Hmmm..... for me...

Favorite: Charmed
I like how this one not only finished off the loose ends... but also gave you glimpses into the futures of all the main characters.

Least Favorite: Angel
Don't get me wrong... was enjoying every moment of it till how it ended. They knew well ahead of time that it was the end of the series.... and they plan a series finale that don't show the final fight!?!... You got to be kidding me!

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

Quote:
Don't get me wrong... was enjoying every moment of it till how it ended. They knew well ahead of time that it was the end of the series.... and they plan a series finale that don't show the final fight!?!... You got to be kidding me!

Well, if you call "three episodes" "well ahead". This whole "Circle of the Black Thorn" of the last few episodes was born of the notice that Angel (despite its ratings) would not get another year.


As far as best endings go, I have to agree with 8472, Babylon 5.

I also liked the endings of Star Trek: TNG, Leverage, Buffy, House, Chuck, JAG, M*A*S*H, Friends.

In general I'm more in favour of an open ending. Not in the sense of a cliffhanger or an unresolved story, but more in the sense of what TNG or Buffy had and what Ood Sigma told the Tenth Doctor shortly before he regenerated into the Eleventh: Your song is ending, but the story never ends.

I like to imagine that their lives go on in a similar way that we watched them over the last few years, which accounts for some shows being on the following list.

Endings which I didn't like as much (and why). This doesn't mean I didn't like all of it, just the parts I'm writing down:

Star Trek: DS9: It really was an ending. Too many people actually left the station for good and Captain Gates, erm I mean Captain Yates sits pregnant on that station while Sisko is becoming a prophet of the celestial temple.

Alias: I really liked the irony of Arvin Sloane finally becoming immortal and then getting trappend in that cave for all eternity but the whole ending felt rushed and the whole five-year Rambaldi arc felt more like a countless number of McGuffins (a fate it shares with LOST).

Battlestar Galactica (2004): It started so great with Baltar seeing Head-Six and it being somewhat mysterious but they, too, started to write themselves into a corner with Six suddenly seeing Head-Baltar, then the Opera House, Starbuck's death and miraculous ressurection. Even the Final Five were uneven because they didn't think it through who they could take without contradicting their whole "Cylons can't have babyies on their own" plot. And then the literal deus ex machina at the end?

Heroes: With that show it wasn't just the ending. It practically went downhill from the first season finale and got worse with every season. The original showrunners had planned to exchange big parts of the cats for each season and tell a different story but Executive Meddling forced them to keep their characters and force them into ever more ridiculous and convoluted story arcs that made less sense each year.

I guess the finale was more a coup de grâce  than anything.

Smallville: I love that show but I can see the flaws it has: the uneven writing, the out-of-character episodes. And that stayed true to the very end. All throughout season 10 Clark was told from all sides that he has to leave the past in the past so he can look to the future. And he does. He finally forgives himself for what happened to his father, he opens up to Lois and so forth. That's the narrative over the last season. The whole last season? Of course not. In the very last episode his mother is disappointed that he wants to let go of the farm and start a new life in Metropolis and letting go of the past is the worst thing every and ...


And now the endings that I really HATE:

Star Trek VOY: I never really like VOY all that much, it's the show that slowly brought me out of the Star Trek franchise. The plots were mostly boring and the characters had either no character at all (Chacotay, Harry Kim) or they behaved differently every week (mainly Janeway). It's not Kate Mulgrew's fault but Janeway was a case of PMS 30 days a month. Not because she was a woman but because the writers couldn't give her a set of rules the character would adhere to. One week the Prime Directive was the Holy Grail who mustn't be broken (hence Paris' 30 days in the brig), the next week it was more a guideline than an actual rule. And what would be next week remained to be seen.

And then the ending. About 30 or so crew mates didn't make it home from their journey (i.e. between the penultimate episode and the final episode). It's not like the Enterprise wouldn't lose that many crew members in one encounter with the Borg or so. So Old!Janeway decides to travel back in time, bring advanced future weaponry with her and commit genocide on the Borg. And for that, she would get promoted to Admiral in Star Trek: Nemesis!

LOST: I hate LOST and its ending. I never watched a single episode again after that finale. I knew it was going to end badly long before that and the showrunners had given warning. I just didn't know it was going to be that bad. So Men in Black wasn't allowed to ever leave the island even before he became Smoke. Why? Never explained. What "bad" would happen if Smokie actually left? Never explained. How could Hurley win the lottery with Jacob's numbers and what do the numbers actually mean? "Jacob has a thing for numbers". That's not an explanation, that's a punch line! How do we defeat Smokie? Jack climbs down into the same cavern that turned MIB into Smokie and pulls a friggin bath tub plug out of the island! Are your frakking kidding me?!

The showrunners claimed it was all about the characters. OK, so what about the Flash!Sideways? House's finale was called Everybody Dies. This was the same only worse. We know now that eventually everyone's life comes to an end, even Hurley's as next keeper of the island. And when that happens they all meet at a holy place and go into the light. Wow. What a deep spiritual revelation that was!

LOST is the exact opposite of what Babylon 5 was. Both started out with a mystery but one of the showrunners actually knew where he wanted to go and even when they threw a spanner in the works (like Jeffrey's and Talia's leaving) he found a way to continue telling his story. LOST just threw mystery upon mystery to keep viewers interested without ever intending to solve any of them and so they ended in a big clusterf*ck claiming it was about the characters (which they didn't do justice either) all along.

How did I forget about Star Trek: TNG !!!  Can I change my mind to that for my favourite ending. 

I'll go ahead and agree on TNG for having a good ending.

I must also agree that DS9 and Voyager both had bad endings, though I was never very fond of Voyager to begin with.

However, nothing tops the HATRED I have for the ending of Twin Peaks.  Of course, the answer there is "what ending?" since it wasn't a finale, but the show wasn't renewed so it left us with that enormous cliffhanger.

Loved/Really Liked the end of:
Buffy, Charmed, Desperate Housewives, 24, Ashes to Ashes, Being Erica, Being Human (UK), Dawson's Creek, Dollhouse, Medium, The OC, Quantum Leap, Smallville, Spooks, Stargate: SG1, Tenko, The Tudors.

Hated the end of:
Angel, Life on Mars, Torchwood, 21 Jump Street, Veronica Mars.

Underwhelmed:
Brothers & Sisters, Babylon 5, ST: Voyager, ST: DS9, ST: TNG, Highlander, Lost, Millennium, X-Files, Primeval (UK), Queer As Folk (US), Roswell, Sanctuary.

Try on the ending for St. Elsewhere. Wow! That was out there. Rather ridiculous. Same year I think was the ending for Newhart, which was very clever and funny in my view.

Best:
M*A*S*H
Newhart
St. Elsewhere
Andy Griffith Show

Worst: 
Angel
Lost
Torchwood, (let's face it the whole Miracle Day was what bulls do in the field.)

Yawn:
Green Acres
Night Court (one season to0 late.)
Sienfield
Friends
It's Garry Shandling's Show

Bobb