SFist Watches: TV Finales This Week
We look to TV's finale season with equal parts sadness and relief. Sadness that some of our favorite shows will be gone for months--and often times for good--and relief that we may be able to have a life outside of our living rooms for a little while. (Though really, what kind of life could that possibly be?) So let us help you, fellow TV slaves, with a rundown of some of the shows that will be offering their finales, cliffhangers, and fond farewells this coming week.
First off, tonight brings us the long-awaited end to "America's Next Top Model: Cycle Four" at 8 p.m. on UPN. We have to admit that this season's crop of girls are a seriously dim bunch, and now that Brittany is gone, we've got no one to root for but Naima. Hopefully next season Tyra will insist that all the hopefuls prove that they can actually read, or at least pronounce the word "magenta" correctly before admitting them into the competition. "Lost" doesn't end until next week's two-hour "event," but the finale ball does start rolling with tonight's episode. Please feel free to offer your theories about the hatch, the crazy French lady, and how all the guys are keeping their stubble within "Miami Vice" standards in the comments!
Image of Naima posing fierce from Yahoo!
Thursday's line-up includes "The Apprentice" in which the Donald will have to choose between the bedazzling Mary Kay saleswoman Tana, and the so-very-young real estate "entrepreneur" Kendra. We're glad that Trump will finally be hiring a gal for the job, but after Tana's fiasco last week, we don't really have anyone to root for. Here's one thing we WILL cheer about though, and that's the fact that this time around, the finale will only be an hour long, instead of the three-hour nightmare they forced upon us last season. It airs at 9 p.m. on NBC. "The O.C." ends its second season at 8 p.m. on Fox, and we're doing our best to put the past behind us and look ahead to season three. Noah Wyley is finally leaving the "ER" in a season finale titled "The Show Must Go On." The episode also features a guest appearance by local boy Danny Glover. It airs at 10 p.m. on NBC. And "CSI" also ends its season Thursday night at 8 p.m. on CBS, with a two-hour episode directed by Quentin Tarantino. The plot involves someone being buried alive. Hmmm....where have we seen that before, Quentin? We don't have much more to say about that, but we do understand that some people like this Quentin guy, so good on you, then!
Sunday brings the season end to "Desperate Housewives" on ABC, and we'll admit that we may just be the only people in America not enraptured by this show. Yes, we watch it, but we don't really...care. And being that the mystery of the body-in-the-box and the identity of Dana have already been solved, we aren't quite sure what this finale might bring in the way of shocking revelations. We can only hope that whatever it is, it's more entertaining than what they've been passing off on us for the past six months. We also hear that the second season of some show called "Deadwood" is coming to an end Sunday night. Of slightly more interest to us is the final boxing bout for "The Contender". There is indeed an episode Sunday at 8 p.m. on NBC, but the real fight isn't until Tuesday. Maybe some local sports bar will give the show its due and air the final fight, and we do mean final fight, as the show has not been picked up for renewal. Too bad. There isn't enough fighting on primetime TV (that doesn't involve two chicks duking it out over a lame guy, or reality TV famewhores scratching and kicking during lame-ass "challenges.")
We'd also like to take this opportunity to let you know about a program related to San Francisco history. Kind of cool San Francisco history. PBS's "American Experience" Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst runs on Monday night at 9 p.m. We were pretty young when it happened, but we do remember hearing about the kidnapping almost nightly on TV, and we kind of remember hearing stories about friends of our parents getting food during a giveaway in Oakland (it was one of the kidnapping demands of Symbionese Liberation Army that the Hearst family give away food to the impoverished.) So, if you don't know how the finale of that "show" ended, we highly recommend checking the film out.