Really? Because I can think of at least one recent instance of that that didn't.
Worst Tv show finale ever?
- Thread starter TheMasterOfOrion
- Start date
Really? Because I can think of at least one recent instance of that that didn't.
You should have notified on it. We don't necessarily catch everything.
Any further comments on the warning should go to PM.
Any further comments on the warning should go to PM.
I agree that Enterprise was a total dud ending, an idea that should have been shot down the moment it was suggested. I do love that montage of each Enterprise at the end, though.
X-Files was pretty bad too, but I wasn't terribly fond of the directions the show had taken in the last two seasons, so that didn't really come as a big surpise.
Quantum Leap was highly frustrating, ending the series on such a vague and muddled "symbolic" episode which made little sense. The last scene is great though, and just about saves the episode.
DS9's ending was probably the biggest disappointment for me - not the worst technically, but it felt like a very big let-down. The final battle was anti-climatic, fight between Sisko and Dukat pretty laughable... it just didn't feel like a good resolution to me.
X-Files was pretty bad too, but I wasn't terribly fond of the directions the show had taken in the last two seasons, so that didn't really come as a big surpise.
Quantum Leap was highly frustrating, ending the series on such a vague and muddled "symbolic" episode which made little sense. The last scene is great though, and just about saves the episode.
DS9's ending was probably the biggest disappointment for me - not the worst technically, but it felt like a very big let-down. The final battle was anti-climatic, fight between Sisko and Dukat pretty laughable... it just didn't feel like a good resolution to me.
Never saw Xfiles ending. Sopranos may have been most frustrating-not worst. These Are the Voyages... sucked. And they killed the most likeable character in the series. Spare me the idiocy, please. Its a franchise-you don't kill off one of the best mains in the series. Its like they never knew about the hundreds of ST books and other spin-off materials out there.
BSG-liked it. Different than I expected but true to its theme in many ways, philosophically.
Voyager ended as it started-in a cloud of mediocrity. Am an unabashed DS9 fan so have slight prejudice there-but generally liked it. Roseanne-who cares?
BSG-liked it. Different than I expected but true to its theme in many ways, philosophically.
Voyager ended as it started-in a cloud of mediocrity. Am an unabashed DS9 fan so have slight prejudice there-but generally liked it. Roseanne-who cares?
Nowhere Man
Commodore
TATV was like making the last episode of Fraiser about an episode of Cheers. This episode was the worst finale ever and quite possibly the worst episode of tv ever
Nah, that sounds like the episode I've watched several times so you must be right (a novel conceptWell then I guess my memory is going, along with everything else.
I could have sworn Future Janeway knew it was a one way trip, and that the hub was the only chance to send Voyager back to Earth. I also could have sworn she deliberately brought back the virus that would disable the Queen when she tried to assimilate her.
I thought it was all a precise plan on her part, timed to save her three crew members, destroy the queen, and send them home through the hub. The only thing she had to do was convince Present Janeway to go along....???
). Then again I'm one of the dozen or so people in existence who actually likes "Endgame", so perhaps I'm biased. No matter.I haven't seen any of the episodes in the (rather peculiar list in the) poll - I didn't even watch any of those shows, in fact - so I can't vote. I can't immediately recall a finale I'd nominate, either.
None of the above on the poll. My choice is the finale of Voyager, for a few reasons.
As a storyline, it was fine, for the most part, except for the fact it had no ending. After 7 years of waiting for Voyager to return home, there needed to be more closure than just Voyager going off into the distance. Heck, I don't even recall any sort of "end of series" speech or "final family get-together" scene like the poker scene at the end of TNG. I never followed Voyager religiously, but those who did I'm sure went "is that IT?" And as a fan of The Prisoner's ambiguous ending episode, and an admirer of the Sopranos' cut to black, I didn't expect them to spend 20 minutes chronicling their lives after returning home. But for a show like Voyager I expected something with a bit of closure. Hate These Are the Voyages all you like, the episode still provided closure. Ditto nuBSG's finale.
I had other problems with it. First, Voyager in my opinion firmly established the SF cliche of the "Big Red Reset Button". Not that it hadn't been used before, but it really seemed to become a cliche under Voyager. I'd never even heard the term used before fans started using it in relation to Voyager. The whole idea of doing an episode that breaks up the status quo, showing an older version of a character, or having an ongoing character revealed as being dead, etc, only to have some deus ex machima come along and set everything back to status quo, was an effective storytelling device the first couple times it was used. By the time of the Voyager finale, it had been used so often (Demon Planet, Year of Hell, etc) it was no longer effective. And to use it again in the finale was a camel's back breaker.
