Series Endings

[Wazer]

I just recently saw the last episode of Six Feet Under and I think it had the best way to finish a series I have seen.

Everyone went of to do there new thing and we saw in keeping with the shows' theme how and when everyone died.

 

ST has now had 5 series ends some good some ordinary.

 

TOS - No series ending though because episodic and cancelled early may be explaination. Movies helped rectify this though more than a decade later.

TNG - All Good Things great way to wrap up by reviewing the test from Encounter at Farpoint though the end wasn't really the end as all the characters were still on Enterprise and only the last movie started to show a real end with Riker and Troi leaving and Data destroyed.

DS9 - I think they wraped everything up really well except it went a bit long and we are still asking what happened with Sisko when and how did he come back?

Voyager - Also a great ending except I just stopped and we didn't find out what happened when they got home we could only guess from an Alternate future in which they took more than a decade extra to get home. (Ie Paris and Torres might have stayed in Starfleet a while longer as they were still young but an extra ten years would mean they felt we are home now time to do something else.)

Enterprise - I won't say anything about this as it mostly sucked as an ending.

 

All of these endings had there drawbacks but does anyone have some solutions?

[slug]

The problem with Trek endings is that they have this tendency to have people in shoddy aged makeup throughout the entire episode, as well as possibly trying to make people look ten years younger as in Enterprise.

 

What they did right with six feet was to have the people in aged makeup only for a few brief shots, some of which actually looked convincing. They also had the liberty of being able to dispose of the characters without the need to worry about spinoff potential or movie series.

 

This would be why Trek endings sometimes come off a bit lame, in that there is no real authority to end series in such a way that the characters are disposeable, they are more labours of sentimentality and feel more like an edition of 'this is your life' than an attempt at a gripping conclusion to a narative. Even DS9 suffered from this, it was partialy saved by the fact that it was a conclusion of a serial but it also felt too formulaic by needing to be constructed as sequences which satisfied all the required purposes.

 

End Dominion War - have all the characters get together in the same room for a final time - end the bajor narrative - look back on the show's entire run - show where everyone's going next.

 

As you stated TNG was just the end of the show, not the characters as they knew they were about to do a big film, so it ended the show in a fun way and made it seem like it had come full circle with Q at his best. Of course it still suffered from the sentimentality/aged makeup problem.

 

THe Voyager ending seemed like an attempt to put a reasonable amount of effort into something that had virtually been given up on. More bad ageing makeup again and its a shame that the show didn't end with some culling of the cast to give it some bite seeing as the show had few prospects for any kind of revisit. It could have benefited from some kind of serialised ending like DS9 and would have removed the need to put the effort into making 26 or so lame individual stories for the final season of Voyager. Maybe, if the final episode had them already home? that would have been good, just have a nice unrushed view of what the characters did when they got back, right then, with some nice beach shots and the like, it might have made some of the characters seem alive again, rather than some set based crappy get together in crappy future makeup.

 

I think final episodes for any kind of TV show need at least some location shooting, without it, it just feels boxed up and stifled.

 

 

[kronchev]

TOS - "No series ending though because episodic and cancelled early may be explaination."

TNG - Hm I havent seen this end since its original airing (!) so it's been a while, let me try to remember. I remember that as you said not really anything changed. Q had his fun and schens ensued but nothing really *happened*. The feeling for a series end sometimes is that there should be a definite finate ending where the ship is decommissioned or they all die or something, but that really isn't the spirit of ST in my opinion. Every ep isnt supposed to be every day in their lives, things happen in-between and these are, for better or worse, notable events. As such, unless there's a catastorphic change in the plot, there's nothing that can really be a "real" end.

And if there was, there would be no movies :)

DS9 - Completly do not remember it

Voyager - Pretty much the most final of any of these endings, even including the movies. They made it home. Game over. They win, bad guys lose. The implication is that the Borg were completly destroyed which is good as well. Sorta limits a movie unless time travel is invoked but otherwise, there you go. The most final and solid ending of all of them honestly but does it really fit in with the Star Trek spirit of human exploration? The series didn't really do that to begin with, so possibly the most fitting end.

