Week 9 Seminar: Winding Down

Every continuity ends. A planned ending closes the threads that matter. An unplanned one leaves them for the audience to carry.

5 May 2027

The technique#

Winding down is ending a continuity on purpose: deciding which threads to close before the last episode, and which to leave open. What a long-running story owes the people who remember it is clearest at the end, when it can no longer pay them later.

The case: two endings#

Arrow knew its eighth season would be its last, and built that short season around Crisis. It ends with Oliver Queen’s funeral. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow ended its seventh season in 2022 with its team under arrest, expecting an eighth. The network cancelled it. The arrest is still the last thing that happened to them.

In the seminar#

We evaluate both endings against the alternatives each had. Arrow could have ended without the funeral. Legends could have ended its season as if it might be the last. Say which alternative was better, and who for.