Emotional Resonance & Rocket Launchers: Series Finales That Aren't So Final These Days

By Scott Nance

What happened to the good ol' days when folks understood a TV finale was supposed to be, well, final?

The not-so-final finale reached a crescendo this summer -- most famously with the cable-outage-like ending of HBO's Sopranos crime drama.

That series ends with nothing more than a dark screen as crime boss Tony Soprano goes to munch an onion ring.

Then there was the finale after 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1, titled, what else? "Unending." The episode, very much by design, feels much more like a season finale -- not the last episode of the entire series.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't eager to say "goodbye" to either series -- especially SG-1, which is one of my favorites of all time.

And although Sopranos creator David Chase seems to have precluded any future installments of that series, the same cannot be said of Stargate and its producers who very much want to keep that franchise alive.

But I say if a finale is going to be a finale, there has to be some finality to it. As "Unending" concludes with our heroes climbing the 'Gate ramp to embark on "just another mission to save the universe," it appears as if we'll see the SG-1 team again real soon.

Except we won't. Not for a good long while anyway.

Even Star Trek: The Next Generation went out with a proper finale. Sure, Capt. Picard and the rest would soon be back on the big screen, but Q finishing his "trial" of the human race gave the TNG finale the feeling of some kind of closure.

Make no mistake: "Unending" was a great episode. The fact that it was so well-done makes the agony even worse.

The fact that the finale was of such good quality and the series doesn't really say goodbye just proves that Stargate SG-1 had a lot of great stories left to tell. This was not a series on the downside creatively.

The Gate Room closed entirely and solely because of finances. While maybe in a business sense, that's a good reason to end a series, for us viewers it stinks. And it's worse that because the finale was "Unending," we can't really say goodbye.

All we're left with are fond memories and a Gate-shaped hole in our hearts.

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