I liken it to High Noon, where you have a general idea where things might suss out, and the story is in the execution and the inevitability of it all.

as if that wouldn't be trite and predicatable. I mean, that's what people have said from the beginning. No way it goes down like that.

I hope you're right

I guess, how much to do you trust/believe Matt Weiner? Because he's said 100% it ain't gonna happen.

I actually really like the direction they're going and I'd be stunned if Don jumped from any tall buildings.

Ultimately I think the closest we'll get to a resolution is Don starting over in California. He may never set foot in the McCann building again.

He's a damaged dude. I just don't see him as a suicidal one. Someday he'll drink himself to death but I think his arrogance would keep him from ever committing suicide. As unhappy as he may be, he's self-assured enough to convince himself that he'll turn it around.

Sadly, if anyone goes out the window, it may be Roger. But I think Roger's probably content being lecherous and rich, even if the death of his name creates a dark period for him. It does seem like a pretty lousy new world for the old guard at SCP.

I don't think so, either. The opening sequence has always been a metaphor about Dick/Don's life, IMO. But as I had mentioned in an earlier post, I'm not sure if Don looking out the window was Weiner teasing us or if it was foreshadowing.

I expect Don's fate to be open ended and unresolved because IMO, the only true resolution for him is death. He is who he is and he'll be that way until the day he dies.

Plus, an unresolved ending is a very "David Chase" thing to do.

I really expected that Roger would keel over the organ the other night while Peggy was roller skating around him.

He has a heart condition!!

part of why I thought it was gonna happen. The boozing, smoking, and then that exclamation.

So is there 1 more episode left?

2

Like most here, feels like an epilogue. Should have ended with McCann buying them and the soft shoe.

But, I'm use to shows not giving their fans the endings they want.

What ending do you want? What you said above? Is that really your absolute ideal ending for this show?

I can't think of a single dramatic program that has ended with a resolution that's made me happy. Whether it was The Soprano's or LOST (which I hate to this day) or even Breaking Bad (I still think Walter's a alive), nothing ends well.

The worst (or maybe the best?) was Six Feet Under. Nate dies and the final episode feels like an epilogue, describing how each character lived and died, beyond the show.

But in terms of your question, I'd have rather seen it end with Bert's soft shoe than what's happened this season. Everything has been one gigantic "Duh" of a let down for me.

6FU was a great final 6 minutes.

But as for a great ending in terms of culminating over the course of a season in a comfortable and satisfying place, too bad you missed Justified. It really [re]set the bar.

Its small coterie of fans were already high on the series, but how it came to a close has them thinking it might be among the best series in TV history.

I'll get to Justified this year for sure. I've seen the first three seasons and will catch up after Fright Night Lights, which I just started last night, although that it's for research more than the show itself.

Endings are difficult. Especially for shows with rabid fans.

We, as a TV watching culture, put way too much stock into them.

Look who is in Bentonville, AR for the Bentonville Film Fest (to support her movie Fan Girl, which is being screened here).

https://scontent-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...53&oe=55D20947

Note: guy in picture is not me. Just a dude I know in the area.

I'm sorry but I could not disagree more.

The very first, and I mean THE VERY FIRST thing that ANY Film/TV screenwriter should create/present is the beginning and ending for each every character, especially the main characters.

Now, that said, I had a highly successful TV and film screenwriter/producer over all day Saturday for a hang and he said, and I quote "I've often found that the TV or film will 'speak to me'. The show knows where to go, especially after characters have been established. But that doesn't mean that I should betray the original fate for characters because it's veered off course a bit".

Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse finally revealed publicly that they had no idea where they were going with LOST. I think David Chase just gave the fans and HBO a big giant "**** You" with the ending of The Sopranos.

Obviously, Chuck Lorre wouldn't have killed Charlie Sheen had their relationship not become so incredibly volatile. And while Chuck is known to be the biggest asshole dickhead in town, no one cares because he's the most successful Show Runner/Producer/Writer in TV history and can sit down and write an amazing Act in 2 hours, where it takes a room of 10 writers a week to write three acts.