I also cited Endgame as the worst because I hold it at least partly responsible for killing Star Trek: Enterprise and the TV version of the Star Trek franchise. People can say Enterprise sucked all they like, but the fact remains and cannot be disputed that people had begun turning their noses up at Enterprise long before a single episode was broadcast. There were a number of reasons for this and the one that I remember most strongly was that the groundswell of fan hatred towards the then-current producing regime of Berman and Braga had been building during the later years of Voyager, and Endgame seemed to so perfectly encapsulate the perceived failings of the two that I remember clearly people writing on boards like rec.arts.startrek (I don't think I joined TrekBBS until after Enterprise started) that if Endgame was any indication they had no interest in watching another series by these guys. Whether Enterprise would have been better received (it did not fail because it did survive 4 seasons) if Endgame had been a knock-it-out-of-the-park classic on par with All Good Things, or if Enterprise hadn't attempted to try pushing the franchise in new directions only to be slapped down, are academic questions. Fact remains that it had a chilling effect on the series that followed and, as such, I believe it bears as much responsibility in turning people away from Enterprise as Porthos and premature Ferengi did.
Alex
As a storyline, it was fine, for the most part, except for the fact it had no ending. After 7 years of waiting for Voyager to return home, there needed to be more closure than just Voyager going off into the distance. Heck, I don't even recall any sort of "end of series" speech or "final family get-together" scene like the poker scene at the end of TNG. I never followed Voyager religiously, but those who did I'm sure went "is that IT?" And as a fan of The Prisoner's ambiguous ending episode, and an admirer of the Sopranos' cut to black, I didn't expect them to spend 20 minutes chronicling their lives after returning home. But for a show like Voyager I expected something with a bit of closure. Hate These Are the Voyages all you like, the episode still provided closure. Ditto nuBSG's finale.
I had other problems with it. First, Voyager in my opinion firmly established the SF cliche of the "Big Red Reset Button". Not that it hadn't been used before, but it really seemed to become a cliche under Voyager. I'd never even heard the term used before fans started using it in relation to Voyager. The whole idea of doing an episode that breaks up the status quo, showing an older version of a character, or having an ongoing character revealed as being dead, etc, only to have some deus ex machima come along and set everything back to status quo, was an effective storytelling device the first couple times it was used. By the time of the Voyager finale, it had been used so often (Demon Planet, Year of Hell, etc) it was no longer effective. And to use it again in the finale was a camel's back breaker.
I also cited Endgame as the worst because I hold it at least partly responsible for killing Star Trek: Enterprise and the TV version of the Star Trek franchise. People can say Enterprise sucked all they like, but the fact remains and cannot be disputed that people had begun turning their noses up at Enterprise long before a single episode was broadcast. There were a number of reasons for this and the one that I remember most strongly was that the groundswell of fan hatred towards the then-current producing regime of Berman and Braga had been building during the later years of Voyager, and Endgame seemed to so perfectly encapsulate the perceived failings of the two that I remember clearly people writing on boards like rec.arts.startrek (I don't think I joined TrekBBS until after Enterprise started) that if Endgame was any indication they had no interest in watching another series by these guys. Whether Enterprise would have been better received (it did not fail because it did survive 4 seasons) if Endgame had been a knock-it-out-of-the-park classic on par with All Good Things, or if Enterprise hadn't attempted to try pushing the franchise in new directions only to be slapped down, are academic questions. Fact remains that it had a chilling effect on the series that followed and, as such, I believe it bears as much responsibility in turning people away from Enterprise as Porthos and premature Ferengi did.
Alex
^Don't you be dissin' Porthos now! That dog rocks! (And he tastes good in chili.)
Perhaps, although I tend to go with more of a femslash interpretation of "Endgame." In particular, there's something about that look in Admiral Janeway's eyes when she sees Seven again for the first time.
I agree that this is a very strange poll. What even happened in the Felicity finale that earned it a place here?
I'm neither a fan of "Endgame" or "These Are the Voyages." If I had to pick one, I'd say "These Are the Voyages" bothers me more. If it had just been a regular episode that they were framing as a Riker/Troi holodeck story, it would be an interesting diversion. But making that the finale really sucked. I also didn't like how Troi spoiled the ending that Trip died. The only good thing about "These Are the Voyages" was the Enterprise montage at the end (and the beautiful CG model of the Enterprise-D).
I didn't like the X-Files finale but I didn't really like any of the X-Files mythology stuff, so my dislike is no surprise.
The Stargate SG-1 TV finale, "Unending," was kinda lame. However, I'd say that "The Ark of Truth" & "Continuum" make up for it.
I actually really liked the Stargate Atlantis finale, "Enemy at the Gate." I think it could have been better. They probably should have stretched it out over at least one more episode. And I wish they had the cojones to...
But overall it seemed OK to me.
So long as non-SF/F shows are here in the poll, I would also like to nominate the NewsRadio finale. It was just as bitter & depressing as the rest of the 5th season. I was always bummed out that Dave & Lisa didn't get back together at the end.
)Perhaps, although I tend to go with more of a femslash interpretation of "Endgame." In particular, there's something about that look in Admiral Janeway's eyes when she sees Seven again for the first time.
I agree that this is a very strange poll. What even happened in the Felicity finale that earned it a place here?
I'm neither a fan of "Endgame" or "These Are the Voyages." If I had to pick one, I'd say "These Are the Voyages" bothers me more. If it had just been a regular episode that they were framing as a Riker/Troi holodeck story, it would be an interesting diversion. But making that the finale really sucked. I also didn't like how Troi spoiled the ending that Trip died. The only good thing about "These Are the Voyages" was the Enterprise montage at the end (and the beautiful CG model of the Enterprise-D).
