Two of the biggest shows on TV are ending this week: The Big Bang Theory finishes its 12th season on Friday, and Game of Thrones ends its eighth season Monday night. One's a multi-camera comedy that fits squarely within network traditions, the other's a flashy fantasy epic chockablock with violent murder. One is symbolic — perhaps unfairly — of cultural un-coolness, while the other spawns viewing parties and obsessive podcasts from legacy media companies.
And yet both are getting the same kind of finale rollout, the kind a lot of shows get these days, like Veep just had: an announcement well in advance of the premiere that the coming season would be the show's last, a full-court media press of oral histories and it's-hard-but-it's-time talk show appearances, well-placed tributes from high-profile fans. Clip shows and after-shows. Photos from the final table read on the cast's Instagram accounts, and then maybe a photo essay of the final days in a magazine.
We've had months and months to gird ourselves. Which isn't to say those finales will necessarily be good or beloved, just that fans of the shows have been well shepherded into the ideas that these shows are indeed ending.
Big shows have always gotten fanfare finale rollouts, but in recent years, and especially for the 2018-19 season, network, cable and streaming outlets have been big on farewell seasons for smaller shows, too. Netflix gave viewers ample warning about the end of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. The final season of Broad City was one big goodbye, an almost therapeutic guide through the main characters' maturation process and thus the end of the freewheeling-young-adult premise of the show.