The bottom line is that the viewers deserve a satisfying ending.

Maybe we missed something.... :hmmm:

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How I Met Your Mother had an ending in mind when the series began. They even filmed part of it so the children wouldn't have aged.

And by the time that series wrapped up, that ending was awful. Didn't matter - Bays and Thomas stuck with their original ending and as far as I was concerned, made the entire show difficult to watch in re-runs.

Having the ending figured out in advance can be a really bad thing if you're unwilling to veer away from it.

It's only a bad ending because they continually said that Robin wasn't the Mother. The writers screwed themselves. It's the same reason why LOST was so ****ing awful the final season. They lied. To everyone.

That's the reason why the Friends finale works: At no point did Ross & Rachel EVER say they wouldn't end up together, nor did the writers ever emphasize that point.

Right, but you're not a writer. So it makes sense that you feel that way. I'll just respectfully disagree.

And I don't really care whether or not Lindelof/Cuse knew where they were going. Either way I enjoyed it. But we don't need to rehash all of that again and again and again.

I would like to request a link that shows they "finally revealed publicly that they had no idea where they were going," though. If you have one handy.

HIMYM's ending while infuriating, at least made sense from the point that Bays and Thomas alluded to it for the entirety of the show through allusions to Bertold Brecht and "Love in the Time of Cholera." They just didn't show their hand until the episode where Ted imagines the conversation between himself, himself from the future, Barney and Barney from the future.

Really, what ****ed up HIMYM was the fact that it shouldn't have gone beyond the seventh season.

Actually, I AM a "writer" and narrative is extremely important to my work.

It was a bad ending because they spent the last 2+ seasons getting viewers invested in the whole Barney/Robin thing and the last season getting them to really like the mother. They did a lot to show why Ted/Robin weren't a good fit for each other and frankly I'm convinced they aren't.

Then they !@#$ing killed the mother and divorced Barney/Robin in 10 minutes to absolutely shove that stupid damn Ted/Robin thing down our throats.

There were a lot of reasons why that ending didn't work and because of that, just friggen scrap it. It was a fine concept but over the 7 seasons that followed, you have to be willing to be open to the fact that your original ending just isn't going to work now.

My apologies, then. I just assumed from context clues in some of your other posts that you weren't -- or at least, not a write of narrative fiction.

We just have totally different views on this point of process, then.

I'm a film & TV composer, so narrative is especially important to my process.

They wrote themselves into a corner and it was their fault. They could have written a more appropriate final season and ending because the show took them to places they didn't expect to go initially. Looking back, they went way off the tracks and had they not continued to shove the Ted/Robin thing down the viewers throats, could have had a much better ending.

Overall, it was just dumb on their part. Plus, the show became nearly unwatchable, if not completely unwatchable, around 2011 for me. I only tuned into occasionally and for the extremely disappointing finale.

But hey, Seinfeld's one of the greatest sitcoms of all time and it's hard to name a worse finale. Larry David acknowledged as much during a season of Curb in which he did an addendum to it.

Ah! So you don't write scripts! I was sorta right!

I get where you're coming from. I think as a culture we're way too fascinated with destinations over journeys. It's not just film and TV, but literature as well.

Why do we give so much weight to the final third or episode or two minutes of something when there has been so much more before it to celebrate?

I'm a big fan of beginnings and unfoldings. Rarely has an ending made or ruined a script/book/film/show for me.

:thumb:

Agree about Seinfeld.

The other issue with HIMYM is the network structure though. Look, I get money money money! Of course. It makes all the sense in the world. But it plays against the artist process sometimes. Give show creators a finite number of episodes and give it to them early. Let them wrap up on their own terms. Especially with something like a LOST or a HIMYM that has a sprawling, overarching "mythology" or narrative gimmick.

While I agree, I'd rather see an ending like that of The Office or even Six Feet Under, as opposed to The Soprano's, LOST, etc.

