Sadly, the 2009-2010 network television season is coming to an end. We’ve had some ups (Lost finally coming to an end) and some downs (the Flash Forward failure) but overall we really can’t complain about how everything played out. As we move into the Summer television season where cable networks really show what they are made of, why don’t we say goodbye to the season by spending some time this weekend reflecting on how some legendary shows came to an end? Waste your weekend with series finales.

For The Completion Lover – Six Feet Under

Although Alan Ball and HBO only ran the wonderful show Six Feet Under for about five seasons, it remains as one of the best of all time (in most people’s books).

The story of a family that loses their father and adopts a Californian funeral home will remain at the top of good story telling lists for not only the way the writers drew us in, but also in how they ushered themselves out. With the entire series surrounding the Fisher family and all of their friends and associates, Six Feet Under successfully dealt with issues like drug abuse, sex, violence and what it is like for the proverbial small fish in a big ocean when it came to the funeral business. Characters like Nate, Claire, Ruth, David, Rico and Keith will forever make up one of the great television stories ever. Although the stories throughout each season kept us engaged, it was really the finale season and specifically the final episode that capped everything off as a true success for Six Feet Under. In one of the best musically enhanced montages ever, writers told the story of what happens to the Fishers and all of their friends when the show finally ends. It was heart warming, sad, funny, ironic and provided closure to a series that we wished didn’t have to leave so soon.

For The Sitcom Lover – Friends

When it comes to network sitcoms, there aren’t a lot of shows out there that can compare to the success of the NBC hit Friends. Surrounding the lives of six twenty-something adults living in New York City, Friends made viewers smile, cry and laugh hysterically for ten hugely successful seasons. When the decision was made to finally end the show, it was not only emotional for the cast and crew, but also the fans who had seemingly grown up watching Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler, Joey and Ross. The final episode of Friends was more of a tip of the hat to what made the show successful. In one of the more publicized on-again-off-again relationships in television history (Rachel and Ross), the writers of Friends finally gave the fans what they’ve been waiting for. After courting, dating, breaking up and having a child, Rachel and Ross finally got together. It brought closure to the relationship on screen and enabled fans of the show to finally believe that there is always that special someone that you will inevitably end up with.

For Everyone Else – MASH

Hiding seriousness in a cloud of comedy is rarely done well, but in the case of MASH there is a major exception. As one of the most successful television shows ever produced, MASH provided a humanizing and humorous look into war through the eyes of a small group of friends working in an army hospital amidst the Korean war. Spanning over eleven successful seasons, fans of MASH fell in love with the likes of Hawkeye, Houlihan, Father Mulcahy and many others. As the series finally came to an end, it not only represented the end of a great television show, it ended an era that needed laughter during serious times. In the final episode the entire cast of characters had to deal with something they’d only thought of in passing over the past eleven years, going home… Leading up to the finale, the characters knew the war was finally coming to an end, but what they hadn’t dealt with was how their lives were going to be drastically different when they finally left the hospital. The series finale of MASH was the most watched television program of all time until the 2010 Super Bowl as a whopping 105 million viewers tuned in to see the 4077 MASH unit finally get to go home.