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Old 04-20-2008, 02:11 PM
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'Tos
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Joined: May 2005
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The Fairy-Tale Ending to Foreverwood

Yeah, I know, the title is very uninspired.

Here's an article someone wrote about the ending to Everwood and to Gilmore Girls, and I'm curious on people's thoughts on what she says about Everwood's final scene. I've cut out the Gilmore Girls stuff because it's not really relevant here and possibly spoilerific.

Quote:
I've always had to ask myself how much of television is possible and how much isn't. It always seems that as a show ends, as the series finale is aired, something extraordinary always happens. No matter how realistic the show is during the entirety of its time on TV, the finale always seems to contain something unrealistic.

Maybe shows just like to go out with a bang.

Many of the shows seen on the CW (formerly the WB) seem to have endings that "fairy-tale-ize" their shows. "Everwood" was a popular show that aired for four seasons on the WB and was based around the character of a widowed brain surgeon and his son.

Through the duration of the show the son, Ephram, really liked Amy, a girl from his school, although Amy was committed to a boyfriend who was in an accident and remained in a coma for the first few seasons. Coincidentally, Ephram's father was the surgeon who treated Amy's boyfriend until the boyfriend character passed away.

Through the four seasons of the series, Amy and Ephram found their way to each other and began dating, but eventually they broke up. For most of its run, the show was realistic and never too "over the top." But the series finale took it to another level.

Amy realized she still loved Ephram, so in her final desperate attempt to get him back, she brought a Ferris wheel to his doorstep. The Ferris wheel was where they first spoke to each other, the place where they initially met.

Of course, they admitted they were in love and got back together, but it just made me ask the question, why would they end a perfectly believable show with such an outrageous finale? The idea was romantic but impossible. A Ferris wheel is not something I believe someone could just drag to another's doorstep...

...Yet, maybe that's what series finales are supposed to be about, taking something that you have known to be realistic and turning it around, giving us the happy ending we desire.

Whatever the reason, I've come to believe that if a show such as "Everwood" or "The Gilmore Girls" or any like them has a realistic ending, it might ruin the entire series. Maybe writers believe that fairy-tale endings to realistic story lines give average, everyday people hope that one day they, too, will have a fairy-tale ending.
Maybe they are meant to give us hope - The Lexington Dispatch

I think it's a thought provoking issue she brings up, the realism of the series as a whole and then the non-realistic sense of the final scene and how exactly does that fit together.

The one thing we say and hear a lot around here is how Everwood is “real”, and it’s pretty hard to argue that the ferris wheel is exactly as “real” as the rest of the show, although obviously the sentiment behind it is and makes the scene as real as any other in the series. I don't necessarily agree with her, but I think it's definitely thought-provoking and I never thought about that scene this way before, as an unrealistic topper to a very realistic show, so I'm curious what you all think.

I love our finale and wouldn't change it for the world, and this doesn't change my mind for a second, but this article really intrigued me and gave me pause and really made me think about the final scene again in comparison with the rest of Everwood and I think it's a really really great question/issue that she brings up. Very well-written article too.
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“[People] talk to me about these characters as if they’re real, and they’re not real, but they’ve become real...I really think, shows like this one, you have an attachment to them. They’re like friends you check in on."
-Greg Berlanti on Everwood
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