Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

[Ginger Yellow]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

Yeah, but Penny Dreadful is really, really good.

Does it get better then? Because I watched the first four episodes on the basis of some other people's recommendation and while it was entertaining enough, I never felt compelled to watch the next one. It just felt like a slightly low-rent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but without Alan Moore's writing chops. The cast is good, I'll grant you.

[Reed John]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

I didn't have that reaction, obviously. As I knocked out the first season quickly. The story does move slowly, but the cast and the atmosphere make it work. But that depends on how interested you are in Victorian Gothic stuff in general.

[G-Man]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

Jongudmund wrote: I always thought the last episode of Friends was poor. I think it would have been much better if Rachel had gone off to Paris after all and her and Ross hadn't got back together.

Knowing that Joey was going to continue they could have packed him off to LA as well. It would have been the complete break up of the group. Monica and Chandler moving to the country, Phoebe married to someone outside the group, Rachel to France and Joey to California. I guess they'd have had to do something with Ross.

But how much better would it have been if the closing scene was Ross waving goodbye to Monica and Chandler's moving van, going into the coffee shop all alone, sitting down and saying 'They've all really gone.' to Gunther.

I like that.

[Ginger Yellow]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

But that depends on how interested you are in Victorian Gothic stuff in general.

Yeah, not much.

[Belhaven]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

True Blood had stopped being interesting so long ago that the ending did not come across as being particularly bad. The first season was pretty good, the second ok, but after that it became just tedious.

[Valentino Mazzola]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

The ending of Twin Peaks would have made a great season finale. For the entire show, not so much.

[evilC]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

Valentino Mazzola wrote: The ending of Twin Peaks would have made a great season finale. For the entire show, not so much.

Which is where the (IMHO) underrated 'Fire Walk With Me' comes in.

[Toro Toro]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

But FWWM was a prequel.

I agree with Valentino - after a very trying (but very underrated) second season, it really started to hit form again, and that scene at the mirror was just a devastating cliffhanger.

[Valentino Mazzola]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

I think the problem for me there's enough left in the gas for further developments.

Other problem is that's it's now over 20 years. Better to be left alone, no matter what? Etc.

[Haddock]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

Coincidence? I think not.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/sep/07/boardwalk-empire-sons-of-anarchy-season-finale-best-worst

(Sorry, I don't know how to do the code that substitutes text for the url)

[Incandenza]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

G-Man wrote:

the sopranos ending isn't really ambiguous though, is it? it's tony's point of view. he's dead. they foreshadowed this kind of sudden death with the scene where silvio is in the restaurant with another guy who gets shot, and there is a second where he doesn't realise what is happening.

The ambiguity is there simply because it is open to interpretation.

I read it, like you, that Tony is dead, because a series of clues point to it (and because Chase has hinted strongly that it is so). But his death is not confirmed. One could argue, for example, that the final moments cannot be Tony's POV because the focus is on his face -- AJ's or Carmella's POV.

Some have suggested that that the sudden ending represents the randomness with which Tony knows his life might end at any given moment.

There's plenty of room for projecting one's own ideas and interpretations to the ending, or to doubt those of others. So it is by definition ambiguous.

Well, Chase has now said that Tony is not dead as the show ends.

David Chase does a shot-by-shot breakdown of the final scene.

[Mumpo]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

For shock value coupled with bleakness and satisfying ambiguity, Blakes 7 is hard to beat.

[Toro Toro]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

When the thread resurfaced, I assumed it would be with reference to Justified.

That was... satisfying. Apt.

[G-Man]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

I liked the ending. Very deftly done and revealing something that we always knew.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

Mumpo wrote: For shock value coupled with bleakness and satisfying ambiguity, Blakes 7 is hard to beat.

True. The last episode of Sapphire & Steel is also terribly stark.

So the reason I resurrected this thread was a strange flashback I had of the final episode of The Colbys. The one where Fallon climbs aboard a giant flying saucer.

And upon looking this up—just to check I hadn't dreamt it—it turns out she later reappeared, with no explanation whatsoever, in Dynasty.

[Snake Plissken]

Best/worst conclusion to long-form TV drama

The last episode of Due South is a perfect ending for all the characters.