The Simpsons has been a staple of the TV landscape for over 30 years, and the cast and crew of the long running sitcom seem unsure how the series will end, or even if its corporate overlords will actually ever allow to show to end at all.
During The Simpsons' yearly Comic-Con panel, the show's cast and crew were asked if they've started to plan out the series' inevitable final episode. "One would assume we're closer to that [the end of the series,] than not," said Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson. "Though if [series producer] David Mirkin were here he'd say we're only halfway through," Smith added. The panelists joked about what they would do as a last episode if it was up to them, but didn't reveal any concrete plans for a finale. "The last episode goes back to the first episode, the Christmas pageant. The whole show is a loop, without a beginning or an end," joked series show runner and executive producer Al Jean. "Or the last episode could be like the Friends reunion, where the characters all age 25 years and come back," Jean said, still hopefully joking. Writer Carolyn Omine, who has won four Emmy awards for her work on the series, described how she would end the show, saying,"The Simpsons find a painting in the attic and realize this is why they haven't aged... then Homer spills a beer on it and then they all melt."
"The pressure to write a last episode would be so huge, it'd be really hard," admitted writer Matt Selman, who was one of the writers on The Simpsons Movie and also co-wrote the Emmy Award winning Behind The Laughter episode. Selman mused that series could have suddenly ended with some of the previous seasons, none of which had an episode that could have served as a satisfying finale, saying, "If a certain season had turned out to be our last season in the past, which episode happened to be the last one of that season... would've made for a very strange last episode with no planning." "It just doesn't seem like you could end this show without any planning," Smith added. "It just doesn't seem right."
There's also the very real possibility that The Simpsons will simply run forever. "It also seems like, in one form or another, Disney will never let the show end, so we might not ever have to worry about it," Selman said with a smile.
The Simpsons' 33rd season will premiere this September.
Source: YouTube