What We Watched - Jan 21 - Finest Finales

 

    Mostly taking a break from ongoing/upcoming shows and movies this week. This time last week I thought I'd split it into two, consecutive posts, but a wearying week's gotten me to re-think that, and both risk a possibly bloated post, and the certainty that I'm going to omit many worthy contenders.
I'm not going to pretend this is comprehensive even with respect to my own tastes. I fully expect to be surprised at myself for forgetting some, and I welcome any thoughts on these and others that worked well for you.
      This is a topic post, and as it deals with series finales over the years, it's going to be rich with variously aged spoilers in this glorious age of streaming and collected content.
     Over the years, a great many shows that were successful enough to have more than one season didn't have finales, most often because the season wrapped with the hopes it would be picked up for another year. Ratings, budgets, contract negotiations, changes of leadership at a network, any number of items often derail such plans. It can be especially unsatisfying if the season finale was a Hail Mary shot at another season, ending on a cliffhanger. That can be a whole bag o' frustrated fan angst, and definitely not what I want to focus on today. Today, we're all about endings done right.
     Even that can be a tricky matter, of course, because most often, if one's been following the show, there's at least some part that would like the story to go on indefinitely. In an odd way, the shows that closed without a finale, however frustrating that is in the moment, may be something of a gift to the Happily Ever After or The Adventure Continues breeds of fans. There's more to the story, but we just haven't seen it. Something to conjure with.
    

    I don't think any piece on tv show finales could avoid mentioning The Fugitive (1963-'67), where Dr. Richard Kimble (played by David Janssen), having been tried and convicted of the murder of his wife, is sentenced to death and has exhausted his appeals. A mountain of circumstantial evidence convicted him, despite his telling of a one-armed man he saw fleeing the scene. Very public arguments of the couple, combined with his seemingly improbable statements about a killer only he witnessed, convinced most people of his guilt. While being taken to the prison facility where he was to be placed on death row, a train accident allows him to escape. The series is Kimble on the run, simultaneously trying to stay at least a step ahead of his pursuers led primarily by police lieutenant Philip Gerald (played by Barry Morse), who had been accompanying Kimble on his train ride to what was to be his final destination.
     Over the course of four seasons Kimble followed leads, assumed new identities and local jobs, became enmeshed in other dramas, helped solve those problems, and tried to find his wife's killer.
     A two-part series finale, "Judgement" aired on August 22nd and 29th, 1967. The final episode set a television rating record that stood until a late November 1980 episode of Dallas.
     Probably the most astounding take-away from this for me was that prior to seeing the reaction to the finale, a move apparently pressed by the show's producers and writers, network executives were almost entirely oblivious to the idea that there was an invested fan base, watching for a conclusion. Living in their world of ratings, all they knew was that they had a show that had peaked in viewership during its second season, and which they were going to cancel after its fourth due to its fall in those numbers. The initial plan was to just end with a standard episode, leaving the matter unresolved.
     As it's there, I'll drop the two-part finale here, as it's available on YouTube:

    One of the big comedy hits of the 1970s was The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a sitcom centering on the titular character and (mostly, especially by the final season) her friends and co-workers at WJM-TV where she worked. The show ran seven seasons, from September 19, 1970, to March 19, 1977.
     Here's the final episode, all the way through the final look back and turning out the lights. The closing days of 2021 took out the last of this show's main cast, when Betty White bowed mere weeks before her 100th birthday, in the same year that had also taken Ed Asner, and earlier supporting cast player Cloris Leachman.

 
    Jumping a decade, but still staying on CBS, the series finale for Newhart was another tv milestone. The series ran from October 25, 1962, through May 21, 1990, and was stammering comedian Bob Newhart's second hit series for the network. In it, Bob played a How To book writer who'd convinced his wife that they should open an inn in a small Vermont town. Over the run of the series the town and its inhabitants became increasingly surreal, a point that factored strongly into the show's final episode.
     Here's the finale that's still considered a sitcom moment high-point for its final scene, including its wonderful call-back.

     From October 7, 1960, till March 20, 1964, a pair of friends worked their way across the country, driving a Corvette convertible, getting into weekly adventures of various stripes. This was Route 66, created by Herbert B. Leonard and Stirling Silliphant, and was a conceptual spin-off from an episode of their other tv creation The Naked City. Whereas City made a point of filming on the streets and

locations in New Your City, Route 66 shot their episodes in actual locations across the continental U.S., with a couple pokes into Canada.
     Tod Stiles (played by future Adam-12 star Martin Milner) owned the Corvette - the only valuable thing he had to his name, left to him by his recently-deceased father. Tod had been raised in wealth and privilege, attending an Ivy League school, but his father's business ended in bankruptcy by the time of his death. His traveling buddy through most of the series was Buz Murdock (George Maharis), who had come up on a much rougher path, as an orphan. Murdock/Maharis suddenly left the series mid-way through season three, and was replaced by Lincoln Case (played by Glenn Corbett), a Viet Nam veteran who, too, was in need of some wandering before being able to settle down into a life.
     The series' instrumental theme was the work of composer, arranger and bandleader Nelson Riddle, and is one of the first television themes to make Billboard's Top 30. It's worth taking the just over two minutes to pause and listen to.

