For the past couple of years, I've been a huge fan of the BBC4/Hulu series Misfits (fair warning, there will be spoilers after the next paragraph, so back out now, if you're bothered by them). It started out as an absolutely brilliant take on superheroes. A bunch of kids in their late teens/early 20s are doing community service in London when they're caught by a freak storm and develop super powers. Instead of slapping on spandex costumes and battling super villains, they try to be normal, but, of course, they can't. (No, they don't go the spandex route, but they do become superheroes.) The first three seasons of series are absolutely fucking brilliant. The show is tightly written and directed, and even though most of the action takes place in many of the same locations (the community center where the characters work to clean up, and in some cases, live, the bar next door, the apartments of other characters), it never feels constrained at all. I'm one of those assholes who nitpicks the shit out of things and I didn't pick up on that until about the second season or so. The writers do some amazing things with the concept of super powers, and twisting them in unexpected ways. For example, telekinetic powers over dairy products sounds really stupid, but unless you're lactose intolerant, you've probably got some dairy in your system, and that makes you vulnerable. That mozzarella appetizer you had? Its now slowly boring a hole through your stomach on its way out of your body. The milk you put in your coffee? Its now condensing into a slug in your bloodstream, before it clogs your heart and shuts it down. Each season, they wrote one or more characters out of the cast. Not too uncommon for British TV series, from what I'm given to understand, and while it made subsequent seasons a bit weaker, still it was some good shit. Until the beginning of the fourth season. By that time, all but two members of the original cast were gone. The new characters weren't as good as the originals, and many of the episodes were more soap opera, than superhero, but I kept on with the series. There were good elements, even if the series didn't raise larger questions (What if the person you loved, wasn't who you thought they were? Would you still love them if they were a good person? Would you sacrifice yourself to save someone you loved, even though you know that they're still going to die a horrible death at some point?), like it did in the early seasons. And there was always the possibility that a character who'd left the series could return, even if it was improbable. The fifth season was a bit of a chore to get through at times. Several of the episodes just seemed to be placeholders. They weren't good soap opera, and they didn't add to the character development at all. The last episode, however, was promised to be mind blowing, and certainly, it could have been. Instead, what we got was a rehash of things that happened in other episodes, with no originality about them. It didn't even have the feel of, "Because we're superheroes, we're going to have these issues come at us again and again." It was a feeling of, "Well, shit. We're out of ideas, so we'll just repeat the things we've already shown, in a less effective manner than we did the first time." If you're thinking, "Hey, this sounds like what Lucas did with the prequel trilogy, or lamer." you'd be right. (Oh, and BBC4 has said that this is the last episode ever, so its not merely the end of the season, but the series.) It wouldn't have been too hard to make it an outstanding finale to the series. Had they brought back just one (and any of them would have worked) of the original characters of the series, it would have been mind blowing. Had they not spent the entire season giving hints as to what the finale would have been (and then punted on it), it would have been awesome. Instead, you're left looking at the characters, and what they've just said, and thinking, "Yeah, we've been here before, and it might have been promised that the series would grow larger, but it didn't. All we got was a new cast, and now, we're not even going to get that." If you haven't seen the series, then watch up until the end of the third season, you won't regret it. Even if you're not a fan of superhero stuff, you'll enjoy it, because they don't follow the traditional mold at all. After that though, you're not missing out on anything but unfulfilled promises if you skip the last two seasons. (Though episode 6 of season 4, and episode 4 of season 5 are pretty good.)
You want to see a shitty way to end a series, watch the entire last season of Dexter. It was painful.
The last season of Dexter was okay, about par for the series (Season 2 still owns, with Seasons 1, 3, 4, and 6 being the better of the rest). And it isn't that the ending was bad, it's just that it wasn't very satisfying. It didn't feel like...closure. Until the last 10 minutes, things could've been tidied up and the show come back for another season. That makes me wonder if they weren't weighing that possibility right up to the finish... The end of Breaking Bad, however, was a good example of how to do it.
