Variety Claimed ‘Dinosaurs’ Had One of TV’s Worst Finales. Its Creators and Fans Disagree: ‘It Was So Ballsy’
variety.comWilliam Earl As a journalist, I’m always uncomfortable becoming part of the story. But I was met with an abnormally high amount of online dissent several days ago, after contributing to a Variety list detailing “The Worst Series Finales of All Time.” My sole contribution was the 1991-1994 sitcom “Dinosaurs,” a show I watched religiously as a child.
The series finale — titled “Changing Nature” — aired months before my ninth birthday, and I was not equipped to handle the tonal shift compared to previous episodes.
What I wrote for the list: “Dinosaurs” was an interesting ABC sitcom experiment: What if you replicated the family vibes of “Step by Step” or “Family Matters,” but the whole cast is made up of big Jim Henson dinosaur puppets?
Perfect for a child demo that would soon be scared to death by “Jurassic Park,” the four-season, 65-episode run of “Dinosaurs” delivered saccharine hijinks that could have been photocopied from “Full House.” Perhaps that’s why it was so distressing that in the 1994 series finale, the whole family dies.
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