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I wish someone would sit down ALL TV show writers and wake them up: Cliffhanger/To Be Continued episodes are a BAD IDEA for season finales, period. Welcome to a glaring example of WHY. They make no sense in the first place. The thinking is obviously to bring viewers back next season, keep them curious. Regular viewers will come back anyway. Casual viewers - the only people this could affect - aren't going to start with the SEASON FINALE. So, this tactic works on literally nobody. All it does is frustrate the actual fans who have to wait 4 months (if not longer if decision makers make the mistake of thinking it's acceptable to RETURN a show outside of September, like this season starting in November or shows like Animal Control returning as late as January) to get an answer/continuation to the cliffhanger. Then you run the risk of THIS: A season finale that a cancellation turns into a series finale. The show is being shopped around for saving from what I read, but for the moment viewers may never see where the ending goes. I docked 3 stars for the Cliffhanger Season Finale, TERRIBLE call.

First I heard of the cancellation was just now when I started up the episode to watch. When I watch a new episode of a show I like to come to IMDb to see if there's any Trivia or Goofs, so I can watch out for them myself. I added the week before it aired, when I set the recording, before the cast was entered, as my TV guide showed Young Sheldon's Missy was in this episode so I mentioned it. Now there was a new one, that this is the series finale. What? Episode 18 isn't even a SEASON finale, what's with not even doing a complete season?

I've liked this show, it's silly but I find nicely captures the vibe and fun of the original. Too bad they couldn't get more of the originals, but they stupidly failed to get Richard Moll before his passing and just about every significant other actor/actress seems to have died - including relatively younger Markie Post! I find it was stupid to get rid of India de Beaufort as Olivia. Sure, she was emotionally flat, but that seemed to be the character. And getting rid of her means the only young hottie is Melissa Rauch now. Lacretta is cute but that's not her vibe. Wendie Malick is quite attractive for her age, but she requires that qualifier. With the two lawyers being so old, plus Flobert (all great fun characters, but...), the show is feeling very old, like it would be hard to connect with the younger audience this needs. Those of us old enough to remember the original show and ride on the joy of reminiscing are always a smaller, low-importance audience, they need to attract and maintain a younger audience to be successful. Not sure whose decision it was for India to leave, but the original show had the same thing. The young female district attorney was replaced with another young female district attorney, at least twice (I think one or both of THEM are still alive, how about bringing them in? For SOMETHING?), until they got Markie Post for the rest of the run. Here, they just recycled a recurring character in as a full time character under an incredibly flimsy premise. Getting a new prosecutor would have made more sense, more fitting to the original (don't get me wrong, Malick is a fine addition and fun to watch, great interaction with the others, I'm just talking about lowering the average age to where 20, 30-somethings will find them appealing).

If this show is saved, I hope they'll flesh out the cast a bit. For a while the original had a really cute girl in a recurring role as the court stenographer, they could do that. Or cast some REGULARS into the cafeteria, women we can see every episode like a cashier or the coffee counter barista. In the original show, Dan had a minion Phil who appeared a lot, they could give female prosecutor Julianne a female minion.

There have been countless crime dramas during my lifetime, they all seem rather identical, leaving it to the characters for audiences to either connect with or not to dictate the show's success or failure. Ends up being rather formulaic, particularly the ones focused on murder: Police find dead body, look for clues, leading to people to question, figure out what happened. I'm not much for dramas and particularly don't care for being left in the dark, so I watch nearly NO shows like this, ever.

What set Elsbeth apart, besides Elsbeth seeming so adorable and charming ("adorable" feeling strange to apply to a woman certainly older than me) - why I tuned in to give it a shot in the first place - is that they SHOW the audience the crime, who did it and part of how, then the episode is more about seeing Elsbeth et al figure it out, including revealing subtleties about what we DID see, "Oh, THAT'S why he put that there!". They've even leaned into the Celebrity Of The Week cliche - which here seems to be Comedy Celebrity Of The Week, I just love seeing comedy people in the roles of murderers - since they don't hide whodunnit, they're safe to cast celebrities as the guests. (Though last week or so I DID NOT recognize Alyssa Milano, yikes! And this week likewise with Tracy Ullman, though I'm barely familiar with her except by name, I know she launched The Simpsons)

This has been slipping a lot this season. The Season 1 Finale was the first to leave the audience in the dark, but that could at least be excused because of stirring things up for wrapping things up to wrap up the season. But there's been a few episodes now - like the tiny town Valentine's episode where the victim collapsed out of nowhere. The actual case/incident of THIS episode could have been ANY show. No revealing the culprit, other than pre-knowing who had motive, just like many other shows.

