You'll find that life is a ball again, laughter is calling for you....

I finally got to see the finale of Three's Company. Though I always knew what happened, it was odd to actually see it. Terri quits her job to go to Hawai'i; Janet gets married in the famous apartment to the guy she met at the reading of the old guy's will; Jack asks Victoria (whom we barely know) to marry him and when she refuses, he merely shacks up with her above his bistro. How infintely depressing. First of all, Jack Tripper CAN'T fall in love, it goes against his very nature. Second, Janet would probably get married but it wouldn't be to such a stuck-up weirdo. Third, who cares about Terri? But since they made her a part of the show they might as well as given her a better out than Hawai'i. Here's what should have really happened, so that no one's heart would have been broken:
Mr. Furley's bad brother Bart fires him and takes over the apartment complex himself. (If he doesn't do this, he could assign a mean landlord instead.) Broke and depressed, Mr. Furley has no idea what to do or where to go. Meanwhile, the new landlord is so horrible he either kicks out the kids (plus Larry) or they decide to leave of their own accord. One thing leads to another and through some strange turn of events the kids find Mr. Furley another landlord position (since that's all he knows how to do.) It's got to be something crazy, like they trick a millionaire into hiring him thinking he's the real deal; or he finds out his long-lost cousin owns a building that needs a landlord, etc. Obviously the kids move in under him and the whole show continues as is, only it could be out of LA. Let's put them in a different country, or Hawai'i or Puetro Rico. I don't know. Somewhere fantastic where 20 years later we can still imagine Janet shoving a playful Jack off her while Larry gawks on and Mr. Furley refuses to fix a leaky faucet. Of course a 40 year old Jack wouldn't have been any fun (try to imagine the pathos of a middle-aged Larry hitting on bag ladies while pot-bellied Jack makes his move on a grandmother. Shudder.) But the idea is that it "could" be going on, somewhere in another dimension, somehow. I mean, the characters are fictional anyways, right? So keep it fiction. Don't try to make them "real" by giving them "normal" endings. Quel triste! In a planet that offers little compassion, how come we can't have a "loveable space" where they're still "waiting for" us somewhere up in a satellite?
In my heart I wanted Janet and Jack to get married, but it wouldn't have made sense in a way. She could marry an outsider I guess, but he'd have to have become an intimate member of the cast--someone who was more of a friend first.
What a shame they just threw the ending together in 4 shows.
And yes, I take my TV Land *very* seriously, as you can well see. ;)
Ah well. My one consolation on this is that tomorrow night Chrissy and Janet will be finding Jack in their tub asleep and the whole thing can start over again. Before I know it the ill-fashioned finale will be a bad memory, like a nightmare that fades with the morning light....