The Top Ten Season Finales Of All Time!
Sep 01 '07 (Updated Jan 14 '08)
The Bottom Line A list of the ten best season finales ever for the enjoyment of my readers. How many have YOU seen?
The season finale is a tricky piece of work for a television show to do well. A truly great season finale needs to do more than simply lead to a cliffhanger that will sucker the audience back to the next season's premiere. A truly great season finale ratchets up the plot, forces the characters to do some serious growth, and leaves the audience desperate to find out what comes next. The responsibilities of a season finale and those of a series finale are two very different things and a great season finale may well raise more questions than it answers or cause a show to shift direction radically, so here are the Top Ten Best Season Finales television has yet produced.
Runners Up: In compiling the list, the top slots were virtually assured the moment the list was conceived. However, much debate raged over the bottom five in the Top 10 and some of the more obvious choices did not get picked. The "Dallas" season finale, for example, where J.R. was shot was easily omitted from the top ten (though intentionally). Others that were closer calls included:
"Alias" - "The Telling" (this was the toughest call to exclude from the top 10!),
"Lost" - "Live Together, Die Alone" (while fans of J.J. Abrams' work could call the first season finale's last shot episodes before, the second season finale was even better),
"Buffy The Vampire Slayer" - "The Gift" (Wow, even though it was well-leaked in advance),
"Angel" - "Tomorrow",
and "The X-Files" - "Gethsemane"
10. "Once & Again" - "The Second Time Around" - Closing out season two (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_198174871172 ), this episode takes a pretty big leap for the series and the truth is, it's ballsy of the show to go as far as it did so fast. With Rick's life completely destroyed by Miles Drintell, he begins to question why Lily would even love him. Scenes with Eli and Grace dare to delve into their sexual chemistry and the conclusion, especially Evan Rachel Wood's singing, is a tearjerker every time. Unlike virtually every other show on this list, this is a great season finale that redirected the show but could have ended the series as well and the unusual, direct tone of the episode makes it an anomaly,
9. "M*A*S*H" - "Abyssinia, Henry" - There might be better episodes of "M*A*S*H," but none of the finales comes closer to the iconic stature of the series than the departure of Colonel Henry. Told that he has been discharged, Lt. Colonel Henry Blake is set to return home, causing the 4077 to rally around him and wish him a farewell. The series would shift dramatically away from slapstick comedy after this (and the timeline awkwardly reset itself as well), so the magnitude and quality of this episode cannot be underestimated. The final scene is worth the price of admission alone and it heartwrenching to this day,
8. "Star Trek: The Next Generation" - "The Best Of Both Worlds" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_76380081796 ). Argued by many a "Star Trek" fan as the best the franchise ever got, "The Best Of Both Worlds" returns the quiet menace of The Borg to center stage. Amid the Federation's preparations for a Borg invasion, Commander William Riker find himself in a position to leave the Enterprise for a command of his own. The balance of the internal threat (represented by Commander Shelby) and the external threat (the Borg) makes this an incredible episode and when the Borg invasion begins, the result is terrific and terrifying, leading up to a captivating cliffhanger. One of the few episodes where the soundtrack is so distinct and judiciously applied as to righteously warrant its release as a recording,
7. "The Simpsons" - "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" - Who says comedies cannot have gripping season finales? At the end of the sixth season (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_339532680836 ), "The Simpsons" took a stab at satirizing the "Dallas" episode that resulted in the shooting of J.R. and ultimately made something that was even more memorable. Sure, years after we forget about the contests and promotions used to hype "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" but that just leaves the episode to stand on its own strengths. And it's a strong episode and a great season finale. Mr. Burns, maniacal billionaire that he is, taps into the newly discovered oil well below Springfield Elementary, leading to his most dastardly plan yet, a sunblocker. The sunblocker becomes the last straw for someone . . . it's funny, clever and holds up over tons of viewings (believe me!),
6. "NYPD Blue" - "Skidoo" - Long after most everyone had stopped watching the series, the show did its most powerful finale yet. Interweaving the personal lives of Andy Sipowicz and Connie McDowell with the squad work and the racially-charged case work brilliantly to lead up to an ending that deserved to have been seen by more people than it actually was,
