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Posted by: JosephStyles May 3 2021, 03:00 PM

In light of the generally underwhelmed and unsatisfied consensus on last night's Line of Duty series 6 finale, and the potential that it could have been the last episode ever, I want to know which shows really NAILED their final season and episode, and which ones fluffed it the most? Generally talking about shows that planned a final season rather than being cancelled prematurely or just not continuing (looking at you, Torchwood).

Gentle reminder to put big plot points in SPOILER TAGS!

I'd say The Good Place is a prime example of a show that ended on a really strong note. I know people have conflicting opinions on the later seasons but I think its conclusion felt perfect and extremely satisfying The Fosters also wrapped up perfectly for me, and I've recently just finished watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from start to finish - that final episode broke me! Being Human's final moments are brilliantly spine-tingling because you don't know if the trio actually succeeded (in fact it's heavily hinted that they didn't), which leaves it slightly unresolved BUT I've chosen to take it as a happy ending :').

Teen Wolf had a comparatively ropey final run (the second half of season 6), it felt a bit disjointed at times, but the final couple of episodes are perfect and it ends on a really lovely note, that final episode ticked every box! The 100 is somewhat similar, I enjoyed the final season on the whole though and it was only ruined by Bob Morley taking time out, which impacted on the direction Bellamy went in I'm sure. That aside, the ending was great and the quality of the season was high. Miranda had declined in quality for its third series - good but not AS good as the first two, and the first part of the 2-part finale isn't my favourite episode but the ending was perfect. I liked Scandal's ending though I don't think they needed to kill off David??? I know final seasons can often be the prime opportunity for some big name deaths and Scandal never shied away from that anyway but it didn't feel completely needed.

For disappointing ends, Grimm's final episode was strange and became quite predictable. It had a nice ending but after such a good run (and a brilliant final season), the final episode didn't quite hit the spot I watched Nowhere Boys last year and really enjoyed it, but the final episode had a very rushed conclusion and one that didn't really tie up all the loose ends it needed to, so I wasn't really won over by it. The Vampire Diaries ending was great (bringing back Elena and Katherine was perfect) but The Originals is a lot more divisive... I liked it but understand why others don't, particularly as it means there's no chance of Klaus popping up in Legacies. Travelers felt wholly unsatisfying as a final episode - perhaps my top choice for worst ending - as it basically hit the undo button????

Posted by: Klaus May 3 2021, 03:06 PM

Game of Thrones is an obvious one from recent times but I strongly feel the outcome isn’t what makes it bad, it’s the fact it was so so so rushed, especially in comparison with the pacing of the previous seasons. It was an uphill battle anyway as there was no way everyone would be satisfied with the ending of something so huge but rushing it didn’t help.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 3 2021, 03:20 PM

Don't try and make excuses for that DUMPSTER FIRE It was trash of the utmost ordsr. NOTHING made sense. Dragons CANNOT be taken out by medieval grounded projectiles... and yet those projectiles had the strength of MODERN RAIL CANNONS and defied the laws of gravity. Lawl. Just ... no. They assassinated everyone's characters, threw away arcs in the blink of an eye, failed thematically at every turn, and gave characters Valerian steel plot armour. It was absolute NONSENSE.

Posted by: diva thin muffin May 3 2021, 03:21 PM

Best: The Good Place as you noted was great but I'd add that the Parks & Recreation finale was equally amazing. Such a strong season, they handled the time jump well and the final episode made me cry like a baby.

Worst: Game of Thrones, without a doubt. I can't even rewatch the show anymore because they fumbled the ball so bad with the final season. I'd also add that the final season of Glee was pretty bad but they had been going downhill for a while tbh.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 3 2021, 03:27 PM

Game of Thrones was creeping into the dumpster from the end of season 5 and definitely season 6 on. Oh, honourable mention goes to that particularly awful scene outside of KL: Qyburn vanishing after being on camera next to Tyrion, presumably teleporting back into KL, Tyrion WHISPERING and people 50 metres away and fifty feet above hearing him perfectly, Cersei not just ending the war right there and then, Danaerys going there in the first place, and mass production in a medieval setting. Those two hacks should never have been given the series.

