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Let's say you build a bridge. You build the nicest on-ramp, you put the nicest lamp posts, the nicest pavement, and the most beautiful railings in the history of bridges. And the bridge ends on a cliff. There might be some nice views on top of the bridge to nowhere, but it's a bridge to nowhere.
That's a work of fiction with a bad ending. A work of fiction is a work, not a person, so where it leads to is very much an integral part of the work.
I think both "the show had 5 great seasons but a terrible ending" is as bad as "the show has 3 bad seasons but the last 2 are great!" are equally bad and reasons that I would not watch something.
It's not like there aren't hundreds of other options.
Babylon 5 was a great show... with this caveat:
Season 1 is slow and you won't know how important it is until you watch 2, 3, 4.
Season 4 is the single best season of sci fi television ever produced, but you have to have seen 2 and 3 to fully appreciate it.
The reason Season 4 is amazing is because they didn't know they were getting a Season 5 so they stuffed 2 seasons worth of television into 1.
Then they got renewed for Season 5 by a different network and were like "Season 5... um... yeah! We totally have a plan for that... Yeah... totally ready to go."
This comic has a solid set-up, but the punchline is weak.
This comic is out of touch with the politics of Netflix style script writing where there's no story arc being followed.
I had been meaning to start Game of Thrones, but hearing that the ending sucks kind of killed all interest for me.
The problem with Game of Thrones is this:
They ran out of material to adapt. They hit a wall where they ran out of books and had to adapt Martin's PowerPoint slides, and it shows!
I think there was a lot more going on than that. Benioff and Weiss wanted out. They wanted to collect all their accolades and move on to fresh IPs. HBO was happy to give them more money and time to construct full-length seasons, but they chose to push the last two with shorter runs.
I think if they had handed the show off to fresh showrunners ready to build on the existing plot threads and pacing of the show, we'd be looking back on it very differently.
Yeah. There are a lot of story beats that everyone knows GRRM would write (if he only cared to continue the series) and those story beats were in the show. They had enough material to work with, they simply chose to rush through all of it.
A Person isn't a story though the ending being rubbish rings the whole story
"Surely if I satirize people who trash my favorite show, it'll make me feel better about how it took a shit at the end."
Was it Game of Thrones? If so, don't worry, that's not applicable either way,
because
it was always shit.
Nah first few seasons of GoT were peak TV. Then they shit all over it.
Dog shit adaptation of dog shit books, nothing but trash from beginnig to end. It was always going to go out like a bitch.
The first season is one of the best adaptations of a novel ever done. But everything after follows a steepening downward bell curve.
It's almost like stories are different from people and stories are comprised to a beginning middle and end. The only time this doesn't count is if the series is not serial based and a mess of episodic with serial through arcs.
Like a punchline is to a joke, the ending is the most important part of a story. The conclusion gives the journey meaning. Blowing the ending can - and often does - retroactively ruin an entire narrative. This comic is akin to saying “a bad punchline doesn’t ruin a whole joke.” It does. In the same way, a bad or missing conclusion undermines the narrative as a whole.
I'm sorry someone criticized your fav, comic guy :(
I mean it varries a lot, a lot of shows put huge emphasis on building up to an ending.
I would say probably the biggest example would be lost... it feels like it's building up to something special all throughout... it's just like "a few more pieces and it will finally make sense".
Then you get an ending that... well if anything can be improved with small edits.
Show: Look! Look here! The shiny! Ooooh what might it be?! Oooh something's going to happen at the end! Just you wait! Just you watch to see what it is! Ooooh shiny! ... psych it all turns out to be dumb bullshit.
You: Ah well, at least I got to see shiny.
And then there are people who fiddled kids for a side job, but they died a celebrity, so they're a beloved legend
Well when the preceding story is contingent on it leading to a satisfying conclusion, that being 99% of the shows I've seen critiqued this way... I'd say it's a valid conclusion.
Is this cartoon about RBG?