Season two of Dexter, way back when, killed any chance of a strong ending to the series. The series had to end with Dexter either being caught or evading capture to live another day. Any other ending was doomed to be weak. When your second season is what your final season should have been, season eight is going to have its problems. Given the various weak possibilities left for the final season, Dexter didn't end all that badly. The possibilities for a resolution more-or-less in character were limited at best, and we got one. I remember watching the final minutes of the season two premiere and just knowing that the series ending was going to disappoint.
Except unlike this show it seems, Enterprise was unadulterated shit, with the exception of the last third of season three, and most of fandom knew Bermaga held the fans in contempt. That sort of finale comes as no surprise on retrospect, imo.
The only really good finales I can remember were TNG, Breaking Bad, Newhart, and M.A.S.H. Cheers was eehhh.... Especially since it just lead right into Frasier anyway. Everything else..PPPTT!!
Apparently, the folks who make the show still have hopes for a Misfits movie, and intentionally didn't give us a resolution, because as far as they're concerned, the story isn't over yet. Rumors are that the film would involve the "surviving" members of the original cast, and the new cast. Iwan Rheon (Simon in series 1-3) has apparently said that he thinks the movie is likely to happen, and if they can re-unite the rest of the original cast that he would be an idiot not to return.
That's funny, since I saw an interview with the original cast where they said that the creator had no intention of doing a movie. Of course, given how they ended the series, I'm not sure if I'd be willing to pony up to see a movie version of it, even if the original cast returns.
When was this interview conducted with the original cast? I can't recall a time when they've all been together in one place for years. Meanwhile, Iwan Rheon's comments about a "Misfits" film were given during one of those marathon press events for "Game of Thrones" which occurred earlier this year.
I want to say it was right before the end of the 3rd season, but I could be wrong about that. Its possible that the creator changed his mind since then, but the memory I have of the comments about it was that the creator just didn't think he could write the kind of story a film would need.
That's probably true, but only within the show's original format. And also probably why the series ended with the Misfits planning to go the more traditional superhero route, so that one could more easily "write the kind of story a film would need".
Talked about it? sure. But actually acted on it? Not really. At least not until Rudy 2 got motivated enough to make it a reality at the end of this past series.
What do you mean "not really"? They stopped at least one super villain intent on taking over the world, prevented a zombie apocalypse, wiped out a Satannic cult, prevented Hitler from conquering the world, and killed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, amongst many other things. I'd say that puts them squarely in superhero territory, even if they didn't do it while wearing spandex.
They pretty much only defended themselves in the situations you mentioned, and any benefits to the rest of humanity were primarily incidental. At the same time they were using their powers, they were also looking for ways to get rid of their powers, which despite helping them save the world, were primarily viewed by virtually all the characters as a curse. Simon alone embraced the role of hero, and even his heroic agenda was personal, rather than the usual superhero schtick. Only in this past series was there a concerted effort to become, as Rudy 2 put it: "proper super heroes".
They weren't always looking for ways to get rid of their powers (at least the good powers), and one of the trademarks of many superheros is that they don't go looking for trouble, trouble finds them. (And if you'll recall the final scene from the zombie episode, they clearly were proud of themselves for saving the world.)
No doubt, but again, while proud of saving the world, saving it was incidental to saving themselves. And while the idea of becoming proper heroes was often bandied about, it was never really seriously acted upon until this past year. And aat the end of the series was the blatant set up for whatever might come next, whether it be on the screen, in some other media, or simply in the mind of the fans: The Misfits are no longer just ASBOs who happen to have superpowers, but superheros first and foremos, who merely happened to have been ASBOs at one time. Sure sounds like a movie set up to me.
You're forgetting Kelly who attempted to use her engineering superpower to do good in England, and after being laughed at, went to Africa to use it there to save people.
Umm... I'm not forgetting Kelly. Her "proper hero" bit is happening off-screen, and we only know about it second-hand, via her boyfriend, and the whole storyline was contrived merely to explain away Lauren Socha's departure from the show. As we haven't actually seen Kelly in the ongoing role of a proper superhero, it doesn't really seem like it should count as such.
She did talk about it in some of the final episodes that she appeared in. She got pissed off because she came up with a fusion powerplant or warp drive, and got laughed at, and mentioned she wanted to do meaningful things with her powers. They might have done more with her character, if Lauren hadn't got sent to prison for assaulting a cab driver.
