The Final Episode #129: The Types of Final Episodes

 

You might be wondering what this above Image is and I just searched Final TV Episode into YAHOO IMAGES because Yahoo is Google Chrome's go to on this computer some how. Even though no one has used Yahoo since 2002. I did not even realize Yahoo was still around. What a weird name for a search engine. Personally I think we need to bring back Ask Jeeves. He was a classy man who always knew what you wanted. Or Altavista. Good lord the fact I can remember these things is really sad. Anyway I have no idea what show this is and I think it would ruin the fun to know what it is. It's some show from Serbia or Albania. One of those countries in Europe that you never think of because no one thinks of Albania. I mean besides the people who live there. I just thought this crappy blog posted needed a image to start if off. It just looks nicer. I imagine that girl on the bottom is a real mischievous one. She's bad to the bone!

Anyway, lately I've gotten it in my mind to go over the certain types of Final Episodes. I've talked about 126 of them (two posts were about the Best and Worst I had done up to that point and I'll probably return to them one day) and you get a weird number of different kinds. I just thought it would be interesting to discuss them and so I shall because this is my blog and I can do that. So let's get jiggy with it!

TYPE #1: The "Adventure of the Week" Episode: This is the kind of episode that's literally no different than the other episodes of the show. If you were told this was the Final Episode you probably would be surprised. Also this is  THE most common type of Final Episode, with fifty five examples! We will get into two of those examples in a bit. These are wildly ALL over the place in quality. It's something else. It's not hard to realize why. I mostly talk about cartoons and sitcoms and a lot of tv from 1950s to the very early 2000s.  You only really got a ending if you were AMAZINGLY popular. 

EXAMPLES:  The first Example, or an example of this done the best is probably DuckTales, Duck Tales not only got a two parter the stakes is incredibly high. It's about a Goose that turns things Gold which becomes real and starts turning EVERYTHING Gold. Uncle Scrooge and Djion have to stop the Goose. It's a very enjoyable episode that is worth watching. 

The bad example is going to be Bewitched which is a shame because I very much enjoyed watching that show as a kid. The reason it's the worst is that they remake a plot from an earlier episode with the awful, awful, awful second Darren. He's truly the worst. Also a mention for Veronica's Closet because they literally shove a bit at the end of the episode that makes it feels Final. Otherwise you'd think that shit was no different than any other episode of that show.

TYPE #2: The Clipshow. This is THE WORST KIND of Final Episode and despite all of the bitching I've done about it.........it's only happened apparently eight or nine times. A few shows ended on a clipshow but to have something to talk about I decided to talk about the episode prior, those posts I like to call the Penultimate Episode instead. These are just clips from the show and just don't work very well when it comes to a discussion of a television shows Final Episode. I do not like them.

EXAMPLES:  The best and only good example of this is Webster, which is also a crossover. I cannot think of any other show that ends with a crossover. It's also a crossover that makes no fucking sense at all. Webster ends up on the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation where he annoys Worf. I was wondering if I should mention this again but I realized you should always mention this. It's canon to Star Trek that Worf was annoyed by Webster. I will not hear otherwise.

The bad example is going to be Boy Meets World because everything around the episode is really really good. I don't know if they had to make it a two parter or something but if you removed the clips (which are just really haphazardly shoved into the episode) everything would have worked so much better. At least the other shows (other than Spider-Man 1967 which was literally animated from scenes from other episodes so the entire thing is a clipshow) knew when and where to put the clips in. Mr Feeny's speech at the end is still incredibly nice. They love you too Mr Feeny.

TYPE #3: The Cliffhanger: From a entertainment point of view, this is the worst kind of Final Episode. They make for terrible viewing because You'll never ever ever know how it ends. I mean for the most part. There have been only five Final Episodes that I've discussed that ended on a cliffhanger and they are all terrible because I really enjoyed all five shows and would have loved to see how it really ended. 

EXAMPLE: I'm forgoing a good example here because I cannot think of one. I want to see how Duckman, Teddy Ruxpin, Reboot and Caroline in the City ended. Yes, that's a weird group of television shows. The one I'm picking as an example is Spider-Man 1994 for this reason. Marvel Comics made a mini series comic that is coming out right now as I type this but JESUS CHRIST MARVEL they did the worst idea ever. They skipped the damn cliffhanger. Seriously we still don't know how they got back together. The writer of the comic is a great one. Seriously one of the best, but I want to know how they got back together. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR OVER TWO DAMN DECADES. don't bait me and then give me SOMETHING ELSE. You shits.

