With the finale of Lost tonight, I've been thinking of the various ways that long-running series have capped of their runs. Some have been great. Some have, of course, sucked.

Off the top of my head, here are the ones I've liked (in no particular order, though I'd probably put Newhart and the Shield on top)

• Newhart
  the Shield
  Magnum, PI
  Hawaii Five-o
  Six Feet Under
  The Sopranos
  Mary Tyler Moore
  Star Trek: TNG
  the Fugitive

Ones I hated (again, in no particular order, but I really, really, hated MASH and Seinfeld's):

• MASH
  Seinfeld
  Twin Peaks
  X-files
  Alf

Thoughts?

Some of my favs are up there, not mentioned:

Good:
Quantum Leap: Not epic, but a decent ending.

Bad:
Barney Miller

I liked Quantum Leap's. Good call.

I remember seeing Barney Millers's but don't remember anything particularly objectionable about it (or memorable, for that matter, other than the fact he finally got promoted). What happened?

Oh, and speaking of bad ones:
Night Court.

Good:

Farscape - It's obvious that Sikozu, D'argo, and Grunchlk are all alive, so they didn't really provide absolute closure for every avenue of the series. But that was forgivable since the creators were vying for a revival and the "ending" was pretty good even though the moral of the story felt like a rehash of the hippy bullshit about nuclear weapons.


Bad:

Sliders - I'm just gonna inject this syringe into my blood stream and disappear forever now. See ya!

Star Trek: DS9 - Cisco's some kinda prophet now and Odo's buried himself in splooge? What the fuck!?

Star Trek: Enterprise - Oh my dear lord in heaven--NOOOOOOO!!!

Alien Nation - The movie's could have been great if they had simply addressed the original problems the series had with its preachiness. Not to mention they tried to reinvent the setting by making Kathy more militant and turning George's wife into some kind of separatist cunt.

Frasier - So he leaves Seattle to board a plane to wherever this swindling matchmaker tard decides to move and yet the show is so unsure about the decision that it doesn't actually confirm that he's gone to California. Fucking brilliant, assholes.

Quantum Leap - "God bless you Sam." Fuck you! Fuck YOU Bruce McGill!

Wojo finds two Revolution era muskets in the basement of the 12th. They find out it used to be important place in the war.

They close down the twelfth to make it historical land mark.

Wow. I'd completely forgotten that. Shows how unmemorable it was.

Either way, Barney Miller was overall a great show. I wish I could find it in reruns somewhere.

Hulu

Except for the pot brownie episode.

That was one of the best ones. Yemmana going "mushy mushy mushy"

It's most likely to sell the DVD.

This weeks Ashes to ashes finale was one of the best show endings that I have ever seen.

Six Feet Under was good, but the last sequence was too depressing. I don't wanna know how everyone dies!

That bothered me too.

Actually, in the context of that particular show, I thought it was brilliant. A series finale of a show about death where everyone dies but not until some of them live to be a ripe old age.

I laughed out loud when Brenda, at the age of 80, drops dead of boredom while still listening to her idiot brother Billy's stupid, Snarfian, yammering.

That 70's show finale was great. Too bad the show was ruined by then.

The Shield is the greatest finale ever. Nothing will come close to its awesomeness.

Friends, Seinfeld and most sitcoms finales are horrible because those shows are meant for big dramatic episodes.

I remember seeing the Newhart finale when I was a kid. I thought it was funny once my parents explained it to me.

I loved the Shield finale as well.

A bunch of people expected and wanted Vic sentenced to prison.

I think Vic's "sentence" was pretty horrible.

He is either stuck at that desk forever having his evil deeds exposed.

Or, he is sentenced to jump through the hoops of fire forever, this time alone without friends, or his badge.

Ronnie might get out of Jail someday.

WGN retro night.

Yep. In fact, the way the ICE lady described his job duties, complete with "lights out" instructions made it pretty clear that he did end up in a sort of prison.

If I had to pick a single best finale ever it would be the Shield. The only one to come close is/was Newhart but obviously that's a completely different kind of program.

Newhart's finale is considered the be the best one of any series ever made. I'd agree. It's hard to beat something that genius and well-executed...

I remember ST:TNG being a special finale. Others had good ones but that one just worked on every level. The final Lost episode isn't finished yet but so far it might just be right up there with that one.

Yeah, Lost is finally ending. Now more dodging the show like have since half way thru season 2.

What a piece of shit the LOST finale was.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

BUt seriously, the two season finales of the original Life On Mars were both brilliant, and the finale of Ashes To Ashes season one was amazing as well.

You aint seen nothing yet.
Series 2 ending is better than series 1, and series 3 ending is better than anything ... ever!

That's great. I'll give the producers of Lost something to steal from for their next series.

WGN plays it all the time. They even had a marathon of it a couple months ago.

What is this WGN? I'm guessing it is a cable channel they don't carry around here.

I think they broadcast out of Chicago. It's a local station that somehow gets on national cable.

Yeah.

Direct and Dish both offer it too.

They play all the "CW" shows.

kamphauseners!