Series finales are odd, right? On the one hand, if you like the show enough to stick around until the end, you're probably bummed that it's over. On the other, who doesn't eagerly anticipate the ultimate episode of a favorite series once we know it's coming?
This is a busy season for finales: Gossip Girl, 30 Rock, and Fringe are all already in the bag, with The Office and Breaking Bad pending. Years from now, will anyone ranks these finales among the most monumental—or monumentally disappointing—of all time, along with The Fugitive, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Newhart, St. Elsewhere, Lost, and The Sopranos (all good in my opinion) or, conversely, Roseanne, M*A*S*H, Seinfeld, and Battlestar Galactica (all not so good)? Doubtful so far, though I did admire Fringe's finish, confirming that the series was first and foremost about one thing: the profoundly complex and profoundly moving relationship between a father and a son.
Here, in descending order, is my personal list of top-ten series finales of all time (just for the fun of it, see if you can match the final lines at the bottom of this piece with the corresponding series—music and animal sounds not included).
10 - Star Trek: The Next Generation
9 - The Prisoner
8 - Angel
7 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
6 - The Shield (pictured right)
5 - Dollhouse
4 - Lost
3 - St. Elsewhere
2 - Twin Peaks
1 - The Sopranos
TV fans love to argue about these kinds of things, so I set out to do just that in the following video with my Paley Center colleague Arthur Smith; Arthur, and I, after all, disagree on just about everything—from the original Star Trek versus Star Trek: The Next Generation to Jack versus Sawyer to Annie versus Britta, and on and on and on.
So imagine my surprise when it turned out we had similar tastes in final episodes ...
Match These Final Lines from the above Series Finales
A - "Let's go to work."
B - "We've got time."
C - "How's Annie?"
D - "Five card stud, nothing wild, and the sky's the limit."
E - "We've been waiting for you."
F -- "What are we gonna do now?"
G - "Come on, son, let's go wash our hands, all right?"
H - "I went ahead and ordered some for the table."
I - "Downtown officers need help."
J - "Evacuate!"
Answers
A-8; B-5; C-2; D-10; E-4; F-7; G-3; H-1; I-6; J-9
Many thanks to intern Craig Solomon for his research help!