TYPE #4: Marriage!: This was mostly for sitcoms or shows were two characters were in a relationship, or doing a WILL THEY OR WONT THEY kinda thing. It's a simple way to end a tv show and five shows have done it. There's not much more here that I can explain about marriage. It's cool I suppose. Having another person love you is pretty cool. I wish I could have that. I'm sad now.

EXAMPLES: Sabrina The Teenage Witch is the worst example. She does some magic to find out that THE MAN SHE'S TO MARRY ON THIS VERY DAY is not her actual soul mate. It's Harvey. Yeah I liked Harvey. Yeah, I'm glad they got together. It's good in the end. I just do not like the way they did it. That other dude didn't deserve that and I'm sorry that whole thing leaves a bad, bad taste in my mouth. Like dry asphalt or something. I don't know. I'll give Passions the award for doing it the best because I like getting to mention that show because it was fucking batshit crazy and written by crackheads. I'm also going to mention BRAND SPANKING NEW DOUG because it ended on a marriage episode (Patti Mayonnaise's dad and some teacher get married) and just mentioning that show makes portnoyd shit his pants. I love it.

TYPE #5: Having a Baby!  This is a ending you'd think would show up more but it showed up one and a half times. We will get to that half in a second. Anyway yeah.

EXAMPLE: Mama's Family does this. Mama's Family makes me want to vomit. I'm not going to talk any more about Mama and her miserable Family.

TYPE #6: Moving into a New House: This was done three times and all three times were Family Orientated sitcoms. I guess that works for these kinda shows. Let's talk about the best example of this.

EXAMPLE: The Nanny is the example I'm going to do because it decides to do everything that sitcoms do. They have the butler and the bitch C.C marry each other. They have Fran and the rich man have a baby. They even buy a new house because several of the kids are moving on! You gotta give something credit when it's like fuck it let's do it all! It's the Final Episode after all! 

TYPE #7: EVERYONE FUCKING DIES! Only one example of this too but it's such a memorable one. No it's not a gritty drama where the characters have to fight a way out of a bad situation and none of them make it. No it's a fucking TGIF show. Yes, it's Dinosaurs. They ended with all of the characters waiting for their deaths. The bumbling dad character literally ended the fucking world. That's depressing and hilarious. One of my favorite TGIF shows gets one of the most memorable endings during the 1990s. Never expected them all to die! 

EXAMPLE: I wish Mama's Family Final Episode was like this one.

TYPE #8: We Finished High School!!!!!!! or We are Going to College!!!!!! This was done three times (I just realized that one of these shows didn't actually end like that) and was done four time miserably. 

EXAMPLE: SERIOUSLY my examples are Hang Time, City Guys, and Charles in Charge. I can't think of a more miserable group of television shows. Holy shit I think I just threw up a little thinking about them. 

TYPE #9: Holiday Special! Yep. It happened. Only a few times but it happened. Four times. Strangly enough each of them was done pretty well. I guess people want to make good Christmas specials. Yes, they were all Christmas. 

EXAMPLE: those gingerbread cookies Theodore is making look pretty good.

TYPE #10: A episode that feels like a conclusion but doesn't involve babies, holidays, real estate or marriage.

EXAMPLES: I know I picked one good example and one bad example (when I could) but I really don't want to talk about the three bad examples here. Like this list is really good and I feel like talking about two Final Episodes that I think are pretty underrated. The first one is Pepper Ann and it's a look at the future for these characters. I mean we go to the future to a school reunion for the characters. Apparently they stopped being friends and we find out why during the episode too. It's a fun watch. The other one is Daria. Daria remembers a troubling childhood memory which ends up her having a discussion with her family and everything ends up feeling better at the end. Like the family going forward will be more loving to each other, even Captain Sarcasm. It's nice. I like nice.

BONUS: This isn't something I've talked about yet but several shows seem to have ended on.........a pilot episode for a different bunch of characters. Pretty wild and really stupid. Kinda seems to be worse than a Cliffhanger because at least you get to see the characters you enjoyed for years do their thing sorta. Anyway. we will get to this show but I felt like I had to mention this because I won't be making a sequel to this post.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I don't think this blog post idea worked out very well but I'm still posting it. Anyway have fun jerknoyd. You jerk. P.S. DOUG FUNNIE RULES.