Posted by: Chez Wombat May 3 2021, 03:52 PM

I think the making of a good series is whether the makers have a plan from the start and that's what makes the best endings. A set number of seasons - usually no more than 5 and clear foreshadowing to the end throughout makes a great series. Seasons that go on for more than six I'm very hesitant towards as they almost always lose their quality and you can tell that money is replacing the heart.


Some specific examples of the good off the top of my head would be Breaking Bad, Dark, Avatar: The Last Airbender & A Series of Unfortunate Events (the latter was an adaptation so had the books to refer to ofc. but they successfully gave closure to that and their own storylines), Dark in particular however convoluted it got, never lost it's quality and the ending was just so fitting, I was so amazed how intricately the producer has plotted it.

Most common examples of bad that I've also seen would probably be Lost and Game of Thrones as already said. I pretty much entirely agree with Klaus that the actual plot points weren't terrible conclusions and I accept they had it quite tough given how slow the author was writing, but it was so rushed, not clearly thought out and so at odds with the slow-building tension of earlier seasons.

Lost was just clearly a result of Abrams writing himself into a corner and coming up with a kind of conclusion that doesn't make a lot of sense, but it'll have to do. Common feature of his work~

Posted by: Iz 💀 May 3 2021, 04:07 PM

Probably the best I can think of are Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which topped off a 10-episode arc resolving all of the conflicts and various arcs within the series, and Assassination Classroom, which proved it really was telling a very tight story despite its carefree nature. Higurashi (original 2 seasons), Steins;Gate, Fate/Zero all had an absolutely amazing finale too, I need to rewatch some of those. Shows which stay in my favourites tend to have a really strong final.

Breaking Bad too - that was brilliant!

I remember the biggest disappointment I had was Darling In The Franxx, a show from a couple of years ago, it had a really absolutely excellent first 15 episodes. The next 4 were okay. The last 7 were absolute trash of the highest order, that took everything possibly interesting about the show (a post-apocalyptic wasteland) and tossed it into space for some reason.

none of this is why the finale was... underwhelming. Not bad, underwhelming. Basically everything that was in the finale would have been in a perfect finale, but the issue was we just weren't given the time to have the extra bits and conclusions that we needed to make it a strong show.

and btw, it is one of those that's an exception to my rule, I just now consider Game Of Thrones (Seasons 1-6) to be one of my favourite shows. The other two exist when I decide they exist.

Posted by: Iz 💀 May 3 2021, 04:10 PM

This is very true. 5-7 is generally the maximum a show can go without proper planning to decide where it's going if the story is truly that long. I normally like shorter shows for this reason, less chance of getting totally burned and more variety in what you're watching.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 3 2021, 04:20 PM

No, a LOT of that is why the entire season was utter trash. It was nonsensical, destroyed character arcs, and obsessed over "subverting expectations". It is a master class in failed storytelling. Rumours abound that GRR is now taking so long, as he is rewriting the final books following the intensely negative reaction to the shockingly bad final seasons. Having only two female rulers in history result in an apocalypse, with both being mad, is not a good look, either.

Posted by: Art Vandelay May 3 2021, 04:50 PM

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files (original run) both had lame finales/final seasons. The last series of Friends was abysmal but it did have a decent last episode I suppose.

Posted by: Rooney May 3 2021, 05:23 PM

With American network TV dramas it can be really difficult though as the networks want the show. So a prime example of this is LOST - for what it is worth, I think the ending of the show is really fitting and a really sensible ending. A lot of the problem fans have with the shows is because Lindelof/Cuse had created storylines which got cut as they were not important and were merely there as filler because they did not know how many episodes they had to go.

