The Year of the Cliffhanger

Posted by Cynical Sarah on May 3, 2006

Our home is scheduled around several prime-time shows. Our evenings often consist of what get recorded when, and when we’ll actually get around to watching it.

Mondays are 24 and CSI: Miami. Tuesdays are Criminal Minds. Wednesdays are Alias, Bones and CSI: New York. Thursdays get a bit crazy with Smallville, CSI, That 70s Show, Survivor and My Name is Earl. I’m sure I’m forgetting something somewhere. I always forget at least one or two that I end up surprised about when my husband says it’s on and we must watch it.

Thank goodness for the off-season where I can actually plan to do something in the evening and not have to worry about what we’ll have to record and fit into our watching schedule at a later date.

I was a little disappointed with all the season enders so far though. It must be the year of the cliffhanger because several of them ended without a real end for the season.

Criminal Minds got me all involved in their latest case and of course didn’t even come close to solving it by the end of their last show for the season. That and they left us hanging with a possible agent being killed. I hate that.
The same goes for CSI: NY. At least they wrapped up the case, but now I’ve got to wait until next season to find out if the cop survived. And with Bones, they solve the current case by figuring out what happened to the girl’s mom, but then she gets a mysterious phone call from her dad who has also been missing for 20 years.

Smallville – Clark is trapped in one of those dimensional cube things and his mom and Lois are on a doomed airplane ride. How ever will it all end up?!?! I’ll be biting my nails with worry all summer hoping that it alls comes out good in the end. (Please note the sarcasm.)

Even The Office, which isn’t on our normal viewing schedule, but will probably be added next year, got in on the cliffhanger with the secretary and Jim finally kissing even though she’s engaged to another man.

I’m just not a big fan of the cliffhanger like that. I KNOW Clark will somehow get out of his dimensional prison and save his mom and Lois. Sure, some people might actually end up dead on CSI, Criminal Minds and other shows, but finding that out isn’t what will bring me back for the next season. I’d rather have the show all neatly tidied up for this season, and come back starting fresh next time.

I’ll probably have forgotten the plot by the time it rolls around again anyway.

Besides, it’s the quality that will keep me coming back. I don’t need a cheap cliffhanger gimmick to pull me back next year. Take My Name is Earl for example. They could have easily made their season finale into a cliffhanger too.

Earl ends up doing number one on his list, which turns out to mean giving up his lotto money to the guy he stole ten bucks from the day he bought the winning ticket. The producers could have stretched the story out a bit to make it so the season ended without us finding out if Earl gets the money back or wins the lotto again somehow.

Instead, they wrap the story up in a nice neat little bow. Earl does things from his list even while poor in the hopes that karma will prevail and ends up getting his money back. So next season we all know exactly how the show will go on – Earl will continue to work on his list and give us lots of laughs while doing it.

It’s neat, it’s simple and they didn’t use a lot of bells and whistles and whatnot to try to trap me into watching again. I’ll be back to watch just because it isn’t a crap-lousy show.

- Sarah L. Polson

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