck?

First, an argument can be made that they don’t suck.  Some people are comfortable with a show going on ad infinitum and no matter what the ending, they would never be satisfied. I understand that.  It may seem a little old-fashioned.  No too long ago shows went on until no one watched them.  They were cash cows and despite the characters going stale and every storyline wrung completely dry, they marched on.  But that’s not the case now.  Shows are diverse and smart and appeal to different audiences, not just anyone watching TV at 9 pm.  Even us lunkheads on our couches are more savvy.  We've watched a lot and our expectations are very high.

            My belief is, a few rare stories on TV that are wrapped up well, and even fewer are near perfect. Most series finales are just bad or uninspiring.  It is the nature of the imperfect beast of television and streaming shows, both cable and broadcast.

            For some reason, the first show I heard discussed in this way was The X Files.  It was a landmark sci-fi show, but the end was so sloppy and poorly thought out nerds were in an uproar.  I usually fell on the side of the creators rather than the complainers.  But even I felt slighted by the ending.  Scully gives up her baby to what, continue to work as a doctor?  What the hell? This was what showrunners at Lost said clearly they had in mind when they made their finale.  But it didn’t quite happen that way.

            Let me be clear: THEY WERE NOT DEAD THE WHOLE TIME.  Why this has been the popular interpretation is beyond me.  The flash-forwards in the last season were of some post-death neither-world where all the castaways eventually meet and move on to the next world.  I know, it was kinda corny.

 All of the events that happened on and off the island, the time travel, the island moving, Kate’s stupid toy plane, and Desmond in the hatch…that all happened.  The writers just needed a way to bring all the previously killed-off characters back.  It wasn't even the imagined neither-world that threw me.  It was the pointlessness of killing off the last slew of characters. (I’ll stop now.) Lost was plotted well, with mysteries and red herrings and surprises, and when the ending didn't work it was a surprise.  In the end, it was a TV show, and the medium just has inherent flaws.

A movie is a multi-month project that involves a lot of people yet follows one script.  The same participants are there from Day One to wrap-up.  A book is written by one person with a singular vision for sometimes years to get the ending just right.  There are so many factors that can ruin even the best idea for a TV show that it is a miracle there’s ever been anything watchable in fifty years.  Actor contracts, changing writing staffs, strikes, sponsorship requests, sweeps, network notes, and a million other things try to ruin the tiniest bit of art anyone tries to squeeze through the turd sandwich of modern TV.

Here are a few things that don’t need to happen to make a good ending.

You don’t need to invite everyone back for one last hurrah. 

As with Lost, there is a template for finales out there that believes it’s a cool idea to incorporate characters that left the show in previous seasons.  It is kinda cool, but the limits that are put on a story are pretty noticeable.  Basically, you need to fold in a heaven, hell, or a series of Dickensian ghost scenes.  You could fold in flashbacks, but, instead, how about slowly closing the book on the story itself?  People die.  We know.

The finale should never again involve someone who chooses to move away, then at the last minute, decides to stay.

Friends, Frasier, and Sex and the City all went out like this within months of each other.  The scene at an airport or bursting through the door at the last minute is as trite as accidentally making two dates on prom night.  There is life after the first big kiss or first reconciliation.  Show a little of life as a couple. Show life settled down and dealing with new obstacles.  Besides, with modern airport security, all of the romance of this scene has been chucked in the trash along with your bottle of hand lotion.

A non-ending is a non-ending.  Either end it or fade out.

This is for the Sopranos approach.  Enough time has passed on this landmark show to admit that it had a shitty ending.  Some call it an artistic choice, others call it gutless.  If someone deserves a comeuppance, give it to them.  Breaking Bad did not fail in that regard.  The best drama ever ended perfectly, with Walter White accepting his fate. A fade out on a story is just that: life goes on sometimes. There is a next day at work, or a bunch of new people you have to meet. That in itself is a powerful statement.  I think of The Office, 30 Rock, Cheers, Six Feet Under, and The West Wing.

Also, use the entire final season to wrap things up.  Why just have 12 hours of padding for one special hour of tears and goodbyes?  Stretch that shit out.

There is no need to “finish where we started”.  Life really isn't cyclical, why should stories be?

Breaking Bad had a single pivotal event occur in the final season at the original spot where Walt and Jesse first cooked their product. It was a nod to the first season, and that’s all it was.  My family enjoyed watching the TV show Chuck, that had four fun seasons and a final fifth that literally stripped away all that was accomplished in the first four.  The lead characters lost everything, one came down with amnesia, friends’ ties severed and our hero was exactly where he started in the pilot.  Yay, that’s fun.  We watch stories specifically for the changes in character.  We also don’t watch comedies to get bummed out. (Except for the finale of Roseanne, which was a commentary of sitcoms themselves. Very surprising and well done. Find that.)

On a personal note, I can still have fondness for a series that went out with a splat.  One crappy final episode doesn't diminish the entire series en masse. It just sets up a bit of a sour aftertaste.