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There's almost always a first and last season for a series.

Note that some Bookends can be a spoiler, so beware.


  • 7 Yüz: At the beginning of "Biyolojik Saat", Metin is forced to seek Gökçe's help when he fails to catch a cat that snuck past him into his apartment. He is impressed by how easily she finds, captures and calms the distressed feline and subsequently invites her out, the beginnings of a positive relationship. At the end of the episode and after a painful breakup, he pulls the same tactic as the cat in order to win her back, down to to climbing on her table and mewling like one. Despite her initial annoyance and bafflement, his drastic action surprisingly works — she can't helped but be charmed by his dedication to re-creating the moment that made him appreciate her.
  • The Thundermans: The opening theme ends with Phoebe changing the family portrait of the Thundermans in their super suits to one showing them as a normal family. At the end of the final episode, she does the exact opposite.
  • The 10th Kingdom begins and ends with a shot of New York and the voice-over "My name is Virginia, and I live at the edge of the forest."
  • The fourth season of 24 began and ended on the train tracks.
    • The first and final episodes of the series feature just five main cast members each.
  • The 100 Season 1 opens on Clarke alone in a cell in space, with her drawings of Earth the only decoration. The season ends on Clarke alone in a cell on Earth, where the only decoration is a painting of the stars.
  • 1000 Ways to Die has a rather beautiful one: Number 1 - "Ichiboned". Number 1000 - "Premature Endings". While these didn't show at either the start nor the end of the series, they are the stand alone deaths due to how they end - with respect.
    • The message from the announcer at the end of "Premature Endings" lends itself well as does the message in "Ichiboned".
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The last shot of the pilot is Coulson and Skye zooming off in Coulson's Flying Car. The last shot of the Grand Finale, seven seasons later, is of LMD Coulson flying off in a new car built by Mack as he starts Walking the Earth.
  • Episodes of the Discovery Channel series American Guns often begin and end with Rich Wyatt and his family firing guns together.
  • American Horror Story:
    • In Asylum, Kit's story arc begins and ends by being abducted.
    • The next series, Coven uses this trope several times.
      • "Bitchcraft" begins and ends with Zoe killing boys with her vagina - the first time by accident during sex, the second time by rape as revenge for Madison's gang-rape.
      • "The Replacements" begins and ends with Fiona killing a fellow witch for her own Supremacy, at first with Anna Leigh to gain it, and then Madison to keep it.
      • "Fearful Pranks Ensue" begins with Marie Laveau sending zombies after the lynch mob in 1961, and closes with her sending zombies against the Robichaux girls.
      • "The Axeman Cometh" opens with the Axeman entering the Academy in 1919 and ends with him finally leaving in modern times.
  • America's Next Top Model has a knack on this.
    • Right after the pilot's OBB, the first and second contestant the audience will see will eventually be crowned as the (inaugural) winner and runner-up, respectively.
    • The Season 3 winner is the last girl called to be a finalist during the season premiere.
  • Angel:
    • The fourth season begins and ends with a toast to family.
    • "A Hole in the World" begins with a flashback of Fred preparing to leave for LA. The following episode "Shells" ends with another flashback of her getting into her car and driving off to LA.
    • In his earliest canonical appearance, Spike (under his human identity, William) recites a bad poem to his crush and gets shot down ("Fool For Love", Buffy S5). Spike delivers the same performance at a poetry slam in the Series Finale of this show; this time, the whole audience applauds and cheers.
    • Wesley and Cordelia's first meeting in "Bad Girls" ends with Cordy smiling and telling him "Welcome to Sunnydale", as she walks out through the library's double doors. The last time they talk to each other in "You're Welcome", before the reveal about Cordy's death, Wesley gets onto the elevator, and just before the doors close, Cordy smiles at him and tells him, "Oh and Wesley? You still work the best mojo in town."
  • The first and last episodes of Arrested Development intentionally mirror one another, with a very similar occasion (an announcement on a boat) and often identical lines at certain critical moments, although sometimes flipped to different people saying them.
    Buster: (Pilot) They [The SEC] have boats?
    Buster: (Finale) They still have boats?
  • The Arrow pilot began with Oliver being rescued from the island and ended with the flashback of him arriving in the island.
    • The episode "Vigilante" begins with a cop walking out of the precinct to find two dead criminals strung up by Vigilante. At the end of the episode, the same cop walks out the precinct to find a live criminal tied up by the Green Arrow.
    • The series' first Myth Arc took the form of flashbacks showing what happened to Oliver during the five years after he ended up on the island. This comes to a conclusion in the Season 5 finale, with the final flashbacks showing the events leading directly into the pilot's first scene of Oliver being rescued.
