I decided not to waste any of my time watching the Garland vs. Santana mis-match. Some of you may have thoughts on it. Feel free to talk about it here.
All I have to say is, Mr. Gardenhire better continue to rearrange his rotation to make sure Santana faces the Indians and Tigers as many times as possible as well.
(Yes, I realize we would have faced Santana anyways this series, but Garland-Baker then Vazquez-Santana would give us a decent shot at a sweep. Yes, I also realize it's Gardenhire's job to put his team in a position to win the most games, I'm just asking him to do it against every team. Put Liriano in the rotation, and quit letting Lohse pitch to the Tigers and Indians.)
You can ignore this if you want, but I've let it stew for over 24 hours, and I'm still feeling the same way and haven't heard a single person express the same view, so...
Why I was disappointed with The Office finale
If I had to point to one thing that has made the American version of The Office must-watch television for myself, it's that it's real. Or at least it strives to be real.
Sure, Michael is a little over the top, and I've never met anyone quite as simultaneously dim and annoying as Dwight, but they're simply the comic foils of the program. The rest of the cast feels like it could have been picked randomly out of line at the DMV. They're genuine, and their interactions with each other and the two whack-jobs are genuine.
Truthfully, I thought the finale was great until just after the parking lot scene -- And boy, did they nail that scene. I've spoken some of those same words, in that same situation, with similar results (save the tears) -- They caught the moment perfectly, and should have ended right there. Done. See you in September.
Instead they tied up a couple other loose ends, which needed to be tied up, and came back for The Kiss. They Ross-and-Racheled it. Pooped all over a perfectly good episode. The only thing that was missing was the piped-in studio audience applause and some Kenny G playing in the background.
I suppose that's what they're going for -- the Friends' audience -- but that's not what made the show great before hand. Why start now? All those people who loved the episode because of the happy ending are in for a rude awakening. It's all down hill from here. You just shot your wad.
I'll never understand why a show that thrived on making it's audience a bit uncomfortable chose to go with the big happy Hollywood ending. Pain is so much more interesting, and certainly better fits the theme of the show thus far.