We all know the ending and the final scene where Mary shuts the light and closes the door. Was this a mistake? I mean, after all, this was a tv station, does anybody truly leave a newsroom and close??? Working in a newsroom myself, the answer is no, but wanted everybody's opinions on this...


http://cincinnati.com/blogs/tv/files/2011/06/Mary-Tyler-Moore-finale1.jpg

We all know the ending and the final scene where Mary shuts the light and closes the door. Was this a mistake? I mean, after all, this was a tv station, does anybody truly leave a newsroom and close??? Working in a newsroom myself, the answer is no, but wanted everybody's opinions on this...


http://cincinnati.com/blogs/tv/files/2011/06/Mary-Tyler-Moore-finale1.jpg

I don't think they were worried about being true to life with the final scene there. I think it was more to just show it was the end. To give it the feel of it being over.

Maybe it's not very true to life, but it is effective. Every time I watch that scene, I get goosebumps.

Everything was not so 24/7 back in the 1970'S. I believe it was an independent channel that the crew worked for and it was a low rated tv station at that. Perhaps there were some folks working, but not just in the "newsroom" where the lights were turned out.

Right.. and early morning local newscasts were still a pretty new concept back then, and a lot of stations didn't have them. Plus a lot of the ones that were on, were more like talk shows than news shows, and didn't require an overnight crew. So it makes sense that there would be no late night crew. As far as I know, WJM only had a 6PM and 11PM newscast (both anchored by Ted Baxter... which makes those shows where they all leave right after the show for a party at Mary's kind of odd unless those parties started at midnight!)

Remember when TV stations themselves went "off-air"? There'd be some sort of sign-off, and you may get a test pattern or static when the station was completely shut down. This would generally happen around 2:00am on weekends, earlier during the week IIRC. :crazy:

I think they only had the 6PM news on this show and didn't even deal with the idea of an 11PM newscast. And the '70s were before we were cursed with all this 24/7 overkill. I kinda dislike Mary turning off the lights because I think it's a slightly phoney thing to do to give Mary a last big moment. Ya don't hang back when your friends are leaving and look at an empty room. You're not emotional about the room, you're emotional about your friends. (I know she's thinking about the time spent there with them but...that's what ya do if you revisit alone. Then you look at the room.) The camera could've stayed on the room as we heard them singing as they walked down the hall. I'm just disappointed that MTM got so she did more and more phoney little playing-for-effects stuff until it overtook almost everything she did. She, and they, never did that little showy stuff on the Van Dyke show. And that's why I think her earlier acting was the
best she ever did.

^ Well, I think we can assume she just left her friends for a moment, then probably caught up with them and went to a bar together or something.

Then again, maybe they just went their separate ways. If they saw each other afterwards, they might have had to have another awkward "group hug". :)

Also, I don't see her gesture as "phoney" at all. I've done things just like that when I was leaving someplace that I knew I'd never return to; and I wasn't being phoney!

I think the newsroom held many memories and emotions, much like Mary and her friends. I thought it was effective for her to turn the lights off in the now silent newsroom that was so alive and vibrant when everyone was there.

This was probably the last time that she would see the newsroom and wanted to reflect for a moment. Most likely she would have kept in touch with her co workers, since they were all so close. I remember on other shows such as Alice and Three's company that the lights were turned off and the door closed also in the series finale. It does not seem phoney to me either.

If I remember correctly, the entire news staff were fired (except for Ted), so the newsroom would be "dark" forever after.