  • The A-Team, In "Incident at Crystal Lake", the episode begins with Face falling for Decker's bait of a pretty girl whose car broke down by the roadside. The end has him almost falling for it and being pulled back into the van by one of the other members.
  • Austin & Ally: In the first episode, Austin's attempt to have Ally appear on The Helen Show goes haywire thanks to her Performance Anxiety, which results in her destroying the whole set. The last episode has them appear on the same show eight years later, which unintentionally ends with Austin destroying the set.
  • Battlestar Galactica episode "Revelations" starts with Kara and Lee looking at an illustration of the Temple of Aurora, supposedly located on Earth. The episode ends with all the characters trudging through whats left of a major city on Earth following a nuclear war. Their main camp is located near the ruins of a domed building that used to be the Temple of Aurora.
    • The TV-Movie The Plan has this in two ways. First, the film opens with a shot of the two Cavils from "Lay Down Your Burdens" about to be airlocked. The rest of the film consists of flashbacks, ultimately leading up to the point where they stand in front of the airlock.
      • The second bookend is a more meta example. The Plan ends with an altered version of the opening theme of the show. Since The Plan is the very last Battlestar episode to air (excluding spinoffs), having the opening theme as the last thing the audience hears has a certain meaning to it.
  • At the end of the final episode, Dale "Smithy" Smith has the last line in The Bill with "Yeah, come on. Let's do it", pretty much identical to the opening line of the show's first.
  • The Blackadder series began with the first Edmund (alias the Black Adder) plotting to become king thanks to mistakenly receiving a prophecy that he'd be king. In the final special, his descendant Edmund Blackadder uses time travel to become king.
  • Breaking Bad:
    • In Ozymandias, the entire series till that point has several moments of this.
      • The episode starts and ends with regards to Holly, Walt's daughter.
      • The place where Walt and Jesse cook meth for the first time is also the place their criminal activities end.
      • The flashback itself begins with Walt and Jesse cooking their first batch, with Walt doing this for his family and lying to Skyler as a result. By the end, his family have turned against him to the last person, a direct consequence of all his lies.
      • Both Hank’s introduction scene and death scene feature him making backhanded compliments about Walt’s intelligence and attending slight lack of social craft. Both are clearly made out of love but in very different situations.
    • Walt and Saul's first interaction in Season 5 is Saul trying to quit Walt's business after being used by him to poison Brock, and Walt getting a power high after killing Gus threatening him to stand down. Their last interaction is Saul successfully quitting Walt's side after seeing the latter has lost all his power after being exposed. Even the dialogue is a good bookend, in the first case, Walt says to Saul that it's not over till he says it's over, and the second case is Saul saying that it is over.
    • Gus and Hector's first interaction is Gus taunting Hector to look at him in revenge of Hector murdering his business associate/lover and taunting to look at him, and their last interaction is Hector finally looking at him and then killing both himself and Gus alongside him.
    • In the pilot episode, Walt is diagnosed with lung cancer on his 50th birthday, and is given 2 years to live by the doctor. In the final episode set exactly 2 years to the date on his 52nd birthday, Walt gets a bullet in his lung, which ends up killing him.
    • Similarly in the pilot, Hank quips after a meth distribution is busted, "It's easy money, till we catch ya!" By the final episodes, Walt doesn't exactly get caught but loses most of his easy money and has to go on the run.
    • In series finale "Felina," Walt arrives at the Neo-Nazi compound wearing the same outfit he wore in the first episode, "Pilot": pastel jacket, green button-up shirt, white undershirt and beige slacks.
    • Both the first episode and the final episode has Walt hearing sirens coming to his location.
  • The first episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine deals with comical police detective Jake clashing with his new, serious captain, mainly by refusing his order to wear a tie. The first season finale ends with Jake being fired from the police, tossing his tie away and telling the captain to shove it... as part of an elaborate ruse the captain himself helped devise, showing how they've come to work together.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • "The Harvest" features a final scene in which Buffy, Xander, and Willow walk off exchanging light-hearted banter, followed by Giles commenting "The Earth is doomed." "Chosen" features a scene in which Buffy, Xander, and Willow walk off exchanging light-hearted banter, followed by Giles commenting "The Earth is definitely doomed."
      • The conversation happens in more or less the same place and in much the same manner as the pilot's, with Giles trying to talk about the upcoming end of the world and Buffy, Xander, and Willow ignoring him and wandering off. (There was some Lampshade Hanging by Giles who remarks that he is once again, "invisible to the naked eye.")
    • In this scene (as Buffy and friends prepare to make their final stand at Sunnydale High) she sends off each of her allies to their posts until she is completely alone. The order in which all the others depart is exactly the opposite order in which they first appeared in the series (Andrew first, Xander last).
