Best Soap Finales

[Bright Eyes]

quartermaine, I agree with you. I hate the happy sappy endings when shows exit. This was perfect for EON and playing that great end theme was the cherry on top. Thanks for those videos.

[NYC123]

I really enjoyed Passion's ending. Though I wasn't a big fan of the show the finale was well done. Mostly everyone got their happy ending and espically with the cast waving to the TV.

[DRW50]

That RH finale is tough to get through, it's obviously a labor of love. Helen was very upset and had to get the cast to sing along because she could barely speak by the end. She ad-libbed "Have a good life."

I've heard a lot of good things about the Texas finale.

The City finale was a bit of a mixed bag but I love this:

[SFK]

Yeah, I liked that montage too, great way to highlight a lot of great stuff they were able to do in two short years. Whoever uploaded that cut it right before they flashed all the names and faces of the crew.

[casandranow]

As much as I ADORED Another World, I was kinda let down by the finale just a smidge. Yes, it wrapped up most if not all of the loose ends.

But it had a gorilla.

I mean really.....a gorilla!

Ten years later and I'm still with the WTF.

Sunset Beach was good, I liked the twist within a twist that it used.

I never saw the Passions finale. Cause well, I spent ten years bitter about AW being canceled so it could be replaced with the utter piece of SUCK that Passions was. I was all with the 'good riddance!' instead. lol

[catsmeouch]

So then you don't actually know that the series was good and the finale was excellent.

AW was awful and I'm glad it ended. Better it than Days, since something had to go for Passions to debut.

[casandranow]

Oh I saw my fill of Passions the first few years it was on. The finale may have been good for fans, apparently the Theresa/Ethan fans if you're any indication. But the show, on the whole, was horrible. So you can't make gold from worthless scrap metal, no matter how hard you try.

I think it says a lot that AW was on 35 years. Passions didn't last a decade. There's no way to argue out of that.

[EricMontreal22]

The City

[alphanguy74]

For me, there is no equal for a beautiful, poetic ending. It brings a tear to the eye. And look at the love and respect for the audience in Mary Stuart's final goodbye, now THAT is class. I watched this show for a few of it's last years:

[SFK]

I think that's the one we were all waiting for to round out the thread. Never watched that show a day in my life and I still get goose pimples and a little choked up when Stu asks Jo what she's searching for.

[casandranow]

I had never seen any of the show, not even a clip. But yep, that line really gave me the chills. The cast signing off definitely gave it that certain something that for someone who had never even seen the show, could feel resonate.

[DRW50]

I'd never seen that SFT exit before. Each of the cast saying goodbye is a nice idea, although it's VERY SCTV/children's show/very special variety show goodbye. The best part is the restrained goodbye from Mary Stuart, no big hand gestures, no dippy grin.

That last scene with Stu and Jo is sad because none of that would be allowed on a soap today. Two older people. A friendship between a man and a woman. A restrained farewell. Nope.

[EricMontreal22]

That's why I liked the City finale so mcuh (and while the storylines were rushed the last week they did do a nice balance of leaving stories open but with a sense of closure)--but that montage (to The Beatles no less) was *great* and as a faithful viewer that last year really left me with a good feeling--and yeah the end of it broke the fourth wall and showed the crew, writers (even a brief flash of Agnes) etc. I have the full episode (the whole last 6 weeks) on tape and as I keep mentioning when I finally get a DVDR system for my tv will waste no time digitizing them.

(though the finale clip does make City look like it would be a bit more seasick inducing than it actually was to watch )

[SFK]

Wow, totally forgot about Agnes, I just seem to remember Jean Dedario Burke.

Thinking back on it, in a weird way it wouldn't have been so hard to say goodbye to The City had it been a novella that we knew would end. Broken record here, but perfect show for SoapNet's lineup, wish I could get a solid answer on why that never happened.

[EricMontreal22]

It's copyright was always Creative Horizons, like Loving's, the company Nixon and her husband created to package the show (I think anyway, I know Dramatic Creations was their other comp but that was for the first five years of AMC and OLTL I think, though I may have the two names confused lol). So I always assumed that ABC never bought the soap (or maybe they half owned it? It would seem odd to drop Ryan's Hope which they owned since 1980 and keep Loving even though they didn' town it, but...) I did assume this was one reason they dropped City so quickly for their own owned soap...

And yeah, I coulda been ok with City done in more novella like segments. To be fair Brown/Esensten (sigh back when I thought they were good writers) and their team (I know Carolyn Culliton was associate HW) had enough time to sorta tie things up though they admitted to SOD they wer einsanely rushed and had to drop a lot they wanted to do. But in an odd way I was satisfied with their finale (though that spring, 1997, I thought they were the best of the ABC soaps on the air... Of course this was partly because AMC was under the Tanner storyline and OLTL was a mess by then, but...)