All Good Things . . .

. . . must come to an end. I know as well as anyone that every show I watch will (eventually) come to an end. Sure, there are those shows that seem like they might never resolve themselves (not to point any fingers, but Inuyasha, One Piece, Naruto, Case Closed . . . I'm looking in your general direction).

But what about the good shows? The really, really good shows?

What about those shows that, as you are watching them, you know you'll never see anything quite as transcendent again? What about those shows that have you anxiously watching your Netflix queue, or your library wait list, or your mailbox -- just beside yourself in anticipation of what new twists and turns await you?

Well, with such shows one of two things will happen. I might plough through the entire show - never coming up for air, unable to resist watching disks back-to-back-to-back-to-back . . . . Then, after a whirlwind romance, the show is over.

But there are also the amazing shows which I begin at a breakneck pace and then . . . well, I start to feel a bit melancholy. I know that the span of 13, or 24, or 26, or 52 episodes is coming to an end. And I desperately wish that the final episode will never arrive.

So I devised my own little ad hoc solution. If I am in the midst of a show that I wish would never end, I have the habit of not watching the final disks.

OK, calling it a solution is a misnomer -- because all I'm really doing is postponing the inevitable. The inevitable and bittersweet feeling that accompanies the end of the viewing experience. Sure, you can always watch whatever series you had been so smitten with again (and again, and again); but future watching will never match that maiden viewing. Of course, you will begin to notice and appreciate nuances that you missed in the heady early days of your relationship with the show, and the foreknowledge of what is to come can deepen your appreciation of the series. Maybe there are characters whose actions now have a poetic meaning to them; perhaps there are inside jokes that all the richer; perchance being freed of having to closely follow the narrative, you will discover anew the artistry in the animation itself.

Still, nothing quite compares to the exhilaration of discovering a series for the first time.

For weeks I could not bring myself to watch the final disk of Cowboy Bebop. How does one allow such a sublime mix of music, art and oh-so-cool characters to finish out their 26 episode (and one film) run? And when I did finish it and watched that final episode (which left almost everything unresolved - and really, how else could it have possibly ended?), I knew I would never again be able to experience it for the first time.

BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad, disks one through five, took only a few weeks to complete. But that final disk sat next to my television for upwards of six months. I only completed that show because: (1) I was going to Ohayocon to meet Greg Ayres and would have felt abashed to know I hadn't finished Koyuki's journey before meeting the (most exquisite) voice of Koyuki; and (2) I was lending the series to a good friend and he wanted to watch the final disk (and in my rather convoluted thought process, I found it silly to lend it to someone not having finished it myself).

I have been holding out on watching the final three episodes of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, for at least two months. And Eureka Seven (gorgeously animated, exactingly written, and gloriously balanced between emotion and action) has been waiting for nearly four months to be completed. Both involve main characters on journeys of discovery, where the results of their journeys will impact the lives of all those in their world. Well, not only their world, but mine as well. And I just have not been ready for them to reach their dénouements.

Will this weekend find me finally allowing Chagum to face La Lunga and Balsa to complete her duties as a bodyguard in Moribito? Will my desire to see the resolution of the challenges facing Eureka and Renton drive me to extract the final two disks from Eureka Seven and watch them in all their glory?

Perhaps. I might be ready to allow the exhilaration of my first expedition into these (all too few) episodes end, and then begin a more leisurely sojourn through their now familiar faces, motivations, environments and music.

And who knows, maybe the second (and third and fourth . . .) viewings will imbue these series with a different, and greater, magic.