    • Angel's departure in the last episode, where he disappears into the shadows, was also deliberately made to mirror his entrance into the series.
    • Also, Season 6. Opens with Buffy climbing out of a grave, alone, into a hellish burning Sunnydale being invaded by a demon gang. Ends with Buffy climbing from the earth, with her sister, to see the world as a beautiful place worth living in.
    • A subtler and possibly unintentional one from Season 4: in "The Freshman", Sunday gloats about breaking Buffy's arm, only for Buffy to reveal it's not broken. In "Primeval", during the final battle against Adam, Buffy breaks the retractable arm spike he's been using in all his fights, only for Adam to reveal his other arm turns into a machine gun and grenade launcher.
    • The episode "Lessons" beginning and ending with the line "It's about power." The first time spoken by Buffy, the second by, well, The First (appearing as Buffy).
      • It also ends with the First taking the appearances of each of the previous season's villains, starting with Warren, then Glory, then Adam, then Mayor Wilkins, then Drusilla, and finally the Master.
    • Season 2 began with Buffy arriving from LA and ended with Buffy leaving for LA.
    • At the start of Season 2, Joyce says she hopes Buffy can make it through the school year without getting kicked out. At the end of the season Buffy does get kicked out.
    • In the "Graduation Day" two-parter, the teacher prodding his students to play "Hangman" is the same guy from the season premiere urging everyone to "be somber" now they've returned to school.
    • In "Lie to Me", Ford arranging a "surprise" date with Buffy is eerily reminiscent of the scene between Angel and Drusilla at the beginning of the episode, and conveys the same sense of battle lines being drawn.
    • In the same episode, Buffy says she's done with being lied to by her friends, but Angel tells her that some lies are necessary — which is a nice setup for the Title Drop at the end of the episode.
    • When Buffy reawakens in the hospital in "Graduation Day Part 2", she approaches Faith's bed and returns the forehead kiss that Faith had given her in "Enemies".
    • Principal Snyder is killed by being eaten. Ironically, this is after Snyder made such a big deal back in his first appearance ("The Puppet Show") about how former Principal Flutie got devoured by hyenas because he was too soft on kids.
    • Willow suggested to Buffy in "The Harvest" that one way she could get out of school would be to "blow something up." Guess how Season 3 ends.
    • In his earliest canonical appearance, Spike (under his human identity, William) recites a bad poem to his crush and gets shot down ("Fool For Love", Buffy S5). Spike delivers the same performance at a poetry slam in "Not Fade Away"; this time, the whole audience applauds and cheers.
  • Season 4 Burn Notice begins and ends with Michael meeting a new handler.
    • The last lines of the series are the opening lines of every episode, "My name is Michael Westen. I used to be a spy...", only spoken by Fiona.
  • In the series ''Capadocia about a women's prison, the first episode (titled "Génesis") begins with a prison riot led by La Bambi. In the show's finale, "Apocalipsis" (the Spanish name for the Book of Revelation in the Bible) Lorena and Teresa start a prison riot.
  • Castle: In the Season 4 premiere "Rise", Beckett is sitting on a swing, explaining to Castle how she had placed a wall around her heart after her mother's murder. In Season 4 finale "Always", she is sitting alone on that swing, having resigned from the NYPD after her suspension, looking at the empty swing next to her and thinking of Castle, as the last remnants of the wall around her heart are washed away in the rain.
  • Every Season of Charmed (1998) begins and ends with the door to Halliwell Manor being closed by magic. Though one season ended with hospital doors being closed instead.
  • Cheers:
    • The series began with Sam Malone coming out of the back room, turning on the lights and opening the bar. The series ended with Sam locking the bar, turning off the lights, and strolling back into the back room.
    • Diane was brought to Cheers with Sumner Sloane. Diane leaves Cheers thanks to Sumner Sloane.
  • Chernobyl: The show starts with Legasov recording his tapes, but starts in the middle of his recording with him asking What is the cost of lies? The end of the last episode has a voiceover from Legasov that ends with the same line, catching us up to where he was in his tapes at the beginning.
    • The first episode features the question "How does an RBMK reactor explode?" In the final episode, Legasov answers this question.
  • The Colbert Report: The first and last segments of "Better Know a District" were interviews with Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston, who was in his last term by 2014.
    • The first and final episodes had "The Word" as the first segment.
  • Cold Case sometimes begins with a shot of a box of an unsolved case file being put away and ends with that same box, now marked "closed", being put away again.
  • The first TV role for game show host and announcer Art James? Announcing Concentration in the late 1950s. Last role? Filling in for Gene Wood as announcer on the 1987-91 revival Classic Concentration. (Though he did make a small appearance in Kevin Smith's Mallrats, appropriately enough as the host of the in-universe game show Truth or Date (though he can't stop T.S., Brodie and the others from taking control and wreaking havoc.)
