I voted for 'Not Fade Away' because I think it is better than those listed, but my favorite all time final episode was Bob Newhart's dream episode.

embers | August 12, 22:06 CET

And I did vote for the Newhart episode. Love Angel, but good is good.

kmb99 | August 12, 22:15 CET

OMG I didn't even see the Newhart option, and it is right next to the Angel one, I'm clearly not paying close enough attention today.

embers | August 12, 22:22 CET

Surprised at how well BSG is doing. Anyhow, I voted for Angel but was close to going for Arrested Development.

Jayme | August 12, 22:38 CET

Makes me happy to see the Newhart love here!

But where's "Chosen"?

wonderflonium | August 12, 22:57 CET

God, I love Not Fade Away, but Everybody's Waiting is maybe my favorite episode of television ever.

The Dark Shape | August 12, 23:05 CET

I voted for The Shield. The quality of the show went up and down over the years, but its final episode may have been the best I've ever seen. It managed to be intensely satisfying while maintaining its integrity and heaping a hell of an emotional impact. I adore AtS with all my heart and even just re-watched Not Fade Away yesterday. It's a powerful episode, but that ending just kills me. I get it and everything. But it still kills me.

Joss' bitch | August 12, 23:14 CET

Loooooved Everybody's Waiting. Had to vote for it. Utterly surprised Friend's finale is currently in the lead....that show annoyed the crap out of me.

didifallasleep | August 12, 23:16 CET

I too am stunned - unpleasantly - by Friends being in the lead. But I am also stunned - and impressed - that Blackadder is doing great!

Joss' bitch | August 12, 23:19 CET

The first few years of Friends were really good television, but the finale was... not bad. Just not great. It was a pretty standard show ending.

Jobo | August 12, 23:23 CET

Too much good stuff. I'm not picking.

Though I'm tempted to go with B5 or MASH.

redeem147 | August 12, 23:26 CET

"Friends" is always entertaining.

"Not Fade Away" is by far the best episode of television I've ever seen. "Everyone's Waiting" is also way up there, and "The Last Newhart" is cool. I haven't seen way too many of these.

patxshand | August 12, 23:30 CET

I'm also rather disappointed to see Friends leading the pack. Probably the most overrated show that's ever been on television.

wonderflonium | August 12, 23:45 CET

"Not Fade Away" gets my vote time and again but it's nice to see what other people think is good as well. I must agree The Shield finale was insanely good and I have yet to see this Newhart but it sounds powerful.

silent knight | August 12, 23:45 CET

I was tempted to vote for "Exeunt Omnes" (Oz), but overall, I think "Not Fade Away" was more satisfying.

deepgirl187 | August 13, 00:01 CET

I chose The Shield. But Six Feet Under and, of course, Angel, are also very good choices. Why isn't BtVS on this list, though?

Invisible Green | August 13, 00:10 CET

"Not Fade Away" is one of my favorite finales, but only as far as the ending of the episode is concerned. The episode on it's own is not particularly impressing. I voted for "Daybreak." I was very satisfied with BSG's ending.

Valentyn | August 13, 00:10 CET

While I love "Not Fade Away" and think it is one of the best finales I have seen (and like it much better than "Chosen") I really had to choose "Sleeping in Light"

It has no chance of winning because of the smaller viewing audience, but that was the finale to end finales and the way a 5 year series should end.

recoil | August 13, 00:50 CET

I am completely torn here.

I remember, back in the day, I absolutely loved ST:TNG's "All Good Things...". I recorded it and was generally quite sad that the show was over.

On the other hand, Babylon 5's "Sleeping In Light" is a testament to the determination of a show's creator to get his vision out there and his story told, it's a true finale and "final chapter" for the story, and it never fails to move me to tears. The music for it is also beautiful. (And, it was the first in a long line of shows on DVD I got fanatical about, which eventually led me to discovering various Whedon shows on DVD, and how I ended up here. Nothing to do with the episode or anything, but still.)

Of course, "Not Fade Away" is, while occasionally frustrating for the 'I don't want this to end!' part of me, a fantastic way to end -- and not really end -- that show.

