< Book Ends

Book Ends/Live-Action TV

There's almost always a first and last season for a series.

Note that some Book Ends can be a spoiler, so beware.

  • Every Season of Charmed begins and ends with the door to Halliwell Manor being closed by magic.
  • The first shot of the first scene of Lost is Jack's eye opening. The final shot is his eye closing.
    • More than that. The last few shots are Jack retracing his steps back through the bamboo grove he runs through in the Pilot. He even passes the shoe tangled in a bamboo tree. He lies down and faces right, and Vincent comes running out of the jungle. It was one hell of a bookend.
      • Proof that they weren't entirely lying when they claimed to know the ending of the show all along. They actually did know the final scene, just nothing that had anything to do with the plot.
  • Used in many episodes of Third Watch, often with the same song playing at the beginning and end of the episode.
    • Not only that, the entire series: The first sequence in the first episode concludes with Sully's trademark "Crap". The last scene in the last episode does, too.
  • In the Greys Anatomy episode "(As We Know It)", a scene with George viewing Christina and Izzie washing 'splodey bits of bomb-squad-guy Dylan out of Meredith's hair was a bookend for the opening scene of the two-part episode -- wherein George has a wet dream of the same three women showering together.
    • Also, one episode opened with Meredith dreaming of a threesome with her two love interests ended with her and her two friends lounging on the bed eating ice cream. Another started with McDreamy pulling Meredith out of a bathtub, which turned out to be foreshadowing for a dark and dramatic ending.
  • Especially well done in Mash "A War for All Seasons." The episode opens with a boisterous New Year's Eve party, which turns quiet when Col. Potter makes his toast. "Here's to the new year: may she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we all be home by the end of it." The episode takes place over the course of a year, and ends with the next year's New Year's Eve party. Poignantly, Col. Potter makes the same toast he did at the previous party.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street begins and ends with a conversation between two detectives just as they're about to perp sweat a suspect. The conversation is the same in both cases ("If I could just find this damn thing, I could go home...") and one of the detectives appears in both.
  • Doctor Who, "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday": "This is the story of how I died...".
    • The TV movie begins and ends with the Doctor sitting in the console room of the TARDIS reading H. G. Wells' The Time Machine and listening to a jazz record, before the jazz record abruptly sticks and jumps. The first occurrence was a moment of sinister foreshadowing; the second is lampshaded ("Oh, no - not again!").
      • The Tenth Doctor, having just regenerated, lands in the Powell estate with Rose at the end of 2005 in "The Christmas Invasion". And in "The End Of Time", after being exposed to deadly radiation, he finds himself dying at the Powell Estate at New Year 2005 before going back in the TARDIS, taking off and regenerating
    • Series 5 uses the same shot and scene of little Amelia Pond praying to Santa in "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Big Bang" - only the second time, there's no Doctor and no TARDIS crashing into the shed anymore.
    • "A Christmas Carol" has scenes near both the beginning and the end where Kazran just barely holds himself back from backhanding a small boy. The first scene is what convinces the Doctor that Kazran is redeemable; the second one -- where the small boy is Kazran himself as a child -- leads to his redemption.
    • The Impossible Astronaut starts with Amy and Rory at home, followed by the Doctor's death and The Wedding Of River Song ends with the Doctor's "death", followed by Amy and Rory at home
    • The Third Doctor's run begins and ends with The Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS and collapsing.
  • The very first episode of Seinfeld began with Jerry commenting about the second button from the top on George's shirt being in an odd place. At the end of the series finale, as the group sits in their prison cell, Jerry once again brings up the shirt button and quotes verbatim the first lines of the first episode. Larry David mentioned that he wanted the show about nothing to end right where it began, therefore going nowhere.

George: Haven't we had this conversation before?
Jerry: You think?
George: I think we have.
Jerry: Yeah, maybe we have.

