Worst series ending concepts

[DM_Matt]

I rather liked the idea of a lot of girls around the world getting Slayer powered... when you consider what happens to so many girls around the world. Forced marriages, honor killings, horrifying statistics of rape, being dragged into brothels, etc... imagine what a Slayer would do to someone who tried this....

Yes, evil things are done to women by men (and by other women). Women also do evil things. Many people, suddenly granted those powers, would be quite tempted to abuse them. Randomly distributing superhuman combat ability is extremely unwise any way you slice it.

Actually, while the show began in the Vietnam era, it ended in the Reagan era. It didn't start to get really preachy until well after the war was completely over. That's what an 11 year run will do. It might not be a documentary, but it does have the odd position of being the popular cultures main image of the Korean War.

Except there probably are many, many people who mistakenly believe its about Vietnam.

 

[PhoenixDarkDirk]

I was rather perplexed at the ending of "Roseanne", in which it is reaveled that pretty much the entire series is a semiautobiographic story Roseanne wrote. It then shows the way things really happened, like Dan not surviving his heart attack.

 

[Fast Learner]

Except there probably are many, many people who mistakenly believe its about Vietnam.

It is about Vietnam. It just happens to be set in Korea 15 years earlier, but it's about Vietnam all the same.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Randomly distributing superhuman combat ability is extremely unwise any way you slice it.

superhuman combat ability is already randomly distributed through the buffyverse. Any given potential could have ended up "next in line" anyway, and there would have been no group of similarly powered women around to deal with her.

Except there probably are many, many people who mistakenly believe its about Vietnam.

Like fast learner said.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Other changes I didn't like after Alda took over the show:

.....

Yep, Alan Alda ruined a great little black comedy by turning it into his own personal soapbox. Too bad.

Personally, my favorite episodes were the first ones where Henry Blacke and Trapper were part of the cast.

this would be a classic different strokes for different folks I suppose, as every change you listed I would consider either a) false or b) a maturing influence that massivly improved the show.

I'm not sure when alda "took over the show" as imdb lists him writing and directing episodes in a variety of seasons (some quite early) and never producing. But the replacement of the wacky frat boy sidekicks and cartoonish nemisies with actual, you know, characters, took place before or at the halfway mark of the show's run and it went off the air with probably the most watched final ep to that point. So if growing up ruined the show, it escaped the notice of the majority of its fans.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Eh? The place was decomissioned and scuttled. Why is that dumb?

just to get back to this - the station was in orbit around a planet. (or at least tied to it somehow) the planet had had quite a bit of background plot use, and keeping an outpost near it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. additionally, what with the big planet sized object sitting right beside it, the excuse that it was a "navigation hazard" was particularly rediculous.

also, since they spend one season independant from earth, I think its been demonstrated that outdated or not, the station could be self sufficient (especially when not embargoed.) There's someone out there that would buy it. (in what we laughingly call the real world, there's some dork living on an abandoned WWII outpost in the ocean and calling himself a country, so we know its possible.)

Also, outdated or not, the thing has value even as scrap.

So basicly, it wasn't a hazard to navigation, it wasn't useless, and it wasn't without value. Blowing it up was cheesy.

But then the whole 5th season choked, so why worry about the ending. :\

 

[Dark Jezter]

But the replacement of the wacky frat boy sidekicks and cartoonish nemisies with actual, you know, characters, took place before or at the halfway mark of the show's run and it went off the air with probably the most watched final ep to that point. So if growing up ruined the show, it escaped the notice of the majority of its fans.

To quote Napoleon Dynamite, "Like anybody could possibly know that."

Having a final episode that was watched by a lot of people does not mean that the majority of the show's fans approved of the changes to the show. The final episode of MASH was a highly-publicised and hyped event, drawing people to the show who didn't even watch it normally. The same thing happened with the final episode of Seinfeld.

As for me, I'll take immature and cartoony over sanctimonious and melodramatic any day of the week.

This is hardly a new debate, however. It's even mentioned in Wikipedia:

There has been much dispute among fans as to when M*A*S*H jumped the shark, or whether it ever jumped the shark at all. Some fans insist that it was brilliant from the beginning to the end, or that it hit its brilliance in the later seasons as it gradually became more serious, especially with Alan Alda becoming more active in the creative process of the series. Such fans often point out to the show's 11 year run as proof of its brilliance and success. Other fans, however, feel that the series ran too long and, like many other shows, gradually deteriorated during the later seasons, losing much of its warmth and humor and replacing it with outright preaching. These fans blame Alan Alda taking more control over the series and imbuing it with his own personal and political beliefs for ruining the series, and that because of Alda's writing, the series has not aged well. Some fans feel the show fell apart with the departures of Henry Blake and Trapper John, others with the departure of Frank Burns and others with the departure of Radar. Harry Morgan, who played Colonel Potter, admitted in an interview that he felt "the cracks were starting to show" by season nine, and revealed that season ten was going to be the last but then they decided to go for just one more.

 

[Neo]

Worst Series Finale for me would have to be Andromeda.. series started off very good, and in turth I enjoyed the first 2 or 3 series.. but the actualy finale to the whole thing and the whole Paradigm, Defeating the Abyss, Route of Age gubbins was just utter monkey chunder.

I still enjoy watching the early episodes though. Had some really cool concepts and I liked the Neitzcheans, Genites etc..

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Worst Series Finale for me would have to be Andromeda.. series started off very good, and in turth I enjoyed the first 2 or 3 series.. but the actualy finale to the whole thing and the whole Paradigm, Defeating the Abyss, Route of Age gubbins was just utter monkey chunder.

I still enjoy watching the early episodes though. Had some really cool concepts and I liked the Neitzcheans, Genites etc..

Another Rodenberry series gone downhill.

Nearly every one of Gene Rodenberries ideas for shows started out really well. Startrek, Earth Final Conflict, Andromeda (which he though up after a particular startrek episode i belive...)

However, all of his shows went downhill after he died and someone else got control. Im not to happy with his wife Majel either, who's allowed the constant to happen in order to keep money in the families accounts. Sometimes I feel she had no real respect for her husbands vision.

I like Kevin Sorbo, but when he became executive producer the show slooooooooooooooowly went downhill. Instead of focusing the show on the creation of the Commonwealth he steamrolled over that particular plot and right past it...

 

[Fast Learner]

Sometimes I feel she had no real respect for her husbands vision.

I don't have any reason to believe that she did. Nor, really, why she particularly should have, if it's not compelling to her.