Best TV series finale ever?

I'm clearing up some DVR space for tomorrow's three-hour ER event (a retrospective followed by the two-hour series finale), and wondering what I'm going to experience after 15 years of watching the show. I know it'll be emotional to see the characters again, as it's been throughout this season (it first hit me when they showed the backroom wall with the nameplates on it), but will the episode soar or flop? I'm reminded of other series sign-offs of varying quality:

The good:

• M*A*S*H: "Goodbye, Farewell & Amen" (2/28/83, 11 seasons):  The cast bids goodbye to the 4077th in still the most-watched television program ever.
• Star Trek The Next Generation: "All Good Things..." (5/29/94, seven seasons): Picard jumps through time, with the help of an old nemesis.
• Dawson's Creek: "All Good Things... Must Come to an End" (5/14/03, six seasons): A tearful farewell to one of the cast principals.
• Cheers: "One for the Road" (5/21/93, 11 seasons): Sam and Diane reunite, and Sam closes the bar. (EDIT: I agree it's probably more accurate to say he turns out the lights.  I never said that Sam and Diane end up together, however.)
• Six Feet Under: "Everyone's Waiting" (8/21/05, five seasons): I admit I didn't watch this series, but the other day at dinner our waiter proclaimed it as the "best finale ever!" so it makes the list.

The bad:

• Seinfeld: "The Finale" (5/14/98, nine seasons): What a mess!

Still has everyone confused:

• The Sopranos: "Made in America" (6/10/07, six seasons): strange conclusion to the Journey
  
• Battlestar Galactica: "Daybreak" (3/20/09, four seasons): I guess I liked it, but what about the Starbuck question?

What are some of your memorable series finales from over the years?  --David

Comments

[robertl on April 01, 2009 at 01:32 PM]

You forgot the original big finale - The Mary Tyler Moore Show - which really was the precursor to all that followed.

And I disagree on the Seinfeld rap. The more you see it, the more it makes sense.

[Turbodave on April 01, 2009 at 02:27 PM]

I think the original big finale was The Fugitive in 1967. This was a four-year series about a doctor wrongly accused of murdering his wife (the later movie and brief TV series are the same story). That 2-hour finale wrapped up the story, and justice was done as Dr. Kimble was proven innocent. That show held the top all-time TV rating for many years.

[Johnny Anarchy on April 01, 2009 at 04:08 PM]

The Wire series finale "-30-" was about as pitch-perfect and bittersweet as you can get. And The Shield's season finale "Family Meeting" created the perfect fate for Vic Mackey.

[David on April 01, 2009 at 04:33 PM]

Robertl, I didn't see the MTM finale, but you reminded me of another classic: the final scene of Newhart. --David

[Paul on April 01, 2009 at 06:46 PM]

"Sleeping in Light" --the finale to Babylon 5.

Enough to make a grown man cry.

And although it didn't last a single season, the last scene of the last episode of "I married Dora" was an unexpected breaking of the fourth wall.

[Katie on April 02, 2009 at 08:11 AM]

I was 18 and cried for a week after the M*A*S*H* finale. I haven't watched it again.

Newhart - that was great. I had stopped watching the series a season or two earlier, but had to see that finale.

Friends was silly. Frasier just put a sloppy bow on the series - it wasn't nearly as good as so many of theirs.

Seinfeld - overall just ok - but having the very last line be the same as the very (or almost) first line of the first show, the writer in me loved that.

[Rob Crawford on April 02, 2009 at 12:04 PM]

The last episode of Blackadder, where they're all ordered out across no-man's land.

"Bugger."

[lorien1973 on April 02, 2009 at 12:05 PM]

That's not how cheers ended.

Sam and Diane didn't end up together. And Sam didn't close the bar.

[Robokeith on April 02, 2009 at 12:08 PM]

Thought the Battlestar ending was pretty great, and I only came back for the last half of the last season.

The Seinfeld ending might not have pleased - but I think they had something they wanted to say, that these characters were just horrible people and I think the makers of the show were slightly uncomfortable with how "beloved" they were. Certainly Larry David set out to do the George character (himself) as anything but lovable.

[ghJugger on April 02, 2009 at 12:10 PM]

lorien1973 is completely correct and it was a very disappointing ending.
I liked the finale of another medical show, St Elsewhere, where the entire series ended up being a running delusion of one of the character's autistic child.

[ghJugger on April 02, 2009 at 12:11 PM]

As for the bad, as in very bad, add in Dallas

[Paul on April 02, 2009 at 12:13 PM]

Newhart's was brilliant, a reference to the former Bob Newhart show. I loved it.

