Everything Must End

So as you guys already know, I’m a big fan of watching TV.   I love the escape and am often found at the end of a long day in front of the tube with a favorite show.  And the advent of DVRing has just made it better!

But one of the things I’ve always hated about American TV is that series often end without warning.  As if a book had been cut off in the middle of chapter ten with all the rest of the pages just ripped away.   It can be heartbreaking.  Especially if you’ve invested in the story and characters.  And since I cry at Hallmark commercials, we know that journey is a particularly easy one for me.

Sometimes with shows like Jericho—there is a fan outcry and thankfully, a finale of sorts is made.  (And according to the scuttle a revival on cable may be in the offing—sign me up!)  And sometimes as with the show Invasion, everything is just cut off mid-story leaving viewers hanging.   It seems to me like there should be a broadcast rule—all series must end.  It just seems fairer for the viewer.

And then there are shows like In Plain Sight, that are fabulous character studies, that keep our attention year after year, suck us in and make us love the people who inhabit the world of Albuquerque Witsec, that actually have a scheduled ending.  Only instead of the fiery conclusion hinted at in the overly tell-all previews, we get not a bang—but a whimper.   Years invested and absolutely no pay-off.   I fear this is what I have in store with the Closer as well.  It’s almost like television writers don’t know how to bring it home (witness the wildly off kilter ending of Lost—love it or hate it, it was hardly a pay-off).

So maybe there is no happy middle ground—maybe it’s either end with a whimper or leave hanging with a bang.  And either way, I’m dissatisfied.  Loved In Plain Sight, loved Marshall and Mary—thought the ending was blah.  On point, probably, but still without any kind of emotional resonance.  Which in a show that built itself on its fabulously quirky characters, seemed a disappointment.

Maybe I should only watch hit shows like NCIS where there’s no chance of an ending so they can go on forever—although I hate to think of what they’d do to Gibbs if the series ever ended.  I don’t know, maybe I just hate  the words “the end”  especially when a good story is involved.

Okay…enough with the musings.  My DVR is full of NCIS’s—I’m glomming the show from the very beginning.  That’s like nine years’ worth of shows… at least I don’t have to worry too much about an ending—for now.

So what about you?  Do you get addicted to shows and then find yourself frustrated when they’re cancelled without a conclusion?  Do you wish your favorite shows would come back on the air?   Did you watch any of the five billion Brady reunions?   Are you going to watch the final episodes of the Closer?  Are you going to watch the new Dallas?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Share this: