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30 Days of TV - days 22-24
Still catching up...
( The Days )
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
I'm assuming this means last ever episode of a series, rather than season finale. Which makes this a really hard one. Man, oh, man have there been some stinkers! Sometimes it's unintended, when a show gets cancelled unexpectedly. Other times, it's deliberate and I'm left wondering what on earth the writers were smoking (and where can I get some?). Most often, though, a finale written when the writers know the end is coming tends to be kinda vaguely disappointing. Not awful, just kinda meh, you know? I've felt that way about a lot of them.
I'm tempted to pick the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that is one I personally think is stunning, with Willow's nifty spellwork, that brilliant montage of potential slayers, and the magical scythe as a baton passed from slayer to slayer. But I'm going to choose a different one: Highlander.
It was actually the first episode of Highlander I ever saw: the very last ep. Not surprising that the show made little sense to me at first, is it? It's a two-part finale episode and I hadn't seen the first part. It's also an It's a Wonderful Life riff; so really you need the whole backstory of who Duncan is and the lives he's touched to get it. But even completely lost, there was something in that episode that touched me enough to make me check out the show when it finally got repeated. I think it was the scene of baddass Methos in the bar :)
But the second time I saw the finale, I watched in the right order. Other shows have done the world-without-me thing and it doesn't really work. On Highlander it works brilliantly, because of the emotional place the character is in - so many friends lost, so much weight on his shoulders - and because Duncan truly is a character who makes lives better. He makes others want to be better, so the conceit of taking his life out of the world, and how much it would have changed really, really underlines what the whole six years were about: friendship, hard choices, love and loss and good triumphing over evil no matter the odds, no matter the cost. An almost-perfect finale.
Day 23 - Most annoying character
OMG WesleyfuckingWyndham-Price!!!!
I hate his guts. I loathe and despise him. He's a total sodding git. He was bad enough in Buffy where at least we were supposed to hate him. But then they killed my darling, darling Doyle from Angel and replaced him with that sodding wanker! %fvb£nv*&fhg*aho;3r2o9imn!
You know what: every time Wesley got beaten up, or shot, or someone cut his throat, I fucking cheered, praying to the god of Joss that this would finally be the end of him. What did he get nine lives for? What made that piece of slime worthy?
Best thing about the Angel series finale? He finally, finally died. Why'd he have to wait so long? Huh?
Day 24 - Best quote
I could choose Delenn's coolest ever moment from Babylon 5, but I already chose that for Best Scene. I thought about quoting one of Angel's heroic monologues or one of Dean's wisecracks.
I love all of those, but there is a quote much more memorable to me. Only once has a short exchange of dialogue convinced me I need to see more of a show. It was the first episode of Friends I saw. The show had been recommended to me by a friend with truly terrible taste in comedy, so I assumed I wouldn't like it. But I agreed to watch one ep, give it a fair try. That was The One With the Baby on the Bus (season two).
Chandler and Joey aka the world's most irresponsible babysitters take baby Ben out for a walk because Joey says women dig men with babies. Sure enough, they get chatting to a couple of women while riding the bus and they're having so much fun they get off the bus without the baby. Cue much panic until they locate some kind of baby lost-and-found at the bus company. They rush in, only to find there are two babies there...and they can't tell which one is Ben. One baby has pictures of ducks on his clothing, the other has pictures of clowns. With no way to tell them apart, Joey suggests they flip a coin. Since they have no better plan, a desperate Chandler agrees. Joey tosses a coin in the air...
I totally fell in love with Friends from that moment on.
( The Days )
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
I'm assuming this means last ever episode of a series, rather than season finale. Which makes this a really hard one. Man, oh, man have there been some stinkers! Sometimes it's unintended, when a show gets cancelled unexpectedly. Other times, it's deliberate and I'm left wondering what on earth the writers were smoking (and where can I get some?). Most often, though, a finale written when the writers know the end is coming tends to be kinda vaguely disappointing. Not awful, just kinda meh, you know? I've felt that way about a lot of them.
I'm tempted to pick the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that is one I personally think is stunning, with Willow's nifty spellwork, that brilliant montage of potential slayers, and the magical scythe as a baton passed from slayer to slayer. But I'm going to choose a different one: Highlander.
It was actually the first episode of Highlander I ever saw: the very last ep. Not surprising that the show made little sense to me at first, is it? It's a two-part finale episode and I hadn't seen the first part. It's also an It's a Wonderful Life riff; so really you need the whole backstory of who Duncan is and the lives he's touched to get it. But even completely lost, there was something in that episode that touched me enough to make me check out the show when it finally got repeated. I think it was the scene of baddass Methos in the bar :)
But the second time I saw the finale, I watched in the right order. Other shows have done the world-without-me thing and it doesn't really work. On Highlander it works brilliantly, because of the emotional place the character is in - so many friends lost, so much weight on his shoulders - and because Duncan truly is a character who makes lives better. He makes others want to be better, so the conceit of taking his life out of the world, and how much it would have changed really, really underlines what the whole six years were about: friendship, hard choices, love and loss and good triumphing over evil no matter the odds, no matter the cost. An almost-perfect finale.
Day 23 - Most annoying character
OMG WesleyfuckingWyndham-Price!!!!
I hate his guts. I loathe and despise him. He's a total sodding git. He was bad enough in Buffy where at least we were supposed to hate him. But then they killed my darling, darling Doyle from Angel and replaced him with that sodding wanker! %fvb£nv*&fhg*aho;3r2o9imn!
You know what: every time Wesley got beaten up, or shot, or someone cut his throat, I fucking cheered, praying to the god of Joss that this would finally be the end of him. What did he get nine lives for? What made that piece of slime worthy?
Best thing about the Angel series finale? He finally, finally died. Why'd he have to wait so long? Huh?
Day 24 - Best quote
I could choose Delenn's coolest ever moment from Babylon 5, but I already chose that for Best Scene. I thought about quoting one of Angel's heroic monologues or one of Dean's wisecracks.
I love all of those, but there is a quote much more memorable to me. Only once has a short exchange of dialogue convinced me I need to see more of a show. It was the first episode of Friends I saw. The show had been recommended to me by a friend with truly terrible taste in comedy, so I assumed I wouldn't like it. But I agreed to watch one ep, give it a fair try. That was The One With the Baby on the Bus (season two).
Chandler and Joey aka the world's most irresponsible babysitters take baby Ben out for a walk because Joey says women dig men with babies. Sure enough, they get chatting to a couple of women while riding the bus and they're having so much fun they get off the bus without the baby. Cue much panic until they locate some kind of baby lost-and-found at the bus company. They rush in, only to find there are two babies there...and they can't tell which one is Ben. One baby has pictures of ducks on his clothing, the other has pictures of clowns. With no way to tell them apart, Joey suggests they flip a coin. Since they have no better plan, a desperate Chandler agrees. Joey tosses a coin in the air...
CHANDLER: Heads!
JOEY (relieved): It's heads.
CHANDLER (suddenly seeing the flaw in this plan): We have to assign "heads" to something!
JOEY (ponders for a moment): Well...ducks is heads, because ducks have heads. (He looks very pleased with himself for solving the problem.)
CHANDLER (pause): What kind of scary-ass clowns came to your birthday?
I totally fell in love with Friends from that moment on.