A reader
named David asks:
“As a lifelong fan
of SF-TV, I was thinking if there were any final episodes you would do all over
again. And if so, how would you change
them for the better?”
“In short, what are
your favorite and least favorite program endings?”
David,
that’s a great question. Ending a
long-running (or even a short-running) TV series is a difficult endeavor, and
many times creators aren’t even able to properly finish a series at all,
because programs are often canceled without warning.
In
terms of endings I like, I think that Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blake’s 7, The
X-Files, Smallville, Sapphire and Steel, Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Prisoner are all
pretty satisfactory. I can also live with the Twin Peaks and Millennium finales. I did a blog post
about series endings a few years back, here.
As
far as the “endings” that rubbed me the wrong way, there have certainly been
some, and based on my answers a few weeks back about overrated TV programming,
you may be able to guess which ones.
I
feel very strongly that the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica and Lost
both ended disastrously. The writers on
those series strung everyone along week-after-week, year-after-year with tantalizing
bread crumbs and clues, and then couldn’t be bothered to create a final chapter
that resolved the narratives in a way that made simple, logical sense.
This
is disturbing because, in both cases, series writers had plenty of time -- on the
order of two years, I believe -- to plan and execute for an appropriate ending.
I
know people say I pick on Battlestar Galactica too much. Yet, as I like to remind those folks, if you claim to have a plan on screen every week, and build a story as a serial with escalating clues, you damn well better deliver a knock-out final chapter. Yet as I’ve noted before, BSG essentially
ended with an insulting “God moves in mysterious ways” conceit, while simultaneously
hoping for audiences to believe that a technologically-advanced race would live
in a society without indoor plumbing, air-conditioning, or refrigeration. The final episode didn’t pass the smell test,
and it didn’t seem true to what had come before.
I
also didn’t care for Star Trek: Voyager’s finale, "Endgame." The series ended with a deadly encounter involving
the Borg, and the Voyager making it hope to Earth and Starfleet Headquarters…to
be met by fireworks.
Had
I been writing that series, I would have brought Voyager home at the end of season
six, and spent the last season telling stories about how the crew could not adjust
to Earth; how once you learn and change, you simply “can’t go home again.”
To
wit, the EMH’s rights would not have been assured in Federation space. Separate assignments would have split Paul
and B’Elanna and their new family up.
Chakotay would have been viewed suspiciously, and if accepted back into
Starfleet at all, only at a reduced rank.
Seven of Nine would have been treated as an enemy, given the lingering
prejudices about the Borg in the Federation.
So
-- all season long --- I would have had Admiral Janeway coming to the slow-dawning conclusion that she had to get her crew back together, steal Voyager, and
return to the Delta Quadrant…to explore where none had gone before. The crew would have realized that Voyager,
not Earth, was home.
I
supposed I should mention Star Trek: Enterprise and its
generally-disliked final episode, "These are the Voyages."
I’ll
be honest, I’ve tried to watch the series again and again, and every episode I
watch -- even in the ballyhooed fourth
season -- is just god-awful. I mean unwatchable, god-awful. I have viewed the final episode -- just to
see what the fuss is about -- and I can’t honestly say it was worse than any
other episode of the series I sat through.
And
from a certain perspective, the ending made practical sense. The writers and producers of the series were
not just ending Enterprise, after all, they were ending eighteen years of
continuous Star Trek on television.
They had a responsibility, I think, to genuflect to the franchise, and
its history and legacy as a whole. I’m not sure the balance between Enterprise/Star
Trek was perfect in the last episode, but I’m not debauched by the
final episode the way some folks are.
I
will soon be watching Fringe from start to finish, and I
understand it featured quite a satisfactory ending. But I’m sparing myself the details, so -- please -- no one provide me any! I already know too much!
Don't forget to ask me your questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com. I'm almost caught up!
Dude, I can't WAIT for your Fringe reviews. Walter Bishop is The Doctor, fried out on too much LSD.
ReplyDeleteJohn good thoughts regarding Star Trek Voyager. I agree that season six finale or season seven first episode should have been "Endgame". The entire season seven should have been the crew adjusting to life back on Earth. Myself I would have showed Janeway's promotion to Admiral and the crew's new assignments. Star Trek:Enterprise never worked for me because I would have rather seen a Star Trek:Excelsior with Captain Sulu, Janice Rand and a young crew. Moore's Battlestar Galactica "Daybreak" ending was an epic fail and extremely unrealistic for all the reasons you have stated.
