You know, I'm going to go out on a lim and say Dollhouse, the ending is just so bleak, yet completely fitting to the show and still utterly beautiful and hopeful.
Also Flight Of The Conchords, they never get success, but in the end they're happy and it doesn't matter.
SG: Universe hasn't ended yet... While the last episode aired (Epilogue) WAS a very nicely ended episode, there's still 2 episodes set to air this season.
Totally agree on Heroes and SG-1 though. I know not many people liked the series, but I thought Stargate Atlantis had a good ending too.
Samuel was awesome though. His character had such potential...
Then they went and arrested him, and Heroes just ended.
After sticking with the show for so long, I felt betrayed to have such a slap-dash and lackluster ending.
Yeah, I like the fact that they had a plan and executed it but that show really is the prime example of why people see anime as bizarre and hard to follow. It wasn't enjoyable for me.
OT: Buffy has already been said but its true. In reality they got two great endings, [spoiler alert] She dies, protecting the people she loves and finds peace, and then she is no longer the lone ranger protecting the world from the vampires, demons and monsters. I don't think there is anymore you can ask of a good ending.
I will add Dollhouse to the list. It was just starting to get really interesting and into the whole future world and they had to end it. I think they managed very well with Epitaph 2. It gave a sense of relief and consequence in equal measure that most sci-fi shows don't hit.
Spaced was really good but Blackadder Goes Forth was the best I have ever seen. It was so hilarious then so sad and respectful. It was the only comedic show shown on Armistace Day (The day when the soldiers of all the wars are remembered if they don't have it abroad).
'The Last Train' (1999) not a excellent show, but ended well I thought, tied all loose ends and rounded things of nicely after it's worthwhile build up. 'Lost' could have learned from this
Since I can't think of a single western television show besides Firely that didn't screw itself over (particularly not ending Scrubs with "My Finale" and not ending The Office with Michael's perfect departure...>,>), I'll just list my perfectly ended anime.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
Death Note
Code Geass R2
Trigun
SGU has two episodes left, the second to last one airs this Monday, which I guess is a better night.
That was actually SyFy's reasoning of why SGU failed and got canceled, they said it wasn't getting good ratings because they aired it on a bad night (I think Thursday).
They need to learn that the night something airs, doesn't matter anymore. If people love a show, chances are they won't always be their to watch it, so they tape it or watch it online later.
If they actually paid attention to the fans of the Stargate franchise, they would know that it sucked because the writing sucked. Their writers broke the cardinal rule for writing science fiction, and that is:
Technology and/or aliens always come first in a plot, they are the most important. Characters, even main ones, take a backseat to technology and/or aliens.
They also broke rules on how to pace episodes for a sci-fi show.
This is how episodes are to be set up for an hour program(really 42 minutes):
25 to 30 minutes: The main sci-fi plot with the tech and/or aliens.
12 minutes: One large character plot of 1 to 3 people main and few small. Or that that 12 min can be broken up into two 6 min character plots between two people or two groups of people.
There are usually arching series plots, so if part of a series plot is added to the episode, it can either be the whole main plot of the episode, or it can take 5 minutes from the main plot and 6 minutes from the character plot section.
This is how SGU was set up:
12 minutes: Large character plot.
10 minutes: Another character plot.
10 minutes: Another character plot.
10 minutes at best: Main sci-fi plot, sometimes this was almost non-existent in some episodes. If they didn't have much of a sci-fi plot, the sci-fi that would make up the episode would be something to the effect of:
Colonel Young: Is Destiny going to keep running. (The alien-ness of the ship is implied.)
Rush: Maybe.
---
Whoever was head writer on that team, must really like soap operas or something, because the sci-fi plots, even the main arching series one which was really only touched on once for about 3 minutes early in season 2(Rush detected a signal that could lead them to find out who created the universe), took a backseat to character plots.
99% of the show is one big angsty soap opera...set in space. The stargates, the ancients, the ship, aliens, and new planets, all were an after thought compared to stories about who loves who, who hates who, and can people accept that some people don't love them the way they thought they would, oh and the stupid overrated shock and awe grab of a lesbian relationship.
I'm going to say it had a good finish even though it isn't quite there yet, because I won't have to watch it anymore to see if they can actually get things right.
It is a crying shame that they canceled Atlantis for SGU.
I'm going to assume Star Trek: Voyager, because I don't know of any other one in television.
On top of that I will add, Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was trippy, but I liked how it brought everything back to the beginning, the point of the very first episode. Picard thought the whole trial thing with the Q had been dealt with way back then, but it was just the start of it back then.
Time travel is the way writers cheat when they've painted themselves into a corner and can't think of a good way out.
Plus if time travel is easy enough for the Federation to pull off why didn't the Borg with their superior technology simply travel back in time and assimilate all the sentient races before they could become any kind of threat?
Did you even watch the movie Star Trek: First Contact. Synopsis: The Borg want to find a way to remove the Federation from the picture because it has been slowing them down for far too long. Their answer, travel back in time to when Earth(Backbone of the Federation) made first contact with the an alien species(The Vulcans) with the first human warp flight by Zefram Cochrane, and stop it from happening.
The Borg tried it, they failed.
Besides time travel is not a cheat. Writers can write whatever the hell they want, as long as it makes sense and is new in some way. The only time they can't write whatever the hell they want is if they break the established rules that make a genre(fantasy, sci-fi, mystery).
If time travel was such a horrible storytelling or story resolving device, then Doctor Who wouldn't still be running after almost 48 years. It did go of the air on television in the 90's but it kept right on going on the radio. The only reason it went off the air in the first place back then was because of the BBC's stupid budget handling.
Voyager had a really good ending. Voyager got home and a baby was born, all was well, no loose ends.
I agree with what other people have said about Scrubs. It ended perfectly, and is probably my favorite show of all time. The scene right before this one, with him walking down the hallway, was really really good too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aekVGeBwKI4
Also, I've always considered the "9th season" to be a spin-off, so I actually enjoyed it, since I didn't try to compare it to the original, and just judged it on its own merits.
The Sopranos. My favourite TV show ever, and the ending was so perfect that I was both upset that it was over, and glad that they'd finished it in such a dignified, final way.
Firefly didn't have a series-ending, it was canceled before even a season ending could be written or filmed.
Serenity was an okay movie, but it would have been far better the people that died had survived, so that they could leave open the possibility that Firefly could some how be picked up and started up again.
The only reason Firefly didn't continue is not just that Fox canceled it, they effectively grounded it in the dirt with their filthy (Edit: boots, not boats, boy I am tired) when the Sci-Fi channel and Joss Whedon offered to buy Fox's share of the rights from them after they canceled it, so Sci-Fi could continue it, Fox said no.
Since we are talking just television, let's leave Serenity out of it.
With Firefly:
There is nothing resolved on the series plot, who are the men with the hands of blue, what were the people, that were experimenting on River, hoping to create or do? What happens with the crew after the arching stuff is dealt with? The character(relationship) plots, nothing is resolved with them. The last episode, even if you watch them in the order that Joss intended, not Fox(they didn't even air the real pilot episode first), was just a regular episode with a regular episode plot.
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