THAT'S how it ends?!?! REALLY?!?!

[FletchySRF3088]

Been browsing through, just seen this and felt I had to post when I saw a thread about the HIMYM finale. I could've really done with this thread weeks ago when the finale aired. I really needed to vent then. Drtooth pretty much said everything I felt about the finale. I'm usually a pretty positive guy when it comes to shows that I love. Some endings to some of my favourite shows are better than others, but I never once got to the end of a show literally feeling cheated, angry, depressed, confused or a mix of all of these emotions. That's how I felt when I got to the end of the finale for HIMYM. I honestly felt I had wasted my time watching and getting into the show. I'd never had that reaction before - the worst reaction I felt to a finale up until then was "Well, that wasn't great but it does feel like a good enough way to end it."

It's especially depressing when the creators are writers that you looked up to, admired, and were some of your writing heroes.

Anyway, I don't mean to sound like Mr. Negative. I guess I just had to vent and share my two cents.

On a more cheerier side on the subject of finales, what finales do you consider perfect endings, or at least on your list for 'Favourite Series Finales'?

For me, it's:

• Angel
• Buffy
• Breaking Bad
• Futurama
• Cheers
• Frasier
• Justice League Unlimited (Both 'Epilogue' and 'Destroyer' absolutely perfect ends to the entire DC Animated Universe/Timmverse IMO)
• Scrubs
• Seinfeld (Been a while since I've seen it, but I always felt that it made sense to end it like that)
• M*A*S*H
• Only Fools and Horses (Though I liked the last trilogy they did when they came back, I thought the original '96 ending was a perfect end to the show)

 

[minor muppetz]

I've read that the last episode had a deleted scene taking place at the funeral and a montage where Ted grieves over his wife's death, which the cast think would have made the ending better. Reading about it, I can't decide whether that would make the ending better or worse.

 

[Drtooth]

Been browsing through, just seen this and felt I had to post when I saw a thread about the HIMYM finale. I could've really done with this thread weeks ago when the finale aired. I really needed to vent then. Drtooth pretty much said everything I felt about the finale. I'm usually a pretty positive guy when it comes to shows that I love. Some endings to some of my favourite shows are better than others, but I never once got to the end of a show literally feeling cheated, angry, depressed, confused or a mix of all of these emotions. That's how I felt when I got to the end of the finale for HIMYM. I honestly felt I had wasted my time watching and getting into the show. I'd never had that reaction before - the worst reaction I felt to a finale up until then was "Well, that wasn't great but it does feel like a good enough way to end it."

There was some article that really summed it up, but I didn't agree with everything they said in it. But it was basically the same thing I was saying. Derailing character development, erasing heart warming moments, and making the characters a lot less sympathetic. You have to give them credit for writing the heck out of a series finale, but there's such a thing as too much effort. I'd almost want an unsatisfying ending than a big Screw You. We put all these Mondays of TV watching and getting involved and caring about these characters, only to be trolled.

Brilliant madness, sure... but not a way to end on a high note. Anyone see Monty Python and the Meaning of Life? That skit where Eric Idle was the waiter that told you to follow him to a secluded area, tells you a sweat story, and then starts berating you before an F-Strike? Yeah, that was essentially the same thing here.

I've read that the last episode had a deleted scene taking place at the funeral and a montage where Ted grieves over his wife's death, which the cast think would have made the ending better. Reading about it, I can't decide whether that would make the ending better or worse.

I don't care if there was a deleted scene where she turned into a nasty ghost and they had to get all the original Ghostbusters to capture her. Killing the mother off was the BIGGEST D-move in television history. Even worse than the weak reasons Barney and Robin just junked their marriage without a fight. If they wanted a roundabout way to say "Ted still has feelings for Robin," they didn't need to kill her off, rather just have him wistfully staring out the window at a what could have been.

Now that I've looked past that, there is ONE other thing that ticked me off. How the heck come, in the show's 9 years, the narrator was Bob Sagat (who Ted did look a little like a younger version of), and Ted didn't even turn into Bob at the end of the series?

 

[FletchySRF3088]

There was some article that really summed it up, but I didn't agree with everything they said in it. But it was basically the same thing I was saying. Derailing character development, erasing heart warming moments, and making the characters a lot less sympathetic. You have to give them credit for writing the heck out of a series finale, but there's such a thing as too much effort. I'd almost want an unsatisfying ending than a big Screw You. We put all these Mondays of TV watching and getting involved and caring about these characters, only to be trolled.

THIS. Exactly my problem with it, too, Drtooth!

I don't care if there was a deleted scene where she turned into a nasty ghost and they had to get all the original Ghostbusters to capture her. Killing the mother off was the BIGGEST D-move in television history. Even worse than the weak reasons Barney and Robin just junked their marriage without a fight. If they wanted a roundabout way to say "Ted still has feelings for Robin," they didn't need to kill her off, rather just have him wistfully staring out the window at a what could have been.

I still think that had the show ended after Season 2, they would've gotten away with the ending they did. But after all that's happened in the succeeding years, it just doesn't work AT ALL. And like you said, it just feels like a great big "Screw You". And as for killing off the Mother... ugh, just ugh. I had hoped that the theories going round about her death before the finale aired wouldn't be true. When I first heard that, I immediately thought: "Naaaah, there's no way they'd do that. I can't see it working if they did."

After all the work they'd done with her this season, and that wonderful 200th episode focusing solely on her, and the fact that I thought the entire series was really about building up to Ted finally meeting the love of his life... it just all feels like a waste, among other things. It just all leaves such a sour taste.