  • The "Whodunit?" episode of Connections 2 starts its daisy-chain of historical innovations with a billiard ball, and ends with another billiard ball.
  • Cosmos, both the the 1980 series with Carl Sagan and the 2014 revival with Neil deGrasse Tyson begin and end on the rocky coastal cliffs at Big Sur, California.
  • Every episode of Criminal Minds begins and ends with a quote that parallels the case and the action surrounding it.
    • Subverted with the Season 4 finale, which was largely a Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story. Instead of a famous quote, it's merely Hotch lamenting the pointlessness of it all.
  • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The series begins and ends with the same song. The first episode ends with Rebecca and Paula singing "West Covina" together, they do the same thing in the end of the final episode of the show, but with multiple Call Backs to the story so far.
  • The CSI episode "Kiss Kiss Bye Bye" begins with vintage black and white footage of Las Vegas transitioning to color with a Frank Sinatra song. The episode ends with the Vegas footage reverting to black and white, while another Sinatra song plays.
  • The Season 5 finale of CSI: NY opens with a few men hanging out in a rough part of town, and a car driving up with the window rolling down. One might think a drive-by shooting is about to take place, but it just turns out to be Flack, wanting to talk to one of them. The episode closes with an actual drive-by shooting of the restaurant Flack and the rest of the cast are in.
  • The Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "Vehicular Fellatio'' begins with Larry trying to open a vacuum-sealed package and failing, eventually screaming in frustration. He buys a knife for opening packages. At the end, when he needs it, he finds that it's in a vacuum-sealed package...
  • The first and last episodes of Season 2 of Dark Side of the Ring is about the high-profile controversial deaths of Canadian wrestlers; the first episode being a two-parter on Chris Benoit and his murder-suicide, and the last being on the death of Owen Hart.
  • The first and last episodes of Dinosaurs actually both end with Earl Sinclair telling Baby "Dinosaurs have been on this planet for about 150 million years."
    • And the first and last shots are of news reporter Howard Handupme.
  • Dash & Lily starts and ends with Dash at the Strand, an indie bookstore in Manhattan. In the beginning he's alone and trying to piece together Lily's scavenger hunt; in the end he and Lily are together.
  • Doctor Who:
    • In the opening story of Season One, Susan was reading a book on the French Revolution. In the season finale, they actually visit it.
    • "The Tenth Planet" goes out of its way to have the First Doctor dress in the same outfit — a long cape, black hat and a scarf — that he wore in his very first appearance on the show, just before his death scene.
    • Both the first and last stories of Season 5 feature the Cybermen — "The Tomb of the Cybermen" and "The Wheel in Space".
    • "Fury From the Deep" begins with the Doctor using his "sonic screwdriver" (introduced in that episode, long away from becoming the Iconic Item it would later be) to unscrew a wall panel. It ends with the Doctor using a scream-based "sonic laser" to shake a seaweed monster to pieces.
    • The Third Doctor's run begins and ends with the Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS and collapsing.
    • The Doctor's exile on earth is both handed out by and lifted by the same Time Lord, played both times by Clyde Pollitt.
    • In "The Sun Makers", the first man they meet on Pluto is about to throw himself over the edge of building. At the end, we have a Disney Villain Death.
    • Adric's debut story ("Full Circle") and his swansong ("Earthshock") both show him clutching the belt which once belonged to his late brother, Varsh. In the first instance, Varsh's friend, Keara, gives the belt to Adric after removing it from Varsh's body. In the second, Adric, knowing his own death is imminent, takes off the belt and holds it in his hands as the space freighter on which he is trapped crashes into the prehistoric Earth, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs.
    • "Paradise Towers" begins and ends with the Seventh Doctor politely greeting/farewelling what appears to be a disused water pipe at the titular building under the apparent impression that it's a sentient being, resulting in the same conversation between him and Mel:
      The Doctor: [To the pipe] Hello/Goodbye.
      Mel: No, Doctor!
      The Doctor: [Shrugging] Well, you never can tell.
    • The TV movie begins and ends with the Doctor sitting in the console room of the TARDIS reading H. G. Wells' The Time Machine and listening to a jazz record, before the jazz record abruptly sticks and jumps. The first occurrence was a moment of sinister foreshadowing; the second is lampshaded ("Oh, no — not again!").
