Walking my dog along the Leiden canals just now, I found myself with a song running through my head. It was Lissie's "Everywhere I Go," which I would never have heard of (let alone heard) if Joss Whedon hadn't used it in the last scene of "Dollhouse." That was a perfect song, inserted at just the right part of a Perfect Ending.
Not everything has a Good Ending. Especially in the world of television, where the vagaries and egos of networks and production companies often cut a TV series too short, and without giving "proper notice." "Proper notice," in my lexicon, means telling the people who are creating the TV show week by week that you're cancelling their asses *several weeks before you do it*. That gives them a chance to come up with a Good Ending. And yet, even "proper notice" can't save a series that has already jumped the shark, as we saw with the recent ending of "Dexter." That was SO not a Good Ending, even though they had a whole year to prepare for it. Joss Whedon's "Firefly" was not given "proper notice." They were on the air one week with four episodes already in the can and ready to be shown and Fox just pulled the plug on them. They didn't even air the not-yet-seen episodes. Just Bam!...bullet in the head. *Not* a Good Ending. And it *felt* like that to the fans, as well. They hit the roof and hit the Internet, and stirred up enough outrage and enough chatter that Joss was able to make a full-length movie followup to his cancelled series, called "Serenity." And, knowing that in all likelihood he was never going to get another shot at the Firefly 'Verse again, he pulled out all the stops and came up not only with a Good Ending, but a Perfect Ending. It "bookended" perfectly with the history of the entire series. At the end of the first episode of "Firefly," Mal is sitting in the control room of Serenity, saying to one of his crew, "That was a good day." The crew member reminds Mal that he was shot, several members of his crew are wounded, and that they barely escaped with their lives. Mal says something like, "We're still flying. That's a good day." At the end of "Serenity," Mal is sitting in the control room with another of his crew, one who in this case can even read minds: Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: But it ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say. River Tam: I do. But I like to hear you say it. Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home. River Tam: Storm's getting worse. Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: We'll pass through it soon enough. All these episodes on, and Mal and his crew are still flying. Good Ending. The recent culmination of "Breaking Bad" pretty much "sets the bar" for how high TV creators can jump when ending their series. It was the definition of not only Good Ending, but Perfect Ending. Another TV show I thought had a Perfect Ending was (again) Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse." The show was cancelled halfway through its second season, but this time Fox gave him the time to create a Good Ending. In my opinion, Joss turned that into an opportunity to create a Perfect Ending. I think that the last episode of "Dollhouse" (if you've seen all the other episodes) is as classic an example of the Perfect Ending as the last episode of "Breaking Bad" (same caveat about having seen all that led up to it). If you *did* watch all the episodes of "Dollhouse," and enjoyed them, then this song is permanently etched in your mind. So much so that it occasionally "plays" in your head spontaneously from time to time, as it just did on my walk. If you didn't, it's just a song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLm1suqb-6g <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLm1suqb-6g>
