Lost, Breaking Bad and Justified were also good. While I'm not the biggest fan of Justified, I did like where everything left off and it felt pretty satisfying.
Babylon 5 last episode was nearly perfect send-off, Buffy one was great too. However I have to agree with many others here, The Shield has the best ending I've ever seen in a TV series.
Hey, I finally answered a best of TV with something other than The Wire.
Buffys ending really bothered me. Everything that happend was all because buffys friends decided to bring her back to life after she died. So the blowback from them reviving her was the slayer line almost ending and the first evil running amok almost ending the world. So to fix everything they decide to do another spell that gives all potential slayers powers everywhere., the blowback from that wouldve probably been huge.
The Wire. It took me a while to realize it but the final episode and the ending montage really drives home the cycle of violence, poverty, futility and incomptetence the show was trying to convey since the beginning.
-I also think MASH and ST: TNG had great endings. And Blackadder Goes Forth, of course.
-Mad Men's last episode was a bit all over the place but the very last scene was amazing.
-For recent, modern comedies, Parks and Recreation is hard to top. It was perfect.
-Community's proper last final episode (season 6), is weird as hell but really suits where the series had ended up (with all of its behind the scenes troubles over the years)
Star Trek TNG. Perfect end to the show wrapping everything up nicely. One of the few times a final episode ends on a satisfactory note most shows I love don't. Actually Star Trek shows have all had good endings now that I think about it, DS9 was also nice and Voyager was good for what it was and enterprise was ending was very good and hit me hard.
Even Seinfeld last episode was really great and actually perfect when I think about it but somehow the fact it ended sours it and nothing they could have done would have been good enough I guess on an emotional level same with Sopranos.
I also liked the ending to smallville and JAG they hit me perfectly as did Battlestar Galactica and Stargate sg-1 with the movie ark of truth.
You can consider them separately or together. Taken alone, Life on Mars is remarkable in that it feels uplifting, but probably shouldn't. Ashes to Ashes then adds more of a story and context to it, offering a really satisfying closure to both its story and Life on Mars's on top of that.
I like Hustle's, too, although it's very much not Deep and Meaningful; in a sense it's just a normal story, albeit tying back to an earlier one; but the closing scene embraces both the effortless cool that's underpinned the series as a whole, but also - entirely in-keeping with the frequent tendency of the series to break the fourth wall - proceeds to completely shatter it,
with a walk-and-talk of the cast delivered directly to camera on the nature of confidence trickery and artifice, while deconstructing the notion that a TV series itself is an artifice, walking from the pub set to the studio backlot
. It's beautiful.
Of course, there's the one stock UK answer for "A brilliant ending, and then they made some more" - which I mentioned in a recent thread of "TV series that went on too long":
Only Fools and Horses. It ends exactly the way it should, a really appropriate ending which was both joyful and poignant, the principal cast walk off into the sunset, a closing line that fit perfectly to put a capper on the series...
And then they made some more.
It's probably the UK's M*A*S*H in that regard (not that we didn't have M*A*S*H, but in terms of scale) - "Time on our Hands" is one of the highest-rated programmes ever in the UK (behind three episodes of soaps and a few broadcasts of significant international events)
The show was always at it's best when it was focusing on the relationships between father's and sons, in particular the relationship between Hank and Bobby. The finale managed to thematically provide some good closure to that relationship. I also really liked how the episode didn't end with some grand gesture (i.e. the Hills moving out of Arlen or Strickland Propane shutting down.) Life goes on just as it always has, just with Hank and Bobby finally having something in common. A perfectly genuine and down to earth way to end the show.
I've not seen the US Office, but the original has a brilliant ending too. Tim & Dawn finally end up together in the sweetest way possible and David Brent actually gets some laughs.
That was brilliant too. Really great acting but a perfect ending for all of the characters. Wonderful acting too; especially by Grey DeLisle.
Father Ted has one of my favourite endings as well. Again, very bittersweet and made all the more affecting because the main actor died days later, if I'm not mistaken.
Spaced has an amazing ending. The characters grow and move on and it feels like it went out on a high.
Lastly, Only Fools & Horses has a great ending - I mean 'Time On Our Hands'; the proper ending. It was the perfect closure for these characters we'd spent almost two decades with, and they finally achieved their dreams, and it felt earned.
Six Feet Under is the only series ending that has emotionally wrecked me.
I'll go and name one probably no one else in here will. There was a Korean drama called Uncontrollably Fond that starts out with the main character finding out he's dying and has the balls to follow through on it by the end. Unlike another show that people in here are naming...
These are great endings considering that the shows themselves were episodic and didn't really have character/story arcs. It's amazing how much the writing works to make those finales hit home and reflect the years you spent with them as an audience.