    • The regeneration into the Eighth Doctor happened after the Doctor had died. The regeneration of the Eighth Doctor again happens when the Doctor has just died, though the Sisterhood of Karn resurrect him long enough to regenerate. Also, when he first chooses his clothes he takes a Wild Bill Hickok costume and discards the gun-belt. After he regenerates into the War Doctor he puts on a Badass Bandolier. If the books are canon, then Eighth's first post-regeneration adventure involves him telling Jo Grant "Let's just say I'm a Doctor [...] Clearly, I'm not the one you were expecting", while his first line in "Night" is "I'm a Doctor, but probably not the one you were expecting".
    • The last story of the classic series and first story of the new series are both about the Doctor and his companion, a girl from a council estate, investigating mysterious goings-on in contemporary London which revolve around alien infiltrators, who are in turn connected to an old enemy of the Doctor's; thus performing this trope for the "Wilderness Years" when the show wasn't being produced as a regular series.
    • The Tenth Doctor, having just regenerated, lands in the Powell estate with Rose at the end of 2005 in "The Christmas Invasion". And in "The End of Time", after being exposed to deadly radiation, he finds himself dying at the Powell Estate at New Year 2005 before going back in the TARDIS, taking off and regenerating, making Rose the first and last person Ten ever saw. (Well, excluding Ood Sigma.)
    • "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday":
      • "This is the story of how I died..."
      • The music that plays as the Doctor and Rose are separated by the wall is the same music that played when Rose first entered the TARDIS.
    • The first and last episodes of the series 3 finale both climax with the Master getting fatally shot by a woman. The first time, he regenerates, the second time, he refuses to do so in order to spite the Doctor.
    • Donna Noble's first appearance, in "The Runaway Bride", is right before her wedding. Her last appearance, in "The End of Time", is after her wedding to a much nicer man.
    • The first words the Doctor heard River Song say was "Hello, Sweetie." The last words he hears her say are "Goodbye, Sweetie."note 
    • Series 5 uses the same shot and scene of little Amelia Pond praying to Santa in "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Big Bang" — only the second time, there's no Doctor and no TARDIS crashing into the shed anymore.
    • "The Beast Below" begins and ends with a creepy girl and Amy reciting rhymes about the titular creature that end with a Title Drop.
    • "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood": At the beginning, shortly after getting out of the TARDIS, Amy and Rory see their future selves waving to each other from a distant hilltop. At the end, after Rory has been killed and erased from time, forgotten by everyone except the Doctor, Amy sees and waves goodbye to her future self, who now stands alone.
    • "A Christmas Carol" has scenes near both the beginning and the end where Kazran just barely holds himself back from backhanding a small boy. The first scene is what convinces the Doctor that Kazran is redeemable; the second one — where the small boy is Kazran himself as a child — leads to his redemption.
    • "The Impossible Astronaut" starts with Amy and Rory at home, followed by the Doctor's death and "The Wedding of River Song" ends with the Doctor's "death", followed by Amy and Rory at home.
    • After "A Good Man Goes to War", it is apparent that Amy hitting the Doctor with a cricket bat and handcuffing him to the radiator in "The Eleventh Hour" is the front bookend to River Song punching him and handcuffing him to a pipe at the end of "Forest of the Dead".
    • The Eleventh Doctor begins by meeting Amy Pond. Before he regenerates he hallucinates young and old Amy.
      • As a YouTube commentator put it, "In the beginning he was her imaginary friend. And in the end, she was his."
    • The Doctor's long history of having companions is bookended by brief, unwitting encounters with Clara Oswald, both before and after his time going by that title. She accidentally meets him as a child in "Listen", and in "The Day of the Doctor" she meets the Curator off-camera, directing him to where Eleven is.
    • The Twelfth Doctor's first appearance is a surprise close-up of his eyes, doing a Death Glare, in the climax of "The Day of the Doctor". His last appearance, in "Twice Upon a Time", is a close-up of his eyes with a much softer expression on them, before the Doctor regenerates into Thirteen.
    • "Demons of the Punjab" begins and ends with a scene of Yaz and her grandmother as an old woman. In the first, Yaz is given a broken watch and asks about it, only for Umbreen to respond that she'll tell Yaz the story when she's older. At the end, Yaz, now knowing the story of the watch, tells her grandmother that she's fine waiting to hear the story, for now.
    • "Kerblam!": In the first scene, on the TARDIS, Ryan removes the bubble wrap from the Doctor's package and gleefully pops some bubbles. In the last scene, also on the TARDIS, Graham grabs the same sheet of bubble wrap, and Ryan, now wary of it after the events of the episode, suggests he not pop it, so Graham puts it back.
    • In "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", the Doctor forges herself a new sonic screwdriver out of refuse and spoons. In "Resolution", a coda to series 11, a Dalek recon scout, using a Meat Puppet, forges itself new armour out of farm equipment.
    • "Resolution" also begins and ends with voiceover narration recounting how the villain's threat was neutralized by a group of unlikely allies.
