I think this is the finale I’ve been looking forward to the most.  When Heroes premiered back in September, I remember liking it, but not feeling like I’d end up staying with it for very long.  (At the time, I was higher on Studio 60…but that’s for another post.)  But Heroes has delivered something that – for my money, anyway (your mileage may vary) – hasn’t been in episodic television since season 1 of Alias, or the early days of Buffy…well developed characters, superb storytelling, and all-around satisfying TV that hasn’t been dumbed-down in order to cast a wide net.  Sure, like all episodic TV, some episodes were stronger than others (without a doubt, “Company Man” and “Five Years Gone” are standouts from season 1), but there was no filler here, no weak episodes; only ‘strong’, ‘stronger’, and ‘holy living fuck!’.

So, enough with the preliminaries.  Time to get on with Chapter 23:  “How to Stop an Exploding Man”.

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Anyone who knows me knows that I think the UK version of The Office is as close to perfect as television comedy gets. And while I had some initial apprehension about a US conversion of the series, the American version of The Office quickly found its own voice and comedic style. That was three years ago. Suffice to say, the American version of The Office is now appointment television for me, and there was no way in hell that I was missing this finale.

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I thought that since the season finales are airing this week (with a few exceptions – 30Rock, your season ended too soon!), I thought I’d try something new. Instead of just talking to/shouting at the TV, I thought I’d share my thoughts with you in a new feature I’m calling M-D Watches the Season Finales.

I won’t be watching EVERY season finale, mind you, just the shows I’d be watching anyway. And these aren’t going to be reviews as much as they’ll be my stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the episodes (and the ads that surround them), written in (mostly) real-time – essentially, these are the comments I’d turn and make to you if you were sitting in the same room, watching the show with me. And while I’m going to try to keep things as spoiler-free as possible, since these are finales, some minor spoilers may slip through. You’ve been warned.

So, now that the formalities are out of the way, we start with the very last episode ever of Gilmore Girls.

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I’m sitting at Capitol City Ford while my Explorer gets its 12,000 oil change and general ‘turn your head and cough’ checkup, trying to get some work done for my meeting in Sacramento next week, and I’ve made the mistake taking my headphones off. Over the course of the last 25 minutes or so, I’ve been subjected to the inane ranting of Regis and Kelly, and the soul-devouring vapidity of Rachael Ray. (Oh boy! The ‘snack of the day is Asiago Cheese Straws! KILL ME NOW.) I know that I’m not in the target demographic for these shows, but I don’t understand how these shows are fit for any kind of human consumption. Seriously, I can feel my brain cells committing ritual suicide as I type this.

I miss daytime game shows. OK, maybe Match Game wasn’t exactly the Algonquin Round Table, but it was at least good for a laugh. And, hell, I probably learned more about math from The Price is Right than I learned in my first two years of elementary school. (At the very least, I was playing pricing games at a 5th grade level.)

I reckon that, at some point, a network executive decided that it was more economical to produce 1 hour of Rosie, BabaWawa, et al droning on and on about absolutely nothing for an hour each day than to produce 30 minutes of actual entertainment. I could never subject viewers like me to that kind of torture – so I guess I’d make a lousy network executive.