This post is inspired by the highly controversial finale of How I Met Your Mother that aired on Monday night. I didn’t actually watch the finale since I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, and I won’t spoil you all on here, in case you’ve somehow managed to avoid spoilers and don’t want to know the end, but I can certainly understand why after years of character development, fans of the show would be upset with the ending.
This led me to think about the finales of the various series I’ve watched, the finales where they knew it was their finale and had the chance to plan properly for it. Here’s my ranking of eight TV show finales, all from TV shows I watched from beginning to end, staring with my favorite going down to my least favorite…
1. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “What You Leave Behind”
When I watched this finale and saw the above scene at Vic’s, it felt so right. It was exactly the sort of note Deep Space Nine needed to end on after the turmoil of war the characters had gone through. It’s hard to get a much better finale than Deep Space Nine, I think, and the only way it really could have felt more complete was if they actually made movies afterward to follow up what happened, because even though it was closure enough, it definitely left an open door and a desire for more. There are books that explore what happens next, which I might get around to reading one day. But sometimes it’s also fun just to imagine for myself.
Story Closure Satisfaction: 4.5/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 4.5/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 5/5
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” – Quark
2. Fringe, “An Enemy of Fate”
If you ever binge watch Fringe, just be sure the tissues are ready when you reach the end because HOLY GENE (that’ll make sense if you watch the show ;)) the feels are real. Unfortunately, Fringe never answered all the questions I wanted them to and some of the finale lacked logic to me, but it was still really satisfying, especially emotionally.
Story Closure Satisfaction: 4/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 4.5/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 5/5
“You are… my very favorite thing.” – Walter Bishop
3. Babylon 5, “Sleeping in Light”
Like most finales, Babylon 5’s was very bittersweet. It was sad, but I don’t think it could have really ended any other way. And it was a pretty powerful conclusion for the grand story arc J. Michael Straczynski had planned (errr… minus a lot of season 5). This is only #3 on the list because the two before it are so strong, but this one really was too.
Story Closure Satisfaction: 4.5/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 4/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 4.5/5
“A toast… to absent friends, in memory still bright.” – John Sheridan
4. The West Wing, “Tomorrow”
West Wing ran for seven seasons, which means we got to see most of President Bartlett’s two term Presidency, and fittingly, the last episode is him and his crew leaving the White House to make way for the new President. In this episode there’s a lot of reminiscing and a lot of having to show the new folks the ropes for when they take charge. From this list, this is the finale I saw longest ago so it’s the foggiest on my mind, but I do remember being very satisfied overall with the conclusion.
Story Closure Satisfaction: 5/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 4/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 4/5
Man: Hey, you work there?/ C.J.: Pardon?/ Man: I said, do you work up there? In the White House./ C.J.: No. I don’t./ Man: Oh, sorry./ C.J.: No problem./ Man: Must be something, huh?/ C.J.: Yeah. Yeah, it must be something.
5. Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things”
The closing scene of “All Good Things” is perfect, and while there is some callback in the episode that is nice, it also involves a lot of Q. I’m not a big fan of Q (John deLancie, yes, Q, no) and his antics, and especially his antics from the first episode of TNG, which unfortunately is where a lot of the callback in this episode comes from. It also shows some of the future, and all I remember from that is one thing that left me disappointed. Still, I think that future never really comes to fruition anyway, and we see more of the characters in the movies (though let’s not talk about Nemesis being the end for it all… sigh…). I do remember enjoying this finale pretty well though.
Story Closure Satisfaction: 4.5/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 4/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 4/5
“So, five-card stud, nothing wild… and the sky’s the limit.” – Captain Picard
6. Star Trek: Voyager, “Endgame”
The ship Voyager spends seven seasons in another quadrant of the galaxy, trying to make its way back home, and so of course for the finale, everyone wants to see Voyager make it home. But how will it happen? How long will it take? I don’t want to spoil what happens, but let’s just say that maybe this wasn’t the best execution of the idea. But not the worst either. It was just a little more convoluted than I prefer. They also made an interesting choice with a couple of characters I didn’t really see coming, and I didn’t love it or hate it, but now that I know the real life back story of why it happened, it seems kind of lame. But overall, it’s a pretty good finale.
Story Closure Satisfaction: 4/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 3.5/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 4/5
“Set a course… for home.” – Captain Janeway
7. Chuck, “Chuck Versus the Goodbye”
The Chuck finale was good for the secondary characters. If I were to rank my satisfaction for that part of the finale alone, the numbers would be higher. But for our two main characters, Chuck and Sarah, completely different story. Again, without spoiling anything, all I can say is it does feel like an undoing of previous character development, and that was frustrating and heartbreaking both. I mean, it could have been worse, but it was more than bittersweet.
Story Closure Satisfaction: 2.5/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 2.5/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 2.5/5
“… tell me our story.” – Sarah Walker
8. Star Trek: Enterprise, “These Are the Voyages…”
Sorry for the butt shot, but almost every picture I found for this episode was a major spoiler. This episode is truly the sorriest excuse for a finale or a “Valentine to the fans” (as Rick Berman and Brannon Braga called it… gag me…) EVER. Which is so disappointing because to this day, it’s the last episode we have of Star Trek ever, and the episode before this one was really quite good and would have made a fitting finale. But this is terrible garbage. The premise is ludicrous, what happens to some of the characters is inane, and it just made me ANGRY. I’m giving story closure a rating of .5 only because we see the beginnings of the Federation. That was the ONE good thing that happened. I really enjoyed Enterprise overall but this finale was truly the biggest disappointment for a TV show ever, and from what I gather, nearly every Star Trek fan agrees.
Story Closure Satisfaction: .5/5
Character Closure Satisfaction: 0/5
Emotional Satisfaction: 0/5
“Here’s to the next generation.” – Captain Archer
What are your favorite and least favorite finales? (And please avoid spoilers, unless you’re talking about the aforementioned shows.)