The final episode of a sitcom, especially a long-running successful one, generates all kinds of expectations. Previously I wrote about how my episode of My Family coincided with the UK airing of the last ever episode of Friends. This was a major media event, echoing similar ‘last ever episodes’ like Seinfeld, Cheers and M*A*S*H. But what was the audience expecting? And how did the writer go about writing that episode? As we will see, the task is very difficult, but not for the reasons one might expect.
Despite writing a number of sitcoms for TV, I’ve only knowingly written a ‘final episode’ once. That was for Bluestone 42, a show I co-created with Richard Hurst. (It’s on iPlayer right now, although I’d advise you not to start with the finale if you’ve not seen the show!) We had run for three series, the war in Afghanistan was winding down – at least in the public perception – and it felt like time to end. It was sad. When a war ends, no one thinks about the sitcom writers.
When a war ends, no one thinks about the sitcom writers.
Richard and I were open to the idea of a fourth series of Bluestone 42 in another part of the world, but we knew that was a long shot. So we said goodbye to the characters as they said goodbye to the Forward Operating Base that had been their home for six months or so.
Saying Goodbye
That’s why these final episodes are so bitter-sweet. They are meant to be funny. They’re sitcoms. There are jokes. But it’s all tinged with the sadness that our characters are leaving on a jet plane (or a military prop plane) and won’t be back again. So writing a funny, satisfying final sitcom episode in that context is already very difficult.
But there’s a bigger technical problem at play here – and we talk about it on the Sitcom Geeks podcast which is, fittingly, our last ever episode of the podcast. The problem is that a sitcom is what I call a ‘permanent Act 2’. Your characters are trapped in a situation, usually a complex web of relationships as much as a location. In this precinct, they go round and round in circles, never learning, never changing and never significantly altering their situation. In the case of The Simpsons, the animation manages to avoid the characters even ageing. Thirty years on, The Simpsons should be a very different show, but it isn’t, which is why people (presumably) still watch it, and they keep making it.
You Live In A Sitcom
Perhaps this idea that nothing really changes sounds unrealistic. But sitcoms, apart from the carefully crafted jokes, are true to life. Our lives are relatively predictable. Most of us live in weekly rhythms at home and at work. Each week there’s a new drama, incident or problem.
In a sitcom, the protagonists live through this story or solve the problem in the same way because of their characteristics. There will be clashes, differences of opinion, and frustrations. Choices will need to be made, leading to moments where it all comes to a head. It is unlikely that any one of those outcomes will end up with the house burning down, or the family being made homeless, or you being fired.
But here’s the critical point: these comparatively humdrum, domestic stories certainly won’t lead to a once-in-a-lifetime epiphany that means you have to completely change your life goals and priorities. That may be the start of a sitcom when someone packs in their day job to become a self-sufficient homesteader, like in The Good Life (which has a truly bizarre and disastrous last episode).
That’s A Movie
Those major epiphanies are not the stuff of sitcoms, but movies. In a feature film, we establish a world for our hero, and then call them out of it and give them torrid trials and incredible adventures in which they are tested to the limit, and beyond. In fact, they are broken. They realise they are not the person they thought they were, or that they have the power to change permanently, before they return to their home a different person. Or they realise they don’t need to go home.
This is all a world apart from the classic sitcom, in which characters stay home. That can be an actual domestic house or a workplace, a newsroom, a spaceship, a police station or a forward operating base in Afghanistan. It is home to those characters. And they stay there. Forever.
And Now The End is Near
So how do you end a sitcom? All of a sudden, you need to leap genre and give your characters a satisfying reason to leave the nest forever. That’s really hard, and most sitcoms don’t manage it. This is why final episodes are usually not satisfying.
It’s also why most movies based on sitcoms don’t work, and means the characters usually have to go on holiday, and literally go on a journey eg. Bad Education, The Inbetweeners or Ab Fab.
So, if you want to end a sitcom well, you almost have to start it with the ending in mind. But the moment you let in the prospect of a resolution, you’re probably jeopardising your situation.
Perhaps, it was a blessing, then, that I was spared this agony with my Radio 4 sitcoms, Think The Unthinkable and Hut 33, both of which were not recommissioned, when I had rather hoped they would be. I would have loved to write an ending for Ryan in Think the Unthinkable (currently back on BBC Sounds) or had a special D-Day episode of Hut 33, but sadly not. Those sitcoms ended in a way that I would not have chosen. But that, again, makes them true to life. Do we get to end our lives neatly and tie up all the loose ends? That’s a question for another day and another blog.
Yet Another Ending
So how do you end a podcast about writing sitcoms? Find out how we did it on the last ever episode of Sitcom Geeks, a podcast about how to write sitcoms. Dave Cohen and I started the podcast almost exactly eight years ago, in 2015, and have dropped an episode every fortnight ever since. Episode 222 on 6th July is our last. In the episode, I reveal my favourite last episode which simply does it the best, as well as my gravest disappointment.
But I’ll still be writing about sitcom over at the Situation Room, which is the new home for my thoughts and tips on writing situation comedy. I’m working through my book, Writing that Sitcom, and also putting up an audio version of each chapter. Why not go over and subscribe?