ReplyDeleteSGB
While the content is mostly non-sci-fi, except for the leaping conceit, the finale of Quantum Leap is pretty good.
ReplyDeleteAs usual I think I nearly entirely agree with you. Enterprise for me, and I speak for me alone, was not just indulgent and very unimaginative (even the more acclaimed fourth season really only got its merit from borrowing from the past future franchises), I just found it utterly charmless - I've not seen the final episode, read about it, and I have to say it sounds quite an interesting end to what appeared to me a rather neutered series.
ReplyDeleteVoyager, again, I agree beyond belief. I know they did a follow up tie-in novel on the issue of their return, but to me, that finale is worse than open ended as it doesn't resolve the unstated questions wrought from just the integration of two opposing ideologies as one crew - let alone the issues of a borg hybrid and a sentient doctor... all lost for another battle with the Borg. And the series had come so far in many ways. That to me is as bad as a cancelled series where you never knows what happened, because, you never do know what happened when they finally get home. Home isn't Earth, home is where there heart is - which as you say, is a far deeper question.
LOST I never saw, I still somewhat disagree with you on BSG. I do think as a concept, improvise serial narratives give you more problems than benefits - especially as you say, you are confidently telling your watchers each week "we have structure". I will certainly say these problems became more noticable in the last series - awkward resolves or events that were clearly uncomfortable. From the small things as letting Tryol find his son isn't his to remove the unneeded "second cylon baby" from the story, to the sheer awkward plot vomit of the final five backstory in a couple of scenes. You can see in both counts how they cornered themselves.
Strangely, the opera house, or the rather thin excuse for it being the corridors of Galactica, is actually an example of where linear story telling goes bad; the original idea was that Athena and Agathon would die, and the baby would become Baltar and Six's to protect. With that, the Opera House and season two prophecies fall into place, but it was deemed a bit too cold to give the future child to a couple who had in part committed genocide, so the planned strand had to be broken.
As for the people accepting rejection of technology, I could buy that. We got Lampkin's wariness to suggest not everyone would approve, but in times of euphoria, people do silly thing, and after years of being stuck in metal, running from metal, and fearing metal everywhere you look - even in each other - I could see a large populace accepting to reject for a bright clean future... complaining by winter time.
So yeah, on a rewatch I didn't finding BSG's finale as bad, but there were some awkward moments throughout that final series from where improvisational writing had really become a clusterfrack to the confidence of the show. Don't disagree on that!
James,
DeleteI always love to read your comments because I admire how you (intelligently and humorously) express your thoughts, and because you always provide intriguing and worthwhile analysis.
We definitely agree regarding Enterprise and Voyager.
Enterprise feels "neutered" and Voyager chose spectacle (another battle with the Borg as you note), over emotional truths about the characters in the last chapter.
I suppose I found the Voyager ending far more distressing because I felt more involved, overall, with Voyager. It mattered more to me. There were times -- and seasons actually -- where I liked it a lot. I could never get into almost any aspect of Enterprise on even a rudimentary level. I even tried the fourth season and any improvements were marginal at best.
Battlestar Galactica proves to me the lesson that with serialized stories come greater expectations for a bang-up ending.
BSG would have been better off not trumpeting, again as you say "we have structure" and not stoking expectations to such a high degree about what was to be revealed.
Finally, I could accept a group of technologically-advanced people giving up computers, cell phones, and social media. But I just can't imagine any human being giving up toilets and running water. I just don't see it happening, even if there was a backlash against life in a tin can.
Great comment!
best,
John
There is of course an interesting question of whether in such numbers as 50,000 people spread across a globe, how many people they had left to build solid infrastructure. Perhaps there was a Douglas Adams motion on the boarding of the fleet, where the middlemen all got first dibs and the plumbers were all left behind...
DeleteThe way I've always justified it in my head is that ultimately, with the ships being sent into the sun, what they had was all that was cargo for 4 odd years and a few raptors. I imagine supplies would be used for emergencies till they ran out, and some factions might try a rudimentary communities (no one totally agrees to what anyone says in Galactica), but ultimately, through the will of God, or just a lack of a good plumber, they were lost and relics of those few civilisations are yet to be found... Maybe another tale to be told.
Fascinating stuff as always John. I agree on Voyager too, I had little love with it from its mediocre start but as pulp sci-fi fiction goes, the tales started to carry a little more resonance with the original series - to a point I wanted a good resolution, and there was none. Great shame.