So was anyone else bizarrely entranced by the finale of Lost, despite having never watched it apart from occasional glimpses and one random episode after it was already universally judged to have jumped the shark?

Or was it just me?

I’ve always been remotely fascinated by Lost, actually, mostly because the first season was a phenomenon that I missed out on entirely, and the waves of disappointment started coming in round about the first episode of season two, and there were so many comparisons to the ways in which X Files both failed and succeeded, and yet… the show kept going. For six years.

And for most of those six years, the two kinds of sayers (doom and nay) have been gleefully reporting that, you know, it was never going to end well. Seriously. It was going to disappoint. All of you who love it? DOOMED to be disappointed.

Now the episode has screened the reports are in, and it’s a mixture of wailing, gritted teeth, WTF, disappointment, and even a few ‘well I liked it actually’s sneaking in here and there. Opinions seem to be divided, depending on expectations – those who never wanted explanations for every event are certainly the happiest! I’ve been fascinated to read the various viewer responses, despite having little to no investment in the show itself.

Then there was Battlestar Galactica, a show which veered so rapidly between awesome and fail, which I was entirely in the thick of, and determined to like despite all those wails and moans about how it ended, and… yes. I was burned. Deeply. I liked many parts of it that others hated, gritted my teeth over the Biblical imagery because, hey, it was written on the tin, but ultimately couldn’t forgive it for the treatment of female characters.

However many problems I had with the BSG finale, though, it was satisfying kind of in the way that eating burnt toast with lots of butter is satisfying. Once you’re done, at least it’s over.

Endings have been on my mind a lot lately. I bet you can’t guess why.

The trouble with discussing endings is that there are usually going to be people reading who don’t know how it ends, and thus will be spoiled, and spoiling endings is pretty much The Worst Thing Ever on the internet.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: sometimes I like to be spoiled. It eases the stress. My first fandom and TV love was Doctor Who, and I watched it in entirely the wrong order, and read programme guides, and knew roughly what I was getting into every single time. It didn’t harm my enjoyment a bit. On the other hand, I will never quite forgive myself for compulsively reading transcripts of Buffy Season 3 before the season aired, and thus completely wrecking (or at least altering) my experience of watching it.

Sometimes spoiling is the most effective way of explaining why a story is good. We were talking on Galactic Suburbia recently about how the whole point about Justine Larbalestier’s Liar is that it’s best read knowing as little as possible about the story, except for the premise. The trouble with this is that it’s hard to explain why, beyond the premise, some people should TOTALLY READ THIS BOOK, without spoiling it. Blake’s 7 is another one, where most people start out by telling you the end because the end is one of the main selling points of the show to viewers who might otherwise be dubious about “BBC science fiction full of anti-heroes made in the 70′s”.

The end of both versions of Life on Mars has been much discussed – the UK version being a fascinatingly complex and yet annoyingly mundane resolution (which would have been better if it hadn’t been billed as a mystery surprise in the credits – the whole point of the show was not in fact the unfolding of a mystery surprise), and the US version becoming a laughing stock faster than anyone can say “really, they cancelled it already?”

I have a confession to make. I got myself spoiled for the final of Ashes to Ashes. I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing. I will still watch the third season with great enjoyment, because I’m not there for the mystery resolution. I think I feel better for knowing. At the same time, I am desperately trying to avoid spoilers for this season of Doctor Who, simply because I do have such great trust in Moffat and I want to see what he offers us.

Even if he did end Press Gang the way he did. That bastard.

Buffy ended well. Xena ended well. Both had powerful, significant, meaningful and completely epic finales, which made statements about the show as a whole, and about the most important characters within said show.

Ending a series brings more weight of expectation than ending a movie, or a single standalone novel. There are more ends to tie up. More things to be said. You can understand how Tolkien ended up ending Lord of the Rings with a veritable parade of endings, which took up a disproportionate chunk of the final volume. David Eddings had similar tendencies, and again, you can see why. Readers and viewers who follow a series have put in a greater commitment than one-off consumers. They deserve a certain degree of closure, even if the results might not be what they are hoping for, and getting that balance is a very, very tricky thing to do.

Diana Wynne Jones, one of my favourite writers, always seemed to end her books about a chapter too soon. I wonder if that’s actually better than adding a chapter too many?

It would be nice, considering how long this blog post is, if I had a meaningful paragraph to end it with. But I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

(NOTE: can any commenters please put specific spoiler alerts if referring to details of particular endings? We don’t want to break the internet)

Tags: ashes to ashes, battlestar galactica, blake's 7, buffy, david eddings, diana wynne jones, doctor who, endings, finales, justine larbalestier, life on mars, lost, press gang, reading, Tolkien, watching, xena