Even Unhappier Endings

I just read an article on MSN about really bad TV finales. They make the point that there aren't any shows coming to an end this year but that both Scrubs and ER will next season. So, they want the writers and producers to avoid certain stupid mistakes.

Since I linked it I won't go into what they say exactly but I do want to let you know I think they left out some things. One type of finale I really hate besides the non-finale (they mention this and call it the "whoopsie-daisy" of finales because apparently no one sees cancelation coming and what ends up going down in history as a show's finale is actually just another episode and nothing gets wrapped up), is the spin-off.

What I mean is, some shows end and their endings are even pretty good or at least not terrible (i.e. the whole "it's all been an autistic boy's imaginings as he stares at a snow globe" catastrophe) wind up being un-finale'd. For example, "The Golden Girls" ended in a two-part episode in which Dorothy Zsbornak, the once-divorced roommate ends up marrying one of Blanche's Southern relatives and goes to live in Atlanta with him. Well, since only Bea Arthur (who played Dorothy) wanted out of the show, this was a way to say goodbye to the character. The stupid part is that Sofia, her elderly mother on the show, doesn't leave with her but stays behind with the two other roommates, Blanche and Rose, in Miami. The show then is spun off into "The Golden Palace", a short-lived sitcom in which the three remaining golden girls run a hotel. If the three women who stayed behind had not been so eager to stay behind playing the same characters, "The Golden Girls" may have ended satisfactorily. Instead, it petered out sadly and had its life abruptly cut off.

The same thing happened with "Friends". I know a lot of you probably don't even like the show or won't admit it if you did, but this show had a pasted together ending because everyone had had enough but by the time they chose to end it, the writers had still dragged on the main plot line (the Ross-and-Rachel romance) and since they wanted to have them together at the end, they had to reunite them in an unbelivable and annoying way. But that isn't even my complaint. That's bad enough- but the really stupid part was that Matt Le Blanc, who for years had played the flirty actor Joey, who was best friends with Chandler (and in a cute speech to Monica given by Chandler about the careful thought he'd given to what their life together would be like it included the line, "...and a room over the garage where Joey could grow old"), decided he still wanted to be this character in a spin-off and suddenly it was like all the years we had sat through were nullified. This new Joey was transplanted to Los Angeles (albeit a better location for an actor) to live with a sister who had not been mentioned or if she had it had not been in this capacity, and her son, who was a college student. Joey never spoke to his Friends again and no more was he going to grow old over Chandler and Monica's garage. It's true people move on or just move, but this show had us believing these particular friends would always stay together or at least stay in touch and it suddenly seemed it wasn't the case. Plus, the show tanked and this left untidy loose ends.

Okay. Now I'm worried about myself because I just spent an hour writing about this pointless topic! But do comment so it won't all have been for naught!