  • The Doodlebops: Every episode ended with an end-of-episode version of the show's theme song, effectively bookending each episode using said song.
  • Jennifer Aniston was the first-ever guest on The Ellen Degeneres Show on September 8th, 2003, and she was the final guest on May 26, 2022. Aniston even gifted Degeneres with a doormat in the final episode just like she did in the first episode.
    • The first episode of the series begins with a door opening revealing Ellen watching the show on her TV and noticing the audience. 19 years later, the last episode ends with her going back to the same couch that appeared the first episode, only this time she finishes watching the show, takes one final look at the viewer with a tearful smile, then turns off the TV as the door closes one last time.
  • The pilot episode of Elementary ended with Holmes and Joan on the rooftop at nighttime. The finale ended with the two of them on the rooftoop during the daytime.
  • The first episode of ER begins with an ambulance full of patients and a lagging Dr. Carter. Dr. Greene calls out to him, "Dr. Carter, you coming?" The final episode ends with an ambulance full of patients and a lagging Dr. Greene (the daughter of the man in the pilot). Dr. Carter calls out to her, "Dr. Greene, you coming?"
    • And both the pilot and the finale begin with a similar shot of Greene/Carter asleep and then woken up by the same exact nurse.
  • Eureka: In the pilot, Carter and Zoe are driving into town when they pass another version of themselves driving out. In the series finale, Carter and Zoe are driving out of town and pass alternates driving in.
  • Ignoring the fact that every show of both the Eurovision Song Contest and its junior equivalent has a quick blast of the prelude to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum, on three occasions - 1975, 1976 and 1984 - the winner was the first song to perform, and the show ends with a reprise of the winning entry.note  In addition to this, the first song in 1958 was performed again (a technical error meant that it wasn't heard in all countries) and the first song in 2006's semifinal qualified and was the last song to perform in the final. This has yet to happen in the junior version.
  • The title of both the first episode and The Movie finale of Firefly are both titled Serenity.
    • The first episode (after the battle of Serenity Valley) opens with a man floating through space, the final episode also ends with a man floating through space.
    • Subverted slightly in the episode "Out of Gas." The first spoken words in this episode come from Mal's flashback "if you buy this ship, and treat it right, she'll be with you the rest of your life." The voiceover makes it sound as though the used-car/spaceship salesman is talking about Serenity. The last scene features the exact same quote, but with the context that was left out of the first scene. The salesman is indicating some other ship, as Mal looks longingly at the firefly class "deathtrap" that he later names "Serenity".
    • The episode "The Message" begins and ends with Tracey's recorded message.
  • The pilot episode of The Firm opens with Mitch McDeere carrying a briefcase while running from someone, before flashing back to "six weeks earlier". At the end of the episode it flashes forward again to show a bit more of the chase scene. This is continued in subsequent episodes, but eventually the timeline of the episodes catches up with and passes the events shown in the bookends... and then the final scene of the first season finale flashes forward to "six weeks later" to show him fleeing a building with a different briefcase.
  • The first season of For the People has two.
    • The Pilot has Judge Byrne give a speech to the new lawyers that some of them are not worthy, and ends with Allison and Sandra convincing themselves that they are. The last shot of the season has Sandra going to the appeal case (for the client she defended in the Pilot), and as she boards the elevator with Judge Byrne he turns to her and declares "you are worthy."
    • It also has Jay and Kate going up against each other for the first time since the pilot. Jay lost the first time, but in the finale he gets the case dropped and an inditement drawn up by Kate against the real perpetrator. More importantly, Kate reaffirms that Jay really is a good lawyer.
  • In the pilot episode of Forever (2014), Henry's anonymous caller tells Henry, "We're soul mates, Henry. We have eternity together. Might as well have some fun with it." At the end of the season, after Henry has induced Locked-In Syndrome in Adam, he quietly tells him, "Don't worry, we'll find a way out of this. We've got eternity together."
    • Also, in the pilot, when Henry dies and reappears naked in the East River, he tells the police officers on shore, "It's a long story." In the final episode, "The Last Death of Henry Morgan," Jo shows him a picture of Henry, a young Abigail, and baby Abe which she found in the abandoned subway tunnel along with Henry's watch. When she asks him to explain it, he looks pole-axed a moment, exchanges a nervous glance with Abe, takes a deep breath, and tells Jo, "It's a long story."
  • Frasier: The man who delivers Martin's chair in the first episode is the same one who removes it in the final episode. He even tells the moving man the same thing: "Be careful with it!" It's an Ironic Echo since when Frasier said it in the pilot, he was upset that the mover was damaging Frasier's furniture with it. In the final episode, Frasier cautioned him warmly not to damage the chair.
