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In an age of endless TV reboots, do finales still matter?
It’s rare these days for a show to actually finish properly instead of being unceremoniously cancelled by a flailing streaming service (R.I.P. The Wheel of Time). But this year we have some big series coming to an end, including Andor and The Handmaid’s Tale, which both finished this month, and Squid Game and Stranger Things still on their way.
The pressure is on for these shows to wrap up not only through a satisfying final season but with an all-important final episode. It’s not crazy to say that everything relies on the final episode sticking the landing, or else risking being hated and mocked forever (see: Game of Thrones).
Elisabeth Moss in the final episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. Credit: DISNEY
In 1990 American comedian Bob Newhart ended his eponymous sitcom Newhart (1982-1990) with a stunt finale that managed to change TV history. In the final episode, after a Japanese millionaire buys the town in which the show is set and turns it into a golf course, Newhart’s character wakes up in bed next to his wife from an earlier show (The Bob Newhart Show, which ran from 1972 to 1978) and says, “You won’t believe the dream I just had!” – and describes the entire run of Newhart.
It was not the first show to use the “it was all a dream” trope, with I Dream of Jeannie using it in the ’70s, and soap opera Dallas using it in the ’80s to retcon away their entire ninth season in a (successful) bid to salvage failed ratings. But the most memorable use of it was for a series finale, and possibly why it became shorthand for a “lazy” way of ending things.
Increased scrutiny on final episodes – especially through the “golden age” of television – has led to a handful of universally lauded finales. This month marked the 10-year anniversary of the beloved final episode of Mad Men, which ranks up there with finales of shows such as Six Feet Under, The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. However, shows that don’t stick the landing – Game of Thrones, Lost, Killing Eve, Dexter, Gilmore Girls – are often more memorable, sometimes so unsatisfying or trite that they taint the legacy of a once-loved series.
The stakes are high – or at least they have been. Now there’s always potential to just reboot a show a few years later and gloss over the finale’s mistakes.
Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington in the much-derided series finale of Game of Thrones. Credit: HBO
In just a few weeks, as its name suggests, Dexter: Resurrection will literally bring its titular serial killer back from the dead. And it’s not even the first time the franchise has tried to correct its course.
Dexter, the original, long-running series, ended in 2013 with what is considered one of the worst finales in TV history. After a lacklustre eighth season, our antihero drove his boat into a hurricane and seemingly died before a final scene revealed he’s alive and living in the woods somewhere. Eight years later, Dexter: New Blood ended with Dexter being shot by his son – a finale that was widely praised as “the ending we deserved”. Now, that too has been retrofitted as simply a significant wound, and Dexter is back for yet another new reboot.
Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan in Dexter: New Blood.Credit: Kurt Iswarienko/Showtime
Reboots like New Blood allow an almost “it was all a dream” logic to give us a second chance. Nobody wants their last memory of a beloved character to be an unsatisfying finale. But with streaming services endlessly trying to capitalise on nostalgia in a bloated ecosystem, the franchise now risks ruining its own recovery. And it’s not alone.
With more and more series getting rebooted (Scrubs, Malcolm in the Middle and Friday Night Lights are all on their way), there’s also more risk of diminishing the catharsis and narrative impact of genuinely good finales.
At the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, our hero not only manages to save the world (again) but, through a series of machinations, manages to break the cycle of being the world’s only saviour. It ends with her smiling as she realises she gets to have a life outside of her role as a slayer, and gets to leave the small town of Sunnydale. It is an emotionally fulfilling end to a beloved series. We don’t yet know many details about the coming Buffy reboot but we do know Sarah Michelle Gellar is reprising her role as Buffy and will be sharing the screen with a new, younger slayer.
If the reboot fails to justify itself, it runs the risk of souring the original series’ resolution. Buffy, in many ways, gets a “happily ever after” moment – but by bringing back her iconic character, especially in this kind of genre, it runs the risk of traumatising the character for narrative sake, removing the “ever after” from the equation.
The Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That … did just that, choosing to kill off Carrie’s husband Mr Big via a Peloton in its first episode. That freed up Carrie to explore dating and sex (they had the city covered). While his bike-related death was confronting for some fans, it was a necessary move to bring a fresh perspective and a new life to this new incarnation of the franchise – but at the cost of Carrie’s happy-ever-after.
As we move into an era where streamers are desperately trying to find ways to bring back popular shows for nostalgia and to capitalise on proven success, it feels inevitable that we’ll get closer and closer to “it was all a dream” logic making its way into the narrative justification for a show’s revival.
The upside? If you didn’t like The Handmaid’s Tale finale, its sequel series The Testaments is already in production.
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