Why do shows end? What leaves us wanting more? After years of watching our favorite television series, we have to bid farewell go them. They’ve invaded our homes and TV sets, tugged at our hearts and we must accept that they too like everything else in life must come to an end. But why do we yearn for more? Why do we ask for remakes and reboots? Would a remake or reboot satisfy the empty space left by the original series?
Heroes Reborn is a perfect example. After a couple episodes in this rebooted series, it has been cancelled from network television leaving its viewers disappointed. We as viewers must understand and accept the fact that our favourite television shows which we watch religiously must hang up their hats and call it a day.
As viewers, we should bear in mind hypothetically that the characters in our favorite series yearn for a happy ending or something better than what he or she endures throughout said series. Charmed was a series from the now defunct WB Network. After eight years battling demons, losing friends and loved ones the charmed ones deserved a semi-charmed kinda life. Which makes the ending of this once beloved show perfect. The producers decided to give us an inside future glimpse of what lives the charmed ones led after their years-long battle. This should be enough to satisfy the viewer. As a once viewer of Charmed myself, I am honestly happy to see that the three sister witches lead lives that they had so yearned for but couldn’t get regardless of their countless tries.
So why ask for a reboot? Don’t these characters deserve to have an ending?
Unlike fairy tales, most television characters can’t have happy endings like the charmed ones. Dexter on the other hand after years of feeding his bottomless hunger for serial killing as a form of justice for criminals escaping the law, eventually had to have his end. Though it wasn’t what viewers expected, it was somehow just. Losing his wife Rita at the hands of the Trinity Killer, which he had hoped to find a mentor in before deciding to kill him, paid for his mistake. Throughout the show, this has been shown over and over again. Finally, it all took its toll, and it had cost him the life of the person he had loved most: his sister Debra. Finally realizing that he brings only pain and destruction to his loved ones, he decided to seclude himself away from the world he knew. He chose to suffer in guilt, silence, and loneliness as self-penance for all the wrong he had done.
Characters that truly deserve an ending after a long battle and loses are the Winchester brothers from the television show Supernatural. They too like most of our beloved characters have suffered many loses, even more so their souls. Going to hell and back for each other and the world, they too deserve a much-needed end.
Then there are endings that are left open. The highly acclaimed J.J. Abrams series Alias ended somewhat baffling. Everyone awaited a proper and well-deserved death for the shows antagonist Arvin Sloane, only to be confused, perhaps outraged by the justice given to him. Stuck under a boulder and abandoned by the apparition of his so-called beloved daughter Nadia. It left me as a loyal viewer, wondering, what if some other terrorist decides to free him from his prison? What about Mr. Sark? After being a loyal partner of Mr. Sloane, wouldn’t he too in future decide to find his once former partner in crime? In my opinion, this ending was unsatisfactory but ended well timed.
Sometimes the prolonging of a series, leaves the viewers bored, and begging for an end to such suffering. Seeing their once beloved show go sour.
Finally my most beloved show from creator Chris Carter The X-Files. After leaving us with an open, the show’s creator decided to revamp the series in a six-episode event. This decision was to show the loyal viewers who perhaps almost died of aneurysms from the very not well received second silver screen movie The X-Files: I Want to Believe, what happens 13 years after the series ended. After all, an alien invasion was promised and started taking place at the end of the original series.
It too in my view proved another heart pounding open end, with an alien ship hovering over Dana Scully while a deathly infectious Fox Mulder sat in the car next to her dying of this alien-engineered virus. Questions invaded my head, what will happen next? Must I wait for another season to come about showing what will really happen? When would this show and its characters get their end?
We as viewers must try putting ourselves in the shoes of these tv characters that we have to come to love and support throughout the time we enjoy these series and ask ourselves if this was me, wouldn’t I too not want to have an end? This is a question we must all ask ourselves. Why? Because a constant repetition of the same thing year after year drives one to utter madness. Then there comes a time that we too would want an end of what we endure and even more so a change from such struggles.
All that has a beginning must have an end. It is the universal law of the world we live in. Nothing lasts forever, and we should start accepting this fact and try moving on with our lives. In this case onto new series with new characters and try enjoying them while they exist, knowing that they too must have an end.