Mari Ness

Thinking about the lousy last episode of X-Files led me to think a little about some series finales:

Utter flops:

X-Files: I'm on record as an unabashed Mulder/Scully shipper who analyzed every quip and every sentence for evidence of the True Love; who squiggled with delight at the near kisses here and there; who squeezed every bit of unrequited romance possible in seven years of unresolved sexual tension. (Well, ok, Mulder did have his videos, so not completely unrequited.)

But even the unquestioned, undoubted, unmistakable Twoo Wwwove and Lengthy Kissing and Hugging and No Sexual Angst At All Except To Wonder If Skinner Should Be Allowed to Watch (yes! say all of us) couldn't save this very, very sorry episode, which featured a tedious and inexplicable and nearly endless court scene, and an almost complete failure to explain to anyone what the hell had been going on for the past nine years. Even passionate Mulder and Scully kisses can only do so much.

Moonlighting: Because I went out of my way to watch it, and now, years, later, couldn't tell you what happened.

Mehs: Good effort, but ultimately, vaguely unsatisfying one way or another:

Buffy: Buffy had brought us intense, emotionally satisfying – or emotionally brutal – season finales before: the wrench of rejection at the end of Season Two; the heartache of the end of Season Three, when Angel walked away into his own show; and the sniffling of the end of Season Five and Death Two. It had brought us the joy and humour of Season Four's dream episode. I refuse to discuss Season Six. With that, we were justified in expecting something – I don't know, more.

But – perhaps because much of the episode focused on a melee between a lot of characters we didn't much care about and a First Evil that really seemed to have learned nothing about organization or strategy even after millions and millions of years of being evil, which suggests that Evil needs to improve its training programs, the final episode turned out to have a lot of bother with almost no emotional payoff. We did get a final Buffy appearance by Angel. We did get a good Dungeons and Dragons joke. We did get a touching and well acted Buffy and Spike scene.

But in the last fifteen minutes, we got nothing else. Part of the problem, of course, was that the last fifteen minutes featured Spike's meaningless death, which might have been interesting if we had not all been well aware that this was just a brief stopover on the way to a season at a nice evil L.A. firm, which meant that this was at best a temporary disappearance, so it was difficult to feel much emotional angst over it. (It didn't help that the survivors seemed to feel precisely the same lack of emotional angst.) And yeah, ok, so, Sunnydale sinks beneath a mean nasty hellhole, but let's face it: 1) everybody had already left, and 2) with schools like that, not to mention all of the demon-dancing, the value of Sunnydale real estate had to be sinking lower than the Hellmouth. So I couldn't get all shook up about it – or find myself all that interested in the fates of all of the new little Slayers, who now lacked any uniqueness or destiny and who almost certainly lacked Buffy's clothing sense. Le sigh.

Cheers: The fans wanted Diane back. I wanted Diane back. NBC wanted Diane back.

So we got Diane back, and it just felt – wrong. Perhaps because so many years had passed, and yet Diane hardly seemed changed at all; perhaps because although Diane had returned, the Sam/Diane relationship had been funny precisely because it couldn't possibly work. And because it couldn't possibly work, bringing her back meant, inevitably, that she would have to leave, robbing us of the happy ending that most comedies – including Cheers -- need to have to feel "right." The episode had funny lines; it had Norm; it had the actors standing up in a line waving at all, and ultimately, no sense of satisfaction.

Friends: The last few episodes had a melancholic tone that only increased as episodes continued and the writers tried to set up satisfactory endings while setting up the flop that would be Joey. And it was this tone that penetrated the last episode of Friends, keeping the laughs muted. But the real problem here was the wrap up of the ten year Rachel and Ross storyline. That storyline had always had an undercurrent of control, of anger, and of hurt – with much of the hurt coming from Ross. And because of that, we needed Ross to make a huge gesture to win Rachel back and convince her to give up her career for him. Having Phoebe madly drive him to the airport, while admittedly extremely risky, was just not that gesture. Combined with melancholy feel, this created an end that felt almost as empty as the cleared out apartment.

M.A.S.H.: Because I also went out of my way to watch this one, and…you guessed it, but gets a Meh for effort since it's still one of the highest rated shows ever.

Yes! The ones who got it right:

Upstairs, Downstairs: Mr. Hudson married Mrs. Bridges. What else did you want? Continuity? It was the 70s, folks! Let's not be picky.

Wonderfalls: Sometime in the 10th episode, I turned to the person who was watching the show with me, and gulped. "Please tell me this has a happy ending."

"I haven't seen the last couple of episodes," he said. "So I don't know – but keep in mind, the creator was involved in Buffy."

"I want my happy ending," I said.

And I got it: not just a happy ending, but an ending that felt entirely, completely, right. A happy accident, since the show was not originally intended to end in its first season, but a fortunate one. If you haven't seen this, go find it on DVD, and watch through to the end: I guarantee you'll feel better.

Angel:

After the Buffy slipup, I had my concerns about this one. And yet, ending with the surviving heroes standing up against a motherload of CGI monsters and refusing to back down? It shouldn't work – but it does. Completely, utterly, works.

Firefly: I wanted to write something long and lengthy and poignant here. But all I could come with was this:

"Shiny."

Yeah.