Season Finales – Still Catching Up

When I lived in London, pre-DVR days, pre-online viewing options, I had someone taping – on VHS tapes – Sopranos, Sex and The City and Law and Order. They used to ship them en masse to me there from the states and I’d dedicate a full day to watching back to back episodes of one particular show. It was my own personal marathon. I loved and still love watching TV that way.
I did it last season with Weeds – mostly so I didn’t have to pay for Showtime for the entire duration, but also, I love being totally engrossed in the characters and the story lines leading up to a finale extraordinaire. I love, at the end of say an 8 hour viewing, when it’s all over, feeling like its still going on somehow. Like a book, whose characters you think about even when you put it down.
Isn’t that the sign of great writing or great TV – when you’re finished, you want more? Always leave the audience or reader wanting more. And with back-to-back fixes, you get more, til there’s none left that is.
As for this year’s recordings, I just finished the season of the Mentalist. That was a great finale, and an end to story that’s frankly run it’s course. I wasn’t expecting Bradley Whitford to be Red John, but I was expecting the red-head’s fiance to be a bad guy. Especially after that “I-Love-You-So-I-Can’t-Come-To-Your-Wedding” kiss/moment with her ex. So I give that finale a 9, minus one for not leaving any cliffhanger a la Who Shot J.R.? for September.
NCIS: LA – fab cliffhanger, for a non-cliffhangery – needed show. What went down in that room in Prague in addition to some super-fake moaning way too many gunshots for anyone to walk out alive?
The real life cliffhanger: will Detective Stabler be back on SVU? Please say this is just a ploy for him to get more $$$ (pay him!) and we’ll see him back.
The thing is: I’ve spent a large portion of my life watching Law and Order. I believe, I’ve seen every single episode every made, with maybe some exception on the Criminal Intent front. With NY gone, LA dead, Intent in limbo and now SVU’s characters getting decimated, what’s left for the franchise? What’s a girl to do with all this extra time?
So still to watch in terms of fab (I hope) finales: Gossip Girl and Glee and regular old original NCIS. I need three full days to knock that out. Then we’re onto summer viewing of the Closer and whatever other fab cable programming USA can muster.