    • In an even subtler example, Frasier bitterly tries to get Martin to say "thank you" to him in the pilot episode. Martin does accomplish this by the episode's end... but he also repeats the phrase - with greater sincerity - in the series finale, as now he's truly grateful to his son for 11 years' worth of experience and love. It's part of the final conversation that the two share in the series.
  • The Friends episode "The One with All the Haste" begins with Rachel angrily yelling at a man who sings right outside her window early in the morning. The episode ends with Joey singing along happily with the man, after the boys and girls have switched back apartments.
    • Friends season 5 began and ended with Ross getting married.
  • When G4TV ended on New Year's Eve 2014, their final sign off (shown after a repeat of the first episode of X-Playnote ) was based on a game of Pong, referencing when G4 launched with all-week Pong games. The game would slowly shrink into a small dot, shutting off like a tv after a clip of Attack of the Show! host Kevin Piera shouting "I'M AT COMIC-CON!!!" was played. This not only symbolically ended the network with a Game Over, but it also brought an end to ZDTV/Tech TV/G4TV combined, after 17 years of programming.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • At the start of the first season, Waymar Royce warns Will that he'll be executed if he deserts from the Night's Watch. After Waymar and the others die, Will doesn't listen, resulting in him deserting and getting beheaded. At the end of the season, Sam and a few others from the Night's Watch warn Jon not to desert. Unlike Will, Jon listens.
    • The series began with a glimpse of a White Walker. The Season 2 finale ended with the viewer seeing not one but a horde of White Walkers.
    • The first season also begins and ends with a new generation re-acquiring their ancestral pet: the Starks discover a litter of direwolf pups in "Winter is Coming" and Daenerys hatches her dragons in "Fire and Blood".
    • Inverted by the Season 2 finale and Season 3 premiere: "Valar Morghulis" and "Valar Dohaeris" are traditional Valyrian call-and-response Arc Words that translate to "All men must die," and "All men must serve."
    • The episode "Two Swords" opens with the loss of one important sword and the recovery of another.
    • In their scene in "Oathkeeper", Cersei opens by snarking at Jaime for calling her "Your Grace" but ends with a curt, "That will be all, Lord Commander."
    • Lampshaded by Mance in "The Wars to Come" when he points out that his first and last meetings with Jon involve one of them as a prisoner of the other.
    • The first and last shots of Hardhome, showing its population alive and well and then showing them reanimated as wights.
    • Ned Stark's death mirrors the same way he decapitated a deserter from the Night's Watch; somewhat inverted in that he sticks to his own mantra of the one speaking justice doing the executing, while Joffrey uses the Royal Executioner. He's even killed with his own ancestral sword, Ice, the same one he used to kill the deserter.
    • The first and last episodes of Season 7 have a dragon leading an army to Westeros.
    • House Baratheon of King's Landing die in the same order as their births.
    • Around the start of the first season, Jon joins the Night's Watch. At the end of the series, Jon is sent back to the Night's Watch.
    • The series begins and ends with men of the Night's Watch making an expedition beyond the wall.
  • Gilmore Girls
    • The first episode begins and the last episode ends with the protagonists having coffee at Luke's diner. The finale ends with a shot of Rory and Lorelai as the camera fades out. This scene is not only from the very first episode of the series, but is an echo of the shot that ends the credits for every season.
    • In the first episode, Emily and Richard agrees to finance Rory's education on the condition that she and Lorelei have dinner with them once a week. At the end of the Distant Finale Emily agrees to finance Lorelei's expansion of her inn on the condition that she, Rory and Luke comes and visit her in Nantucket for two weeks every summer.
  • In the first season of The Good Place, Jason ends up in Michael's neighborhood falsely cast as a silent Buddhist monk, an image he struggles to maintain with his impulsivity. In the series finale, he decides to leave the Good Place after spending countless millennia with Janet and his other friends. However, he forgets to give Janet the goodbye necklace he made for her and ends up waiting in the forest for thousands of years for her to return. When she finally does come back, he says waiting was not difficult and he spent most of his time in quiet contemplation, in a sense becoming a literal monk.
  • The Golden Girls: The first episode focused on Blanche getting married and Dorothy and Rose fearing being left behind after she gets married. The final episode focuses on Dorothy's wedding and Blanche, Rose and Sophia's fears of being left behind. The only difference is in the end Blanche didn't get married, as her fiance turned out to be a con artist, while Dorothy's wedding was successful and she really did leave her True Companions behind to live with her new husband.
  • The final episode of Gotham has Penguin attempting to shoot James Gordan at the same pier Gordan faked Cobblepott's death in the pilot. At both times, the target survives the shooting and escapes by entering the river.
  • The Great British Bake Off: Series 4 and 6 both begin with Cake Week, and have an elaborate cake as the final Showstopper challenge.
