Tuesday, May 30, 2006
2006 Season Finales
I've always been a fan of the cliffhanger ending for a season. They gotta give me the hook to back next season (I'd most likely be there anyway, but I like the push). And this year, television shows did not fail to deliver:
Sci Fi Friday kicked it off. Stargate and Atlantis had decent nail-biters, but Battlestar Galactica pushed it over the top with a finale that turned the show's premise on its head and giving the impression that the Cylons had won. Whether this turns out to be just a dream sequence or not, it was a helluva ending that left the viewers guessing.
Grey's Anatomy's finale was a half-and-half, primarily because it was three hours long,. The first hour was a perfect cliffhanger, and would have made a fantastic season finale. Instead, they decided to wrap it up in a way-too-long episode that ended with a much milder hook. Should have been next season's opener.
ER...wow. We had really stopped watching this season this year - with its schmaltzy twists, the writers really seemed determined to put the drama into dramamine. However, the ending scene between Luka and Abby was outrageous and a definite tune-in moment.
And as for the heavy hitters I was expecting from Lost, Alias, and 24? Ermmm, more like grounders.
Lost was so-so: it reached a smashing good point 2/3rds of the way in, and then meandered a bit for the last twenty minutes and came close to jumping the shark in the last few minutes.
Alias' series finale was a tremendous disappointment. A fitting end for Sloan, but the way the ended things for the Bristow family left me cold. Irina was turned into a cardboard James Bond villain with little motivation, and the big reveal was something they had hinted at first season. That red ball sure has various uses. No wonder one should never taunt Happy Fun Ball. For me, the end of last season was the way the show should have ended. Maybe I'll just pretend this whole season was once big dream.
24's finale was okay, except they lost all concept of the real time aspect. President Logan gets his mojo going with Mrs. Logan and gets dressed in under two minutes? Jack is caught by Chinese agents, beaten within an inch of his life, and placed on a freighter already out to sea in five minutes?
Of all the shows this season, none had a more satisfying finale that the now cancelled Invasion. Slow to gather speed after its launch, and hurt by its release so soon after the Katrina disaster, Invasion was the best of the three sci-fi offering from the big networks (which included the already cancelled Surface and Treshold). Like Saun Cassidy's earlier American Gothic, it relied on family dynamics and relationships to drive its fantastic plot. I can't spoil that last episode for those who have not seen it,but it worked equally well as season and series finales: bringing the year's worth of show full circle and leaving you wanting more.
------------------------------------------------