Endings. They’re a fact of life. Sometimes I’ll finish a programme or game and I’ll be content with the ending, other times I’ll upset. But the focus of this post will be when I get close finishing something I enjoy, and then I just leave it.

I can’t tell what it is. Have I been burnt out by bad endings? Do I prefer things being open? Do I want to leave things for future me? I don’t know. Endings are bittersweet to me, it’s nice to see something conclude, but at the same time it stings knowing that there’s nothing left.

This post is spoiler-free, but you may be able to gather how things end based on how I react to it. Maybe hold off if you’re too concerned.

The Amazing Digital Circus

Okay, I’m starting with something I did finish, but it was this show ending (and how I reacted to it!) which made me consider how I feel about endings, and kicked off this blog post.

Internet animation darling The Amazing Digital Circus recently concluded and broke my heart in the process. A cross between I have no mouth and I must scream and your average VRChat experience, it was an absurd dark comedy following a cast of diverse characters stuck in a computer-simulated world. Hijinks and existentialism ensue.

Above all else though, the show was about being human and the connections we make. The premise of being stuck in a digital world hooks you in, but it’s the growing relationships between the cast that keep you watching.

While I’m glad it’s had a proper ending and didn’t devolve into slop, my heart yearns to know what happened happened to everyone after the ending. You become so attached to each character as the show goes on that… Really, you just want them to be at their best.

I’ve been following the show since it started over 2 years ago, patiently awaiting each episode, which is why I think it stings more. Now it’s finished, I’m left with a gaping void in my soul – a sign that I experienced something great.

Fallout: New Vegas

It took a few years for me to first check out New Vegas. I must’ve been 16 when I first got around to it, and it was wasted on me. As much as I enjoyed it, I didn’t really appreciate it. The game really shines with its writing, quest design, and character work, and young me missed most of it. Still, I can rectify my mistakes as an adult.

I blitzed through New Vegas last year (partially in the lead-up to the 2nd series of the Fallout TV show, which explores the Vegas in the game!), making sure to soak up as much of it as I could. Completed all the quests I could find, talked to everyone I saw, and even maxed out relationships with each companion. When you immerse yourself in the game, it simply becomes something else.

Then I stopped at the final mission. The battle for Hoover Dam would’ve been radically different now I had allied with each independent faction, but nope, I didn’t see it out. I didn’t even start the bonus DLC expansions either, and I can’t tell you why. It’s like I saw the finish line in view and decided I’d already done enough.

Looking back, why did I put all that effort into exploring everything, only to leave it?

Smiling Friends

One of the stand-out shows of the 2020s, Smiling Friends is made by internet weirdos, for internet weirdos, and is about the perils of being an internet weirdo. As an internet weirdo, I absolutely adored it.

As part of the Smiling Friends, Charlie and Pim are tasked to help cheer people up and find their smile. Of course, with how easy it is to fall into destructive lifestyles nowadays, things get pretty out of hand. From a video game obsessed shrimp to a balding wizard, each episode becomes an absurdist mess with… Some oddly realistic dialogue? It’s a sight to behold.

A few months after the third season concluded, creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hedel announced that they were ending it – half due to burnout, and half to stop the show from declining. I can’t fault them for that.

Then a few months later, we got two more episodes. Despite how much I enjoyed the show, there’s just something stopping me from watching these two episodes. I know they’ll be hilarious, but I don’t want it to be over.

I think I’ll get on and watch those final episodes after I post this. They’re only 10 minutes long, and I’m sure I’ll get over the heartbreak of it being over.

Life on Mars / Ashes to Ashes / Lazarus

Life on Mars was an amazing police drama show with a weird premise: a modern day (2006) police officer finds himself stuck in 1973 after being hit by a car¹. Still a police officer in this corrupt & pugnacious past, can he figure out what happened to him, and can find a way back?

I shan’t spoil, but when I was a kid I found myself watching the final episode with my dad. I had no idea what was happening, but I saw someone do something I had never seen before, or could even imagine. It stuck with me, and even though I knew how it ended, it was a delight to see how they got there as an adult.

After finishing it, I moved onto its sequel series, Ashes to Ashes. It follows a familiar formula, but this time a new officer finds herself stuck in 1981 – with the cast of the prior programme making their return. It ended on a different note to its predecessor, but was just as beautiful.

While I was gutted to see it end, I had something to look forward to: Lazarus promised another baffling sci-fi police mystery in the same world… Until it was scrapped. All we got out of it was a script read which I’ve yet to read.

Looking at what’s left of this franchise I love, there’s a few in-universe comedy books, four novels, and that script read. I read the first novel, it read just like an episode, but that was it. There’s something stopping me from concluding it all.

To those who went through the heartbreak of it ending and need another weird sci-fi police drama hit, check out Awake (2012). It got cancelled early on (typical American networks) but it absolutely hits the same itch. To me, its ending hurts less because there’s less of it. You get me?

Final Fantasy X

I’ve never been big on JRPGs, they’re too long for my tastes. But despite that, I’ve been gradually making my way through Final Fantasy X for the last 3 years and I’ve been having a blast.

I could’ve beaten it ages ago, but for the last year, I haven’t wanted it to end. Funnily enough this feeling coincided with an area of the game where a character revealed they gave up on a prior quest at that point. It’s a serene moment that makes the world of Spira feel much more beautiful for a fleeting moment, and I felt that.

Over time I got to the point where I could probably beat the game in ~7 hours (which counts at ~30 minutes for a non-JRPG). I could easily do it in a few days, but then it’ll all be over. Everything will be wrapped up. :(

Also, this is the second time I’ve mentioned FFX on my blog. I feel that’s worth something.

Doctor Who (2005)

Despite everything I’ve said of endings, this is different – an ending done so well that if permanently ended the show there & then, I’d be fully satisfied with it.

World Enough and Time sees the Tardis land on a spaceship orbiting a black hole. Things quickly go awry as the companion becomes separated from the Doctor. Due to the black hole’s effect on time dilation, as the Doctor experiences minutes, the companion experiences months – with an ever-evolving threat growing around her. It’s a tense episode where each moment and decision matters, with a gnarly twist cliffhanger.

Its follow-up, The Doctor Falls, is the opposite. While it maintains the momentum of the last episode, it’s remarkably smaller scale in comparison. The stakes are turned all the way down as it focuses on the heart of the show: The Doctor doing whatever he can to keep a handful of people safe.

Above everything, the episode serves as a character study for both the Doctor and one of his foes. They tie it up in such a way that it could be fully conclusive ending for both characters. As a whole it’s beautiful, brutal, and it destroys my soul every time. For one of Peter Capaldi’s and Steven Moffat’s final episodes, they both knock it out of the park.

I mean obviously, Doctor Who continued after that episode. But it acts as a definite piece on what Doctor Who is about and who the Doctor is to such a degree that I’d be happy for it to have ended there. Almost a decade later, I can’t imagine anything better that could work as a conclusive ending.