I didn't realize "Basil the Rat" was a series finale, but I adore that episode.

nanceoir | August 13, 00:54 CET

Voted BSG cause well it was my favorite. My second choice would have been SFU and #3's probably Arrested Development. Then Babylon 5 then Angel.

theMidnighter | August 13, 01:13 CET

Gosh, Newhart for sure, but MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, The West Wing, Mad About You, and of course, Angel all had grat endings. Oh and Roseanne never fails to make me cry. :(

chance | August 13, 01:42 CET

So, I'm looking at the poll, get to the bottom and think to myself, why the f*&% would anyone bother to login and vote just to say I have no opinion. I vote for Angel, and lo and behold I have no opinion is winning by a mile. WTF?
People are weird.
Also, I LOATHED the Newhart finale with a passion. All a dream my ass.

Xane | August 13, 02:08 CET

Must say, I'm surprised at how torn folks here are, and over what. Though I agree: Newhart was a great ending, B5 was wonderful, even MTM was good.

But "Not Fade Away" was stellar, amazing. Voted for it, no real hesitation.

(Though I'd say B5 was my favorite series, over Angel. But that was a peerless two-part ending.)

filops | August 13, 02:11 CET

We've watched NFA maybe 20 or more times.

Never gets old, always stuns us.

Visually, viscerally, emotionally overpowering.

Best ending episode ever.

Chris inVirginia | August 13, 02:48 CET

I never post here, though I lurk every day, but I have a confession to make and this seems like a good place to do it.

I didn't like "Not Fade Away". Actually, I didn't like the entire final season of Angel at all, especially after (what I considered) the absolutely stellar previous season, which was Angel at its best as far as I'm concerned.

There, I said it. I feel better now. Alone and soon to be universally despised, but better.

(I also don't like Firefly. Yeah, might as well seal my fate entirely. I love everything else Whedon's done, though. Oh, and I voted for "Everyone's Waiting", for what it's worth.)

rahzeael | August 13, 04:26 CET

Hey Rahzeael.

I thought season 5 of Angel was the most inconsistent season of angel (ok, maybe apart from season 1).. half the episodes are pretty bad in my opinion..

Most of the comedy episodes are particularly bad and don't feel real or right in the context of the type of show Angel had become during season's 2-4... I also think that the eisode where Fred died, (although on many people's top lists of Angel episodes)is actually pretty bad and didn't hit the mark emotionally.. the death and the way it was handled felt forced and hollow to me. It was almost as bad as Wash's death in Serenity

Having said that, 'Not Fade Away' is, in my opinion, the best episode of Angel ever (and Wesley's death was much better handled than Fred's).... And firefly is great... maybe you should try rewatching it:)

mortimer | August 13, 04:40 CET

It was a really difficult choice to make there as BSG, Angel, B5, ST:TNG etc, etc all had really great finales, but I had to go with the M*A*S*H finale. There must've been a lot of dust in the air when I watched it because my eyes got a bit red and weepy ;)

ozfinn | August 13, 05:40 CET

I am kinda surprised that no one here is contesting this poll's lack of inclusion of "Chosen"--much better than some of the choices here. But to me the biggest omission: "The Office," either season two episode six or the Christmas special, the former of which is probably in my top ten television episodes of all time. (Also: the "Extras" Christmas special. Yowsah.)
And if you're going to include "Basil the Rat," which doesn't exactly "conclude" the show in any way, might as well include "Objects in Space."

Anyway, I guess I'd go with "NFA" of these choices, with fondness for "Fall Out," "All Good Things,{ "Development Arrested," the MTM finale, and (with caveats!) the "M*A*S*H" finale.

WilliamTheB | August 13, 07:52 CET

Rahzael, no worries, we won't despise you just for being wrong. ;)

Xane | August 13, 07:53 CET

Haha. Thanks!

WilliamTheB, I definitely think "Chosen" should have been included, and would have voted for it if it had been. And if "Epitaph One" had been a finale...thankfully, it isn't, though.

As for "Not Fade Away", I'll clarify a bit by saying I do agree that it's not a "bad" episode, as those things go...it was just a disappointing finale for me. I wanted full closure, as opposed to the open-ended nature of that episode. As a cliffhanger prelude to a sixth season, I would have loved it. As the final episode of the entire series, however...argh. (And grr!)

