2008 Television Season Finales

Elementary school report card style:

30 Rock--------------- VG :Good job. Have a nice summer.

Women's Murder Club---  G :Too bad that's the last episode. Ever.

Brothers and Sisters--  E :Except for the last 30 seconds or so.

Eli Stone------------- VG :See you next year.

Samantha Who?---------  G :But just barely.

Gossip Girl----------- VG :Fluffy perfection: pretty people, hair, and clothes.

Ugly Betty------------  G :Also just barely. 

Grey's Anatomy-------- VG :Solid effort. I'm pleasantly shocked. 

Scrubs----------------  F :That was the worst finale. Ever. Total crap.

NOTES:

Ugly Betty: While watching last week’s episode, I actually thought that was the finale, and would have been happy if they had ended it there. It was your typical season finale with a school dance at the gym and they played ‘True’ by Spandau Ballet: it doesn’t get much better than that. I was surprised to learn that there was an episode this week, and it sucked. Firstly, there was a bit too much Madonna music. I really like Madonna, but for television purposes there should be a two song maximum per episode, unless Madonna herself is going to be on the show singing. Secondly, too many unnecessary ‘guest’ stars/new characters. I would rather see more Mark/Amanda stuff, or any of the regulars really. Thirdly, they tried to make a big love triangle cliffhanger, which made me think about Felicity, which had perhaps the best love triangle cliffhanger in the history of television, and Gio and Henry cannot possibly compete. Given Henry’s robotic tendencies and lack of personality, it’s obvious that there’s no way she can possibly choose him; he’s no Noel. When Felicity had to choose between Ben and Noel it was a difficult decision, both were viable options, there were no robotics involved. But I digress. For Betty’s triangle, it’s either go to Rome with Gio, or go somewhere by herself, Henry doesn’t fit in anywhere. It very much seemed like an ‘I Choose ME’ ending, with the Madonna music(the best use of a Madonna song in the episode), which is fine, but you don’t have to be all cliffhanger-y about it. BORING!

Grey’s Anatomy: I didn’t have high hopes for this one, which is perhaps why I enjoyed it so much. It seemed like an old Season 1 episode, back when the show was actually good and fun to watch. They finally got Meredith and McDreamy together, and they did a sweet job (even though McD was an ass mid-episode) and hopefully they will just leave it like that and move onto other storylines next year. I also liked the Meredith/therapist scenes, as with Felicity, those were some of the better scenes of the show. Everybody’s storyline got tidied up nicely and everybody learned a lesson or two; it’s a little 7th Heaven, but not unbearably so. This episode was low on turd- Izzie was only slightly annoying, which was a nice change.

CONCLUSION:

The best way to end a show is to be as much like Felicity as possible, and play ‘True’ by Spandau Ballet.