What do you believe was the best TV series closing episode ever?

Hard to pick one but one of my all-time faves is “Newhart” (his second series) when his Bob Hartley character from the “Bob Newhart Show” (his first series) wakes up from dreaming he living that entire second series. It was an absolutely perfect ending to his second series. When his wife from the first series, the late Suzanne Pleshette rolls over and starts talking to him in that wonderful husky voice, I thought I’d fall through the floor.

Babylon 5

The final episode of M*A*S*H.

“From 1983 until 2010, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen remained the most watched television broadcast in American history, passed in total viewership… in February 2010 by Super Bowl XLIV.”

I’ve seen that one, @Pachyderm_In_The_Room and it IS genius!

I’ve never seen Babylon 5 @talljasperman but I’m glad you enjoyed it.

I knew that one would come up quickly, @gailcalled. I was never a big fan, so I’m not sure I ever caught the final episode.

I was quite happy with the last episode of House, M.D.

Friends.

I second M*A*S*H

Life on Mars. (UK version).

I third Newhart.

That could never have happened today. The internet would have spoiled it.

Roseanne. The last episode made that ridiculous final season where they win the lottery into something not ridiculous (though the episodes still aren’t as good as the early ones, of course) and instead very sad and profound. I’ve found it resonating with me more and more as I’ve grown older.

I loved Newhart also.
Cheers last episode was good.

Breaking Bad, though I haven’t seen it yet.

Another vote for House.

I’m pretty sure I saw the final Friends, but I don’t remember it. Seems like there was a lot of talk about Seinfeld’s final?

I was disappointed with the final House (as well as the entire final season).

The Young Ones, the boys crashed & burned in a double decker bus that plummeted over a cliff…classic eighties Britcom.

This isn’t the last episode of the series, but the final episode of season 4 Breaking Bad was damn good. It very well could have closed the whole series if they had wanted it to.

The final Friends episode ended with everyone giving up their keys. Then, someone asks, “Wanna get some coffee?”, and Chandler asks, “Where?”. Which is funny.
Nothing exciting, but that’s exactly what I liked about it. I thought the last episode of House was good, too – but I was too angry at the show ending to really appreciate that.

Beverly Hills 90210’s final episode was perfect.

St. Elsewhere, Fiscus Gets Shot second episode in the story arc.

@filmfann Hold on to your hat!

@ibstubro The final episode of Six Feet Under was fantastic I agree, I like the fact that it made it impossible to reopen the programme.

@Adagio Absolutely the program was dead! And wrapped up.

M*A*S*H* and Newhart.

The Sopranos ~~

And Dexter~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Shield – assuming anyone remembers it. Great cop show on FX.

We are only supposed to answer with one series.
When I saw the question, I came in to say “Six Feet Under”, which I still stand by.

But I have to also give big kudos to…
“Newhart”, “Seinfeld” and “The Shield”

The Dollhouse. Only ran for two seasons before FOX canceled it, and Joss Whedon had to take a series that was meant to arc for five seasons, and find a resolution three years shy. What a challenge – but I think he met it very successfully. The final scene stays with me, the song Everywhere I go, the lighting, the little smile on Echo’s face…

So many shows that are canceled don’t have closure, and I was happy that this was an exception.

(Cheating on the only one rule here, but I also loved the finale of Lost – one that many people were divided over.)

^ Ermagherd, I loved everything about Dollhouse. Especially seeing Wash again, as Alpha. Warmed my nerdy little heart.

However, the best, and saddest episode of M*A*S*H was…..

When Henry died?

Yep. That was a tear jerker.

I’m gonna have to go with ‘Six Feet under’, ‘the Shield’ or ‘Breaking Bad’.

Yeah! @Darth_Algar Another 6 footer!

Dollhouse… Dang. Why is it that all of joss’s shows were cancelled so quickly?

House. I didn’t like it. But it was appropriate. An ending is always sad.

Can’t wait to see the end of six feet under.

Six Feet Under got to be a burden for me and one point @Unbroken. It just gets so damned dark. The final episode makes every minute worthwhile.

If I wanted to watch the whole Six Feet Under series from the beginning, just how much time should I allot? Months, years? I need a project for darkest Jan. and Feb.

@gailcalled I guess that depends on how often you watch and how many episodes you watch in a sitting. For whatever it’s worth the entire series consist of 63 episodes of roughly an hour each.

@Darth

630 hours x my thirty-minute tolerance…That’s 126 separate TV sessions. Doable if we have a long snowy winter. (I did that without using algebra). Thanks

I have the entire run on DVD, @gailcalled. We watched it over the course of maybe 2–3 months, but that was sometimes watching 2–3 episodes in a day.

OCD, much?

If I ever watch the whole show again, there are a couple of episodes I would skip…one was a little too graphic for my tastes and one was simply too disturbing.

@ibstubro I think we watched SFU in about the same amount of time. I’d be curious what two episodes you are talking about . Inbox me, if you will.

Graphic, disturbing AND Michael C. Hall?!? Putting that show on my library list.

@Seek_Kolinahr Yeah, supposedly when Alan Ball pitched ‘Six Feet Under’ to HBO their response was basically “we like it, but it’s too normal. Could you make it a little more fucked up?”.

You should definitely watch Six Feet, @Seek_Kolinahr. I’m betting money that you like it. Too bad I can’t loan you the complete series on DVD, because I own it. The cool thing is, I can pop the last DVD in and relive the whole series by watching the last episode.

Do you need my address? Haha.

I push my luck, daily.