Endings

I’m always a little obsessed with the way television has changed during my viewing lifetime (sometimes for the worse, but more often for the better, especially in drama), and one thing I was thinking about lately was the way hour-long episodic dramas typically end. When I started watching television, most hour-long dramas ended on a joke, or some kind of light moment that took the pressure off. Many dramas would actually have a tag before the final credits, the way sitcoms did, where the characters would gather together, tie up whatever plot points had been left unresolved, and then make some kind of lighthearted comment. Even dramas that didn’t have tags would sometimes end light; remember all those Star Trek episodes that ended with Kirk making some wisecrack at Spock’s expense.