Last night I watched the final episodes of Criminal Minds. It was a TV series I watched quite a bit when it first came on and recently picked up on it again.
For a show that has been on 15 seasons, and has run it's course, I think they did a fairly decent job wrapping it up. What gave me a bit of nostalgia, is when they brought in clips and some of the actors and team members that had long since left the show as I was hoping they would. Early on it was a time when I would watch it after putting my young daughter who is now 21 to bed. Anyway it's done now.
Although I don't watch too much TV, it got me thinking about other series ending shows. Some great, others not so much.
When I was a kid, I religiously watched Bonanza, and the ending of that 14 year series seemed a little sad at best.
MASH and Cheers will always go down as two of the most watched series endings in history.
However, the greatest series ender for me is not a show I watched when it was first on, but picked up on later in syndication. It only ran for four years, but at the time was the most watched season finale ever. It set a precedent with an astonishing 78 million viewers in 1967 and 50+ years later it still ranks #3 most viewed on the all time list. It did not disappoint.