Snakkle Flashes Back Through Television’s Best and Worst Series Finales
It may be unfair to judge a once-beloved show by its final few moments, but let’s face it: In today’s short-attention-span society, it’s the last impression that lingers the strongest. So for better and for worse, a show’s series finale may just prove to be its most important episode. Snakkle looks back at some of the best—and worst—in television history. By Danielle TurchianoNormally it is a cop-out for a character to wake up from a dream at the end of a series, basically negating the importance, let alone reality, of every episode that preceded it (see Sunset Beach), but every rule has an exception, and Newhart is that exception here. In the series finale, “The Last Newhart,” Dick Loudon (Bob Newhart) gets hit on the head with a golf ball, but instead of dying and ending on a somber note, he wakes up in bed as Dr. Robert Hartley, from his previous sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, saying to his on-screen wife, “You’ll never believe the dream I just had!” Sure, it may have negated some pop culture characters, but it solidified the importance of others even deeper in the zeitgeist.