My longtime pal Gary Brown sends along this link to an article in the Palm Beach Post. Its TV critic, Kevin Thompson, picked what he considered the five top TV series finales. Gary also writes…
I pretty much agree with his choices, but not the order. I must admit, I forgot about The Fugitive's ending, since it's been so long ago, but that created quite a stir and was handled well. I think I'd put the Newhart Show ending as No. 1, since it was such a surprise and so very clever. But it's hard to argue with any of these. In fact, I've been trying to think of other finales and there aren't many of them — Seinfeld was funny and wacky, but probably too long of a goodbye. Of course, most shows get cancelled and never get the chance to wrap things up.
And some of them don't want to for fear it closes off any chance of a revival. But yes, I'd put Newhart at the top of the list with The Fugitive not far behind. Matter of fact, I recently ran into Mark Solomon, who was one of the folks responsible for that last Newhart and I gushed to him about how brilliant I still think it was. I also told him (and it wasn't the first time he'd heard this) that I knew someone who had been out that evening, set a VCR to tape the episode…and missed part of the ending. That Newhart, as it was originally broadcast, ran thirty seconds longer than expected — a fact that also caught at least one CBS affiliate unaware. On at least one station, they cut to local news before the show was over, enraging local viewers.
Here's a page where another TV critic picked the top finales and somehow didn't include The Fugitive.