Showbiz Commentary: Heidi Oringer

May 24 -- Woe is me. I am grappling with the decline of the human condition … well, as it relates to television. (Never let it be said that I am not deep.)

I turn my focus to the season finale. Once the pinnacle of a TV show's season, the season finale has now become a farce.

A season finale is supposed to leave you gasping for breath, clinging to the arm of the couch, and questioning your own emotional ability to continue your existence until the next season kicks off and allows you to fill the giant abyss that's been left in your gut.

This year, nothing even came close!

I watched a variety of finales to make sure I opened myself up to all that is out there in the land of the magic box.

I was infinitely disappointed. (Remember how effective this was when your parents said it?)

Subdued Sopranos

First and foremost, The Sopranos turned out to be a devastating letdown. We knew Jackie Jr. was going to buy the farm, but a bullet in the back of the head and he's dead?! Unfair! Surely, we deserve more of a bloody cliffhanger than that.

Instead, we got an hour of ongoing drivel with the Soprano children. Certainly there is a method to David Chase's madness, or in this instance, blandness, but watching Meadow unravel in her spoiled, Valley girl (albeit Jersey Valley) fashion was a snore. Then, to polish off the show with the miraculously cured Uncle Junior doing an 11-minute aria … Quite frankly, I was ready to take a hit in the back of the head myself.

I could even have handled the anticlimactic ending if I didn't have to wait almost A FLIPPIN' YEAR to see another episode. The fourth season of The Sopranos doesn't kick off until April 2002. That's just wrong.

Annoying Ally and Dour Dharma

From the sublime, to the ludicrous …

Ally McBeal: Let me be the first to say "uncle." (Not Uncle Junior either). In the season ender, Ally learned boyfriend Larry Paul had gone back to Detroit, again. Only this time it's for good. Not a surprise, since we know Robert Downey Jr. is, shall we say, "unavailable" to continue. Then, as per usual, Ally was depressed and hallucinated throughout the show.