All Good Things... Episode 06: Red Dwarf

[Dogg Thang]

The finale episode was the complete opposite, drab, lacking feeling and emotion, almost as if the writers had gotten bored with it all. I'm not sure how much the writing team changed over the series arc (I've not looked it up), but it definitely felt like it change at season 4.

Yeah, I don't know how much the writing team changed either but, to me, there was one big factor: Lost. Lost became huge and it was nonsense because the writers just through in stuff with no idea what they were doing and, for a while at least, audiences lapped it up. And a year or so later, that's when Battlestar Galactica was filled with visions and final fives and all sorts of mysteries and ponderings. Compare all that to that first season and, yes, that episode where they had to keep those jumps where it was grounded and tense and the characters really worked and it's a shame where it ended up.

One element that, to me, was consistently brilliant throughout was Bear McCreary's score.

[Neon Ignition]

Starbucks return felt like a tipping point, there was an obvious way to go with it which they did for a while with playing on the idea of not being able to trust it was her or a cyclon imposter but the real answer just sucked the life out it.

[QualityChimp]

I never finished Battlestar Galactica. That final series was a serious slog. I'd watched about 10 episodes but still had about another 17 hours left to go. Then it went off Prime. Now it's on iPlayer and I want to finish it for completion, but also time's too precious to piss away on something that's a chore to watch.

[Asura]

I thought the end was a bit rubbish but it's hard to lay the blame at the finale itself. Battlestar Galactica lost its way and wandered all over the place for quite some time before getting to the end. So what the finale was wrapping up already didn't really make a lot of sense and I don't think there existed any kind of satisfying solution to it. I guess it did okay given what they were working with at that point.

I struggle to even remember the ending. I don't remember much past the midpoint.

I do remember though that there was a reason for this; the writer's strike brought on by the way the studios handled the start of Netflix.

[charlesr]

You should really watch season 3, Charles. It’s crazy and frustrating and self-indulgent but it has some brilliance in it and I think managed to find an even better ending.

Ep1 done. Self indulgence levels maxed!
That scene with the glass box. Oh my. I'm scared. Amazing to see Agent Cooper again after all this time.

[Neon Ignition]

Blackadder
Not counting the millennium special, fans of the show were already used to each series of the show ending with a culmination for each generational incarnation of Edmund Blackadder but everyone and their mother knows that the true ending of the show came at the end of its fourth run Blackadder Goes Forth. The third run had already attempted to mix up expectations with its surprisingly more uplifting ending but the war time era set series managed to reverse that direction by instead finally showing a Blackadder become accepting of their fate, to strip away the humour and instead present an ending that aimed to resonate with a generation of viewers for whom - for once - had personally lived through the experiences the show had been playing on.


The Over the Top ending for Blackadder Goes Forth, how well did it and the series in general work for you?

[Dogg Thang]

I thought it was a brilliant and touching end to a brilliant series. That's all I've got.

[wakka]

I'm not sure how many viewers had personally lived through the first World War (not many, surely?), but it is a brilliant and genuinely moving ending. It manages to avoid mawkishness, too. They nailed it IMO.

[Atticus]

End of Blackadder was brilliant. All the more unexpected wrapping up a comedy too. Pretty much perfect.

[Asura]

Yeah, I mean it's one of the top television moments.

[MartyG]

The entirety of Blackadder was great television, even the original series had its moments (The Queen of Spain's Beard, Witchsmeller Pursuivant) but the final episode of Blackadder goes forth did have a fitting ending to all the ridiculousness and futility, that getting up & out of the trenches to run toward machine gun fire was the most ridiculous and futile part of it all.

I'm glad they haven't tried to revive it - this is definitely a series to leave well alone and just let it stand with time.

[kryss]

It was the perfect ending for the programme.

[Neon Ignition]

That's the insane thing about it that even now with later conflicts I kind of forget. There was 71 years between the end of WWI and the airing of Goes Forth's finale so though elderly there would be living soldiers for it, not counting WWII for which many would have similar memories as that was only 48yrs prior as well. Though the setting was known it's easy to imagine given the tone of the shows four seasons that some were really blindsided by the ending. It's no wonder they largely figured there was no way of delivering a worthwhile fifth run on the back of it (even though I wouldn't consider Goes Forth overall as the best run in the show)

[Neon Ignition]

The Sopranos
The series that followed the New Jersey mobster Tony Soprano quickly became one of the most well received US dramas ever made. With such a high level of critical and public love it was only natural that the end of the show would be a notable occasion no matter how it's final moments played out, but what made the ending controversial for some was that the final moment didn't play out, a cut to black being the decided upon end scene.

Did the ending prove satisfying for you?

[Neon Ignition]

Sopranos proving to be an offer we can refuse as we move on to:

Fringe
The final season pushed the boundaries of the shows concept by leaping the characters and the audience all the way to the year 2036 as Olivia, Peter and Walter join with Peter and Olivia's grown daughter to take on the Observers and undo the purging of the human race. The show had barely managed to reach its fifth run, constantly fighting off the threat of cancellation, but it's final season made no allowances for the idea that it wasn't ending on its own terms as the entire run closed the five year arcs for the characters in a bold and generally well received manner.

Were you happy with the direction and ending of Fringe's final run?