Game of Thrones gets a lot of hate but people make out it's the worst thing ever - it's not. Yes, the pacing is off in some parts and they did not have the quality of GRM to help with the source material. But a lot of the hate comes from people are pissed off Bran ends up on the Throne. This is common with lots of TV shows, people dislike the endings because it is not how they wanted it to be. Ending a TV show is near enough impossible. It's really hard to think of a example of a GOOD ending.

Anyway nobody has actually found the worst of them all yet, which is Dexter. I've never seen the show but How I Met Your Mother seems universially derided too.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 3 2021, 05:28 PM

No. Read up. Those are GLARING ISSUES. It is also nonsensical that Bran becomes king the way he did. It is utter GARBAGE.

Posted by: Rooney May 3 2021, 05:37 PM

Which just proves my point Michael, people don't like it because they don't like what happened.

Bran was and will be the King in GRRM's books too. The difference is there was no source material to flesh out the other seeds of how it happened as it takes GRRM 10 years to write a book.

Posted by: Art Vandelay May 3 2021, 05:57 PM

Bingo.

Everyone has the “perfect” ending of any given TV show in their head and it’s basically impossible for it to actually happen.

Posted by: Harve May 3 2021, 05:59 PM

Fleabag's final series was good, and I know that might not seem too notable as there are only two series, but it's because it was stopped after such a short time that its ending was fitting.

Catastrophe's ending was amazing and very much at the right time.

The Thick of It's final series is perhaps its best.

Posted by: Quarantilas May 3 2021, 06:02 PM

One of the worst for me is the original ending of Will & Grace. It was untrue to the characters and total opposite to what we'd spent 8 years watching. Hated every second of it. I still haven't finished watching the revival, but I am glad it exists purely to retcon that atrocious ending and give us something better.



In recent years I think Schitts Creek is one of the most beautifully ended shows. Everything made perfect sense. You saw the character development unfold and it ended in a way that was faithful to who they had become and to the journey they had all been on. One of the most spectacularly ended shows I have ever seen I think. Especially as it was highly anticipated - but also you could clearly see how well planned it was. Superb job all round really.
(TGP is a nomination I mostly agree with too. I liked that)

Posted by: diva thin muffin May 3 2021, 06:27 PM

The issue isn’t Bran being king or the ending per se. It’s how they got there and how little sense it made. They could have made him king and done it well but instead it boiled down to “wHo HaS tHe BeSt StOrY 🥴” which was just.. what? None of that final season made sense because none of it was actually set up. Bran becoming king, Arya killing the night king, Dany going crazy. It was all just for shock value instead of actually making a single lick of sense.

It was an awful season because it was rushed, poorly written, didn’t make sense and was more about shocking gags than actual quality. D&D were even offered more seasons and more episodes by HBO but didnt want it. No one expected GOT to have a happy ending but we all expected it to make sense, which is where they failed.

Posted by: Rooney May 3 2021, 07:43 PM

I'm not saying it wasn't poor, it was. But I don't think it was as simple as HBO wanted more episodes. They probably did but that's it in simple terms - you have major budget constraints, contracts and other non-factors too. I think they fell in to the trap that people wanted huge action sequences rather than character driven stories. Dany going mad, Bran sitting on the Throne and Arya killing the Night King all make sense, I totally agree the show just did a really daft thing - imo a lot of this is to do with the show becoming movie like with every episode.

Posted by: Suedehead2 May 3 2021, 08:00 PM

The final full series (excluding one-offs) of Blackadder was brilliant. If a programme that only had two series counts, there is Fawlty Towers as well.

In my opinion, British series tend to be better at finishing before they reach their best before date (Last Of The Summer Wine being an obvious exception) while American shows often go on for several series too many.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 3 2021, 08:27 PM

If the story made sense, that would be one thing. The choice of Bran is in and of itself utter tripe, and anti-feminist, but how we got there, plus the terrible production, plot armour, and destroyed character arcs and thematic failures, is what makes it so bad. The storyline clearly frayed at the end, and D ans D are two massive hacks. They could not handle it.

