Father Ted's Final Scene - Father Ted

@wonder2wonder said:

Father Ted's Final Scene - Father Ted

I really liked the memorial/tribute montage at the end of that final scene, showing clips of scenes from the entire series. It was particularly touching that they ended it with Ted saying, "Night, Dougal," and Dougal saying, "Night, Ted."

@SixtiesHoldout said:

@wonder2wonder said:

Father Ted's Final Scene - Father Ted

I really liked the memorial/tribute montage at the end of that final scene, showing clips of scenes from the entire series. It was particularly touching that they ended it with Ted saying, "Night, Dougal," and Dougal saying, "Night, Ted."

So do I, "I've had my fun and that's all that matters."

Creators Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews had decided Series 3 would be the final season of "Father Ted", because they had felt there wasn't anything more they could do with the show and its characters. Also, title character actor Dermot Morgan was concerned that if the series kept going after three seasons, he might become typecast; so he had his misgivings about continuing.

The original ending to the final episode of the series had Father Ted joining the depressed priest on the ledge and jumping. But after Morgan's sudden and unexpected death (several months before the final episode aired), they changed the final scene to the more pleasant montage of clips. They preferred this ending anyway, because the original one didn't really seem funny, especially in light of Morgan's death just one day after wrapping the series.

@pt100 said:

Creators Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews had decided Series 3 would be the final season of "Father Ted", because they had felt there wasn't anything more they could do with the show and its characters. Also, title character actor Dermot Morgan was concerned that if the series kept going after three seasons, he might become typecast; so he had his misgivings about continuing.

The original ending to the final episode of the series had Father Ted joining the depressed priest on the ledge and jumping. But after Morgan's sudden and unexpected death (several months before the final episode aired), they changed the final scene to the more pleasant montage of clips. They preferred this ending anyway, because the original one didn't really seem funny, especially in light of Morgan's death just one day after wrapping the series.

Thanks for the information.

One more thing to note about the final episode. In a 2009 interview Tommy Tiernan, the actor who played the very depressed Father Kevin, explained that Tiernan repeatedly flubbed his lines during the scene where Ted and Kevin dance wildly to cheer Kevin up. Tiernan speculated that having to redo the dancing repeatedly might have been been one of the factors contributing to Dermot's fatal heart attack the following day. Having been diagnosed with high blood pressure at the start of the final season, the exertion may have been too much for his heart. I guess we'll never know for sure.

@pt100 said:

Creators Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews had decided Series 3 would be the final season of "Father Ted", because they had felt there wasn't anything more they could do with the show and its characters.

That's interesting. Near the end, I also felt that it was starting to run out of steam. I thought that the show sort of jumped the shark in the episode (season 2, episode 10, "Flight into Terror") where Father Ted falls out of the airplane and ends up not physically injured after falling thousands of feet. He is shown still gripping the landing gear after it apparently broke off and ended up falling through the roof of his own home.