5. "Babylon 5" - "The Fall Of Night" - "Babylon 5" was something of an anomaly. It did BIG season finales, but it would also do radically large mid-season peaks that ratcheted up the stakes for the plot and characters. In the second season of the series (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_165271998084 ), the interstellar conditions in the galaxy are degenerating as the Centauri make war with the Narn and virtually obliterate the Narn Homeworld. Come the season finale and Captain John Sheridan is forced to make an ethical decision when a Narn ship arrives asking for protection. The episode works amazingly well in its own right, but the more powerful aspect of the episode is in context. Sure, there are bigger finales involving an assassination and the nuking of an enemy stronghold which leave the characters in much more ambiguous places, but "The Fall Of Night" is brilliant in its refusal to play along with the conventions of television. "Babylon 5" is going along, going along normal, going along normal, going along normal, *BOOM* God appears! And it works! Brilliantly. Possibly the least seen episode on this list, it ought to be a part of any true television fan's vocabulary,
4. "The West Wing" - "What Kind Of Day Has It Been" / "Sports Night" - "What Kind Of Day Has It Been" - Okay, this is my cheat. Aaron Sorkin is so enamored with the title "What Kind Of Day Has It Been" that he's used it on all three television series' he's done as the title for the first season finale (and what ended up being the series finale for "Studio Sixty On The Sunset Strip"). On "Sports Night" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_88946806404 ) the episode brings Dana's obsessive behavior to a head following the stresses put on her and the surprise appearance of a character sidelined by a stroke still makes for one of television's most memorable moments (or it would have, had anyone been watching the series). FYI, anyone associated with the show; I'd LOVE a copy of the picture taken as the last shot of the season. I know it exists, it's on Dana's wall the following season!
In a much more conventional outing, the first season finale of "The West Wing" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_341603487364 ) which shares the same title becomes the best finale the series ever did and from the teaser, the viewer knows where it is headed. The magic of the episode is that even though the viewer knows the show is building up to a shooter, the political drama is so engaging that when it finally comes, it's impossible to believe that it's been forty-three minutes already. The radio call that closes the season is haunting even today,
3. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" - "A Call To Arms" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_107542843012 ). Fans of the "Star Trek" franchise continually dismiss "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and the franchise suffers from the failure to take it seriously. At the climax of the fifth season, the Cardassian-Dominion alliance that has been menacing the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant makes its big move. Relentless, though taking time for such character moments like the wedding of Rom and Leeta, this is the epitome of how great science fiction drama can be while still being focused on its own narrative. "A Call To Arms" does not try to connect with the larger world outside the series and it is the payoff for fans and viewers who have devoted five years of attention. It's a masterful work that finally establishes Captain Benjamin Sisko as the pre-eminent StarFleet soldier and Captain,
2. "Twin Peaks" - "The Last Evening" (Episode 7) - (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_414534307460 ) is so astonishingly good that over a decade later, the creators of "Carnivale" would virtually remake it for their first season finale. The weird show had so very many plot threads that come together in the first season finale in such a way that keeps every second of the episode packed with information, character development and twists. It's a fair bet that there's no other finale that has left the fate of so very many main characters up in the air for the summer break. And the great thing about the episode is that decades later, it's still exciting to watch and the end still comes powerfully out of the blue,
AND . . .
. . . drumroll please . . .
1. "Millennium" - "The Fourth Horseman / The Time Is Now" - The two-part season finale represents the most effective ratcheting up of plot and character events of all time for a season finale. Nothing comes close. While Frank Black mends fences with his wife, he works to help Peter Watts see that the Millennium Group is essentially a cult. Unfortunately, the Millennium Group has also unleashed a biological plague for which there is not nearly enough vaccine for the entire populace. While Frank Black works to save his family, his friend Lara Means, and stop the Apocalypse, he becomes overwhelmed and the result is astonishing.
In fact, the season finale is so incredible and big that in order for the series to continue, the show had to pretty much disavow the events of the finale. It takes a ballsy show to wipe out the human race as part of a season finale, but it takes an even ballsier show to take almost an entire act and captivate the viewer with a music video depicting one character's descent into utter maddness. "The Time Is Now" has that and it ratchets the second season of "Millennium" (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_172141678212 ) to a close that it never truly comes back from. It takes an astonishingly ambitious show to make such powerful television and leave the viewer mindblown for days afterward and here at the top of the list is a show that does just that.
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