It's funny, LOST's finale made it move up on my list to spot 2 or 3 depending on my mood.
Does A Bad Final Year Ruin A TV Show's Memory?
- Thread starter Mr Light
- Start date
I had a lot more problems with DS9's ending than Lost's but that didn't spoil the series for me.
In Lost's case, I mapped out all the available options in a thread before the finale and realized that when ya think about it, the writers' options were limited to two ways of creating a satisfying ending.
The limitations closing off other story options were:
1. Both parallel stories must be "valid" (otherwise people would have felt really burned), therefore the flashsideways has to be happening after the regular story in the same timeline.
2. Nobody recognizes the "famous" Flight 815 survivors so the flashsideways must be happening in something other than normal reality.
This leaves only two options:
1. The characters are in a virtual reality scenario to determine which one succeeds Jacob.
2. The characters are in the afterlife.
I actually was rooting for #1 because it would tie into the mythology but after seeing the finale, I realized that for the 'dead' characters to be fakes would have fallen flat emotionally, so I changed my mind and sided with the writers.
I think that is a universally loved scene and a highlight for most people from the otherwise mediocre, underwhelming 2.5 hour finale. I have yet to hear one person not list it near the top of things they loved.
Too bad most of the finale didn't have more of those kinds of moments. Instead it felt so drawn out and labored. This was the worst of all 6 finales for the show. The battles were anti-climatic, the answers were ill-conceived and almost Heroes-like in their lameness. I just expected so much more from LOST. Oh well maybe the next big series will *finally* manage to pull things off from start to finish.
Agreed, absolutely. While I'm not a huge fan of Col. Mitchell, I thought the show was still pretty strong in Seasons 9 & 10. The stand-alone stories were still great. Samantha Carter, Teal'c, & Daniel Jackson were still great. Vala Mal Doran was a great addition (and the main reason why I'm disappointed that we didn't get a Season 11). Since the Goa'uld had been pretty much run into the ground by Season 8, the Orii were an exciting new breath of fresh air. Overall, a brilliant 10 year run.
I also agree that the weakest parts of the show were in Season 1, particularly when Col. O'Neill wasn't funny yet, Samantha Carter was an angry feminist, Teal'c frowned all the time, and the writers weren't yet sure whether or not we were supposed to like General Hammond. But there were some great episodes there, particularly the fantastic end of the season in "There but for the Grace of God," "Politics" (one of the only truly worthwhile clip shows in the history of television), & "Within the Serpent's Grasp." ("The Serpent's Lair" was the conclusion at the beginning of Season 2.)
I also enjoyed the final seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation & Star Trek: Deep Space 9. The final season of TNG wasn't quite as good as Season 6. There were a few real klunkers in there ("Force of Nature," "Masks," "Sub Rosa"). But most of the season was solid and "All Good Things..." is one of the best episodes the series ever did. DS9 had a few klunkers in Seasons 1-3 but I thought it was totally rock solid in Seasons 4-7 (and I can forgive the bad episodes in Seasons 1-3 because I like the characters so much).
The original Star Trek was none too harmed by its sub-par Season 3. However, I think it's a good thing the show ended when it did. It's reputation might have been a lot more mixed had they done a 4th season that was as bad as the 3rd.
I generally agree with you, although we disagree on some specific points.
I love Season 4. True, the arc stuff with the Initiative & Adam weren't very good but Season 4 has many of the strongest stand-alones that the show ever did.
I don't like Season 5 as much as most fans did. There were some strong elements but this was the beginning of when the show started to get bogged down in loads of depression. Dawn is annoying.
Season 6 was shit but I think Season 7 was even worse. Everyone was a miserable fuck-up in Season 6. Xander & Willow managed to recover in Season 7 but Buffy got even worse. And it didn't matter that Xander & Willow started to recover because the show stopped focusing on them. Season 7 put too much emphasis on Spike & Andrew. And considering what Spike did at the end of Season 6, I don't know how the writers expected us to be able to forgive him in Season 7 (except that loads of his sick fangirl stalkers did!
).In the end, Buffy became such a whiny, angry, unlikable bitch that I started to really reevaluate whether I ever liked the character at all. However, I have discovered that the show's reputation can be rehabilitated with loads of rewatching Seasons 1-4 plus a very selective memory. I only acknowledge the events of Seasons 6 & 7 as much as I need to when they tie into events on Angel.
I never really watched Alias. However, I had a friend who was a huge fan. But when she saw how Season 5 wrapped things up with Sydney's mother, she became so disgusted that she sold all of her DVDs on the spot (without asking me if I wanted to borrow any of them first
).NewsRadio had a terrible final season but I can forgive them for that. It wasn't their fault that Phil Hartman's wife went nuts and murdered him in his sleep.
The X-Files irreparably tarnished its reputation when it became clear that the mythology was going absolutely nowhere. If they had ended with Season 6, they would have done a great job of quitting while they were ahead. Season 7 was godawful, particularly since it was clear that David Duchovney was phoning it in every episode. I think Seasons 8 & 9 were a marked improvement. The mythology was too far gone but I loved John Doggett. He's such a badass!
I'm not a huge Monica Reyes fan but the actress was sexy enough to compensate.
Earth: Final Conflict shot itself in the foot when they got rid of William Boone in Season 2. Then, just when the show was starting to recover in Season 4, they give us Season 5.