  • The pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a final scene in which Buffy, Xander, and Willow walk off exchanging light-hearted banter, followed by Giles commenting "The world is doomed." The series finale features a scene in which Buffy, Xander, and Willow walk off exchanging light-hearted banter, followed by Giles commenting "The world is definitely doomed."
    • In this scene (as Buffy and friends prepare to make their final stand at Sunnydale High) she sends off each of her allies to their posts until she is completely alone. The order in which all the others depart is exactly the opposite order in which they first appeared in the series (Andrew first, Xander last).
    • Angel's departure in the last episode, where he disappears into the shadows, was also deliberately made to mirror his entrance into the series.
    • Also, season 6. Opens with Buffy climbing out of a grave, alone, into a hellish burning Sunnydale being invaded by a demon gang. Ends with Buffy climbing from the earth, with her sister, to see the world as a beautiful place worth living in.
    • A subtler and possibly unintentional one from season four: in the premire, Sunday gloats about breaking Buffy's arm, only for Buffy to reveal it's not broken. In the final battle against Adam, Buffy breaks the retractable arm spike he's been using in all his fights, only for Adam to reveal his other arm turns into a machine gun and grenade launcher.
    • The episode "Lessons" beginning and ending with the line "It's about power." The first time spoken by Buffy, the second by, well, The First (appearing as Buffy).
      • It also ends with the First taking the appearances of each of the previous season's villains, starting with Warren, then Glory, then Adam, then Mayor Wilkins, then Drusilla, and finally the Master.
  • The first season of The Wire ends with a sequence showing that despite Avon and D'Angelo getting arrested, nothing has really changed in the projects, including Poot passing on D'Angelo's advice to separate payment and delivery.
    • The entire show ends with scenes showing that nothing has changed.
    • The first season intro song is used in the final montage.
    • And a specific episode example: season 1 episode 6 opens and closes on the same image: Brandon's dead body displayed on the hood of a car, the beginning on the real thing, and the end in the photograph on Lieutenant Daniels' desk.
  • Star Trek has played with this a lot.
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation's first and last episodes both feature Q testing humanity's potential.
    • In the first and last episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, they visit Rigel.
    • Star Trek: Voyager's first and last episodes both end with Janeway ordering "Set a course. For home." (Tom Paris in the Pilot, Chakotay in the finale, as Paris is heading to sickbay to meet his newborn daughter.
    • In two instances, the opening narration is used to imply that "we're back to the beginning" or "it's come full circle":

Picard: Space, the final frontier... these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission...
Kirk: ... to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations...
Archer: ... to boldly go where no man has gone before!

  • House
    • A subtle version of this happened in Season Four. In the beginning, Wilson tries to mess with House's head (stealing the guitar and making him believe he's hallucinating the cottages) so he can do his lecturing thing. At the end of the season, Wilson literally wants to mess with House's head so that House can save Wilson's dying girlfriend. As you can probably tell, one is sadder than the other.
    • A much less subtle one happened in Season 5, again with Wilson.
    • The first and last episodes of Season One end with the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want".
    • There's one that encompasses the end of season 4, the entirety of season 5, and the start of season 6. All of the events leading up to the mindscrew that is the season 5 finale and House's stay in the mental institution begin at the end of season 4, when House rides the bus that crashes and results in Amber's death. When it seems that House is finally cured of all the things that had been plaguing him since then in the season 6 premier, the episode ends with him riding a bus away from the mental institution.
    • The Pilot episode is called "Everybody Lies". The series finale is called "Everybody Dies".
  • Twenty Four Season 4 began and ended on the train tracks.
  • The Prisoner ended with... the opening credits.
  • Cheers began the series with Sam Malone coming out of the back room, turning on the lights and opening the bar. The series ended with Sam locking the bar, turning off the lights, and strolling back into the back room.
  • Roswell started and ended with Liz introducing herself.

Pilot: "I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird."
Last episode: "I'm Liz Parker and I am happy."

  • The OC ended with Ryan asking a down on his luck kid if he needed help, the same thing Sandy asked him at the beginning.
  • The fourth season of Supernatural has a subtle example. The first episode is "Lazarus Rising", the last is "Lucifer Rising".
    • The first episode of the first season concludes with the brothers standing over the trunk of the Impala. Sam picks up a gun and says "We've got work to do." In the last scene of the season two finale, they're again standing over the Impala, and Dean drops the Colt, which is out of bullets into the trunk and says the same line.
  • The title of both the first episode and The Movie finale of Firefly are both titled Serenity.
    • The first episode (after the battle of Serenity Valley) opens with a man floating through space, the final episode also ends with a man floating through space.
  • Malcolm in the Middle concludes both the first and last episodes with the background song "I've Seen Better Days".
  • The Noah's Arc TV series opens and ends on the beach (with the beach not being seen all too frequently in between). Theres a definite juxtaposition between the happy, carefree nature of the start of the first episode, and the end of the last episode being packed with so much drama.
  • The West Wing did this a few times - for example, in "17 People," which begins and ends with the sound of Toby bouncing his rubber ball.
    • Also, the entire storyline begins and ends with Josh springing Sam out of a meeting of lawyers to come work for the president, and Sam promptly lampshades it:

Sam: Your showing up does have a nice nostalgic symmetry.
Josh: Style points...
Sam: ...if nothing else.

