Origins
Most series in early television consisted of stand-alone episodes without continuing story arcs, so there was little reason to provide closure at its end. Early series which had special ending episodes were Howdy Doody in September 1960 and Leave It to Beaver in June 1963.
Considered to be "the series finale that invented the modern-day series finale," "The Judgement", the final episode of The Fugitive, attracted a 72% audience share when broadcast. This finale received the highest viewing figures in American history prior to being surpassed by the Dallas episode "Who Done It".
In some cases a series finale proves to be premature, as a subsequent season is created, such as with 7th Heaven, Sledge Hammer! and Babylon 5.
Scrubs aired a two-part episode billed simply as a "My Finale" in May 2009 as the show's renewal or cancellation had not been decided as of its airing, and so it was not known whether the episode would conclude just the season or the entire series.
Futurama has had three designated series finales, due to the recurringly uncertain future of the series. "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", "Into the Wild Green Yonder (Part 4)" and "Overclockwise" have all been written to serve as a final episode for the show.
Read more about this topic: Series Finale
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)