Oh, and none of teh dany, Arya or Bran stuff make any sense, and all three completely destroy their ENTIRE character histories and arcs. Trash.

Posted by: diva thin muffin May 3 2021, 08:34 PM

No, they could have made sense but they 100% didn't make sense. Dany going mad was absolutely random. There was absolutely nothing in her character arc that suggested she'd ever be ready to murder innocent people as they were surrendering because of .. bells? The reasoning wasn't there so to the viewer this didn't make any sense at all. Of course they could have bridged the gap, quite easily probably, but they didn't. There was absolutely nothing in the 7 seasons we'd gotten to know her that suggested she'd ever do such a thing and especially at that moment. She didn't even go and make sure she'd kill Cersei who was the MAIN reason why she was there lmao.

Bran becoming king didn't make sense. He'd explicitly said in a previous episode he wouldn't want to be king and being the three-eyed raven and all it didn't make sense for him to say that and then become king anyway because he would have seen it coming from miles away. The scene where Tyrion - literally a prisoner at this point - suggests he becomes king because he's got the BEST story is also absolutely nonsensical. Sansa's demand for independence also didn't make sense much like most of her storyline in the last two seasons, including but not limited to her absolutely random hatred and quite stupidly open mistrust of Dany after spending 7 seasons showing us that Sansa is smart and sneaky and willing to pretend she's loyal almost to a fault in order to gain her oppressor's trust.

There were so many characters who acted incredibly out of character in seasons 7-8. There were so many scenes that didn't make sense and felt random. I was turned off season 8 way before the finale after the Battle of Winterfell. The bad guy they'd been hyping up for eight goddamn seasons finally arrived, multiple main characters got into scenarios they absolutely should not have survived but plot armour saved them, and then this baddie is killed by Arya - not using any of the techniques she'd spent many seasons mastering as "no one" - but by running up to him screaming (somehow not being stopped by ANY of NK's henchmen who were literally everywhere) and then just randomly killing him. The actual death of the NK would have been so cool if it made any sense but it didn't so it was just infuriating.

It's an universally hated season by so much of the fandom because it wasn't in sync with the rest of the show at all. Characters made stupid, out of character decisions. Bad guys became cartoonishly evil for no good reason and had super aim when it suited them. Varys, the master of WHISPERERS, just openly talked about treason to anyone who would lend an ear. Tyrion and Varys, both of whom had promised to follow Dany into death numerous times, flipped on her because - some guy who had absolutely NO interest in being king and pledged absolute loyalty to Dany - happened to also have royal blood and also be a man. I can't even properly express how much this season sucked and how much I hated it but I can promise you it had nothing to do with the outcome and everything to do with the way they got there.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 3 2021, 09:17 PM

Oh, also, Jon Snow got told in season 2 - back when GRR Martin was in charge - that HE would defeat the Night King. Fast forward ro Dumb and Dumber taking complete control, and they decide that it will be Arya just TWO YEARS before it ends. They just wanted to subvert expectations. Nothing makes sense in the last two seasons, absolutely nothing.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 3 2021, 09:50 PM

Don't forget that Arya's technique was lifted from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter :') . Apparently to beat the NK, you didn't need a history with him, training with the Faceless Men, or shape-shifting magic. All you needed yo do was watcg Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. They then changed the prophecy of the eyes, clearly referring to Cersei - probably using Jaime's face, fulfilling thr Valanquar prophecy twice over - so that it referred to the Night King :') .

Sansa asks for independence, and thry ask for a King's Moot - you know, like they do on the Iron Islands. Everyone laughs, including the delegation from THE IRON ISLANDS, and the Iron Islands, nor Dorne for that matter, do not dwquest independence. Bronn, who had so much plot armour he shouldn't have been able to move, who could walk through enemy territory and their home castle with a crossbow lol, is then made master treasurer. This would cause civil war. There would be no Seven Kingdoms left just with that decisuon alone.

