Being a huge TV fanatic, series finales are pretty important to me. I laugh over them, I cry over them, and sometimes I get embarrassingly angry with them. Series finales can go very well or very bad, but no matter what, after it’s over, it’s over. That’s what we’re left with, and sometimes they’re not the greatest result. After watching what I believed to be one of the worst series finales of all-time (I won’t name any names… yet), I decided that ranking some of my favorite and least favorite series finales was necessary.
I think we can all agree that the How I Met Your Mother series finale was one of the worst series finales to grace our televisions in a while. I’ve talked to seemingly hundreds of people about it, and only two really enjoyed it. I don’t even know where to start with this travesty. Lily and Marshall had very little screen time, although they were pivotal parts of the show. I’ve seen the episode more than once and can’t recall their ending. Why did Barney need to have a child in order to change? They seemed to detail his change pretty well before this when he married Robin! I can’t decide if I’m more upset about Tracy’s passing or the fact that Ted and Robin ended up together. Both were pretty traumatizing, in my opinion. This series finale was a flaw on an otherwise perfect series.
I, like most people my age, went through a That '70s Show obsession during my adolescence. I watched every episode numerous times. Yet, this series finale was so strange that I’m having trouble remembering it. I know that Eric and Kelso left for the season, which in my opinion made the show incredibly boring. One of the few memorable parts of this entire episode was Eric and Donna’s reunion. One shining moment, to me at least, was that the episode ended on New Year’s Eve 1979, along with the '70s.
I feel bad for ranking this series finale quite low, because I loved the last season and was indifferent about the finale. However, as a girl who will always prefer Aiden to Big, can you blame me? I can, like everyone else, agree that Big was insurmountably better than Petrovosky, though. In the end, sometimes I like to pretend that the first movie was the real finale, and that the second movie didn’t exist. Don’t we all?
30 Rock is a wildly underrated show. I’ve recently started binge-watching it, but I’m so impatient that I jumped ahead to the series finale. They brought back some of my favorite jokes, but it also had the emotional depth and satisfying ending that we expect from sitcom series finales. Jenna sings a song from the Rural Juror while a montage of the cast plays. It was so hilariously perfect.
If you grew up watching Boy Meets World and didn’t at least tear up while watching the series finale, you have no soul. You are probably a robot. I’m sorry I had to break this to you. Although Boy Meets World was wildly unrealistic (it was technically a children’s show), the series finale exemplified what the show was best at, making its audience laugh and cry simultaneously. Boy Meets World is one of the few children’s shows with so much heart, and especially one of the few that tackled real world issues, and that was perfectly tackled in the finale.
Once again, if you spent a significant amount of time watching this from 1994-2004 and didn’t at least tear up when they walked out of the apartment for the last time, you have no soul. Simply seeing the apartment empty made me cry. There’s so much to love about this finale, whether it’s Monica and Chandler’s twins, or Rachel whispering, “I got off the plane.” It was all-around the perfect end to a classic TV show. The Friends finale captured what the How I Met Your Mother finale attempted and failed to do. Yes, our friends grow apart. People have babies, change jobs, and move away. Yet they did this in a way that didn’t include killing Rachel while Ross ran to Emily with a blue French horn. Is it still too soon?
I may be biased because The Office is probably my favorite TV show of all-time, but I’ve yet to find anyone who didn’t completely adore this finale. It ended every character’s storyline in not only happy, but also believable, ways. Ryan abandoning his child to run into the sunset with Kelly while screaming, “I’ve finally mastered commitment!” is everything I would’ve expected from them. Although it was sad to see Pam and Jim leave Dunder Mifflin, it would’ve been even worse to see them continue working there, after his first season confession that he’d hate his life if this were his career. Michael Scott’s resurgence was short but sweet, and some people were upset about that, but I think it made sense. We had already said goodbye to him. This episode was about saying goodbye to the rest of the cast. Speaking of the rest of the cast, their last talking heads were so beautifully done. I could write about my love for this series finale for hours, but I won’t. This series finale is definitely one of the best series finales of all-time.
What are your favorite and least favorite series finales? These are just a few of my favorite TV shows, but I’d love to hear what would make your list! Let me know in the comments!