Best And Worst Episode Endings

[bloodteller]

Rob and Doug supposedly often had trouble writing endings to an episode, and would somtetimes change them or come up with them at the last minute. Sometimes this worked really well (Queeg, for example) but other times it arguably didn’t. Which episodes do you think had the most satisfying endings? Which had the least satisfying ones? Mine would be-

Best- Queeg, Thanks For The Memory, Back To Reality, Krytie TV, Give And Take

Worst- Officer Rimmer, Timewave, Only The Good, Dimension Jump, Justice

Topic

[tombow]

I think the first ending that popped out to me as being memorable was Holly saying “I’m fantastic” in Queeg.

Bad? I was always bothered by those ones that end with some big throwaway disaster which is never mentioned again (like Rimmer dying again in Timeslides), but I guess that’s the nature of sitcoms.

I think my least fave is really BTE part 1, because it just felt unsatisfying and like nothing had happened yet, and I was just getting into it (after being excited)

[Ben Paddon]

Watched “Samsara” with the flatmate last night. Blimey, that one really does plod along after Lister and the Cat get locked in the cantine, doesn’t it? Four minutes of plot stretched out over fifteen minutes. Wasn’t quite enough meat on that particular bone, was there?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Wasn’t quite enough meat on that particular bone, was there?

That’s because all the crew were dead. You could say there was less meat on them then a chicken McNugget

[Plastic Percy]

Surely less meat on them than a chicken ..nugget.

[Ben Paddon]

Quinn was referring to the remastered version of Kryten.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Thanks for having my back Ben, I think.

[Dave]

the remastered version of Kryten

Is that when he starts taking orders from Lister instead of Rimmer?

[bloodteller]

I know people complain about the Dave era having abrupt endings, but I’m rewatching IV right now and Camille’s ending basically comes out of nowhere, doesn’t it? Holly interrupts the two of them in the middle of a scene (via being really crappily composited onto the cinema screen. she isn’t even at the right angle to be facing them) to tell them that Camille’s husband who’s never been mentioned until now has arrived. The whole thing’s really abruptly done, and although Kryten lying to Camille to get her to leave ties in nicely with the training scene at the beginning, the husband seems to basically just spring into existence in order to resolve the plot quickly. It’s really poorly done IMO

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You’re right bloodteller, though the cynic in me would say that if it were a Dave ending, Holly would pop onto the screen and next you’d see Camille and her husband strolling off down the corridor, cut to credits.

You wouldn’t get the nice moment between Kryten and Camille “droid meets droid” etc and then Kryten and Lister afterwards

[Warbodog]

And it means they can do a Casablanca ending too (though in the film, the husband’s there all along). So a few threads come together in a working-backwards-from-the-end way.

Most of IV’s other endings are abrupter and/or weirder.

[Dave]

I don’t think it’s an abrupt ending in Camille so much as a late twist. The ending is actually quite nicely done.

[bloodteller]

>Most of IV’s other endings are abrupter and/or weirder.

Yeah, I just finished DNA and Justice and they have dodgy endings too. DNA is about 10 seconds away from the Officer Rimmer ending, and Justice has the really out-of-character epilogue where everyone is pleased when Lister falls down a big hole and decide to seal him in. It doesn’t at all fit with the rest of the episode tbh-which makes sense I guess, as it was apparently quickly written and shot when Cat hitting himself in the face with the shovel was deemed an unsatisfying way to end the episode

[bloodteller]

Dimension Jump has possibly the most strange one. What’s the Hammond Organ recital bit at the end doing there? It’s completely irrelevant to the rest of the episode, and done entirely as a voiceover. Rimmer attempting to prank Ace but failing doesn’t work at all either since you can’t see it’s a net full of kippers he’s trying to pour on him, and the Star Wars scrolling text just clutters up an already messy ending

[International Debris]

There are definitely some questionable endings in there (Justice is a very bad one), but none of them actually feel like they’ve been cut halfway through a scene like a lot of the XI and XII ones do.

[Dave]

I like the ending of Justice. So there.

[Dax101]

The ending to justice, if i had to compare to any episode in the Dave era would be Twentica, because there is that moment at the end where its clear Doug didn’t know how to end it so you just get a what i have learned today speech.