Oh, more nonsense. The entire plot with Highgarden falling to a weak war-weary Lannister force in a ... few days? with an attack on their capital? is LAUGHABLE. They were the biggest, strongest land force in Westeros. Sigh.

I agree about how disgustingly anti-feminist the ending was, too.

Absolute shite.

Posted by: Qween May 4 2021, 08:25 AM

Not to wade in after the fact, but Diva's assessment of Game of Thrones is spot on. If it ended at the end of S6 it would have been an incredible run - Winds of Winter being the best episode of TV ever created (in my not so humble opinion).

Anyway, in terms of other shows with good/bad endings:

GOOD: Battlestar Galactica - I know it's divisive and gets a lot of flack, but I think it was fitting for the story they were trying to tell (ie. about humanity, hope, learning from our past to build a better shared future etc) and had a satisfying ending for pretty much every character.

GOOD: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - They actually had 2 series finales effectively (S5 and S7) and both worked well, but the actual ending hit all the right character notes and was a good send off to everyone bar Deke.

GOOD: Arrested Development - That they managed to craft an enjoyable, fitting and satisfying conclusion AT ALL was great, that they did it with only a few episodes notice as the show was cancelled was even more satisfying. S3 is by no means great but the final episode played to individual strengths, bookended the show and, in typical AD fashion, saved one last twist for Michael. (and then they came along with S4 and 5 and ruined all that with a story that didn't need to be told and with a woeful ending, see below).

Other shows with satisfying endings: The Good Place, The Closer, Dark, Babylon 5, Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: Voyager, Fringe, 12 Monkeys, Sanctuary, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Downtown Abbey, How To Get Away With Murder, Schitt's Creek

BAD: Star Trek: Enterprise - As has been mentioned above this was the victim of being cancelled so the producers had to try and cobble together SOMETHING. What they cobbled together was the worst of all worlds: dismissing and basically forgetting all about the cast/stories of the show we watched in lieu of a HOLODECK EPISODE (to wrap up 18 years of ''TNG'' Trek). Terrible on almost every front.

BAD: 13 Reasons Why - the entirety of S4 did not need to exist. It served no purpose at all. I guess an argument could be made that it should have been a limited series, but S2 was good and S3 felt like it had a story to tell. S4 was essentially deus ex machina.

BAD: Desperate Housewives - As has been mentioned by others, it's very difficult to close off a long running show with years of character development etc. That they KNEW going in this was the final season and still spent 22.75 episodes telling a rubbish story and only had a cursory recap at the end felt like a really poor decision. I actually gave up midway through S8 originally and only came back for the final 10 episodes last year and it was not worth it.

Other shows with terrible endings (that weren't cancelled): Arrested Development (S5), The Good Wife, House of Cards

Posted by: Warwick Avenue May 4 2021, 08:57 AM

The final series of How I Met Your Mother was pretty bad, incredibly disappointing.

Posted by: Warwick Avenue May 4 2021, 08:58 AM

I thought Parks & Pec’s final season episode was great.

Posted by: Bjork May 4 2021, 09:06 AM

The worst one is easily Dexter. I loved the show but the ending made me hate the series so much I haven't even rewatched an episode ever again.

Kinda similar experience with Lost. It's not that the ending was bad, it's the explanation of the whole thing in the last 2 seasons that was underwhelming.

Posted by: Dexton May 4 2021, 02:47 PM

Diva is 10000% right about GoT. The last two seasons genuinely ruined the show for me and I seriously don’t think I’d be able to rewatch it knowing how downhill it goes. Sure, a few tv shows have bad endings, but personally none have been so terrible that it’s put me off rewatching. Even Dexter which arguably up there with the worst tv show endings of all time I could happily watch again as the majority of the show is brilliant and you can stop after season 4-6 if you wanted and it’d be fine. GoT’s whole deal is about the war for the throne and “Winter is coming” yada yada yada the ending makes a lot of what happened through the first seasons completely irrelevant.