    • However, this is only an instance of bookends in-universe; actually the first scene was shown in a Flash Back in the second series opener, and the second in the last episode but four.
  • The pilot of Leverage has a scene where the team (minus Sophie, who had not been introduced yet) started out standing in a circle, but then walked away, with an overhead shot. The episode ended with the team (included Sophie this time) standing in a circle and not separating. The season ended with an overhead shot of them (again in a circle) going their separate ways.
  • Battlestar Galactica Reimagined episode "Revelations" starts with Kara and Lee looking at an illustration of the Temple of Aurora, supposedly located on Earth. The episode ends with all the characters trudging through whats left of a major city on Earth following a nuclear war. Their main camp is located near the ruins of a domed building that used to be the Temple of Aurora.
    • The TV-Movie The Plan has this in two ways. First, the film opens with a shot of the two Cavils from "Lay Down Your Burdens" about to be airlocked. The rest of the film consists of flashbacks, ultimately leading up to the point where they stand in front of the airlock.
      • The second book end is a more meta example. The Plan ends with an altered version of the opening theme of the show. Since The Plan is the very last Battlestar episode to air (excluding spinoffs), having the opening theme as the last thing the audience hears has a certain meaning to it.
  • The Angel episode "A Hole In The World" begins with a flashback of Fred preparing to leave for LA. The following episode "Shells" ends with another flashback of her getting into her car and driving off to LA.
  • The first episode of ER begins with an ambulance full of patients and a lagging Dr. Carter. Dr. Greene calls out to him, "Dr. Carter, you coming?" The final episode ends with an ambulance full of patients and a lagging Dr. Greene (the daughter of the man in the pilot). Dr. Carter calls out to her, "Dr. Greene, you coming?"
    • And both the pilot and the finale begin with a similar shot of Greene/Carter asleep and then woken up by the same exact nurse.
  • The original V begins and ends in mountain camp of two different resistance groups.
  • Episodes of the Discovery Channel series American Guns often begin and end with Rich Wyatt and his family firing guns together.
  • In the pilot episode of Heroes, Peter catches a cab driven by Mohinder. Peter asks Mohinder if he ever had the feeling he was meant to do something special, and a conversation about destiny and natural selection ensues. In the first episode of Volume Four, after an adventure that put both of them in a bad light (and made plenty of heroes turn on each other), Peter again catches a cab driven by Mohinder and, laughing, asks the same thing. Mohinder says he had the feeling, but was proven wrong.
    • The last scene in Volume Five also reflects the pilot, when Claire goes public.

Claire: My name is Claire Bennet and this is attempt number ... I guess I kinda lost count.

  • The first and last episodes of Arrested Development intentionally mirror one another, with a very similar occasion (an announcement on a boat) and often identical lines at certain critical moments, although sometimes flipped to different people saying them.

Buster: (Pilot) They [The SEC] have boats?
Buster: (Finale) They still have boats?

