Finals Week Is Over

Now that all of the season finales have aired, here's my thoughts on how some of my favorite shows ended up (oh, and if I ruin one of your shows, it's not my fault that you can't keep up with your TiVo):

House
Chase and Cameron get married, and House ends up in the nuthatch. This show is exactly on pace for where it should be.

Fringe
I really have no idea what happened in Fringe's finale, as my DVR failed to record the end. American Idol runs long every Tuesday and Fringe, in terms of actual program v. commercials, is one of the longest shows on TV, so I always miss the end of it. I'm just glad it's coming back next season; maybe then I'll find out what happened.

The Unit
Betty Blue gets married, Colonel Ryan takes his promotion, and Jonas' wife leaves him. Actually, a very good finale, one that wrapped things up nicely, since CBS canceled the show a week later. But, never fear, fans: it'll be back with new episodes in syndication, so check your local listings next season.

The Mentalist
The thing I've always enjoyed about The Mentalist was that, unlike all the other Crime Shows on CBS (seriously: the Miniature Killer?!?), every episode was not about a serial killer. Mind you, the reason that Patrick Jane does what he does is because his family was serially murdered, but it's not the focus of the show. In fact, it was only mentioned twice during the first season. The thing I liked about the show was the fact that it's not deadly serious about itself and that it messes around a bit, something that's hard do when you're focused on catching a serial killer. And it's this quality, that it's actually fun to watch Patrick Jane fuck around with people, that made me prefer it over Lie to Me, the other show with this same premise (and only had one serial killer episode). So, all that being said, why, oh why, did they decide to end the season with a serious-as-cancer-serial-killer downer of an episode? I'm beginning to think these shows actually hate their audiences.

Heroes
Why is this show still on the air? It jumped the shark as soon as Hiro jumped into feudal Japan, which happened waaaaay back in the first season finale. Two season later, it's just a mess. It keeps trying to reinvent itself ala Lost, with disastrous results. It's like when John Byrne tried to update Superman and Spiderman by rewriting their origins in their respective comics: the fans hated it and those changes have since been forgotten. But, hey: If Spiderman can make a deal with the Devil to annul his marriage to Mary Jane Watson (and destroy 22 years worth of continuity in the process), then I guess it's all right for Nathan and Syler to be the same person.

24
While I like 24 and do mostly enjoy the show, really: how many terrorist plots does Jack Bauer need to foil in a day? Can't you just have him just work on one giant one, instead of having to tackle a new one every five or so hours? Not that the show is realistic in the least, but credibility gets stretched to the breaking point when Jack ends up saving the world at least four times during a day (AND while he's dying of a viral infection, no less). And what's with the new liberal slant to the show, where suddenly everyone is completely abhorred by Jack's methods of violence and torture, and treat him as though he is the lowest piece of shit on the face of the Earth, even though he has saved Los Angeles from complete destruction at least a dozen times? And I'm glad to see that, after a few seasons of rest, they hauled out the old "Kim Bauer in Peril" storyline again; I thought maybe they'd sneak Audrey Rains in there, too, but got disappointed on that one. About the only good thing I have to say about the season is that I was glad to see they figured out a way to write Aaron Pierce, who's the only character besides Jack to appear in every season, back into the show; here's to hoping he's still there next season.

Grey's Anatomy
So, basically, Katherine Heigel and T.R. Knight get the off-season to decide if they want to continue on the show or not, since they both got killed off. My guess is no on both, Heigel because she could probably be successful in a movie career (and because everyone appears to hate her), and Knight because, well, he got written off the show, plain and simple. The only characters on the show who actually have less going on than George are Dr. Sloan and Lexie, but they conveniently happen to be dating each other, so they actually have a plotline. Which leaves George, who, if you count off all the characters in pairs, is the only one who doesn't have anyone with which to interact without being a third wheel. So, goodbye to him. (Oh, and if you think George's death was totally shocking, remember when Omar Epps was on E.R. 12 years ago? He got killed off that show the same way George did. So much for originality.) I also thought it was rather clever that they figured out a way to postpone the big "Wedding Event" until a future sweeps period; these TV people are fucking geniuses!!

Lost
I've come to expect all kinds of craziness from Lost. I've learned to swallow a lot during the course of this show, mainly because they always seem to come up with an interesting way of explaining everything. So, I've been pretty tolerant. But when I saw Juliette fall to her apparent death, I thought, "That's it: I'm done. This show has officially lost me (no pun intended)." Because, if you're a fan of the show, by this point in the game, you hate both Jack and Kate, and were happy to see them off the island. Sawyer and Juliette: I liked that. That felt right. But then they put Jack and Kate back on the island. And then they started pushing Kate back towards Sawyer, and Jack started making his typical precariously stupid command decisions again. And then Juliette fell to the bottom of the Swan, and I thought, "I've put up with a lot, but doing that to put Kate and Sawyer back together just broke the camel's back." But, as it turns out, Juliette was NOT dead, and she detonated the nuclear device which destroys the Swan and probably everyone with it. So, who the fuck knows what's happening on Lost. I guess that's why it's such a great show: it always leaves us wanting more.

And, as long as we're on the subject of finales, we might as well talk about the shows that involuntarily aired their series finales (ie, they got canceled):

-Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles got the hook, despite there being a Terminator movie a week away;

-It's actually harder to figure out what NBC didn't cancel than figuring out what they did. They chose to stick with the terrible Parks and Recreation and let My Name is Earl go, but the real insult was when they canceled Medium, and it was promptly snatched up by CBS AND they get to watch Scrubs continue on for yet another season on ABC;

-CBS, much like me, decided that adding the black guy to Eleventh Hour ruined that show, and solved the problem by cancelling it;

-ABC long ago canceled Pushing Daisies, but they're nice enough to begin airing the remaining episodes in two weeks;

-Fox canceled two great animated shows in King of the Hill and Sit Down, Shut Up, and gave the go-ahead on a third Seth McFarland abortion, upping their McFarland programming to an hour and a half a week, which is approximately 120 minutes too many;

-CBS canceled Without a Trace, the second top 20-rated show it's canned in a week. It just goes to show that, when you air more than half of the shows in the top 20, you can pretty do whatever the fuck you want;

-Most of the mid-season shows won't be coming back;

-And, as if though you cared, Mind of Mencia won't be back.

America can finally laugh again.