I didn't like the X-Files finale but I didn't really like any of the X-Files mythology stuff, so my dislike is no surprise.
The Stargate SG-1 TV finale, "Unending," was kinda lame. However, I'd say that "The Ark of Truth" & "Continuum" make up for it.
I actually really liked the Stargate Atlantis finale, "Enemy at the Gate." I think it could have been better. They probably should have stretched it out over at least one more episode. And I wish they had the cojones to...
...leave Ronon dead.
So long as non-SF/F shows are here in the poll, I would also like to nominate the NewsRadio finale. It was just as bitter & depressing as the rest of the 5th season. I was always bummed out that Dave & Lisa didn't get back together at the end.
...
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BSG - I can see them getting rid of the ships, but living tech free don't make any sense. If I was part of an advanced civiliation I would want to give up medicines, and other items that will make my life easy on whatever planet I settle on.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I just meant that TNG was the central focus of TATV, so it would be like Sam having a flash back of a non pivital episode of Cheers that Fraiser was not a part of,but Fraiser was asking Sam for help in making a decision. Then Niles dies and we see Fraiser some time later and he's about to give the speach of a lifetime and then it ends without us actually hearing the speach. Enterprise did not suck for half of it's run IMO.
Of those, Star Trek Enterprise. I haven't seen the Roseanne or Felicity finales. The stargates' finales were ok. The BSG finale was brilliant.
Pretty much this. "Endgame" was a good finale for a series like Voyager. While maybe having more of a reaction to coming home would have been nice, having them come home to meet their families would have felt tacked on and unnecessary (and, in a way, redundant since we saw how the crew reconnected with Earth at the beginning of the episode, alternate future notwithstanding).
I kinda agree.
While showing the reunions would have given some closure, I saw the main point was the Voyager crew was now the family coming home. It didn't matter who was waiting for them, the point was Adm. Janeway got all her family home thus never becoming the cynical rule breaking no caring Amd. Janeway we saw.
Technically, you can't count Stargate. The directo-to-DVD films tied up important loose ends, and there is still a third coming -- which I'm sure, if the previous two are any indication, will do some more cleaning up. So, it just hasn't ended yet. It's like the friggin' Energizier Bunny...
They kept the medicine (what little they had left).
The point of giving up the technology was to stop the vicious cycle from recurring, as though technology was the root cause of it. Two problems:
1. The root cause was not technology but human nature. Cavil's insanity was the fundamental reason for the attack on the colonies, but he wasn't insane because he was a robot; he was insane because he was too much of a human. His insanity was a human kind of insanity, not a robot kind. None of the Cylons were very convincingly robotic - they could have all been 100% human, who saw themselves as somehow different from the other humans, and had some grudge against the others, and the story would have been the same.
2. Giving up technology did not stop the cycle, since humanity has obviously evolved technology anyway. So Apollo's plan accomplished nothing in exchange for the pain, suffering and premature death it no doubt caused. Not only did Apollo's plan procede from a logical fallacy, it didn't even have the intended effect.
That's a good enough example of the fundamental problem with BSG, which is not just in the finale. The underlying logic of the writing is poorly thought through and doesn't hold up to any degree of inspection.
The point was not to give up technology forever. Lee indicates that their science has leapt ahead their society's ability to act morally, and he seems to be right. After all, the Colonies built sentient robots with the express purpose of using them to engage in warfare.
It seemed logical to give up their ships since they were in such a state of disrepair and they may have given up their location to any remaining Cylons. The Galactica was their only military vessel (since the mechanical Cylons took the base ship), and it was nearly inoperable. It was certainly unable to mount any meaningful defense against any Cylon attack.
Other technology remained, and was brought with them. In some of the final shots of the episode, lines of refugees from the fleet can be seen. Every single person carries a medium or large bag (or two). They've obviously retained something. And we know from Pegasus that they aren't hauling their pornography collections with them.
Finally, Head Six indicates that perhaps Lee's gamble did pay off in the coda 150,000 years later. Perhaps she's wrong (Head Baltar does note that she's being rather optimistic), but, so far, it seems we haven't destroyed ourselves.
It seemed logical to give up their ships since they were in such a state of disrepair and they may have given up their location to any remaining Cylons. The Galactica was their only military vessel (since the mechanical Cylons took the base ship), and it was nearly inoperable. It was certainly unable to mount any meaningful defense against any Cylon attack.
Other technology remained, and was brought with them. In some of the final shots of the episode, lines of refugees from the fleet can be seen. Every single person carries a medium or large bag (or two). They've obviously retained something. And we know from Pegasus that they aren't hauling their pornography collections with them.
Finally, Head Six indicates that perhaps Lee's gamble did pay off in the coda 150,000 years later. Perhaps she's wrong (Head Baltar does note that she's being rather optimistic), but, so far, it seems we haven't destroyed ourselves.
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