  • The Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "Vehicular Fellatio begins with Larry trying to open a vacuum-sealed package and failing, eventually screaming in frustration. He buys a knife for opening packages. At the end, when he needs it, he finds that it's in a vacuum-sealed package...
  • At the beginning of Lexx, Kai and some other Brunnen-G pilot outmatched fighters against the Divine Order's flagship, the Foreshadow. With no other means of causing damage, Kai deftly weaves his fighter around the ship's structure, crashes into the bridge just as it seals itself off, and is thrown from his cockpit to the deck. At the end of the series, Kai is using a moth from the Lexx, a small, unarmed transport, to drag a Doomsday Device into the center of an alien spaceship; being at the center of the blast would not normally harm the undead Kai, but Prince appears at the last minute, restoring Kai to true, mortal life. The camera work as Kai makes his run on the alien ship is identical to the first scene, and it ends with Kai crashing and being thrown from his cockpit in the exact same way before dying once again.
  • The first aired episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured the movie, "The Crawling Eye". In the last episode, the movie is once again featured, with the crew noticing that it seems familiar.
    • Interestingly, none of the people in that scene did the actual riffing of "The Crawling Eye". By the end of the show, Mike Nelson had replaced Joel Hodgson ("Joel Robinson" as the character), Kevin Murphy had replaced J. Elvis Weinstein as Tom Servo, and Bill Corbett had replaced Trace Beaulieu as Crow T. Robot. The book ends are not just for the movie on-screen, but for the cast as well.
  • The Middleman opens with Wendy on the phone with her mother complaining about her job and life; it ends with Wendy on the phone with her mother telling her how happy she is with her job and life.
  • Life On Mars didn't quite open with the line "Word in your shell-like, pal.", but they are the first words spoken by Gene Hunt, upon meeting Fish Out of Temporal Water Sam Tyler as he arrives in a new, confusing world. They're also the final words Gene Hunt speaks in Ashes to Ashes, to the new arrival in CID who's ranting about his iPhone, after Gene's helped Chris, Ray, Shaz, and Alex cross over and remembered what his true role is.
  • Every episode of Criminal Minds begins and ends with a quote that parallels the case and the action surrounding it.
  • Nip Tuck begins with Christian meeting Kimber in a bar, who is uninterested until he reveals that he's a plastic surgeon. The final scene of the series has a similar scene with similar dialogue with a similar woman in an airport bar.
  • At the end of the final episode, Dale "Smithy" Smith has the last line in The Bill with "Yeah, come on. Let's do it", pretty much identical to the opening line of the show's first.
  • The Tenth Kingdom begins and ends with a shot of New York and the voice-over "My name is Virginia, and I live at the edge of the forest."
  • The "Whodunit?" episode of Connections 2 starts its daisy-chain of historical innovations with a billiard ball, and ends with another billiard ball.
  • In the live action drama of Nodame Cantabile, the first song the group plays as an orchestra was Beethovan No. 7, also being conducted by Chiaki for his first time. At the last episode, the song they played before they all graduated was Beethovan No. 7, being conducted by Chiaki as his last performance with them.
  • Gilmore Girls begins and ends with the protagonists having coffee at Luke's diner. The finale ends with a shot of Rory and Lorelai as the camera fades out. This scene is not only from the very first episode of the series, but is an echo of the shot that end of the credits for every season.
  • The first and last pricing game played with Bob Barker as the host of The Price Is Right was Any Number.
  • Smallville season 10 begins and ends with planets falling from the sky
    • 10x01 Lazarus Night time, the Daily Planet globe falls to the street below and is caught by Clark, who super jumps and takes it back to the roof, wearing his dark trench coat costume.
    • 10x21 Finale Day time, Apokolips is falling to Earth and Clark, now flying and wearing the Superman costume, pushes it back into space
  • The Masters of Horror episode "Jenifer" begins and ends with a man dragging a tied up Jenifer to a seemingly secluded location so he can hack her to death, only for an armed stranger to notice their struggle and shoot the man before he can swing the blade. Her rescuer rushes over to her just in time to hear her would-be killer say her name with his dying breath. In the beginning, the protagonist is her rescuer. In the end, he's the one trying to kill her.
  • Played with in a major Stargate SG 1 storyline. The Season Eight episode "Threads" ended the series whole Myth Arc (thus far) and the last scene of the episode was a Denouement at Jack's cabin by a lake. It was followed by a two-part episode where the team went back in time five thousand years, revisited the universe's first and (thus far) biggest enemy, created an alternate timeline, and then fixed it. The two part episode ends with them all going to the lake and revealing that the universe is just a little bit different from the one in "Threads", but it's no big deal.
  • NCIS does this briefly in monotone at the start & end of each show as well as before & after commercial breaks.
  • In Doctor Who: "The Sunmakers", the first man they meet on Pluto is about to throw himself over the edge of building. At the end, we have a Disney Villain Death.
  • The Friends episode "The One with All the Haste" begins with Rachel angrily yelling at a man who sings right outside her window early in the morning. The episode ends with Joey singing along happily with the man, after the boys and girls have switched back apartments.
  • Stargate Atlantis, the first and last person we see firing one of the Ancient's drone weapons is Dr. Beckett. Also in the pilot Dr. McKay in essence complaining about not having the ancient gene and thus not being able to use the chair and in the finale that he has a lower aptitude for using the chair.
  • The first and last episodes of Dinosaurs actually both end with Earl Sinclair telling Baby "Dinosaurs have been on this planet for about 150 million years."
    • And the first and last shots are of news reporter Howard Handupme.
  • The first scene of the sixth season premiere and the last scene of the sixth season finale of How I Met Your Mother are two halves of the same flashforward to a wedding in the near future. Also, the second scene of the season premiere and the second-to-last scene of the season finale involve Barney expressing surprise that a woman is wearing a sundress, since he thought it was too late in the year for it (the season finale was set at the end of August 2011 even though it aired in May).
    • Likewise, the seventh season premiere opens with a flashforward of Ted talking to the groom at the wedding it's Barney, and Word of God has said that the season finale will end with a flashforward to Ted meeting with the bride, revealing her identity.
    • The episode "Tick Tick Tick..." both opens and closes with the sound of a ticking clock.
  • In the first episode of Sanctuary, Helen offers Will "a chance to explore a world that you've been trying to understand on your own … with very little success" and the second episode ends with Magnus saying "Shall we begin?" In the series finale, Magnus says "What if I offered you the chance to explore a world that you've been trying to see since you were a child?" The last words of the episode are Magnus once again saying "Shall we begin?" to Will.
  • Nikita: Percy begins season 2 locked up in a prison cell at the bottom of a missile silo, having been deposed by Amanda. In the season finale, Nikita drops him down that silo, and he ends up smashing right into the cell.

Then again, when you have a series that's almost Crack is Cheaper, why have a final season?

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