The chopper leaving in M*A*S*H, Seinfeld and the gang getting thrown in the slammer, Earl Sinclair destroying all biological life on the planet. These are some of the iconic final episodes of television history.
Over the course of a sitcom's run, there are always two milestones that are important to every narrative program. The first is the series premiere, which hooks in an audience and introduces them to the world inhabited by the characters that they will hopefully learn to love and relate to. The second is the series finale, wherein after the run of the series (lengthy or cancelled before its time), all things must come to an end. Sometimes, the end of these shows come out of nowhere, cancelled by a network who no longer cares about a program (think of Urkel being lost in space in Family Matters in a planned cliffhanger that was never resolved). In the world of sitcoms, these two episodes are the ones most different than the entire rest of the series.
On this blog, I will watch both the series premiere and series finale of a sitcom back to back and post some thoughts about it each week. I plan to watch sitcoms that I am very familiar with, and sitcoms that I have neglected for many years (apologies to all Rosanne and Married With Children fans out there). Hopefully this can become a resource that goes into a little more detail as to the exact goings on in a television show's series beginnings and endings than the typical two or three sentence episode guide listed on Wikipedia.
About me? I'm just really bored.
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