Spoilers TV Shows with Great Endings

[Ryujin]

I will introduce a dark horse into the competition in the form of Forever Knight. FK was a show about a 500+ year old French vampire in Canada who becomes a police officer in an effort to make up for all the bad he's done over the centuries. The third season was pretty weak and it was to be their last, but they made the most of it and ended on a bang.

Our hero Nick Night (Forever Knight, get it?) had figured out it was possible for a vampire to regain his mortality by draining a mortal in a very specific way that would leave both of them alive. The problem is that this is very, very dangerous and extremely unlikely to work. This is a callback to season two where we met a former vampire friend of Nick's who is now mortal because of this process. Nick's gal pal and love interest Natalie volunteers and things go as well as you expect. Nick accidentally kills Natalie in the process and he's still a vampire.

So Nick turns to his sire, and occasional antagonist throughout the series, LaCroix, asking him to stake him through the heart and put himself out of his misery.

LaCroix (prepares to stake Nick): I suppose I'm the bad guy in your tale?

Nick: You were my best friend.

LaCroix: Damn you, Nicholas. (Stabs Nick)

I think it took a lot of guts to end the series with such finality.

I remembered the series, but forgot how it ended. Nigel Bennett has always made a great villain. The series was based on a made-for-TV movie called "Nick Knight" which starred, of all people, Rick Springfield.

 

[billd91]

Despite a lot of criticism, I liked the fact that the Seinfeld gang ended up in jail for basically being themselves - obnoxious, self-absorbed asshats.

 

[R_J_K75]

Despite a lot of criticism, I liked the fact that the Seinfeld gang ended up in jail for basically being themselves - obnoxious, self-absorbed asshats.

The very ending was fitting but overall I thought the finale was disappointing.

 

[Willie the Duck]

The very ending was fitting but overall I thought the finale was disappointing.

That is why I split my discussion into shows with great endings, and shows which greatly reinforced their initial premise. Admittedly, I think all of mine* were good endings, but there are others (like Seinfeld) that are really really appropriate, but still maybe not great overall.
*except maybe The Prisoner, depending on who you are, as people have already discussed above

Another in that category might be Sports Night. The show was cancelled, so the show-within-a-show was cancelled too. However, that show got saved by a handsome brilliant billionaire that talks a lot like Aaron Sorkin and looks like he might woo female lead Dana sometime in the never-made continuing seasons and who tells her, "Anybody who can't make money off of Sports Night should get out of the money-making business." Not only is it fairly fitting for the series, but it it is incredibly fitting for Aaron Sorkin to do. It wasn't, though, a grand piece of high art or anything.

 

[Richards]

Here's another one to add to the list: Blake's 7. It had a ridiculously low budget (like early Doctor Who), but they had some great characters and some inspired writing. And when it got canceled, they pulled off an ending unlike anything else at the time.

Johnathan

 

[Mad_Jack]

I will introduce a dark horse into the competition in the form of Forever Knight.

Y'know, I'd actually forgotten how that show ended until reading that, but that was a damn good episode.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I really liked that show, even each time it significantly shifted its narrative gist through the seasons, but I can't say that the ending worked for me. It just felt too naive, and didn't exactly seem to match with the 'fantasy environment' up to that point.

Each to their own, obviously. But, as I said in my OP, I thought it was the perfect ending for the show. A lovely elegy for a show that was so much about death. Sure, dying wasn't it's main theme. Living a good life was it's main theme. But death was very much in the mix.

Here's another one to add to the list: Blake's 7. It had a ridiculously low budget (like early Doctor Who), but they had some great characters and some inspired writing. And when it got canceled, they pulled off an ending unlike anything else at the time.

Johnathan

Ooh yeah. That's a good one. Pretty shocking to my young self when I first saw that.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I remembered the series, but forgot how it ended. Nigel Bennett has always made a great villain. The series was based on a made-for-TV movie called "Nick Knight" which starred, of all people, Rick Springfield.

Hmm..here's hoping that at some point either in the past or future, there exists a convergence where that movie airs on Nick-at-Nite.

 

[payn]

Star Trek Deep Space Nine (DS9). It had 7 seasons and told a lot of stories. However, the pilot and ending line up perfectly and every character has a satisfying arc that few series could ever boast. Best complete Trek series to date.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Star Trek Deep Space Nine (DS9). It had 7 seasons and told a lot of stories. However, the pilot and ending line up perfectly and every character has a satisfying arc that few series could ever boast. Best complete Trek series to date.

I dunno if I'd rate it as a great ending, but I'd definitely say it had the best ending of all Trek shows so far. It is really the only Trek series which felt complete - in large part because of the beginning and ending matching up so well, as you describe, which I think is part of why there's been less of a demand to go back for more than with TNG or the like.