There should be a satisfying resolution for the viewer, IMO. That doesn't mean that it should or shouldn't be a topic of debate but that a character's journey has been resolved, as opposed to the vague or "open ended" finale of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad.

Mad Men, frankly, is probably suffering, if it's suffering at all, from that same thing. Just to a smaller degree. Had Weiner been allowed to wrap up a season ago or two seasons ago the show would be a no-brainer best of all time show.

But AMC needed that money money. Again, I don't fault them for it, but I think it can hurt a creative product when that happens.

HIMYM's writers did a poor job of extending the shelf life of their program. They should have added more characters that would have extended the story's arc. New Girl has done a fine job of just that, replacing Damon Wayans, jr. when he couldn't get out of his ABC contract, bringing him back when he did, then just last night, after two seasons, seeing him leave again.

I realize that it's often difficult for show runners to balance commerce versus art but in the case of HIMYM, they betrayed themselves and the audience, IMO.

I don't disagree in general terms. But I think it's a case by case thing. An ending should feel satisfying. But it's also difficult satisfy everyone. I didn't love Breaking Bad's finale. But not because it was open ended. It seemed pretty open and shut to me. But you obviously found more wiggle room in it. Can't appease everyone. Plenty of people adore the BB finale.

Agreed about HIMYM. There were certainly things they could have done differently. And should have done. New Girl is wonderful. But the difference there is that I don't know that there's a long-game there. It can keep treading water because there isn't an answer waiting at the end. Like Friends which you mentioned earlier. Same thing. In fact, maybe a little too similar.

BB's finale was fine but it certainly left the door wide open.

Bryan Cranston has acknowledged as much in the past year, which lessens its impact for me.

And for the record, I didn't hate it or dislike it. It just gave me the feeling of "Well, this isn't really over", which pretty much defeats the purpose of a series finale.

Interesting. I mean, I feel like there's more story to tell in that world. Obviously, now we've got BCS. But Walter's story felt pretty definitely over. Cranston has more authority here than I do. OBVIOUSLY. LMAO

So, I'll defer to him. If he feels that way then there you go. But I don't see it.

It's what Friends would be had it been created in 2011.

Multi-racial, urban, quirky and somewhat predictable.

That's an instant recipe for success and why it's received the ratings and accolades over the years.

This has been WAY more fun than talking about the ****ing Patriots.

Ensemble sitcoms are much more a writer's vehicle nowadays. Sure it's about pretty, diverse, 20-somethings, but the structure is a coatrack for quips much more than in the days of Friends, which was more about situations, performances and catchphrases. I enjoy watching it, but there are so many instances of the episode revolving around a couple key opportunities for wordplay. This phenomenon got it's big break with all the things 'Sex Panther' smelled like in Anchorman, and just this last weekend, Last Week Tonight had a skit riffing on all the crap Bud Lite tastes like.

@2:50

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However -- and believe me I've logged more Friends and HIMYM hours in this life than I care to admit, like basically two to four hours a night for the better part of a decade -- Friends still holds up a bit better than HIMYM in terms of sexism, portrayal of women, etc. You would think HIMYM, being the younger brother learning from bigger siblings mistakes, would have improved in those terms.

I was more talking about New Girl, Mindy Project, Happy Endings, Weird Loners, etc., than HIMYM.

:thumb:

In my haste to make my clarification, I missed the tail end of your post.

Wonder what you think about the present day critiques of homophobia in Friends. First the whole 'is Chandler gay' thing, then the stuff with his dad the trans lounge singer.

I've noticed a lot of millennials getting snarky, but then that's the age we're in.

I've noticed that "Millennials" haven't realized that society existed long before they were born into this world, and has evolved, thus I couldn't care less about their complaints.

Never really cared for Friends. Part of that was because I was like 8 when it began and never got into it.

Seinfeld had some great moments, but even though I laughed there was always something that bothered me about the fact that I was laughing.

Frasier, on the other hand, that was a great NBC sitcom.

Frasier is a very well written sitcom I totally took for granted. I know there are classic bits from it, but I'd be hard pressed to recall them [I know, I know, I know].

