With Battlestar Galactica rock to an end Friday , the show ’s producers promise a bravura conclusion that will pick apart our socks off . But it ’s got some stiff competition – here are science fiction television ’s greatest termination . Spoilers !
The best tv show endings do n’t just allow for a satisfying conclusion to a serialized drama – they give you the sense that you ’ve traveled , and arrived somewhere . They tie up at least some of the loose end , and give some thematic resolving power . But more importantly – they give up you in the ass and shock you . They make you go , “ Wha ? That ’s where this was heading ? ” By startle you , they make you view the whole series that ’s gone before in a new luminosity .
Here are the top 10 , in my book , from worst to best :
10 ) Doctor Who . By the former eighties , the original Doctor Who had run out of steam , with silly plot line and weak production values . But the show ’s final time of year see a bit of a rebirth , with a couple unlike plot line that address the theme of phylogeny in different way of life . The final story , “ Survival , ” brought back the doc ’s old foe , the Master , and placed him inside a story about “ natural selection of the fit . ” Meanwhile , the Doctor ’s traveling fellow traveler , Ace , started acquire herself , reaching a kind of conclusion in this instalment where she becomes more than human . The whole affair finish with a nice actor’s line as the triumphal Doctor tells Ace they ’ve got work to do .
9 ) The Hitchhiker ’s Guide To The Galaxy . The television receiver series , encompassing the first two Bible , and several large clod of the radio serial , stop on a lovely note . Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are back on Earth in prehistoric years , and they get the question that lead with the final solution of life , the universe and everything … only it ’s slenderly faulty . Still , it ’s a beautiful day , and they walk off through the prehistorical hayfield as Louis Armstrong sings “ What A marvelous human race . ”
- Sapphire And Steel . A mass of this British show about two time traveller , fiddle by David McCallum and Joanna Lumley , feels dated and dull now . But the final four part installment , in which the agent get caught in a meter bunker , is still as eerie and shivery as it was earlier . They ’re stick in a roadside cafe where prison term appears to have stopped , along with a handful of people who claim to be from 1948 . Normally , Sapphire and Steel can work out metre - displacements just by using their mentality , but this fourth dimension they ’re out of their depth . “ I saw the time to come … and it was our future . ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWkv2wAIlrg
7 ) Space Island One . This show about the gang of a commercially black market space post had its ups and pile , but its last twosome of episode were among the best television receiver I ’ve ever pick up . The company that owns the quad station is trying to adjudicate between shutting it down and just pulling the hack . And the post ’s salutary crewmember , Dusan , has already found a new job . But before Dusan goes , the company orders an unwise serial publication of tests , which overload the station ’s equipment and make it to go down in a blaze of gloriole , which not everybody survives .
6 ) Quantum Leap . Okay , all the commenters talked me into watchingthis conclusion , which I barely remember . It ’s pretty great stuff , including Sam traveling back to where it all start out and meeting a bunch of the people from his yesteryear start … And the mixologist has some revelations for Sam that he struggle to take on control panel . So Sam make one last jump , to the married woman of an erstwhile friend … and you fade out to that message , “ Beth never remarried . She and Al have four girl … Dr. Sam Becket never return home . ” classical stuff and nonsense .
5 ) The Prisoner . This is the most polarizing ending of them all – anyone who expected an literal explanation for the madness which had come before would have been horribly disappointed . But anyone who want to see the indulgence elevated to the level of Dada , and Number Six ’s latent egomania turn into the whole point of the serial publication , find “ decrease Out ” an episode that just arrive more rewarding the more you watch it .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWRmf1EnGzg
4 ) Star Trek : The Next coevals . This is actually the textbook case of how to do a decent cease to a serialized show , and one that people reference all the time . After a duet of increasingly bland seasons , the show comes back with an episode that splice in with its original pilot as well as giving us a glimpse of the fictitious character ’ possible time to come . It feels distinguished and epic in a way of life the serial mostly did n’t sense after season five .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpZ2evcaoGM
3 ) Babylon 5 . Famously , this show film its Hugo - propose final episode before the rest of its final season , allowing for some idealistic thematic settlement instead of a simple wage - off . “ Sleeping In Light ” takes place 20 year after the end of the Shadow War , and Sheridan is dying at last . He confab Babylon 5 on the eve of its decommissioning and destruction in a last blaze of glorification , then educate for death … except that a unexampled adventure is waiting for him instead .
2 ) Blake ’s 7 . Yet another show whose terminal time of year was drek , but then the genuine last episode represented a huge return to signifier . Not only does the show ’s seeming star , Roj Blake , get along back from the dead , but we finally see a face-off between Blake and Avon , which seems to come straightaway out of all the mistrust and warped jazz the two shared during the first two seasons . You abruptly realize that , despite Blake being wanting for near half the show ’s run , it really is all about Avon and Blake , the dreamer and the uber - cynic . And it ’s never going to end well . ( And for the record , Avon dies in the end . So there . )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY10pMsq3N8
1 ) Life On Mars . ( British version . ) I ’m putting this at the absolute top because it redeemed the time - traveling cop show for me . Honestly , I was start to lose sake in this show , even after only a dozen or so episode . How many time can there be a crime , and Gene jumps to the incorrect conclusion and endeavor to force it using uncivilized method acting , while Sam stands back and critiques Gene ’s racialism and sexism ? ( And then , of course , the case turn out to have some connecter to Sam ’s puerility . ) I was dying for an episode where Gene was right and Sam was wrong . But the last couple of episodes totally redeem the show for me , by postulate : “ How far will Sam go to get back to the present tense ? ” And then that grow out not even to be the ripe question , since the real question is , “ Will Sam be happy when he finally get back to his nice , sanitize boring futurity ” ? I have no idea how the American version will cease , but somehow I doubt we ’ll see the American Sam Tyler toss off himself , and it especially wo n’t be portrayed as an apprehensible choice . Apparently this was voted # 1 in a listing of the 50 greatest television receiver end . And apparently the show ’s makers just wanted to end it with him jumping off the ceiling .
Blake ’s 7Doctor WhoStar TrekTelevisionThe Prisoner
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