May is the month that is usually the home of season and series finales, since it's the end of the TV season. Many shows never have a chance to have a planned finale since most most shows fail in catching on in the first place. This month we take a look at some examples of how shows made their ends.
We start with "Leave it To Beaver" this series is a classic sitcom that's still being rerun today even though it aired starting in 1957. Funny enough, the finale episode we are looking at aired in June of 1963 so June not May. "Beaver" had 234 episodes and ran a span of 6 seasons. It was running well , but some of the actors wanted to move on and so they got their wish. This episode is called "Family Scrapbook".
This episode is considered the first episode (ha) in a prime time series have an episode expressly written to be a finale, other series ended like normal. Through this process I will be looking at different kinds of series finales so this kind is called the finale that looks back at the series as away to say goodbye.
It starts with June doing some cleaning and she finds a box with some old stuff . The stuff in the box brings June and Ward some memories then they find the scrapbook the episode is named after. It's full of old pictures and they decide to have the kids look at the book with them. If you ever wondered by Theodore is called the Beaver this episode explains that. The episode uses the pictures as a way to guide into clips of past episodes of the series. It shows memorable events from the past six seasons. Yes, this episode is a clip show with the wrap round segments being the new content. There's not much to say on what happens in the episode because of that. Going to the last couple minutes of the episode Ward and June talk with each other and are talking about how they've grown up while it cuts to Beaver and Wally laughing at a toy.
Over the time of watching this series, viewers watched for 6 years as the two boys grew up and the wondered what the family would do the next week. I consider this episode to be a thank you episode to the viewers for sticking by and enjoying the moments put together. Clip shows aren't much of my thing but I like it used for the last episode more than say random episode in season 4 when a show needed something to fill time. Beaver had grown up and was on his way to high school and Wally was on his way to other things so it's a good time to end the series.
This was also one of the first family sitcoms to look at things from the kids' point of view not Mom and Dad (Father Knows Best) and so the audience could identify as either currently a child or remember their own childhoods. Since Beaver was moving on to high school and we've done pretty much the high school plots with Wally it was good time. To get a little dark as an analogy think of this episode as like when someone dies and people look back the person's life this episode was that a look at this series as Beaver won't be on the air (as new episodes) anymore here's the show's life and moments we were glad to share it with you.
Is this a good series finale? Yes, it has things you want in a finale a way to say goodbye to a series you love and one way is to remember what it brought you over the years.
Next time, what happens if you planned a whole big 2 part episode where one episode was the season finale and next was to be the new season premiere, but then you find out the show was canceled? That's what we talk about next in our journey of season finales with Oh What? Damn you network!
Tune in next time when we shut down the blog and reminiscence about our episodes.
Also on the Blog:
You know this thing that's been happening where they make continuation series of a series that ended like years before ? (Fuller House, Raven's Home, Girl Meets World, etc..) Beaver had that in the 80's I've written about that before. HERE
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