I’m still catching up with my recorded episodes of Tanner ’88, the worthwhile Robert Altman/G.B. Trudeau series about a presidential candidate, done during the 1988 campaign. At the end of the penultimate episode, the The Sundance Channel promoted the next episode as “the season finale of Tanner ’88“.
It used to be that shows would fade away without much notice, but then it became fashionable (and profitable) to make a big deal out of “series finales”. More recently, season finales — some of which are maybe-series-finales, some of which are cliff-hangers for next season — have also become a reason for promotion.
But folks? It’s been over 15 years since the last episode of Tanner ’88, which was always meant to be a miniseries. I think we can safely describe it as the series finale.