Exactly spot on about AD. The first three seasons have an extremely strong, cohesive narrative and solid jokes from start to finish. Season 4 was 10x better when was re-released with episodes mixed around instead of character-focused episodes, but it still wasn’t anywhere near the first three seasons. And S5 wasn’t great either. I loved seeing the characters back together but that’s about it

Posted by: Eduardo May 4 2021, 06:12 PM

Surprised no one has mentioned the finale of Six Feet Under yet. Perfection.

Another favorite of mine is The Comeback's season 2 ending. Hope they pick this show up again eventually.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 4 2021, 06:17 PM

On the opposite end to the trash that is GoT, we have The Good Place. It actually started off really ropey and poor, but it ended on a high.

Oh, Friends had a great ending, too, and final season, except for the Joey-Rachel and learning French that wasn't French nonsense. I liked Will and Grace's original ending, even if most didn't. It was pretty realistic about friendship.

I really liked the final season of Desperate Housewives, too, after some rough ones before it. It was the one that felt most similar to the first season.

Posted by: diva thin muffin May 4 2021, 07:15 PM

Ohh I forgot to mention that, genuinely one of the best finales ever. It didn't hurt that the final scene with Sia's "Breathe Me" is a rollercoaster ride of emotions with what is easily one of her best songs ever and it all just fits so perfectly. I remember being in awe over it at the time and it still holds up so well.

Posted by: Esmerelda May 4 2021, 08:27 PM

Best: Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Bates Motel, Veep, The Americans, Arrow.

Disappointing but not terrible: Lost, Dexter

Bad: House of Cards- this show had been circling the drain for a while and there were obviously extenuating circumstances in the final season, but that ending was just nonsensical on all levels.

Horrible: Game of Thrones. I didn't expect a happy ending, but I did expect an ending that was at least vaguely narratively satisfying and that made sense. Dany's sudden turn from someone who consistently acted ruthlessly towards those that harmed innocents to someone who slaughtered an entire city of innocents for no reason didn't work for me. Nor did King Bran- a boring non-character who was gifted a poorly explained, unused power he did NOTHING to earn and then gifted the throne he also did NOTHING to earn -literally the least satisfying ending to a story I could come up with me. Also, for a show that always got it's female characters so right, it left a bit of bad taste in the mouth that the show ended with all the "mad overly emotional women" being removed from power and replaced with King Bran and his council of bros in charge. I guess Sansa got to rule the North- the 4 people still alive there anyway. Sadly it is the only ending to the story we are ever going to get as Martin is clearly never going to finish it

Posted by: steve201 May 4 2021, 10:38 PM

Absolutely, one of the most underrated shows ever, people tend to love the big budget GOTs or Sopranos while it was about real people and situations. And the soundtrack to the finale - perfection!

Posted by: steve201 May 4 2021, 10:42 PM

I would disagree with the X-Files, series 6 and 7 were poor but when Doggett came in series 8/9 were decent again.

Posted by: J00prstar May 4 2021, 11:07 PM

Both of Buffy's final episodes were great (S5 and S7), at least thematically.

I'm torn on how I feel about the Battlestar Galactica ending. I don't hate it but it also didn't make sense for (final ep spoilers) them to spend several years trying to find a place to rebuild their society and then deciding to throw away all their technology, medicines etc. and become essentially cave people once they found a planet that they could establish a new society on.

Posted by: Art Vandelay May 7 2021, 09:30 PM

I haven’t watched for a while but the last series was terrible from memory. Doggett was very annoying too

The Seinfeld finale was lacklustre tbh. I was fine with the outcome, but it just felt rushed and wasn’t that funny bar Jackie Chiles and Newman.

Posted by: Michael Costanza May 9 2021, 03:00 PM

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/worst-tv-finales-hated-line-of-duty-b1841724.html

That top 6 seems fairly accurate tbh, Game of Thrones at #1 and Seinfeld at #2 are obvious choices of course. Surprisingly, nobody mentioned Roseanne!

