Recently, two such TV series came to an end. One was Ashes to Ashes the sequel (Come on, it was more than a spin-off) to the widely popular Life on Mars. The other was Lost. You may have heard of it.
By the way, SPOILER ALERT. Obviously. If you watch these shows and haven't seen the end yet, don't read more. If you're thinking about watching these shows don't spoil yourself, as they're honestly very worth watching.
Life on Mars was never big on answers. Two series, and we got an ending that was very centered around Sam Tyler. He was in a coma, got out of it and then made the decision to return to the 70's, in the process probably putting him in a far, far shorter more pancake-shaped coma. Other than that, very few answers are given. Even if he was in a coma, did he time-travel? Was it the real 70's, or a world based upon it?
You'd look this sad if you'd been in and out of comas as much as this fella.
Move on to the 80's and its poor old Alex Drake's turn to have a near death experience. In a daring attempt to out-do poor Mr. Tyler, she gets shot in the head... On the way to her daughters birthday party. Alex joins Gene's team in the same way as Sam does, and for the most part Ashes to Ashes followed the same route as its predecessor: Drop hints, give clues, but stick largely to a "crime of the week" format. However, considering what has already been learned, Alex has always been a more playful character in terms of dealing with the world - after all, she knows someone has been here before, and managed to get out. She happily walks into the office proclaiming the non-existence of the people around her ("Good morning constructs!") and states how she's going to be able to leave soon. The big-kicker then, is that by this final series it doesn't matter if they are real or not: Alex cares about them, and so do we. And the final series brings this sharply into focus by finally explaining the nature of the world we've been watching.
The third series has been a bit of a shake-up all over the place really. Firstly, the introduction of the brilliant Daniel Mays as Jim Keats. Considering he only had eight episodes to develop such a mysterious character, Mays does a fantastic job. Throughout the series he transforms a sympathetic charade into the most utterly evil performance I can remember on television in a long time; it's honestly chilling, as someone without any make-up or special effects totally gives the impression of something distinctly not human. Other than that, the series gave way a bit on its standalone episode structure, giving a bit more each week on Alex's growing obsession with what happened to Sam Tyler. On top of that, more to clues to what the world the characters inhabited actually was were given, and from the second episode it becomes clear the "side" characters of Chris, Shaz and Ray were in fact not that at all. All in all, in working up to the end the writers redefined the series, set out even more questions, and then answered them all, giving a fitting end to the characters and settling a story that's gone on for five years.
Now then. Lost. Some of you may be aware that this series (Sorry, season) has been Lost's FINAL series. It's being screamed at you from everywhere - trailers adorn my television screaming: "LOST!!! THE FINAL SEASON! LOST!! THE FINALE EVENT!" Sadly, it seems Lost has failed to live to its own hype. The series began with another twist: An alternate reality, in which Oceanic flight 815 never crashed, and the Losties never got a chance to improve their tans and meet polar bears. In fact in this reality, the island apparently got blown to hell and went Atlantis style. Now this is fine - we've had flashbacks, flashforwards and time travel on Lost, the idea of an alternate reality is a doddle. So as the series progress we're given details of continuing life in the "real" world, then this new "sideways" reality. Along the way it becomes clear that this was created as a result of the hydrogen bomb going off at the end of series 5, although its unclear about how the two realities may converge. Clues are dropped and theories aired, the finale comes... and it turns out to be complete baloney. It's actually purgatory, or something. Maybe. Now that would be fine, but not when you spend an entire series giving hints completely to the contrary, resulting it now only this resolution not making sense, but leaving us all with the fact that we've been taken for a complete ride. It's sloppy, sloppy writing. It's like leaving a breadcrumb trail for someone, then beating them to death with a croissant before they reach the end. Well its not, but it makes about as much sodding sense.
