Going Past the Planned Ending

 The past few days I wondered if I should enter this writing contest that ended Friday, which I kept meaning to look at but with work and everything I forgot about until right before the deadline. So, uh, looks like that’s not happening. But hey, I have a job! That’s new. It’s cool too, being paid.

Also I’m re-reading The Hobbit. Expect that in the Book Diary soon.

Now let’s talk about SHIELD again.

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Going Past the Planned Ending

“We did plan to end the story here, but we decided, since we had the resources and still have the audience, that we should keep going!”

Hurm. Maybe you shouldn’t.

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD just aired its 7th season finale, which was also the series finale. And it was fine. Just fine. But the previous two seasons were… well, they didn’t feel quite right. They weren’t bad, by any means, but they weren’t quite up to par with the previous five in my humble opinion. Knowing that they didn’t have great ratings, and having an uncertain future, the makers of the show wrote and filmed their 5th season as if it were their last, and they gave their storylines and characters a darn good ending. But then the show was renewed for two more short seasons, so they had to scramble to make more story out of the one that was effectively concluded.

Now to be fair, this is hardly the worst example of this kind of thing happening. Agents of SHIELD had left a few open Plot Threads lying around at the end of season five, so it wasn’t exactly like they were building on nothing. And as has recently come out, the show has often had to restructure their story plans at the last minute because of executive bulshimflarkis, so they had some practice pulling stories out of their armpits.

And while I think everyone uses Supernatural as an example of a show that went past its planned ending, I don’t think that’s a fair comparison in every case. There are a bunch of shows that had planned endings, one way or another, and continued anyway. Chuck had pretty iffy ratings and kept planning their ending every half-season, only to get renewed and come up with a way to extend the storyline for another half season. That being said, Chuck had a much more comedic tone than most dramas, and continuity was never really its strong suit (look at how many times the original function of the Intersect is quietly retconned).

But Supernatural is a pretty egregious example of the problems that occur when a show goes on further than its planned ending. Supernatural had a well-written, in-depth five-season arc, and when they decided to go past that, the writers decided to try to make a new storyline. Once fans started expressing doubts though, instead of sticking to their guns they immediately changed things. And they kept this up for the next few seasons, switching between Plots in a vain attempt to please the fanbase. And it never ended. It was about to end, and then a pandemic happened that put the finale on pause, so, uh… yeah.

I’ve expressed this opinion before, but I very much like stories that have intricately planned-out story arcs and Plot points. And I get that not every story can do that, especially on television, where you’re at the mercy of unpredictable schedules, actor availabilities, strikes, pandemics, or the studio dropping the axe on you. But very often, when a story ends… it’s best to leave it there. Maybe make a sequel, but to try to draw the story out longer often doesn’t work. It feels like the writers don’t know what to do with these characters who have had their tales concluded, and they’re shuffled around in ways that make their previously-established endings look hollow.

Oh fudge, we’re going to talk about Star Wars again.

Like, look at the Sequel Trilogy. Right from the get-go, it establishes a galaxy where the victory at the end of Return of the Jedi didn’t mean anything. The Empire just bounced back, the heroes are scattered, the couple is broken up, and there’s an even BIGGER Death Star. And the trilogy proceeds to slowly kill off the original heroes. And I’m not saying their bad movies, but they do feel tacked-on compared to the originals, because the story ended, but Lucasfilm (or rather, Disney) decided to make more because they could.

This doesn’t just happen with screen media either. I think Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle is very good, and I don’t mind the last two books as much as my sister does, but they still feel really weird. Because they’re an in-between-quel of a story that very definitively concluded, much of the tension the author’s trying to build about who does or doesn’t survive flat out doesn’t work, because we already know how this story ends. The tension should be aimed differently.

I’m not saying “Don’t do it.” I am saying that if you’re going to continue a story that’s already concluded, you should definitely pull back and ask yourself, “Do I really need to do this? Does this really need to happen? Will this pull away the emotional or thematic punch from the ending I’ve already made? Will it dull that impact?”

And if the answer is “Yes,” then maybe don’t do it.

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