And firefly is great... maybe you should try rewatching it:)

Yeah, I agree I need to give it another try. Can't guarantee it will change my mind, but the main reason I didn't care for it originally is that I wasn't able to warm to the space cowboys theme (I'm not a fan of Star Wars or Star Trek, either, if that helps make sense of things, but I liked BSG; yeah, I'm weird). If I can get past that I might be able to enjoy it a second time around.

rahzeael | August 13, 08:29 CET

Friends won this poll?? (It says "poll closed"). That is just wrong in so many ways.

If I'd found this before it closed, I would have voted for Daybreak 1&2, by far my favorite finale ever.

I agree that Chosen should be on the list, although none of Joss's shows finales are on my favorites list, for the specific series. I actually think Objects in space was the best Joss finale.

My second favorite on that list would be a tie between Sleeping in Light and Everyone's waiting. Sleeping in Light still makes me cry - I mean really. ;)

Shey | August 13, 11:23 CET

Objects in Space? It wasn't a finale. It just happened to be the last episode filmed when the show was canceled. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

recoil | August 13, 14:43 CET

What's interesting is that I've seen a lot of these shows, but only 4 finales (BSG, Angel, Babylon 5, and MASH).

Sleeping in Light wasn't actually the Babylon 5 finale--it was the Coda. Objects at Rest was a good series finale.

BSG (Daybreak) was a farce, in that it failed to answer basic questions and pretended that it was somehow appropriate. "What happens next?" a la NFA or the Sopranos, is a perfectly fine question to leave unanswered, but "what the heck just happened!?" is not.

Of all of those, MASH was among the best finale to series quality ratio. Yeah, the show ran longer than the Korean war, but wrapping it up in such a poignant way in an era of "weekly reset" storytelling was an accomplishment worth noting.

jclemens | August 13, 17:27 CET

Voting's done now, from what I can tell, but I would've gone for Six Feet Under's "Everyone's Waiting" (I really don't remember titles for that series, forgot that's what it was called).

Arrested Development & Angel are up there too (although the annoyance/disappointment at the no-Season-6-ishness of Angel overpowers my respect for the "fight continues" interpretation of the ending as a result of cancellation, although at least I got to see glimpses at what might've been in "After the Fall"). They're not on the lists, but Freaks & Geeks, Justice League Unlimited (say, "Epilogue" instead of what aired as the last ep, or its almost-finales before it was renewed a couple times), and Futurama are favorites of mine as well (Futurama's TV finale, or the fourth direct-to-DVD movie...neither of which will be its finales any longer, now that the show's going back to TV). Many I'm forgetting, I'm sure.

I remember loving "All Good Things" and I was a Star Trek:TNG nut from age 9 to 12 (catching up on the first three seasons + a half in repeats was a huge after-school and weekend joy), but I can't trust my 12 year old self's memory of it. Would need a re-watch.

I have no problems with The Sopranos' ending, but it was just kind of an episode, y'know ? A day in the life. Which was as it should've been, it felt appropriate (regardless of whether the sudden cut to black meant what it might've [likely] meant), they don't all need to be epic, heartwrenching, and/or definitively final in tone/statement. But it wouldn't get a vote because it just wasn't anything special, IMO.

The second half of Season 6 of Oz had problems, I felt, so I can't say "Exuent Omnes" is a great finale. It felt a little hollow, in parts, which was a shame after Season 5 recovered so expertly from Season 4's occasional wonkiness and killing of characters that should've been there 'til the end. The only bulletproof excellence was the Beecher/Keller stuff, from what I can remember.

I watched all ten seasons of Friends (give or take some missed episodes 'cause it eventually became non-essential TV, but what the heck else was on Thursdays back then?), but its finale was so average-ending-of-sitcom, it was completely unremarkable. Besides, I wanted a surprise ending that didn't allow Ross/Rachel to happen (Joey/Rachel all the way!).

Haven't gotten to the finales of B5 and The Shield yet.

Kris | August 13, 17:37 CET