Although i do prefer the Justice ending purely because the idea of the justice system was a much bigger part of it then what technology does for us was in Twentica, so listers rant makes more sense for it

I don’t think Camille ends abruptly. the ending actually takes its time after the reveal.

[Dave]

The reason I like Justice is that it’s a typical “what have I learned today” speech but with a punchline that acknowledges how annoying those pontificating speeches can be, and makes it clear that the crew are happy that the injustice of what happens to Lister ends his speech.

You couldn’t get away with something like that every episode, but for Justice I think it works. Sometimes it’s fun to puncture the pomposity of characters even when they’re in the right.

[Ben Saunders]

Sometimes life is just abrupt like that. Last time I watched Camille, last year, I received a phone call during the final scene informing me that my gran had died and the funeral was in a few days. How’s that for a late twist. I’ll never forget it, though.

[Ben Saunders]

Justice ending with Cat hitting himself in the face would be on par with the shiteness of Officer Rimmer, surely. Glad they re-wrote that one, even if the new ending is just slightly less naff.

[Flap Jack]

How do we categorize episodes which have endings that are decent on their own, but are made worse retrospectively by the beginnings of the very next episodes immediately undoing them?

Balance of Power and Parallel Universe the key offenders here.

[Ben Saunders]

Lister falling down a manhole and the others closing the lid on him, everybody kicking the shit out of Lister at the end of Tikka, Rimmer being locked in the garbage hold with Talkie Toaster. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this group of space chums don’t actually like each other.

I’ve never really thought about shit beginnings before. I like Tongue Tied honestly.

[Warbodog]

I don’t mind the Justice ending, but Cat falling over would have been funnier.

I don’t get why some people think DNA seems unresolved, when Kryten had already decided to change back and Holly was getting better at using the machine. Plenty of episodes end on a punchline of the situation getting worse and being unresolved, like Stasis Leak and Bodyswap, but we don’t demand closure there.

[Warbodog]

DNA would be a candidate for worst episode opening though, when they’re all jabbering over each other with serious technobabble. Thank god for Cat.

[Dollar Pound]

the flat ending to btr feels really real and natural. it’s unique. it’s the best ep ever so there can’t be anything wrong with it.

[Ben Saunders]

The point of the opening to DNA is to undercut it with a joke, though, surely, so it’s all worth it.

One of my favourite endings is Terrorform tbh, mostly for the cancerous polyp line

[bloodteller]

>Plenty of episodes end on a punchline of the situation getting worse and being unresolved, like Stasis Leak

Isn’t the whole point of Stasis Leak’s ending that the situation just gets progressively more and more complicated and tangled up, and that Rimmer is at the centre of it all with absolutely no idea what’s going on? I always liked that ending, everything’s just spiralled into a big mess with multiple versions of everyone shouting at each other and Rimmer’s just sat there thinking “What the fuck”. It’s like Rob and Doug had a bet going to see how overcomplicated confusing they could make it

[bloodteller]

Really the ending to Stasis Leak is a bit like the ending to Blake’s 7, only much less depressing

[International Debris]

Extending the ending of Stasis Leak is one of the very few improvements Remastered made. Going into the original after knowing the remastered one for five years felt really underwhelming.

[Ben Saunders]

They actually made something longer? Oh boy I’ll actually have to sit through an entire remastered episode now (or skip to the end but I could do with watching Stasis Leak again)

[Warbodog]

I just checked, it includes a few seconds of deleted material after the other Rimmer shows up and before Rimmer tells them all to go awah, where they all talk over each other. In case you had your hopes up for double double double future copies.

[International Debris]

Yeah, there’s just a few more seconds of chaos at the end which makes Rimmer’s ‘go away’ scream just feel a little more earned.

[clem]

> They actually made something longer?

There’s also a few extra seconds of Rimmer in Cat’s body at the end of Bodyswap Remastered.

[Unrumble]

Remastered was my first experience of the back 3 episodes of Series 3, so I didn’t fully appreciate how bad that CGI chase sequence in Bodyswap was, until I saw the original version when the DVD came out…

[tombow]

It’s just dawning on me it’s possible that I’ve only seen Series 1 Remastered.

[Moonlight]

Black card.

Wait, you don’t know what that means.

[Author]

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