The Best TV Series Finales

TV watching has changed dramatically in the streaming era as network shows don’t get the viewership they did back in the 70’s, 80’s and even the 90o’s.  I remember when people would gather around the “water cooler” and discuss the latest episode of a popular show and I doubt that happens very often outside of reality shows like American Idol, The Bachelor, etc.

The other day I started thinking about the finales of some of my favorite shows over the years…at least the ones I could remember.  To me the best-ever last show was “Parenthood” which wrapped everything up and left you crying and smiling at the same time.  It’s the gold-standard for how you end a popular and long-running series. Also right up there was M*A*S*H although the series ended 43 years ago so many have no idea how brilliant the series finale was.

I cheated a bit to recall others but here they are in no special order…again these are shows I watched with regularity and in some cases probably never missed an episode although in the DVR days it was a bit challenging at times.  Time does not allow for descriptions but try and test your memory.

*Breaking Bad

*The West Wing

*Seinfeld

*Friday Night Lights

*The Mary Tyler Moore Show

*Cheers

*ER

*The Office

*This Is Us

*Family Ties

*Barney Miller

And finally there is The Sopranos.  I have said before when I first watched this like many of you I was extremely disappointed and felt let down.  But I have come to appreciate the brilliance of this as it was left to us viewers decide what really happened.