The beginning and the end: Comparing series premieres to their finales

[Agent Richard07]

Re: The beginning and the end: Comparing series premieres to their fin

DEEP SPACE 9 had one of the worst premiers (outside the Borg attack & Kira's feminine hairstyle for that one episode only) but by the end of the seven seasons it gave payoff in one of the best finale's out there.

I thought DS9 had a great premiere. It set up Bajor, the station, the wormhole, the character dynamics, and had a lot of memorable moments. The finale on the other hand felt like it was trying to bring closure to a number of things, but couldn't quite pull it off.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: The beginning and the end: Comparing series premieres to their fin

I'm a big fan of all things mentioned so far, with the exception of Heroes, anyway.

Farscape...








...is a fun comparison. Its premiere was only a regular-length one-hour episode, with a totally alien feel to it because astronaut John Crichton had just entered the crazy that was the Uncharted Territories. Moya was exotic, D'Argo was frightening (even if Anthony Simcoe didn't know how to make him sound the part yet), Zhaan was super-exotic, Pilot and Rygel really left an impression, Aeryn was a hard-nosed soldier... and Crichton had no idea what the frell was going on.

The finale, on the other hand, technically ended up being a four-hour miniseries extravaganza after the fan campaign partially succeeded. It had all the pomp and pacing of an urgent tale, with the conclusion to a storyline that had been nurtured and developed with appropriate action and intrigue for years. A storyline that, but for its simplest parts, wasn't even remotely visible during the series premiere. And the characters had changed so dramatically; above all else, John had become a galactic vagrant with an enormous reputation and Aeryn had transformed into so much more.

Farscape is the fucking best.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Re: The beginning and the end: Comparing series premieres to their fin

Farscape is the fucking best.

A-frellin'-men.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: The beginning and the end: Comparing series premieres to their fin

I thought the finale of Buffy paid off the premise of the series, established right at the beginning, in a way that I'd never expect a show like that to do. It was marvelous.

 

[Joe Washington]

Re: The beginning and the end: Comparing series premieres to their fin

Angel started out as a good supernatural film noir-like show with Angel in the role of the vampire detective and Cordelia and Doyle as his sidekicks. But as the show progressed, things change. Doyle died, Wesley entered the series in Doyle's absence, Cordelia inherited Doyle's visions which played a major role in her character development, and the Shanshu prophecy was introduced as a possible light at the end of Angel's dark tunnel. From that point on, Wesley grew some balls and went though a hell of an emotional wringer, Gunn and Fred joined the gang, and Cordelia softened a bit while maintaining her sharp humor and honesty before being taken over by some parasitic god-like force. Because of its increasing focus on personal drama among Angel and the other characters, Seasons 3 and 4 were mostly hard to watch in comparsion to Seasons 1 and 2. Just when I thought the show may be ruined near the end of Season 4, the final episode of the season pave the way of a change in the series that went on through the final season. The change came in the form of Angel and his team taking over Wolfram and Hart and Connor finally getting a positive personality change. This is because of these changes and others that allowed Angel and the other characters go out in style. So luckily Angel began with a good pilot and ended with an even better finale.

I'm also with those in the thread who consider Farscape to another great example of a show that started good and ended great.