Top Moments: A Week of Goodbyes, Surprising and Not
Lawrence Fishburne, Megan Joy
There's no escaping destiny, if you believe the folks on Lost, and the saying was never truer than this week. Lots of TV people met their endings, and so did two shows — one in the satisfying way we've come to expect, and the other in a way no one saw coming. Please enjoy our Top Moments, sealed fates edition.
9. Best Reunion: The Family Guy's Stewie shows off his inner fan-boy by building a teleportation device to bring the entire of Star Trek: The Next Generation cast to his bedroom. Unfortunately for Stewie, they turn out to be a bunch of whiny, high-maintenance jerks.
8. Interview We Didn't Know We Wanted Until We Saw It: Stephen Colbert welcomes Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, then "twats" through the interview. Stone calls Twitter, "the messaging system that we didn't know we needed until we had." Colbert responds: "That sounds like the answer to a problem that we didn't have 'til I invited the answer." Ha-ha, good one. Now follow us on http://twitter.com/TVGuide.
7. Best Guarantee: After a terrible American Idol rendition of "Turn Your Lights Down Low," Megan Joy helpfully ensures her elimination by telling Simon she doesn't care what he thinks. He predictably denies her any hope of salvation. It's been a long time since any of us cared about Simon's opinions, but he doesn't hold our careers in his hands.
6. Scariest Pursuit: For CSI's 200th episode, director William Friedkin, the master of chase scenes (see The French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A.) stages an intense foot race between a former student of Langston's and a guy in a very scary skull mask. She's ignored by an ambulance driver and nearly hit by a cab before she makes the horrible mistake of fumbling downstairs to a dark place where the sounds of a passing train will muffle any cries for help. You can almost hear your fellow viewers yelling at the screen: Don't!
5. Silliest Transformation: In a very special episode, 90210 examines the little-understood phenomenon of young people who go insta-bonkers. As demonstrated by Silver, symptoms include secretly filming yourself having sex with your boyfriend for a school project, then burning posters in his backyard by way of apology. But her diagnosis isn't confirmed until she breaks into her teacher's house and chucks bottles at his head. This kind of gritty realism makes The Wire look like a cartoon.
4. Let's-Make-a-Deal Award: Lost's Kate hands the young Ben over to The Others in the hopes of saving his life, despite this guarantee from the ageless Richard Alpert: "If I take him, he's not ever going to be the same again. He'll forget this ever happened, and his innocence will be gone." At least Alpert's honest.
3. Best Stab in the Back Stomach: In Damages' season finale, we finally learn why a bloody Patty collapsed in the elevator after her hotel-room showdown with vengeful associate Ellen Parsons. Patty's wounds didn't come from Ellen's gunshots, but a random and unexpected stabbing in the elevator by coke-snorting stock trader Finn Garretty. We knew Patty was tough, but sitting through Ellen's entire interrogation (and confessing her plot to have Ellen killed) while bleeding to death? We'd want her representing us.
2. Most Out-of-This-World Ending: Life on Mars' series finale reveals that the time-traveling cop is actually just an astronaut from the year 2035 on his way to Mars. His experiences in 1973 and 2008 are virtual reality in-flight movies he programmed for the two-year-long journey. So, to sum up: It was all a dream. Oh, and Harvey Keitel is Sam's dad. We're definitely surprised, but are we satisfied? At least the title makes sense now.
1. Best Ending: For all the old faces and flirtations, ER's series finale focused on what the show does best: medical drama. An HIV-positive man is dying... of cancer. A hallucinating trombonist thinks he's a prophet. An elderly man watches as his terminally ill, lifelong love slips away. But in the most poignant moment —a nod to the 1995 episode "Love's Labor Lost" — an expectant mother delivers twin girls before dying on the operating table. We're glad ER got a chance at life, and sorry to see it go.
What were your Top Moments?