Why phase out what made this show special?

Oh, and one word about replacing Officer Blanke, I REALLY hope this is not a permanent choice because ick. That replacement (I forget the officer's name) has no personality, like watching a robot. Okay, written that way, to particularly NOT bond with Elsbeth, and for her to react with dread to having to work with this person, but dull, dull, dull to watch. They just felt clueless to how Elsbeth does things. Only had sparks of moments of personality and having emotion and being invested, otherwise just BEGGING to make things awkward and uncomfortable going forward (if this choice continues), leaving the audience yearning for the scenes missing Officer Whatever.

Seeing ads for a Watson, I wondered if they meant the Sherlock Holmes character or being cheap. At least it IS the obvious character. I've enjoyed Sherlock things, particular modern day like Elementary (making Watson female initially felt like a gimmick but I found it worked, particularly since it was Lucy Liu, she pulled it off well). In the ads I definitely recognize the lead guy, I know I've enjoyed his work before but I can't place him, finding him well qualified for portraying a suave likeable guy with the smooth resonant voice that girls can like, encouraging there to be girls _I_ can like. :)

Okay, concept is interesting, Sherlock is gone (bit of a shame, but clearly necessary to build a show around Watson), so shows Watson post-Sherlock, with all that investigative experience. Cool idea, sounds like a great recipe for another House - another show I loved - except this actor has the vibe of a personable guy, what was fun about House is his acidity, his sarcasm, his severe lack of a bedside manner and not caring about it. Being brutally blunt in a way that was very effective.

Loving seeing the gorgeous girl from So Help Me Todd, took a bit to recognize her, she looks more exotic here. But then there's the Croft twins. I see Stephens listed (I agree with Watson, that name is moronic, weird names bug me, and it just seems to be to make fun of), but no second Croft. I was trying to look up his name. Hmmm. I spot Croft Twin, so I pay attention to catch the OTHER name, was all ready to edit IMDb to change Croft Twin to the right name. THEN I notice the SAME GUY plays both! What a stupid unnecessary gimmick! And there's two Croft Twins, clearly those two are to play the OTHER twin when focus is on the main actor playing one or the other. Look, the two people playing one gimmick was a fascinating cool innovative crowd pleaser in 1961 with Parent Trap. IT'S JUST STUPID AND UNNECESSARY NOW! This will intrigue nobody now, you need a reason now (like a cloning storyline, or Mike Myers spreading his comedy abilities around in Austin Powers by playing vastly different characters). They're fussing around and making it harder on themselves for NOTHING! Hire actual identical twins, don't get unnecessarily complicated! Aren't the Sprouse twins still acting? Boom, done. Don't want to spend the money? It should be REALLY easy to get no-name identical twins. And are these three really cheaper than two? AND the extra effort/tricks?

And DAMN does Randall Park feel horribly miscast! They shouldn't even have the character, he's shoehorned in here, he doesn't fit in a medical drama. And Randall just has the VIBE for a lovable friendly schlub. He seems to naturally smile all the time, that's what his character was like when I "met" him in his show Fresh Off The Boat. He played "himself" pretty similarly as an interviewer in Young Rock. He guested as a clinic case in House where he was a similar wimpy try-to-please-people kind of guy, a clip that ends up in many House compilation videos. Congrats for not being typecast, but it's just damn jarring here.

My biggest complaint is the twin thing, and they're pretty stuck with it. If they fire one character to simplify the acting, seems like it would be the more enjoyable easy-going one because fussbucket Stephens seems to be the worker, the more effective and useful doctor, so they need to keep both to make a well rounded team and not ruin the unnecessary Team Experiment they declared right off the bat instead of letting it percolate for a few episodes before revealing the surprise.