Even the worst bits of Season 2 were better than the oversexed space vampires of Season 5. The show ended as a mere shadow of what it could have been. However, the fallout from Season 5 wasn't as bad as it could have been. Typically, EFC is remembered whistfully as a "What if?" rather than as the grim reality of what Season 5 actually was.I haven't seen the last half of the 4th season of Battlestar Galactica. But I'd have to say that that show was simply incapable of sustaining the initial quality of the 1st season & a half. Everything from the latter half of Season 2 onwards was overly angsty and full of pointless padding. I ended up hating pretty much all of the characters. Chief Tyrol was the last holdout, but even he became an intolerably miserable prick once...
...Cally died.
Frasier & The Simpsons were both great shows that lasted twice as long as they should have. Even though they did some good episodes later on, the overall average body of work would be rated much higher if they had ended much earlier. Frasier ran out of steam when Daphne & Niles finally got together at the end of Season 7. The Simpsons probably should have called it quits around Season 11 or 12.
Not a whole show but might as well be: Doctor Who the David Tennant years. When he 1st started, David Tennant was my all-time favorite Doctor. Now, he ranks in the lower half of the pack. In many ways, I attribute this to his final 4 lackluster specials (which he did in lieu of a proper season in 2009). "The Next Doctor" starts out really good but gets too over the top when the giant Cyberman starts stomping around Victorian London. "Planet of the Dead" is a decent story but not special enough to warrant being a special. "Waters of Mars" & "The End of Time" were crippled by David Tennant's incessant overacting. When he was making that final victory lap revisiting all of his companions, I was screaming at the TV, "Just go already!" (Thankfully, I'm really digging Matt Smith so far.)
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
I'm so glad I never got around to buying Lost on DVD or Blu-ray. After the show ended I'd planned to buy all the seasons and go through them all again. But now that's not gonna happen. Oh well, I didn't need to spend the money anyway.
Yep...I'd lent season 1 to a coworker last month and she said she wasn't going to watch it again ( she'd already watched it when it was first on too) since the finale was disappointing.
I said don't even give it back to me.
Meanwhile, I can't wait for Season 6 of LOST to come out on DVD so I can rewatch the awesome finale!
Same here. I can't wait until the LOST encyclopedia comes out, too.
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
Meanwhile, I can't wait for Season 6 of LOST to come out on DVD so I can rewatch the awesome finale!
I wish I were you then. Maybe I'd be the kind of person who thought that the Matrix sequels were satisfying too.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
You guys are crazy. The LOST finale was brilliant.
Agreed. I've seen it 5 times already.
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
5 times!!?!?
I have to agree and I don't get all the hate for it. I think the writers were damned whatever they did though. I was expecting to scream at the telly at the end and be dissapointed but I wasn't. I loved it, it went in a direction I wasn't really expecting and I'm glad they didn't fully explain the Island, because you know what, if they had that would have been dissapointing.
The ending had me sobbing like a baby!
Sun and Jin almost started me off but when Sawyer and Juliett remembered who they were I couldn't stop myself, and then when Jack met his Dad at the end I really got going. In some ways this is odd cos Jack's never been a particular favourite of mine but maybe it was losing my Dad earlier this year? Whatever the reason I loved the finale.
As for other shows...
The X-Files by a mile. I gave up on the show around season 6 or 7 I think. The ongoing arc never grabbed me, and there are only so many monster of the week episodes you can do. Plus it was all about Mulder and Scully so when one of them left...the show should have ended about S5.
Loved S7 of DS9, and the finale. The last season of B5 was dissapointing, but I understand why, and it still has a fantastic finale.
Conversly some series have drawn me back with their final year. Voyager did after I really went off it, as did Buffy. Both probably went on too long though.
I really didn't like the BSG finale, I think ending it with the mid season cliffhanger would have been better with them
finding Earth but it not being our Earth, being destroyed and them deciding to move on and find a new world, both depressing and hopeful at the same time. The actual ending with "It was our Earth all along" was utterly predictable from the start of the series. And don't even get me started on ensuring this never happens again by leaving all technology and history behind....er WTF? Plus the way they tried to jam in all the hints and mysteries from the previous 4 years in ways that made no sense at all! BSG, a good show but clearly made up as they went along. At least Heroes were honest about that and never pretended to have a grand plan!
Well, I liked the Lost finale. It wasn't perfect, but I liked it, even though the last season overall was rather disappointing. I loved the flashsideways and their resolution in the finale, but the Island story bored me and I didn't like the way it all came down to the
The finales of Lost, DS9 and BSG were all flawed - moving and wonderful in some ways but disappointing in other ways, but I think that out of the 3, BSG finale comes off the worst, and the last season and a half dropped the ball on so many plots and characters. DS9 comes off the best, because the awful Pah-wraiths/red eye Dukat/Jesus Sisko arc doesn't outweigh all the good of the last season and the finale.
Out of the shows that had a really awful last season, I'm surprised nobody said Xena. It was never a show I loved, I just found it fun, until the last season which was nearly unwatchable, and Xena herself became an unbearable hypocritical bitch. Actually, it all became a little too much at the time of
, but the last season was even worse.
And while it was never a great show, VOY, after being at its strongest in season 4 and to an extent 5, became very lightweight and trite and looked almost like a sitcom in season 6 and especially season 7... and then of course, there's that godawful finale...
Jacob vs MIB 'good vs evil' conflict
Out of the shows that had a really awful last season, I'm surprised nobody said Xena. It was never a show I loved, I just found it fun, until the last season which was nearly unwatchable, and Xena herself became an unbearable hypocritical bitch. Actually, it all became a little too much at the time of
slaying of gods
And while it was never a great show, VOY, after being at its strongest in season 4 and to an extent 5, became very lightweight and trite and looked almost like a sitcom in season 6 and especially season 7... and then of course, there's that godawful finale...
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