Harry Potter TV Series
It gives me pause too, but this is the Harry Potter series. One of the only pop culture phenoms that actually managed to stick the landing and have a satisfying ending. (Hermoine belongs with Harry, but I digress.) Lots of other shows, think of GoT specifically, didn't have the full story with the proper ending. And word is that HBO wanted to keep going for more seasons despite the cost, but the Davids wanted to move on so they wrapped it up too quickly.
If any show can be sustained for that long, making enough money to pay for itself, it's the Harry Potter books. Even with all the stuff surrounding Rowling, the video game was a huge financial success and there are two very crowded theme parks based on it.
Yeah, I disagree a bit on sticking the landing perfectly on the ending. It worked, but there were issues with it.
I probably shouldn't offer my opinion as I don't particularly care for the books very much (don't like her writing style, really hated the
constant red herrings through the first four novels, was annoyed by the mistakes in the sixth novel, and was absolutely done with Voldemort being the main villain by the end of the fourth book - I really wanted to be done with him and have another villain take over because he'd become just tiresome), but I will offer it and flame away if you must.
I'm certainly not saying the ending was a mess like GoT or Lost, but there were parts I found disappointing:
1. The films were better than the books for me, but the final film left out most of the explanation for Snape's actions and I feel that was an error; that was the one thing done better in the books than the films.
2. I know I complained about red herrings, so maybe it was jus another one all along, but while she's never admitted it, I believe she changed what happened to Dumbledore before writing the seventh book because "too many people had figured it out." She did admit in an interview once that she changed a few things "because too many people had figured it out" and I feel like Dumbledore not returning has to have been one of them. With his bird being a phoenix, it was all too obvious that he, too, was to rise from the ashes and be part of the climax, but that didn't happen, just a silly exchange in Harry's mind ("who's to say what is real?") instead, very much a let down IMHO.
3. Speaking of Dumbledore, and nothing could be done about it, obviously, but the loss of Richard Harris after the second film hurt the series for me. Michael Gambon was a good actor, but his Dumbledore didn't ever have the gravitas of Harris' portrayal. He was rather cardboard in comparison. I admit it's a ridiculous thing to ask someone to be as good as one the top 5 actors of the twentieth century, but there it is.
4. As others have mentioned, Hermione and Ron; Harry and Ginny. Neither couple made any sense in any way. It was downright weird, honestly. I'm not saying Harry necessarily should have ended up married to Hermione, which Rowling said she should have done, but these two couples she put together shouldn't have been couples. Neither of them worked.
Other than that, yes, it was a pretty satisfying ending.
I'm on the fence for this series. Not sure what the point is in retelling the story again. If it's to insert a lot of the extraneous stuff from the books, then I'd say don't do it at all. Those were good cuts.