What is great, though, is to go on youtube and find out who all the celebs were who called into his show.

See how many you can guess without peeking

Of course, you know that Lisa Kudrow was the original Roz, right up to the first day of taping.

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Friends isn't flawless, for sure. But it feels far more progressive for its time than HIMYM does for its time in that regard.

Today, I'd prefer that an actual trans actor play Chandler's father. But the inclusion of a trans character at all was fairly forward thinking. Also, Friends is so damned white-washed. Living in the Village in the 90s/00s you'd think they'd encounter some greater ethnicity. Again, not flawless.

Slow clap

I just think that was a quirk of the show in that it relied heavily on the same tropes of Frasier and Niles being up-their-own-ass intellectuals whose nature conflicted with Martin / Daphne / Ros' grounded and sensible personalities such that every episode had a same-y feel to it but it didn't detract from the quality.

Aisha wasn't enough? ;)

Heh! And Kristen Lang. :drool:

I remember;

something about Fraiser catching a trashcan on fire
something about Niles ruining a dinner
the episodes starting off with witty radio banter
and, Bulldog being a staunch gay activist IRL.

that's about it.

And something about scrambled eggs?

Well of course I remember tidbits, but plotwise it's a big black hole.

Oh! I remember Lillith coming to visit a couple different times, making for classic episodes.

Speaking of Lillith, since we're discussing Frasier in the Mad Men thread. Johnny Mathis, meet Freddy Crane.

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The whole Daphne being engaged to that ... one guy.. which caused Niles some grief.

Constant jokes about Maris.

Parental humor concerning Frasier's relationship with Freddy.

Lilith's deadpan snark but also looking hot at some point and tempting Frasier (even though they didn't go through with anything.)

The episode where Frasier's past loves came to him as apparitions.

The episode where Frasier and Niles were trying to cover up what looked like a murder.(?)

A few bottle episodes concern Martin and his time on the police force / his relationship with his blue collar buddies.

I think Frasier got rid of / Martin's ugly ass recliner got torched and Frasier managed to find a duplicate -complete with the same wear-in patterns / damage.

New Years Eve in the Winnebago.

I remember, much like Don Draper, Fraiser had a baller balcony w/ a view.

wwhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Yeah, Boyd should have died in season 1.

the laugh track made it unwatchable, IMO.

I'm conditioned enough that most laugh tracks don't bother me.. Just like getting used to seeing the network watermark in a corner of the screen.

Problem is they used the SAME laugh track for all 200+ episodes and it has someone have the most annoying ****ing laugh in the world on it.

I've never been a laugh track fan, but the silences in the Yahoo season of Community is starting to freak me out. Don't know if they need a laugh track or just better scoring and ambient noise.

Pay attention to it, or not. Once it's noticed, cannot be unnoticed.

I can't remember a finale I was happy with besides Mash.

I thought Breaking Bad was better than Seinfeld which was better than Lost.

Newhart is still the greatest of all time, IMO and I'm not sure there will ever be an equal finale.

But seriously tho. Utopos.

Forgot about that.:thumb:

Of course, you'd have to be of a certain vintage to understand its brilliance.

:D

Best finale, or best final scene?

Maybe the best final scene to a series, ever? Although as I pointed out earlier and you augmented, Six Feet Under had a great finale as well.

Lauren's character had a particularly poignant ending considering her journey during the series.

re terrible finales, the show st elsewhere had the ending reveal that the show was just a part of an autistic kids toy-dumb

So Joan turned out to be a literal whore.

Awesome.

Also Sally Draper is such a great little aspiring bitch. Just like her mother.

That was sticking with me, and at first I thought it was its hints of Reservoir Dogs. Then in hit me.

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That makes no sense at all.

I make no claim to meaning, but the visual similarity is undeniable.

Onto season 6!

http://i.imgur.com/1QLmu3N.jpg

I can't believe what a ****ing dick Don Draper is. Cheating on his second wife and then being a huge jerk because she has to do some fake kissing on a TV show.

YOU DICK!