Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood both had amazing series finales. Made me wanna go back and rewatch from the beginning...

Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (just watched season 4.5 again)

St Elsewhere

As much as I enjoyed Friends I'd put it in that "jumped the shark so long before the finale, the finale didn't mean much" category.

Indeed. Having watched the show from its first episode, that ending totally blew me away!

M*A*S*H
Frasier
Cheers
LOST

MASH
Babylon 5
West Wing
The Shield
Cheers
NYPD Blue
The Wonder Years
Sopranos - very anticipated, but disappointing.

I didn't necessarily anticipate the Newhart finale, but that ending is probably the best of any TV show.

Six Feet Under, hands down. A very satisfying end to a great show. It also has one of my all-time favorite lines: "You can't take a picture of this - it's already gone."

The Shield and LOST are also ones I loved.

The Sopranos hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't think I've ever rewatched an episode so much in my life (particularly the last scene).

While it's not on the horizon, when The Simpsons ends its run I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in tears. While nowhere near the quality of the earlier seasons, the show has been on the air since the Christmas I was born, and have never known a world where the show wasn't pumping out new episodes (2008 Writer's Strike aside).

It's kind of weird thinking about the finales I've enjoyed the most and consider the biggest. For me the only one that I really remember watching when it aired was Seinfeld. The others I've really enjoyed were over by the time I wound up watching for reasons like not having the channel (HBO) at the time of original air date or not being old enough to watch.

My others I'd consider big are Cheers, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then there's the shows that I know will end soon that I'm anticipating but at the same time not wanting them to be done (Breaking Bad, Dexter, Mad Men).

I suppose if you want it to but a feature film really isn't a series finale. That was one series that never got one.

Now that it's been brought up I remember seeing St Elsewhere also

I'm doing the same thing with Chuck right now. A couple times I tried to get the wife to do a Friends marathon but hse's never into it. She'll watch them on TBS anytime they're on but putting in the DVD's are too much trouble

Another example of forgettable episode, great final minutes.

Yeah Andy got promoted to squad leader and that was it. Just another day in the office. Very forgettable series finale.

Lost - my favorite finale
Babylon 5
Battlestar Galactica
Friends
M*A*S*H
Cheers

It should.

Newhart
St. Elsewhere
Both of those tied for all time favorite.

Babylon 5
M*A*S*H
Mary Tyler Moore
Deep Space Nine
The Fugitive

Those are the ones just off the top of my head

Are you being sarcastic? Hard to tell.

I used to be like that - watching something on cable even tho the disc was sitting on my shelf.

However since ditching cable and going OTA/TV on DVD I can't fathom why.

Watching complete series sets from start to finish (doing that again with the King of Queens right now) commercial free is *so* much better than dealing with annoying commercials and flashing bugs in the corner of the screen on cable.

As for my list many of these aired before I was born or a small child so I enjoyed them on home video but:

1) M*A*S*H* - enjoyed the show for years until they released the finale as a syndicated TV movie of the week back in the 90s.

2) Barney Miller - a wonderful three part ending where, after years of solving the problems of everybody else, they couldn't save themselves. Just saw this recently thanks to the complete series from Shout Factory.

3) Seinfeld...although that was a let down. I was wondering how a show about nothing could make a big ending...and it seems they couldn't.

4) ST: DS9 - Enjoyed it even more than the TNG ending. By far the best Trek IMO...I just wish those TV movie DS9 spin offs for the old UPN I read about in TV Guide actually happened.

5) Cheers - great ending. Enjoyed it a few times more since I got the complete series set

6) Newsradio - great ending to a great series. On the commentary track creator Paul Simms sounded rather depressed at the end with him saying over the final seconds of the final scene "And that was....NEwsradio"

7) The Prisoner - great ending

8) Futurama (Fox run) - great way to wrap it up

9) Arrested Development...nuff said.

10) Sledge Hammer (season one ending) - In a way I wish season two hadn't have happened since what they thought would be the series ending at the end of S1 was so perfect.

11) King of the Hill - From what I remember of it I enjoyed it greatly...now if those bastards at Fox would just release it on disc I could know if I'd still enjoy it now.

12) Homicide TV Movie Finale - Loved the final scene with G. sitting and drinking coffee with a few of his detectives.

13) The Fugitive - that final scene with Gerard and Kimble was remarkable - as was the finale as well.

I remember the Cheers finale in 1993, as the build-up to that episode was huge. The finale was terrible, like most series finales.

The Seinfeld finale hype was just as big as the Cheers finale hype in 1998, probably even bigger. I actually liked the finale (the majority of people hated it at the time), but as I have seen it in reruns, it is a pretty lame and unoriginal finale.

The Sopranos hype in 2007 was pretty big for a cable show, and that will go down as the WORST finale in the history of finales!

The best finale was Newhart in 1990 was not a hugely popular show, so it didn't get much hype. Don't want to to spoil it if you never watched, but the BEST ending for any series.

Not mentioned often, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Rob finally gets his book written and published, a collection of funny stuff that's happened in his life(re: the plots of the episodes). Alan Brady likes the book so much he's going to produce it as a tv series with himself starring as Rob. Basically, they're going to make Dick Van Dyke Show.

Biggest EVENT finale for me was LOST. Requested off work and went to see it on the big screen in theaters . Great finale . One of the Best Ever. I do wish more of the cast was killed off. In fact most of the characters I wanted to die lived (Kate, Sawyer, Ben).
Runner-Up goes to the Sopranos. HUGE event for me. Loved that show and still might make it as number 1 series of all time but the finale was a let down in many ways. X-files finale was even worse.

But the absolute Best finale of all time would have to be SIX FEET UNDER. Just amazingly powerful. The Best finales I would say are Six Feet under, Lost and Battlestar Galactica.



Getting close to the end of Rescue me . I hope that show has a good finale.

It was. i remember they did such a great job of sending out phoney leads to keep the real ending a secret. These days someone on set would have tweeted the ending 30 seconds after it was shot and ruined the big surprise.

Yes, I'm being serious. I watched NYPD Blue for probably half of it's 12 season run. Bits and pieces of the Simone years and regular viewer after Rick Schroder joined until the end.

For a show that helped re-define the police drama and was part of the reason the FCC established the TV ratings system, I thought the series finale was just another episode. I'm not saying it was bad, it was a good episode. I know Steven Bochco didn't want to end the series in some crazy blaze of glory, but it didn't have any real sense of closure for me. Like I said, it was just another day in the office.

I was happy to see Sipowicz promoted to squad leader even though he was only a Sergeant.

But, I would have liked to have seen Andy reflect a little more on his past and how he got to where he was. NYPD was an ensemble show, but Andy was the heart and soul of it. I would have liked maybe a scene with Andy, Connie and Theo visit the graves on Sylvia or even Simone. I was also disappointed that Charlotte Ross left the show and wasn't part of the final season other than her character mentioned in passing. They should have tried to bring her there at least for the final episode.

Cool. I agree 100%. So much squandered potential with 'Blue.' They certainly didn't need to blow up the squad, bring in a tank, drop a helicopter on a main character, or anything equally ridiculous(that er seemed to specialize in) , but it did deserve a memorable case and maybe something a bit more personal to Andy.

That's pretty wry of them since IIRC Carl Reiner (Alan Brady and the creator of the show) pitched it with him starring as the lead but the network nixed the idea in favour of Dick Van Dyke.