Sticking the Landing...

[MissKittyFantastico]

I feel like AGT could have been a bit better, but it was damned good. I'm not sure if it's fair to compare it to later shows though, TNG was kind of blessed by not having to wrap up any dangling plot threads in their finale - they chose to go back to the Q trial (good choice) but I don't feel like that was something they had to address (I don't know that it even was unfinished until Q retconned that "the trial never ended"), the Romulan threat kind of petered out after 'Unification' into just something that'd pop up now and then; the only ball TNG really tossed into the air was the DMZ/Maquis situation, specifically for someone else to catch so they didn't have to worry. And being the show it was, they were in a position to suddenly have a finale-grade reality-threatening crisis pop up out of nowhere. The only post-it stuck to the writer's room whiteboard for 'must include' was "show Deanna and Worf dating (ps found an old note of Gene's saying Klingons have two cocks, mention it now or leave it for a later show? Don't tell Brannon or he'll try to work it into every script, you know what he's like)".

Compare to later shows - I remember reading that the DS9 folks took a look ahead to their finale and got a group headache at the thought of trying to tie a nice bow in everything in two hours, leading to the whole serialised back half of s7 (which I think did a great job, really, even if it did stumble). Babylon 5 tackled the task with more foreward planning, but got sabotaged by the season 5 uncertainty (and if we're being honest, I don't like 'Sleeping in Light' as much as I feel like I really should, given how much I like the show as a whole). Battlestar ended up like one of the junkers form Labyrinth, staggering along under the weight of all the ideas it'd piled onto its back early on without giving any thought to what would happen later (I actually get kind of triggered now by the season one intro sequence, like if I were watching it again I'd have to clamp my mouth shut to keep from yelling "No they don't have a plan! They barely have a to-do list!"). I feel like they're really different beasts to TNG, serialised versus episodic, and that places a huge burden on the finale that TNG just didn't have to cope with. (Even Voyager, for all that it tried to play the same episodic game most weeks - the setup of the voyage home (sans whales) I feel demanded a payoff that the arbitrary "Oh hey, that space-magic shortcut you said you'd look for in the premiere, it's over there in that nebula, bye" of 'Endgame' didn't provide.)

[Independent George]

"All Good Things" managed to hit all the right emotional notes, called back to the first episode of TNG, captured the tone and philosophy of TOS, and was a great science fiction story in and of itself. I consider it a genuine masterpiece, and easily the best finale of the entire franchise.

I'll also add that while the Dresden Files series has not yet finished, Jim Butcher is proving to be an absolute master at ending a novel. And beginning a novel, too, for that matter; he has a great feel for both knowing how to hook you on a story, and knowing just how much resolution you need at the end following the climax. It remains to be seen if he can tie up the series as a whole with the same skill, but I'm guardedly optimistic.

[Mad-Man-with-a-Box]

I'm pipe in as I'm a nBSG fan that wasn't upset with the ending. As soon as they decided Earth was going to be Earth set several hundred thousand years in the past, then they sort of shoehorned what they could do. Personally, the finale of Galatica is 90% awesome fitted in with 10% of meh. However, I can understand if the ending did ruin the experience for you.

I think long running series, books or film/TV, are hit and miss in a lot of ways even outside of Scifi. Two of my non-scifi shows I loved, West Wing and Law & Order had different quality finales. West Wing's was satisfactory and ended on a positive note, making you wanting some more. Law & Order didn't give me the same satisfaction. It kind of just ended on a regular episode, and as a result had a weaker conclusion.

[TGLS]

Law & Order didn't give me the same satisfaction. It kind of just ended on a regular episode, and as a result had a weaker conclusion.

Law & Order (US not UK, can't speak for that one) didn't get a series finale. It had a season finale for its last episode. This is why it kind of ends.

[Mad-Man-with-a-Box]

Law & Order (US not UK, can't speak for that one) didn't get a series finale. It had a season finale for its last episode. This is why it kind of ends.

I know but they had an idea it was the last. While I didn't follow it closely, they had a lot of old characters return for that final season, so they had an idea of what was up. They could have made the season finale have more of a 'finale' feel to it.

[Darth Wedgius]

I imagine commercial interests play a part in keeping some franchises going past when a lot of people think they should have ended. The season finale of Stargate SG-1's eighth season was supposed to tie up the show. Their mission was to defend Earth from extraterrestrial threat, and the season saw the defeat of the major threat, Goa'uld System Lords, at least as a galactic power.

Then we got two more seasons, with new bad guys and a new team lead. I'm not even complaining; I liked Mitchell and Vala and I enjoyed the two seasons. And I can't knock those in cast or crew trying to hold onto jobs they like and have done well; it's my entertainment, but it's their livelihood. But I think a lot of fans felt the last two seasons were kind of tacked-on.

And the series finale on TV, Unending, left a lot of loose ends still on the loose. I enjoyed it a lot as an episode, but it was the direct-to-DVD movies that really put the bow on the show.

Which I suppose is kind of the opposite of TNG. TNG I think had no threads it needed to wrap up (the Maquis were going to be another series' problem, and I always saw Data's quest to be more human as a journey that didn't require reaching the destination). All Good Things bookended Encounter at Farpoint nicely, and it took the movies to take the bow off. And Nemesis to try to put the bow back on. By welding.

If I had a time machine, killing Hitler or preventing 9/11 would be my second destination. My first would be to put Frakes or Burton in charge of Nemesis. TNG deserved a better sendoff, damn it.

And I enjoyed the TOS finale. No, not "The Turnabout Intruder." Just no. I mean Star Trek VI. It's my second favorite of the TOS film series, and the signatures of the main cast at the end was really, really nice.