Well, we are coming to that time of year when there is nothing worth watching on television. All the heavy-hitting shows of the fall and winter months have wrapped up their seasons, and we are left with the terrible pilots that always surface during the summer months. Most of the shows you will be watching until August - assuming you tune in - will likely be cancelled before they reach the end of their season. But not the ones that just wrapped up. Those were the truly great shows. So, let’s take a look at how they ended things for this year:

24 “4:00AM - 5:00 AM and 5:00 - 6:00AM” - 2 hour season finale

It seems that 24 is continuing its tradition of declining quality. This entire season was riddled with bad plot points and poorly drawn characters, and the conclusion only further emphasized the need for change in this “real-time” drama. For a reason not fully explained, Phillip Bauer (Jack’s father) has his grandson (Joshua) kidnapped and taken to an oil rig off the coast of California. The US government actually hands Josh over to Phillip in exchange for a computer chip with Russian defense codes on it. After the deal goes bad, the Vice-President Noah Daniels orders an air strike on the oil rig, essentially killing the child that they had illegally traded to terrorists.

Jack goes all commando, and with the help of Bill Buchanan is able to kill all the bad guys, while taking the important ones in for questioning. The problem with the finale is that it ended 15 minutes before the show should have. All of the adventure stopped, and Jack makes his way to the home of Audrey Raines to see her. He says he loves her, and that he has to let her go. Then, he goes into the backyard, and looks over a cliff down to the coastline. And the season ends. No cliffhanger? Nothing interesting. It was just over.

It was disappointing. This season had briefly peaked my interest with the premiere, but it went downhill rather quickly.

Heroes “How To Stop An Exploding Man” - 1 hour season finale

NBC has had a huge turn around this year with some truly excellent programming. But, perhaps the most notorious of this programs is the serial drama Heroes. Since the season began on September 25, 2006, the faithful viewers of Heroes have witnesses some truly impressive writing, and a few memorable scenes brought to life vividly by the fantastic ensemble cast. Whether you are chuckling at the adventures of Hiro and Ando, or sitting on the edge of your seat as Peter tries to stop the bomb, Heroes has consistently delivered thrills. Even their prominent villain, Sylar, has become one of the more popular villains in existence due to his creepy nature and awesome abilities.

The high point of the season was the episode Five Years Gone, which sent a terrified Hiro and Ando five years into the future, to a world where the bomb has decimated New York and the world has begun to arrest and execute those with special abilities. Of course, after this episode, everything started to get sluggish again. Ultimately, the season culminated in what can only be described as an extremely disappointing finale.

The main problem was that the finale was only an hour long, which forced the writers to make everything into a compact, standalone conclusion. With more time to maneuver with, the finale could have done a lot better.

In the season finale, the acting and writing was actually quite poor. All of the scenes containing the sinister Sylar were excellent, but his apparent death at the hands of Hiro were disappointing, and the climactic battle between Peter and Sylar was underwhelming. The finale was too formulaic, in a way. Essentially, Peter and Sylar had a confrontation. And then, every single main character was marched into Kirby Plaza - one at a time - to help in some way. It started with Mr. Bennet. He was defeated. Enter Matt Parkman. He becomes injured. Enter Mohinder. Then Niki Sanders. Then Hiro Nakamura. Then Claire Bennet. And finally, Nathan Petrelli. It seemed far too procedural, and it lacked creativity.

The conclusion was disappointing. Nathan flies away with Peter and detonates high in the atmosphere. Truly disappointing. It was easy to foresee that this was an eventual conclusion to the story. They needed something far more creative. Ultimately, the Heroes finale fell short of what I expected. The premiere of the second season is going to have to be really impressive to maintain my viewership.

Scrubs “My Point of No Return” - 1 hour season finale

The Scrubs finale was passable. It was not as excellent as it could have been. It seems that the writers have grown content with recycling the on-again, off-again relationship between Elliot and J.D. in order to keep the show afloat. Now that Elliot is engaged to Keith and J.D. is having a child with Kim Briggs, it seems that the two will never get together. But, the finale gave us a brief glimpse of J.D. and Elliot lying together in a bunk bed, leaning into each other before it faded to black. To me, this seems to be a rather poor choice for a cliffhanger. If J.D. and Elliot do get back together, it ruins everything from the past two seasons.

The Office “The Job” - 1 hour season finale

You must watch this episode. And if you do not watch The Office, then you must watch all of season 1, 2 and 3 in order to catch up to this point, and then watch it. It was absolutely hilarious. Everything from Michael’s ignorant attempts to get the corporate position to Jan’s “boob enhancement” was absolutely hilarious, and the resolution of the episode - which manages to bring Pam and Jim closer together than we’ve seen in the past - makes for an interesting future for the show. Especially considering Jim is still technically going out with Karen.

As for the final scene, where Ryan gets the job at corporate, I’m unsure if this was merely a gag or if that is actually true to the storyline. If Ryan got the corporate job, then that means that Karen, Jim and Pam are all still stuck at Dunder-Mifflin in Scranton, which will just leave the office as a warzone.

Very funny stuff though. Watch it if you haven’t.

Lost “Through The Looking Glass” - 2 hour season finale

I do not want to talk about the Lost finale too much, because you really should watch it. Through The Looking Glass is described as the beginning of the end for the show. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said that there will be three more seasons before the show finishes up, so they are in the home stretch. This finale was fantastic, and it reminds me of why I tune in every week to watch Lost. The writing was excellent. The acting was excellent. The effects were excellent. And the twist at the end - which I called while viewing the first flashback - provides an interesting turn for the show.

If you haven’t been watching Lost lately, now might be the time to get back into it. If they keep up the quality that was shown in Through The Looking Glass, then we are in for one hell of a ride before the end.

Note: This episode features over a dozen deaths. Definitely a game changer for the show.