 

[snichols1973]

The Amazing World of Gumball's 2nd season finale reminded me so much of Seinfeld. Pretty much everything the family did came back to bite them hard. Of course, it's getting a 3rd season, but I like those Series Fauxnales where they give it just enough closure to make it feel like a final episode.

It also reminds me of Jason Lee in My Name Is Earl, and this pretty much describes the sitcom's premise:

You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting round the corner: karma. That's when I realized that I had to change, so I made a list of everything bad I've ever done and one by one I'm gonna make up for all my mistakes. I'm just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.

 

[Drtooth]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'm very disappointed in Nickelodeon for letting Monsters Vs Aliens die off without a second season leading them to the dreaded "The Adventure Continues." Normally I wouldn't care much, but the entire series was building up that Coverton was planning something big to go down, while (barely) hiding his evil intent. For an entire season, I watched just a gag series where he was turned into Dick Dastardly for laughs. Which isn't exactly bad, but they built up this huge potential set up only for Nick to say "This isn't a Dan Schneider show! Cancel the HECK out of it." In hindsight, they should have at least had the foresight to have Coverton strike on the 26th episode.

 

[snichols1973]

The more I revisit the Seinfeld finale, the more I realize how apt and fitting it was.

I mean, it was a show about borderline sociopaths that rarely got comeuppance, for one. They finally had to deal with the repercussions of their actions, essentially. And they brought back almost every single past one shot character, too. They put a lot of care into that one, but I wish they kept the original ending. There, they would have met up at the diner a year later, and would have been all screwed up by their prison stay. Much better than the exact ending they had.

HIMYM was far worse. I could deal with a disappointing ending (Raising Hope had one), but not an ending that erases all the character development and heartwarming moments from the past several seasons. The Seinfeld ending may have been a disappointment or lousy or something, but at least they didn't take a flame thrower to their own show.

In regards to Seinfeld (via excerpts from the Wikipedia article): Unlike most sitcoms, there are no moments of pathos; the audience is never made to feel sorry for any of the characters. Even Susan's death elicits no genuine emotion from anyone in the show. The characters are "thirty-something singles with vague identities, no roots, and conscious indifference to morals."

Unfortunately, dissing an overweight man who is being carjacked while Kramer videotapes the incident and the others stand idly by is one of those virtual "adding insult to injury" situations, which is further complicated by the presence and testimonies of the secondary and one-shot characters who eagerly contribute their none too pleasant experiences with Jerry & friends, with an ominous burden of unfavorable moments dangling over their heads like buzzards circling a dead body in the desert as the jury weighs the evidence
and finds them guilty of "doing nothing", which is a rather ironic twist, since some critics have called Seinfeld "a show about nothing"....

 

[Drtooth]

I find the exact reason they were hauled off to court somewhere between semi-appropriate and a cop out. Filming someone getting carjacked is freaking doing something. It's called evidence. And what's to say if Jerry and Co did help out that the carjacker was carrying a gun and there's likely probability that any of them could have gotten shot, fatally or otherwise? Not to mention that it's indeed out of Kramer's character, as he once said that he'd turn on his friends and turn them in if they did anything massively illegal.

But other than the idiotic rational that got them to court, the ending was quite fitting, as every character they possibly could get testifying against them was a bold way to end off a show. Sure, it's a long standing anime tradition to have every character possible come back at the ending for one last callback/waving goodbye, but you almost never see it outside of that medium. And chances are, Larry and Jerry never watched those sort of things, so they clearly wanted the most out of their last episode.

Moving on, I'm anxiously awaiting how they're finally going to end that freaking 2 and a Half Men show, several years after it's logical ending period. Other than Alan and maybe Berta, every character on the show is a replacement or expy. To me, the real ending of the series was Charlie's funeral, where they passive aggressively as heck killed the character off and let his killer walk away Scott free without so much as a reprimand. Yeah, I get it. You hate what Sheen did. So throw logical all out the window and make sure Rose is never punished, can come as an invited guest to the funeral, and not even have Alan raise his voice, let alone seek any kind of legal action. Seriously. Then they try to pawn him off as broken up about it several episodes later when he acted like nothing happened to the crazy woman that killed his brother. AHEM... meanwhile, Chuck does nothing to Jake, who walked away from a fortune because he found overzealous, almost cult-like pseudo-Christianity and badmouthed the show (though still acting more professional than Kirk the Jerk Cameron). That honestly bothered me the most out of the series. I get that Charlie's death was treated as a "oh well, it had to happen sometime." But tossing all logical reaction to Rose, and completely disregarding a legitimate story arc just to shove Ashton Kutcher in there faster was a terrible decision. Especially since the next season and a half it turned into a completely different sitcom with Alan just being there.

 

[D'Snowth]

Not to mention that it's indeed out of Kramer's character, as he once said that he'd turn on his friends and turn them in if they did anything massively illegal.

Yeah, but see, Larry David (who had returned at that point to write the finale) had said he didn't care a thing about continuity among the characters - all he cared about was that the show always be funny, even if that meant the characters act, say, or do something one week, then act, say, or do something completely different the next. Jason Alexander even admitted that as an actor, he found that difficult to adjust to.

 

[Drtooth]

Yeah, but see, Larry David (who had returned at that point to write the finale) had said he didn't care a thing about continuity among the characters - all he cared about was that the show always be funny, even if that meant the characters act, say, or do something one week, then act, say, or do something completely different the next. Jason Alexander even admitted that as an actor, he found that difficult to adjust to.

Except it wasn't by all means funny. Apparently logic was also chucked out because even though they were harassing the guy, they had taped evidence of a crime happening. That's help in my book.