Now that's not to say there wasn't some very good moments in the finale - Some great character moments in there, particularly Sawyer and Julliet finding each other in the purgatory world, and seeing Charlie again is always good. Everyone reuniting in death to pass on is a lovely thought, but it shouldn't have had half a series squandered on it. Worse, the fact that the writers did the aforementioned red herring maneuver meant that the actual plot of this series, made very, very little sense. So Desmond flashed between realities, and this somehow made him realise what he had to do in the heart of the island, with no explanation. And he was bought to the island by Jacob... to what? Destroy the island, even though this is what the man in black eventually seemed to want? The events of the entire series have been orchestrated by a man whose methods make no damn sense - if the man in black wanted off the island, why did he help defend it against Widmore back in series 4, when he could have let lots of heavily armed marines trot onto his turf and kill all these pesky candidates for him? The series lapsed too much into metaphor, and as good as a metaphor is, it can't just be thrown in to cover the fact that the writers couldn't figure out solutions to their own mysteries - Lost actually outplayed itself. Impressive, at any rate.
Now some people would say that this doesn't matter, that Lost is about its characters. That's fine and all, but give them a send-off that makes sense. Ashes to Ashes managed this rather handily - A quickie crime of the week resolved straight away to let the bombs drop. Every revelation here was tied deeply to the characters, helped along by the fact the actors were bloody fantastic. The sequence where the coppers find out they are indeed dead, watching videos of their meaningless demise was completely heartbreaking. And then it boils down to whether you trust your leader, a metaphor that works beautifully in a quick last action sequence. Over on the island, someone took a rock out of a pond... and put a rock into a pond.
Both shows here have been doing a lot in common. Both an ambiguous villain for instance: Jim Keats in Ashes to Ashes and the man in black in Lost. Or more accurately, the man in black, impersonating John Locke. Or Flocke. Or just Smokey, whatever, because it turns out he's him as well. There are two reasons that one worked and the other didn't - At the end of the day, Gene Hunt wasn't going to be the bad guy. By midway through the series at any rate, the general foreboding tone that Mays so well bought about as Keats was hint enough. Smokey however, spent most of his series flip-flopping around and being deceptive, except the audience didn't have enough information to realise it was actual deception, and as such Smokey sounded logical for quite a lot of the time. Plus, he's fighting against Jacob, who's plans make about as much sense as a box of coked up frogs. It's fair to say it's hard to realise where you stand. The other problem is in execution. When Keats reveals his true colours, it's in a terrifying physical performance. In seventeen episodes, it took up until just before Lost's penultimate episode to reveal Smokey was in fact, definitely bad. And even then, his plan got changed and mucked around with so much it was hard to see him as threatening. Even worse was the sudden cheap way of making him kill-able again, presumably taking away all his powers... therefore not making it a problem if he got off the island in the fist place. All just so Kate could get in an action movie style pun at his expense. Fake Locke will not be going down on any "most memorable villains" list. The whole shebang was over complicated, and it killed it dead.
What it boiled down to in the end was whether or not you actually gave a damn. In Ashes to Ashes you have the revelation of a coppers purgatory, a place where people who have lost their lives protecting others for little thanks go. It didn't take any prisoners: Alex did not get a happy ending, and provided a brilliant performance on the pain of leaving somebody behind when you don't have a choice. And then there's Gene, able to fight the devil-like Keats and remain to help more people move through. It's beautiful, and perfectly paced. On Lost we learn that... if you get stranded on a crazy island with people for a long time then you care about them a lot. Or something. Or that its a bad idea to mess with glowing special light. Hmm.
So it isn't already obvious, the Gene Genie wins. I've been pretty damn harsh on Lost in this article, and I'll admit freely I'm exaggerating the faults of the finale. There were good bits. It was... ok. But a show with this pedigree shouldn't settle for ok. It definitely shouldn't settle for the lazy cop-out writing that we were served up in the end. And Ashes to Ashes, a show that I honestly thought was going to completely cop out in the end, actually served up one of the most moving hours of television in recent history. It's a table turner, and I didn't predict it. But TV writers, learn from this. Keep in mind that you're one day going to have to explain the complex mysteries you enjoy setting down. Don't treat your audience like fools, especially an audience thats been following you for six years.
Of course, all of this could just be because I'm bitter Kate didn't die, even though she got shot. Close, so close.
