Sticking The Landing - Page 2

Indy and Bond series really shouldn't count as they are all stand-alones.

No idea what you're talking about. The Last Crusade was a pretty good movie.

Stuck the Landing: 'Preacher'

It never let up for its entire run. The ending doesn't wimp out in how it deals with the characters, and the final act of the Saint of Killers validates the main plotline of the entire series.

Botched the landing: Queensryche: 'Operation Mindcrime 2'

This sequel to one of the best metal concept albums of all time is nothing but a pale retread of the original. The best songs reuse the same melodic cues from the first album (see 'The Hands' as a prime example). Geoff Tate, his incredible range now limited from range, sounds uninspired throughout this entire album. Even a guest appearance by Ronnie James Dio doesn't make an impression; his contribution is on a terrible song.

What a waste.

The Burton/Schumacher cycle of Batman films. Starts out a little shaky, with Returns it feels like they've nailed the vision and tone of this series and things can progress nicely, but then Burton bails and leaves somebody else to handle the wheel - and I'm pretty sure that driver had been drinking at the time.

Is it too super-obvious to say The Godfather?

Two of the greatest films of all time and two of the greatest last shots of all time. A third film, in theory, could have been interesting, but after Part Two, they were always onto a loser. The final twenty minutes or so of Part Three are hideous to the point of being laughable.

I think it's a testament to how good that 7th season was that I could have watched another four years of a Vinnick administration.

Only if they could've kept Stephen Root and Patricia Richardson for all four seasons.

It was added after they got canceled but I still thought the "bigger picture" ending was pretty good.

They're episodic. There's only the slightest of carry over, so there's not really a natural endpoint. I mean, if you'd like to bitch about the later sequels, by all means you have grounds, but at this point posts about Indiana Jones are like kidney punches.

Never Mind.

You're absolutely right. I'll edit that stuff out.

Yep, it got me.

Eh, I'll live.

My apologies, Mattioli. Humanoid, if you'd be so kind: your post currently shows my original post for 'Preacher'. Could you please alter it to remove the spoilers.

Humanoid, can you fix your quote?

Not a problem. After all, it is a discussion of series' endings.

The thing with British productions is that their is a vein of pessimism that runs throughout most everything we do and as such most of our products are either naturally dark, or have bleak endings. We're just not cut out for happy endings and that tends to make our endings have more impact. The reason RTD fails with Doctor Who is because he's trying to work a sense of optimism into British TV which just doesn't belong.

And speaking of pessimistic endings the brilliant Charlie Brooker made a five part Zombie serial called Dead Set which aired over Halloween week here last year. Essentially it was about a zombie pandemic and the survivors holing up in a Big Brother set. Really gripping, gruesome stuff, and it had the archetypal dark and depressing British ending which completely worked for the show.

Spike, I'm curious. Do you have any thoughts on why that should be the case.
I've been dying to see this since last Fall.

If I was to do the armchair psychologist thing it's probably because we're a country whose place in the world is in decline and as such we're used to reality. I think as a nation we've been shaken by our need for help in the Second World War, our growing insignificance on a global scale and the fact that our country as an entity is fracturing (what with the Troubles and Devolution). We're a country where gloom is the norm and hence that becomes 'realistic'

Even our soap operas ascribe to this notion. Whilst American soaps are about good looking, successful people, British soaps tend to focus on regular folk and are laced with misery and grimness.

Nonsense, Spike. Look at the way Chuck was designed: he's not gonna be Neo. He never will. We'll see how he does next year, but from what I heard these powers won't be the game changer you think they are. And the show has to evolve in a way. There was enough "Chuck the wannabe spy" episodes. Gimme something else. Let's not judge too quickly.

And the show ain't over, so it's not qualifying for this thread.

And the season finale was G.R.E.A.T.

I knew that was the case and I'm not knocking the quality of the last episode. But that text at the end just felt like punishment for anyone who held hope that he'd make it home one day.

Having just finished the series, The Dark Tower officially belongs in both categories for this thread.

I don't mean to derail, but isn't it also possible that the stark difference (and clear difference in quality, from my perspective) comes from American television series programming tending to be much more saddled with concern for the commercial and marketing end of things? For the networks, these are small businesses to be run successfully(despite the artistic aspirations of the creators). I'm not directly exposed to the promotional end of British tv programming, so I can't say for certain that the gulf between the two is as wide as it seems. I'm basing it solely on four decades of programming in each culture and, despite that American tv series' may now be getting a clue as to how a self-contained show is better than a run-on with a hasty plug-pull in the intensive care ward, the British still seem to have a better grasp on it.

I wouldn't say 9/11 has had the same impact on tv programming sensibilites as the Second World War did for the Brits. (Don't forget, most Americans only experienced the whole thing in a remote and removed manner, and worse, through the filter of the television media!) It's felt, to be sure, but I tend to see it as a more cynical influence (i.e. fresh tropes to hang melodrama on) and exploiting, as opposed to ingesting, the national mindset that ranges from sad introspection on vulnerability to outright xenophobia.

Complicating it all, here in the US, some actors find these series to be perhaps the best thing they may have ever done (or more accurately, the most succesful role they've held). "Safe in the cage", to borrow a term from women's prison. These actors, more often than not, are forced to a frightening realization of their prospects. Some, especially after hasty stratospheric success on a show, fear stereotyping and want to branch out. Some know they'll never again achieve the same level of success. No doubt, a few are lucid enough to know that's it's probably both. Watching folks (like everyone from Seinfeld who wasn't Jerry Seinfeld) learn this lesson is painful in a SUNSET BOULEVARD kind of way. Ya know, that feeling you get when you see a man over thirty at the mall still wearing his varsity jacket. Sometimes it's chuckleworthy, like the short cinematic trajectory of Eva Longoria, who fresh from her sudden goddess status on Desperate Housewives, reentered the atmosphere of reality Laika-like after that awful THE SENTINEL with Michael "Pancake No 9" Douglas.

I love William Petersen, have for a long time now, but do I want to see him remembered solely as "Gil" Grissom on CSI (any of the incarnations of which will most likely NOT stick the landing; it's too late for Vegas, sadly)? Not really. Will he be anything other than that to posterity? Doubtful, but like that ant, I have high hopes. His acting chops were on full display in the 80s for anyone who cared to notice. Will David Duchnovy be remembered as anything other than Fox Mulder? Despite the hip currency of CALIFORNICATION, no way. He's a flat (somnambulistic, is my word for it!) actor whose abilities worked in exactly one role. Unless he moves to the realm of self-parody (which arguably only works for very few crusaders who boldly go there), he'll be doing Red Shoe Diaries material again before too long.


"Trust me!"

As far as sticking landings go, does THREE'S COMPANY count? The finale actually wrapped up the show in as sincere a way as a "jiggly show" could, yet they immediately went with a THREE'S A CROWD show which, while I still sleep with a picture of Robert Mandan under my pillow, just didn't jive. MASH/AFTER MASH brings up the same issue. Can a stuck landing be retroactively spoiled?

While it hasn't ended its run yet, I am pretty sure that Supernatural is going to stick its landing.

I'll put the second season of Deadwood up against any example of episodic storytelling in human history. That season finale is so awesome it hurts.

Yeah, but they don't stick the landing on Deadwood, pretty much because they didn't know they were ending. I love the whole series, but yeah, Season Two is an Act of God.