favourite series finales

with the recent laughably terrible finale of House (i stopped watching a season ago and just tuned back in for the finale), i'm wondering what are some of your favourite TV finales ever.

my absolute favourite is probably Angel, which just somehow manages to be pitch-perfect from start to finish, and strongly thematically representative of what the whole show was saying since way back when. it's a sad story about it missing out on a season six renewal, but i can't imagine a show ending more perfectly.

i tend to find more to like about finales than dislike, even controversial ones like BSG and Lost. you have to really screw the pooch like House did for me to come down hard on a finale, but to do that, pretty much everything that once made the show good has to be gone for the creative team to birth such a hilarious failure.

i also really liked the Justice League Unlimited finale, even though they blew most of their best stuff the year before when they actually thought it was ending.

honourable mention to the season three finale of Community that just aired last week, which would have been a beautiful series finale if not for the (joyous!) news of a season 4 renewal. however it might be seen in the future as the swan song of "dan harmon's Community", but that's another topic.

Hmmm, this is actually kind of a hard question for me because now that I think about it there aren't many tv series that I've watched all the way through that had a proper series finale.

The only series finale that really stands out to me is Spider-Man: The Animated Series. It's the second half of the Spider Wars story arc, where the main Spider-Man teams up with his counter-parts from alternate universes to defeat a version of himself that is infected by the Carnage symbiote. It's a really sad episode. I cry every time during a particular scene.

oh geez, how could i have forgotten So Long, Farewell and Amen from M*A*S*H??

That's weird, I started writing my contribution to this thread a few hours ago but got distracted by googling Goodbye, Farewell & Amen. It's one of the greatest pieces of television ever.

Anywho, others I was going to include:
Freaks & Geeks - shame it didn't get a second season but the last episode works perfectly as a final episode.
Spaced - Leaves open the possibility of Tim & Daisy getting together but doesn't push the idea in your face.
The Office (UK) - The way everything finally works out is beautiful. There are things I prefer about the American Office but there's no way the ending (if they ever do end it) could even hope to compare.
The Wire - Because, well, The Wire.

Holy shit, Gwahir. We are on completely opposite sides with the House finale.

I don't think House could have ended any other way, it was absolutely brilliant and was one of the best series finales in my (admittedly horrible) memory.

it was totally beyond the pale in terms of ludicrousness and blunt, cloying emotion and platitudinous insight. it was totally stupid and ill-conceived, following up two (+?) stupid and ill-conceived seasons. it was inconceivably dumb

ugh!

when house supposedly died, his last words being "i can change"

and for a minute i thought they might do something crazy like

UGH!

a get-out-of-jail free card by house actually making it out alive in some extraordinary fashion, making the whole exercise pointless.

but i have to say that the last two minutes did make that final twist worthwhile -- it wasn't as dumb as i expected and actually dramatically worthwhile to see house and wilson ride off into the sunset on their harleys.

the only worthwhile thing about the first fifty five minutes was a pleasantly surprising appearance by sela ward, and even that was at best a bittersweet reminder of how compelling and well-written the show used to be.

It was the end of a series. For 8 years we've wrestled with "House is an ass, I wonder if he will ever change?" There's been glimpses of it the last few seasons starting with House in rehab, the Cuddy relationship and then this season with Dominika.

Spoiler

In the end, we find out that friendship really does mean more to House than the puzzles. He throws away everything just to hang out with his dying friend for a short time

House seeing people from his past is very similar to when he was seeing Amber Tamblyn's character before he went into rehab a few seasons back and those episodes were excellent. I thought it was a good way to bring back characters from the past and give you a little insight into what's actually going on inside of House's head at the same time.

The season finale to season 1 of Lost was pretty amazing at the time! Not sure if anybody here is a fan of Castle, but the recently aired finale to season 4 was just incredible! :D