Enterprise - Still workin my way through the dvds dont ruin it ;)

[Guest c4evap]

Voyager - Pretty much the most final of any of these endings, even including the movies. They made it home. Game over. They win, bad guys lose. The implication is that the Borg were completly destroyed which is good as well. Sorta limits a movie unless time travel is invoked but otherwise, there you go. The most final and solid ending of all of them honestly but does it really fit in with the Star Trek spirit of human exploration? The series didn't really do that to begin with, so possibly the most fitting end.

Enterprise - Still workin my way through the dvds dont ruin it ;)

I agree. Game over. Time travel would be the only way for a movie. Maybe the Borg go back in time to thwart the destruction of thier "hub" and to stop Janeway. That would work I believe. I'd like to see something along those lines.

 

TOS - episodic like everyone has stated, so no ending really but the movies did help.

TNG & DS9 - nice wrap ups.

ENT - no comment! Arggggggggggggggg!

 

c4 B)

[Wazer]

What was good about Voyager and DS9 was you had a real sense that the show had ended.

With Voyager they were home and that was the end of it after that everything is a reunion. But like at school everyone tells you what they are planning to do next because that is important for people you have known for so long.

And it was a shame they didn't included 5 minutes of what happens next.

DS9 had a better end in my opinion because everyone went onto new things but it also left a hook with Sisko's situation that they could have used in a future movie or something.

 

I think TNG did it's wrap up at the end of Nemesis but it left an opening for a movie with b4 though I was less than happy with this as Crusher and La Forge seemed to be left out and it is not clear what Worf is doing there at all.

[Guest c4evap]

Well, I'm sure of one thing...none of this will be relevent to Star Trek XI (working title: Let's see if we can screw with canon one more time). :p

 

c4 B)

[Mav]

TOS - the movies did a nice job imho

 

TNG - it actually ended well, a symmetry. Began with Q ended with Q. Though I think it kinda sucked in a way somewhat, we know the Enterprise-D went on to many missions after season 7, and further more after they got the Enteprise-E but we never get to see them. Not really a way you could end it without like decommissioning the ship or splitting up the crew.

 

DS9, show Sisko beginning his long journey with the Prophets. Maybe some nice panaramic shots of a finally free Bajor that's entering the Federation. I'd definitely change the montage of all seven seasons they had in the last episode. Like part of that was good but most of the "highlights" were like season 6/7 stuff.

 

Voyager, totally don't do the Borg ending. Don't let Janeway get home. Not biast, I liked the show loved it in some aspects. But if they left it open ended, they could have done a couple movies showing them getting home. It just didn't seem like a fitting end. You kinda knew it was coming in a way.

 

Enterprise, well I'd not let Trip die, and have him finally marry T'Pol. Show Andoria and Vulcan coming together along side Humans, Tellerites etc to form the Federation. Maybe not jump ahead that many years but a few at a time. And don't decommission the ship, upgrade it and promote Archer to Admiral etc Kinda showing how the way was pathed for Kirk many years later

 

Overall I think the endings were good, especially TNG. Maybe someday some fans might make some fanmovies or something based on alternate endings, that'd be cool.

[Wazer]

True I think with Enterprise they completely F***ed that up the ending was a cop out it wasn't even the Federation charter just the step before that.

The T'Pol - Trip thing was stupid cos the whole sereies until then sugested they had formed a strrong link and then they just stopped the relationship for no reason.

 

I like your idea for DS9 the montage was silly especially how they purposefully left out Jadzia Dax and only showed Enzri.

Your right you remember the whole lot and Worf would definately remembered his wedding to Jadzia!!!

[Tenebrae]

I think TNG did the best job at an ending. It brought the series full circle. This wasn't just the best ending... it was one of the best episodes - period. Excellent performances, riveting script, a glimpse at the past, present and future. It was just everything a finale should be.

 

DS9 gave the most "complete" ending, all the ends wrapped up and so on but as I've said - too much schmaltz and too quick a wrap-up and an UTTER anti-climax.

 

VOY did what it had to do - got the crew home, doesn't get much more wrapped up than that.

 

ENT - I guess Berman and Braga wanted to make sure we remembered the bad times. Mission accomplished. As an ordinary episode, it would have been fine but as a season finale?