finales

Oh my word. I love-hate television show finales. Not only are they final-- obviously, but there is this immense pressure: they need to be incredibly awesome and there needs to be closure yet the possibility for your favorite characters' lives to still keep going. You know what I mean?

It's not secret that I'm not an avid tv watcher, but there are certain shows that I've grown attached to and watched from beginning to end. Some of their finales have been heart wrenchingly emotional for me, too. Call me crazy. But sometimes it just felt like the "end of an era!" You understand, right?

In early childhood it was "Full House." Anyone else?

I mean, who didn't want Kimmy Gibbler as a friend, Michelle as a little sister, STEVE as your heartthrob, and a cool Uncle Jessie and Aunt Becky to live upstairs? This was the first time I experienced the "finale anxiety." After 8 seasons it was a to-be-continued episode like so many are. Please tell me you remember Michelle falling off her horse and losing her memory only to regain and remember her family who will always be there for her? And Steve showing up to be DJ's prom date?

In my teens it was clearly "Boy Meets World." T.G.I.F. Right?

Cory. Shawn. Topanga. We travelled with them through middle school, and then high school, and then college. And that series finale? Where they go back to their old sixth grade classroom and tell Mr. Feeny how much he has meant to them? Well, let's just say I know I have seen this in the last five years and I know I cried again.

Then in college there were two shows:
ALIAS and FRIENDS

Oh man. Nothing could get my heart rate up like a good episode of Alias. Jennifer Gardner was perfect, and Michael Vartan? Well, it was all perfect. Once me and a couple friends nearly watched an entire season in one day. We were bleary eyed and doing CIA maneuvers all over campus by the time it was done. Also, I still very clearly remember a friend knocking on my door at 3 AM. I was fast asleep. I rolled out of bed and there she was, nearly shaking. She needed the next disc for Season 3 that we had rented. [Yep, pre-netflix. In the era of video stores]. It was THAT good…it made you knock on your friend's door at 3 in the morning, knowing you would wake her, but also knowing it was totally worth it. The series went down hill towards the end, but we were all still stoked for the series finale when Sydney and Vaughn were finally able to escape from their crazy life together…sort of.

I want to cry just thinking about the fact that there will never be another episode of Friends created. But I it is so good you can watch it over and over and over and over… and this is just what my roommates and I did in college. Some of our greatest joys in life came from a well placed Friends quote/reference. And that series finale? After ten YEARS with these people? The empty apartment?! The keys on the counter?! She got off the plane!! Tears. Tears. Full on sobbing, really. Every single time I watch it. Every single time.

In late college there were two other shows:
LOST and The Office

Lost was a show I vowed I would never watch because I thought it was just weird. It was. But it was also so good. It was crazy and twisty and weird in great ways. The characters were SO complex that it was just so entertaining to watch them unfold every week. After we were married I got Brent involved and we didn't turn the lights on in our apartment for a week because we were too busy watching and getting caught up to the current season so we could watch the finale together. I will say, this was one show the finale was so weird and disappointing I nearly cried because I felt so let down. I would reference the finale, but those of you that watched it understand that it is too bizarre to even recount.

And then there was The Office.

I think this is one of the last TV shows I have watched clear through to the series finale. Like Friends, it is a show I can watch over and over and over. And, like Friends, I may have been caught sobbing during the finale. I feel like this show got away from itself in Season 8, but came back super strong in Season 9. This all seems so lame now, but I remember laying in bed the night after I watched the finale and feeling so sad that it was over. [Wow. That's sad for other reasons].


 There are other shows I've watched here and there, and even some series I have watched in entirety, but these were the EPIC ones that, when I watch them again, bring me back to a specific time because the characters in the show, like good book characters, became almost like friends during the times I watched them. I hear The Office theme song and I am sitting in my Resident Director Sara's apartment with the other RAs and we are shooshing each other as the show begins [this was also my first time experiencing Tivo]. When I think of Lost I think of those marathon days Brent and I did to get caught up, or the big screen my friend Tim's roommate had rigged up across one entire apartment wall so we could watch the show. When I watch Friends I think of Renae and the countless bags of popcorn we ate while watching the show, or the homework that was poorly completed while we laughed along. I think there is such a thing as too much TV, but I also am thankful for great shows that bring people together…

but have a serious LOVE HATE for those darn series finales… whew.

What about you? What shows did you watch cry through the finale? Any on my list?