Worst, best series finals of all time

There is nothing like the anticipation, the expectation and the dread surrounding the finale of a beloved television series.

This year, two of the biggest TV shows of all time – "Game of Thrones" and "The Big Bang Theory" – bid farewell in the same week. Both have tried to satisfy their last hours, but only the "Big Bang" has really succeeded. Sometimes, no matter how much you like what has been done before, a series can miss its last momentum, leaving a bitter taste for years to come.

In honor of the two series saying goodbye, we ranked the top 10 and the worst five finals of all time, from gold classics ("M * A * S * H") to recent travesty ("How I met your mother, "and yes," The Thrones ").

The best

1. "Six feet underground" (HBO)

"Six Feet Under" still aimed to cope with our own mortality (after all, it was a family funeral business), and the almost perfect finale was facing the big afterlife in its last sequence of unsustainable beauty, which projected the death of all the main characters – predictable, tragic or absurd. Each finale of the series that uses the flash-forward technique owes a lot to "Six Feet".

2. "Newhart" (CBS)

As distorted and self-referential as modern television has obtained, no show could draw a twist as shocking and meta as the finale of "Newhart", which we will perhaps remember better than the show itself. After Dick Loudon (Bob Newhart) is hit in the head with a golf ball, the show returns to Dr. Robert Hartley, the character of Newhart from his previous series, "The Bob Newhart Show", waking up in the morning. a dream in bed with his wife. . The eight seasons of "Newhart" at a Vermont Inn were Hartley's dream. Even "Westworld" could not do better.

3. "M * A * S * H" (CBS)

In a poignant, moving and ever-popular finale, the 11 years of M * A * S * H ​​(eight years older than the Korean War described) ended when Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and rest has finally returned home. The final episode, sometimes dark, which manages a last moment "the war is hell", perfectly captured the spirit of the series.

4. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (CBS)

Just think of this last hug to thrill any fan of "MTM". The final ended sadly and inevitably on many jobs in the real world. The new owner of WJM fired the entire television newsroom (except Ted), and former colleagues gathered to say goodbye. It was realistic and emotional, as in most series.

5. "Battlestar Galactica" (Syfy)

The final epic space epic has succeeded where "Lost" and "Thrones" have failed, finding a way to use the spiritual and the divine to answer its mysteries while making a profound statement about nature of humanity. Of course, some are still angry at the convenience of this benevolent and charitable god guiding humans and Cylons, but the relationship between creators and their creations has always been the central tenet of the series. And although humans and Cylons have abandoned technology to start a simpler life on Earth, the flash forward of modern robotics has also highlighted the themes of the show: All this has already happened and will be again. So tell us all.

6. "Sopranos" (HBO)

The only bad thing you can say about the finale of "The Sopranos" is that it pushed the saturation of "Do not Stop Believin" from Journey to the breaking point in the years that followed . Some fans did not attend the open and sharp finale of the gangster drama, which did not reveal whether Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) lived or died, but his life was too nebulous to be resolved as cleanly. .

7. "Americans" (FX)

The beautiful final episode, in which Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) returned to the Soviet Union after the FBI finally discovered their secret, was perfectly suited to the series. They left behind their unwilling son, Henry (Keidrich Sellati), and their fellow girl, Paige (Holly Taylor), left them. It's also close to a happy ending that the series could offer, both surprising and deeply satisfying.

8. "The Shield" (FX)

All the series on an anti-hero are not interested at the end of the fight, but even if it were, no punishment would be as perfect as that imposed on Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) in the last episode of police drama. Mackey finds himself in his own prison version, withering at work at the office, away from the action and adrenaline he craves.

9. "Cheers" (NBC)

Sam's true love (Ted Danson) has always been his bar. The final "Cheers" is not as happy nor as funny as the outlets of many sitcoms, but its melancholy tone has worked for the bittersweet episode. The band could not stay at the bar forever.

Bryan Cranston as Walter White and Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman in a scene of "Breaking Bad". (Photo: Frank Ockenfels / AP)

10. "Breaking Bad" (AMC)

Like any other tragic and Shakespearian figure, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) could not survive the end of his story. The chemistry professor turned drug addict turned drug teacher had finally admitted that his malicious acts were purely for his pleasure, but was able to redeem himself at least partially by helping Jesse (Aaron Paul), one of the people to whom he had the most hurt.

The worst

1. "How did I meet your mother" (CBS)

The long-time sitcom finale of New York's young friends was legendary, for all the wrong reasons. The episode finally introduced Ted (Josh Radnor) to the mother (Cristin Milioti) of his future children, then, in a flash-forward series, he was killed and Ted rekindled his relationship with Robin (Cobie Smulders) after that she Barney divorced (Neil Patrick Harris). If the show had not proven that Ted and Robin were a bad couple many times, and if he had not organized the last season at the wedding of Robin and Barney, he might have been able to achieve this end. Instead, it was a classic example of a series that drew a plan from the beginning but should not have been kept there.

2. "Seinfeld" (NBC)

That's all? The decision to end the beloved sitcom on a group of misanthropes in New York by incarcerating them for bad Samaritans is now 20, but her age has not helped her.

3. "Lost" (ABC)

A series as mysterious as this supernatural drama could only annoy his conclusion, but the simple and complicated way in which the series offered everyone a happy ending in the afterlife was the worst choice.

4. "Game of Thrones" (HBO)

the The wounds of the controversial finale of the "Thrones" series are still very fresh, so maybe in a year or two we will not look at it so hard. But the finals of acid series rarely improve with age (just ask the three at the top of our list of "worst"). The problem with the final "Thrones" is that it offered a perfect and fairy ending to its characters, betraying the realism and the unfair world that the series took eight years to build. A happy ending rarely works in TV shows, and it does not work here.

5. "Dexter" (Showtime)

The serial killer drama began to decline well before its so-mocked finale, but it did not help mitigate the shock of Dexter's (Michael C. Hall's) bizarre decision to simulate his own death and become a dark lumberjack.

"Game of Thrones" is dead. Long live Game of Thrones:

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