    A terrific piece, it revives an old ember to just hit the road, destination unknown, don't know if I'm ever gonna get back. It's so fortunate they didn't just decide to use and pay royalties for Bobby Troup's

"(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66", which had originally been the idea. That's not at all a terrible song, but it would have set the tone for the series in a much more limited way, and we'd never have known the wonderful bit of traveling music we'd missed out on by not tapping Riddle's talent. In this, we're in the better timeline.
     Anyway, the show engaged a wide range of topics in its four seasons, was thick with famous guest-stars from film and tv, and concluded with a two-part, comically overly-contrived episode "Where There's A Will, There's A Way", which ended with Tod married to a commodities broker (played by future tv djinn Barbara Eden -- well-done, Tod!), while Linc announced that he was finally headed home to Texas to see his family and end his long estrangement from his father. So, the series wrapped, effectively, with the formal end of their wandering.
     Some listings will show "To Kill A King" as the show's final episode, but that was one originally shot much earlier. Involving a potential assassination plot against a visiting king, it was intended to air November 29, 1963. As that was one week after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, it was understandably not aired then. I have conflicting information about whether it was ever aired during the show's initial run, as an add-on the week following the finale, or only aired once the show went into syndication. Either way, it was never written and shot as a final episode, even if it turns up that way in syndication -- much to the confusion of the audience. (I know it threw me when a channel played them in order, only to have this confusing tack-on after seeing the story wrap.)
     It's a bit of a lengthy detour, but since they're handy on YouTube, I'll include the two-part series finale here:

     ...and here:

     At last check, aside from at least the majority of the episodes being on YouTube, apparently all of them on imdb.tv, the series is also waiting, for free (save for some commercials in all three places) on Tubi.

     Over the years I've seen some shows where the writers/showrunners carefully hedged their bets when they were unsure if the series would be getting a new season. Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer faced likely cancellation twice - leading to two, different sorts of approaches, and that show's spin-off, Angel, closed its fifth season with high likelihood that it wasn't going to get a sixth.
     With Buffy, network changes seemed to spell death by homelessness with the end of the fifth season, so the season ended with the lead giving up her life in a sacrifice to save the world in the episode "The Gift." Being picked up by a new network gave them the opportunity to continue the story, so season six started with a secret plot by a group of characters to resurrect Buffy on the basis that her death had been by mystical, and therefore unnatural, means. This brought her and the gang two more seasons.

   When the show finally bowed with its seventh season, with one or more of the series leads now interested in moving on to other roles, it took a different approach. A winning gambit in the finale completely changed the playing field, eliminating the unique, only one-at-a-time status of The Slayer (something they'd already found single-exception loopholes in a couple times over the series run), and empowering all of the potential Slayers all over the world. Had the show somehow gotten an eighth season they would have rolled on with this new worldscape. It didn't, so the characters' stories, instead, only continued in a series of several, canonical, comic book "seasons."
     Similarly, that show's spin-off series Angel, ran into some problems during the fifth season in ways that still seem unclear. Some versions have it that Whedon insisted on the WB (which was the network carrying the show) make an early announcement during season five that the show had been renewed for season six. All indications are that had the process been allowed to roll out as usual, that the show would have gotten another season, but the insistence by Whedon on an early answer backed network Head of Entertainment Jordan Levin into a corner. Pressed to give that early answer, the only one he was empowered to give then was cancellation.
      While no one was formally walking away, and would have dutifully continued under the right terms, lead actor David Boreanaz - already in his mid-thirties - was likely getting restless with being stuck playing a character who was supposed to be eternally about 18 years old.
     The final season involved an elaborate plot against major players on the world shadow stage, which

was an indirect, symbolic flipping off of extra-dimensional, evil, Powers That Be -- forces they knew they would never be able to triumph against directly. The show ended with a final, Butch & Sundance style confrontation in "Not Fade Away", as Angel and his surviving allies about to square off against a seemingly impossible force.
     As with Buffy, had Angel managed another season there were ideas of where to go with it -- that instead were explored in a series of comic book seasons. Boreanaz would have finally gotten his "out" of trying to pretend he was supposed to be a much, much younger age, via a spell that would have secretly cured him of his vampirism, and left him surviving by his wits, hubris, his reputation, and a glamour to make him still seem to be what he had been. So, Angel and (eventually) his companions got to continue in print, while Boreanaz got to leave the fangs and scary face behind, as he went off to co-star in an even longer-running series, over on Fox: Bones.
     Buffy and Angel are each currently included over at Amazon Prime and on Hulu.
 