Posted by: Rooney May 9 2021, 04:07 PM

The list just proves how hard it is to end a successful TV show - LOST, How I Met Your Mother, Senfield, Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, Gossip Girl all in the top 10. Also some of the biggest popular cultural phenomenons we've ever seen.

Posted by: Dill Doe May 9 2021, 04:27 PM

I'm not sure why people focus on the ending - except where it RUINS THE ENTIRE SHOW, ala Game of Thrones. The end episodes are NEVER going to be glorious, as they have so many theads to tieand arcs to conclude, plus there is pressure as the audience will be expecting a LOT.

Posted by: shadow2009 May 9 2021, 06:29 PM

Speaking as someone who was obsessed with Season 1 and 2 of Prison Break I couldn't even understand the f***ing plot by the time it got to Season 4. I know they brought out a Season 5 but I haven't watched it yet so it doesn't count (although I heard it sucks anyway ).

I know there's more to the story than the actual prison breakout and being on the run but it got way too political and complex as it went on and I felt kinda stupid that I couldn't keep up with it.

Posted by: Michael Costanza May 9 2021, 09:12 PM

Exactly. The problem can be when a show tries to end it in a BIG way, when if you keep it simple it could potentially be better. That was my problem with the Seinfeld finale, they went too big with bringing so many characters back and using so many old clips from previous episodes and then the fab four going to prison, it just wasn’t Seinfeld at all. They should have just kept it small and simple tbh. Just a normal Seinfeld episode like “The Contest” or “The Marine Biologist” would have been fine. All it needed to be was simple but funny.

Posted by: Warwick Avenue May 11 2021, 08:15 AM

I didn’t mind Seinfeld finale but can see why people don’t like. It’s not as bad as the How I Met Your Mother finale.

Posted by: Michael Costanza May 11 2021, 04:50 PM

I didn’t mind it that much, but it could and probably should have been much better than it was. It just felt rushed and was all over the place at times tbh.

Posted by: dannjohn May 12 2021, 10:05 AM

the problem with most season finales (or final seasons) is they know it's their last season so suddenly 100 storylines are condensed and rush... thinking about 'ugly betty' it's about 3 seasons in 1. 'Desperate Housewives' the idea of these women not ever speaking again (though realistic) seems heartbreaking. I always felt like at least two of them would keep in contact.

Posted by: Warwick Avenue May 13 2021, 05:06 AM

Oh yeah, could’ve been done better for sure. Maybe it’s because I binged it all over the course of a month or so a few years back for the first time I don’t have the same attachment to it like a show I watched when it originally aired.

It was rushed and all over the place but I enjoyed most of the refurbees.

Posted by: Michael Costanza May 13 2021, 07:10 PM

Yeah, I see what you mean. If I watched the last Seinfeld episode in May 1998 I would completely hate it. I think the first time I saw Seinfeld was in late 2006 and I didn’t see the last episode until early 2009, so I was disappointed but not pissed off like a lot of fans were.

The Finale is one of the weakest Seinfeld episodes - The Bris, The Old Man, The Seinfeld Chronicles, The Dog and Male Unbonding are even worse!

Posted by: Warwick Avenue May 14 2021, 02:29 AM

Yeah comparing it with other episodes I think you’re right, it is fairly weak.

My I think my favourite episode is The Jacket. If just for the Master of the House song.

Posted by: Michael Costanza May 14 2021, 09:10 PM

“The Jacket” is an interesting choice as your favourite episode - I personally rank it near the bottom!

This scene is great though:

Posted by: PAJ May 14 2021, 09:58 PM

I’ll be honest I think it’s just due to Master of the House. I’m sure there’s better episodes out there, or ones I enjoy more if I think hard enough about it.

Posted by: Michael Costanza May 14 2021, 10:30 PM

The Contest, The Soup Nazi, The Opposite, The Marine Biologist, The Mango, The Yada Yada and the 160 others x