If you've been watching The Definitive Guide's homepage, you know that I recently posted "The Final Chapter - Behind the Scenes," a fan fic I co-wrote with Stephanie essentially consisting of outtakes from the original story (see if you can guess who wrote what). The occasion meant that I had the chance to reread "The Final Chapter" for the first time in a long while. It's the first fan fic I ever wrote, nearly twelve years ago, the summer after MSW ended. As many of you no doubt recall, the series ended quietly with the episode "Death by Demographics," an episode that was not particularly stand-out in any way. As a rational person, I could understand the cast and crew's desire to wrap things up without much fanfare, but as a fan I couldn't help but be disappointed. "The Final Chapter" was the result of disappointment being channeled into creativity.
I've had over a decade to reflect on how MSW ended since then, and I am no longer convinced that a big blow-out series finale episode would have been a good idea. When you think about it, television has a rather dreary track record when it comes to big series finales. Take the final episode of M*A*S*H - a dark, brooding epic long on emotion but short on humor, and thus not much in keeping with the spirit of the series that spawned it. Or the ambiguous final episode of Magnum, PI - is Jonathan Higgins really Robin Masters or isn't he? The ending didn't answer the question either way, and was thus ultimately unsatisfying. And don't get me started on the last moments of The Sopranos.
In fact, if you look at series finales over time, they generally fall into two equally undesirable camps: those that failed to provide adequate closure, and those that wallowed in the maudlin. The sole exception to the rule, in my experience at least, was the last episode of Newhart - that final shot of Bob Newhart waking up in bed next to Suzanne Pleshette (who played his wife on his previous sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show) still ranks as one of the brilliant moments in television history.
Thus, one must conclude that there was probably a certain amount of wisdom and good judgment exhibited by the writers when they decided to end MSW on a business-as-usual note. But that doesn't mean those of us who write fan fiction can't dream a little on our own, out of sight of the critics. That was my thought as I wrote "Final Chapter" (which, I must admit, has elements of both the unsatisfying and maudlin camps in it - sorry about that).