Mediocre: Northern Exposure. All of its fans know when it should have ended (Joel on the Staten Island Ferry) but they tried to carry on with a new doctor and lousier scripts. The final scene with the song "Our Town" by Iris DeMent was excellent, but the show had lost its luster by then. "And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts..."

Utterly bizarre: Life on Mars, ironically shown last night on ABC. This cop finds himself in 1973, and the show is about him trying to figure out what's going on - is this an hallucination or something else? Good scripts, good characters.

Well, they told us last night. Spoiler alert:

It was all a frigging dream, and the whole cast was actually in suspended animation on a spaceship to Mars. All together now: Sheesh...

[Lockestep on April 02, 2009 at 12:14 PM]

lorien- I think he meant closed up for the night-IIRC, the final scene had Sam turning out the light.

One of my favorites was the X-files finale. Not a classic resolution, but about as good as you could expect for Scully and Mulder.

[Phil on April 02, 2009 at 12:14 PM]

I thought the best finale ever was the last episode of NYPD Blue. Instead of some contrived situation, or some grand spectacle, instead, it was just another episode. But, the writers still got everyone in to say their farewells.

[Mister Snitch on April 02, 2009 at 12:15 PM]

The problem with the Seinfeld finale was that a show about nothing tried to exit by making a statement. It wasn't in keeping with the pattern viewers expected, and so they rejected it.

[Ed Driscoll on April 02, 2009 at 12:15 PM]

In the "Still has everyone confused" department, I'm surprised you didn't mention the agonizingly self-indulgent final episode of "The Prisoner."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_Out_(The_Prisoner)

[Eric Jablow on April 02, 2009 at 12:18 PM]

The most confusing series finale of all is "Fall Out", the final episode of "The Prisoner". If you can figure out what Patrick McGoohan and leo McKern were doing, please let me know.

[ken on April 02, 2009 at 12:18 PM]

Two additional ones I thought did rather well..

Arrested Development--hardly anyone saw the drawn-out finale since it went up against the Olympics (if I remember correctly).

Moonlighting--after a few good seasons the show went downhill fast, but the final show was one of their best. A studio exec cuts in to tell them the show has been canceled, while the remaining cast plays themselves instead of their characters.

[RSS on April 02, 2009 at 12:18 PM]

I think the all-time finale was the last "Newhart" show. After "Dallas" ran a dream sequence that did away with a lot of the story line up to that point, Newhart did something similar. In this case, in this case, the entire Newhart series is a dream as we see Bob Newhart waking up next to Suzanne Pleshette, his TV wife on the old "Bob Newhart Show".

The show ended to the music of the old "Bob Newhart Show". Great ending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newhart#.22The_Last_Newhart.22

[janetb55 on April 02, 2009 at 12:19 PM]

My favorite series, JAG, ended with a finale ("Fair Winds and Following Seas") that wrapped many loose ends and let you feel the characters lived happily ever after.

[ghJugger on April 02, 2009 at 12:21 PM]

Mr Driscoll,
In fairness, McGoohan was given almost no notice at all that the show was cancelled. I remember him saying that he had to let people (Leo McKern?) write their own lines as he was scrambling to get the show done.

[Mark on April 02, 2009 at 12:26 PM]

I really liked the finale of Arrested Development.

[Pablo Panadero on April 02, 2009 at 12:32 PM]

Best final scene has to be the finale of "St. Elsewhere". The familiar scene of the hospital in snow is shaken and you realize that it is a snowglobe being shaken. Two characters that were doctors in the show (but are not in this scene)are in a living room with an autistic boy. One of the doctors takes the globe out of the hand of the autistic boy, places it on the TV and mutters "...all he ever does is look at that thing." Was he talking about the snowglobe or the TV?

[Passerby on April 02, 2009 at 12:32 PM]

-

Sledge Hammer! - the series had not yet been renewed by the network, so the final episode ended with Sledge trying to defuse a nuclear bomb, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing", followed by a mushroom cloud over LA.

The network then renewed the series. Which put the writers in a bit of a quandry. So they set the next season as a prequel which took place five years earlier than the first two seasons.

snippet from Sledge Hammer! - great, underappreciated show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QWlEH2vn3g&feature=PlayList&p=217D806A1A2CD8CE&index=10

[JohnFNWayne on April 02, 2009 at 12:32 PM]

You can't have this post without "Newhart"

It was all a dream ...