Whenever a person manages to finish a show, they tend to experience a few feelings. And why shouldn’t they? They’ve just invested a lot of time into watching their show; going on one form of adventure or another with a cast of memorable characters. While that person can just as easily watch the show again, once they’ve seen that shows ending, things change. They go through 5 stages once they’ve seen a show’s ending, and here they are.
I’m cheating on this one a little bit, but this stage always happens when the finish line is in sight, right before you start the final episode. You’re filled with a nervousness, a tightness in your belly that gets tighter and tighter the closer you get to the beginning of the final episode, but slowly fades away once said episode starts proper. It’s not unlike that feeling you get when going on a roller coaster, before the first big drop. Thankfully, you don’t experience what comes afterward on a roller coaster.
You’ve done it! You’ve crossed the finish line, you’ve watched the final episode! Like any person when they’ve finished a project, you can’t help but feel like you’ve gone and accomplished something big. You’ve shown dedication and perseverance over many weeks or months watching who knows how many episodes of this show. Go ahead, do a little dance. You deserve it. At the same time, you can’t help but congratulate the creators of the show, as well as the talent behind the characters, on making it so far. When finish watching some shows, you can’t help but feel at an all-time high. Of course, after that high…
…comes the depression. It finally hits you. It’s over. No more new episodes. No more adventures with the characters you’ve come to know. It only feels like just yesterday you started watching this show. How did you get to the end so quickly? You never wanted it to end. You want to see more and more of your show, for it to go on as long as possible. What are you going to do now? It’s like a part of you has dust disappeared, burned out, withered away. You don’t know if you’ll ever have as good a time as when you watched that show. A part of you doesn’t want to move on after you finish a show.
After the depression, you come to realize, your show is still there. You still have the DVD’s or it’s still in your Netflix queue. Sure, you won’t be able to see the show again for the first time, as many people wish they could, but all the good times you’ve had are still there, waiting for you to revisit them whenever you wish. When you come to realize that, that empty part you felt feels a little fuller now. Not as heavy as was before, but it’s a comforting weight. Like closing the book on a chapter of your life, or saying goodbye to someone you know when you finish a show.
Then, like a kid in a candy store, you realize that now you can dedicate yourself to a whole new show that you haven’t seen yet, a whole new world full of adventures with different characters. Whether it has only 26 episodes or a hundred, you’re ready to begin the process all over again, once you’ve reached the final episode of that show. It’s a continuous cycle, but it’s one that people are happy to experience.
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