    Shifting back to the comedy/dramedy arena, one likely can't completely avoid M*A*S*H, spun off from an R-rated 1970 motion picture about the Korean War, a general anti-war black comedy. From 1972 to 1983, eleven seasons, 256 episodes, the show ran far longer than the roughly three-year deployment - a "police action", not a war - it was based on. The February 28, 1983 series finale, "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen" remains the most-watched finale of any television series. Ironically, while I saw that back when it aired, and as best I can recall one other time over the years, the length of the series and the aggressive syndication even while it was still ongoing largely burnt me out on it. A victim of not merely its own success, but of U.S., commercial-driven TV moves, in syndication it was generally cut to make room for more commercials as the years went on. I haven't taken the time to go back and rewatch the full episodes in this age of streaming access, as most of the episodes have that sense of having been watched to death.
     M*A*S*H is available through Hulu, or can be rented or purchased via Amazon Prime.

     Because they're still big items in the streaming world, and yet I still know too many people who haven't dived in to watch, I'll note several that come straight to mind as having strong final episodes -- all without spoiling details:
    Breaking Bad (2008-2013, originally aired on AMC, five seasons, 62 episodes, with a follow-up movie El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie) Centered in the odyssey of Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who tries to solve one problem only to find himself on a path that utterly remakes him and reinvents his life. A solid series with an effective, memorable ending. The movie add some details and a character-specific postscript. I've watched this all the way through twice. A spin-off, mostly prequel series focusing on a supporting character, Better Call Saul, is still awaiting its final season. I fully expect that once that wraps it'll join this list.
     The Shield (2002-2008, on FX, seven seasons, 88 episodes) Crime drama about a special unit of corrupt cops. Originally written to be a loosely fictionalized version of the real life Rampart Division scandal, they opted to make it more fully its own thing. I came to this late - years after the series aired - and haven't made the time to rewatch it.
     The Good Place (2016-2020, NBC, four seasons, 58 episodes) Fantasy comedy series concerned with the workings of the afterlife. This was a complete win for me, from start to finish. even the characters I didn't care for at first found their place by the end. In turn, often simultaneously, funny, absurd, thoughtful and touching, for me they did the almost impossible and stuck the ending. I watched the show straight through three times - first week to week, season to season, and then in two, smooth binges. An especially appreciated balm for the soul, it rolled out over four years where, as it turned out, it was particularly needed.
     The Wire (2002-2008, HBO, five seasons, 60 episodes) This crime drama (and it's so much more than that) is something of a gold standard as a series. I've revisited it several times, and the overall quality of the series - along with various character farewells along the way - make it difficult for me to just focus on the final episode.
 
     As noted way up top, there's no attempt here to offer an exhaustive list. Happily, there are many examples - especially for the fans - and part of a piece like this is to prompt readers to erupt with cries of "How could you forget...?!" some cherished show and finale. I'm already doing that to myself as I look this over to add the graphics, and that doesn't include the many shows that are cherished by their fans, but which failed to connect with me.
     So, instead, I need to choose a high-end example to close with. One that was touching, inclusive,  certainly final, and which stuck with me for some reason.

     An uneven series (your mileage may vary, but I cannot be the only one who was well and truly sick of at least one of the characters well before the end), but one with a solid, memorable, thematic finale, was HBO's Six Feet Under.
     The show ran for five seasons, centering on the Fisher clan, whose family business was a funeral home... which was also the literal family home. While often laced with humor, it was a dramatic series.
     An early feature of the show was a death to start off each episode, the arrangements for each, at least, intersecting with the family business.
     When it came to the finale, we saw Claire, the youngest primary member of the family, spurred on by the death of a sibling, leaving the nest to head off to make her own life.
     The long road trip plays out as a symbolic life journey, as we skip down through the years to see, one by one, the demise of the series' primary characters. Most fans of the show found it a sad, but poignant and fitting close. Much depended upon how much one was ready to know each of their endings. After all, the move effectively nullified any thoughts a fan might have had that the series might be revived.
     Drawing on what's available, I've settled on the scene, split into two videos, on YouTube. (There's a one-and-done presentation on Dailymotion, and that's a hypertext link to it, but their mechanics and those of Blogger don't allow me to embed their code here.) So, resorting to YouTube, here's part one:

 ... and the second half

     The series is available on HBO and the HBO Max streaming platform.
     So... were any of these among your favorites? Something other?
     That's all for this week from me. I'll be back a week from now as we roll into the final weekend of January. Stay warm and safe. - Mike