More TV series end season with bang

In this story: Borrowing from soaps Blame 'Dallas' The sweeps effect Old technique revived RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Thurston Hatcher
CNN

ATLANTA, Georgia -- Ross was about to tie the knot with his British fiancee as the fourth season of "Friends" ended in 1998. But when he uttered Rachel's name at the altar rather than his would-be bride's, viewers were left wondering whether the wedding went through.

A year and a divorce later, he married again in the final episode, and in a drunken stupor, choosing Rachel as his not-so-lucky lady.

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Now the hit NBC series is gearing up for another blockbuster final episode featuring -- what else? -- the nuptials of Monica and Chandler.

Not so long ago, TV series typically ended the season as they began them, with standalone storylines that could have been inserted just about anywhere in the season lineup.

These days, rare is the series that doesn't have some kind of ratings- grabbing, Must-See-TV event -- a cliffhanger always helps -- to grab viewers one last time before the summer doldrums.

Borrowing from soaps

A special appearance by Bruce Willis, maybe. A wedding. A baby on the way. An attempted murder will do.

"This is something that is really a soap-opera technique," said Michael Porte, a professor of communications at the University of Cincinnati and an expert in mass media and popular culture.

"They do it on soap operas all the time to maintain interest to keep people watching. No matter how sordid the predicament, people are still hooked on it."

The proof is on the tube. Beyond the "Friends" wedding this month, "ER" promises a crazed gunman on the loose in Chicago, "Dawson's Creek" says goodbye to high school (and possibly its Wilmington, North Carolina, setting), and Carrie learns she's pregnant on "The King of Queens." Once again, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ends its season with a fight-to-the- death battle between good and evil.

Blame 'Dallas'

If it wasn't exactly the shot heard 'round the world when Kristin tried to knock off J.R. in that infamous "Dallas" episode, the TV executives, at least, were listening.

The airing, concluding the series' 1980 season, generated a long summer of unprecedented hype and a ratings bonanza when the would-be killer was finally revealed in the fall. The blockbuster finale would soon become a TV fixture.

The advent of the blockbuster finale can be attributed in part to the increase in serialized television. While "Dallas" was among the pioneers in the primetime soap genre, "Hill Street Blues" is largely credited with transferring the carryover plot lines to higher-brow fare.

That trend continued with "St. Elsewhere" and "L.A. Law" and soon became commonplace. Even situation comedies got into the act, from Sam and Diane's will-they-or-won't-they courtship on "Cheers" to, more recently, Niles and Daphne's "Frasier" flirtations.

The 1998 conclusion to "Seinfeld" was one of the most eagerly awaited -- and overhyped -- episodes in television history

A notable sub-genre of the season-ender is the series finale, which networks have milked for profits since 1983's "M*A*S*H" finale became one of the top-rated shows in TV history.

Another decade passed before the demise of another show, "Cheers," generated a comparable buzz and more stellar ratings. That was followed five years later by perhaps the most-hyped finale ever -- the last episode of "Seinfeld."

No shows of that status are calling it quits this year, although UPN's "Star Trek Voyager," "Walker, Texas Ranger" and "3rd Rock from the Sun" promise to go out with flair.

The sweeps effect

Another explanation for the blockbuster trend: sweeps programming, in which shows are clustered around key ratings surveys during November, February and May. Rather than running fresh shows back-to-back through the season, the networks now intersperse them with reruns.

"If the show is repeats a month at a time, you get out of the (viewing) habit, and I think once you get out of the habit you realize it's just television and you really don't care," said Steven Kramer, a veteran TV watcher and president of The Picture Palace online video business. "So to kind of get (people) back into watching the show, they have some big extravaganza at the end of the year."

Last season's finale to "The West Wing," in which there was an assassination attempt on the president (played by Martin Sheen, fourth from left), did not impress critics who had enjoyed the show for its sophisticated storylines

Those extravaganzas are not without risks. Sometimes series run the chance of damaging their credibility when they resort to high- stakes melodrama.

Kimberly's transformation into a mad bomber was hardly surprising on the 1995 season finale of campy "Melrose Place." But devoted followers of Paul and Jamie Buchman fumed when their consistently solid marriage on "Mad About You" suddenly grew shaky as the season drew to a close in 1996. The effect was jarring, particularly for a comedy.

Critics were similarly unimpressed last year when "The West Wing," renowned for its smart storylines and sophisticated dialogue, staged an assassination attempt on the president to close last season. (Viewers, of course, had to wait until autumn to learn who was shot.)

Old technique revived

The serial and the accompanying cliffhanger dates back to the early days of cinema -- earlier, if you want to get literary.

"They would build serials around comic-book characters like Dick Tracy, and the audience was basically young people, and they would be interested in checking out just how he escaped," said the University of Cincinnati's Porte. "They knew he would escape, but they always wanted to find out how he escaped."

But when television came around, cliffhangers and serials just weren't part of the mindset in the pioneering days of TV, Porte said.

"I think that early classic period of television, where we used to have self- contained dramas that were filled with live performers, we didn't rely on the suspenseful ending," he said. "We tried to finish programs each time because we were working in a theatrical mode and we were basing everything on the way it was done in the theater."

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