    • The first technical challenge of series 1 and the final technical challenge of series 7 (and the final technical challenge on BBC) were both Victoria sandwich cakes.
  • In the Grey's Anatomy episode "(As We Know It)", a scene with George viewing Christina and Izzie washing 'splodey bits of bomb-squad-guy Dylan out of Meredith's hair was a bookend for the opening scene of the two-part episode — wherein George has a wet dream of the same three women showering together.
    • Also, one episode opened with Meredith dreaming of a threesome with her two love interests ended with her and her two friends lounging on the bed eating ice cream. Another started with McDreamy pulling Meredith out of a bathtub, which turned out to be foreshadowing for a dark and dramatic ending.
  • Happy Endings The first season begins and ends with the central cast at a wedding, one of which is marginally more successful than the other.
    • The "Year of Penny" begins at the start of the first episode of the second season and officially ends in the last episode of the season.
    • The series itself both begins and ends with Alex and Dave breaking up.
  • In somewhat of a reverse Bookends, the famous "Cataracts?" chain on Harry Hill's TV Burp ended with Noel Edmonds on the set of Deal Or No Deal saying "Cataracts?" after getting a phone call from the banker. In the sequel, "Ear Cataracts?", the chain starts with Harry Hill calling the banker, who calls Noel.
  • Haven: The first episode had Nathan meet Audrey for the first time by helping her with her crashed car, and she accidentally closes a door on his hand. The final episode had Nathan meet Audrey's reincarnation Paige the same way, including her closing a door on his hand. The song "Love Will Keep Us Together" plays on the car radio in both scenes.
  • The Henry VIII miniseries (starring Ray Winstone) starts and ends with a dying king giving last instructions to his heir.
  • In the pilot episode of Heroes, Peter catches a cab driven by Mohinder. Peter asks Mohinder if he ever had the feeling he was meant to do something special, and a conversation about destiny and natural selection ensues. In the first episode of Volume Four, after an adventure that put both of them in a bad light (and made plenty of heroes turn on each other), Peter again catches a cab driven by Mohinder and, laughing, asks the same thing. Mohinder says he had the feeling, but was proven wrong.
    • The last scene in Volume Five also reflects the pilot, when Claire goes public.
      Claire: My name is Claire Bennet and this is attempt number ... I guess I kinda lost count.
  • Episode 10 of Simon Schama's A History of Britain ("Britannia Incorporated") begins with an image of a clock symbolising tight government control. Near the end we see the same clock but now it symbolises Adam Smith's vision of a perfect world run by a benevolent creator God.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street:
    • The series as a whole begins and ends with a conversation between two detectives as they're wandering through a dark alley trying to find a piece of evidence. The conversation is the same in both cases ("If I could just find this damn thing, I could go home..." "That's the problem with this job; got nothin' to do with life.") and one of the detectives appears in both.
    • Dr. Cox's first and last scenes in the series both show her driving her Mustang at high speed to a soundtrack of Los Lobos' "Georgia Slop".
  • House
    • A subtle version of this happened in Season 4. In the beginning, Wilson tries to mess with House's head (stealing the guitar and making him believe he's hallucinating the cottages) so he can do his lecturing thing. At the end of the season, Wilson literally wants to mess with House's head so that House can save Wilson's dying girlfriend. As you can probably tell, one is sadder than the other.
    • A much less subtle one happened in Season 5, again with Wilson.
    • The first and last episodes of Season One end with the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want".
    • There's one that encompasses the end of Season 4, the entirety of Season 5, and the start of Season 6. All of the events leading up to the mindscrew that is the Season 5 finale and House's stay in the mental institution begin at the end of Season 4, when House rides the bus that crashes and results in Amber's death. When it seems that House is finally cured of all the things that had been plaguing him since then in the Season 6 premier, the episode ends with him riding a bus away from the mental institution.
    • The Pilot episode is called "Everybody Lies". The series finale is called "Everybody Dies".
  • How I Met Your Mother just love these.
    • The series starts with Marshall happily showing Ted an engagement ring he will give to Lily. The Season 1 finale's closing shot featured Marshall tearfully showing Ted the same ring disowned by Lily (They eventually got better). Further, after the proposal and before the break-up, Marshall and Lily had sex, while it also involves Ted riding a cab going to (Pilot) and leaving (S1 finale) Robin's apartment.
    • The Season 2 premiere features Ted and Robin revealing to the gang that they're now together while Marshall and Lily have just broken up. The season finale features Marshall and Lily getting married and Ted and Robin revealing that they've broken up.
    • The first scene of the sixth season premiere and the last scene of the sixth season finale are two halves of the same flashforward to a wedding in the near future. Also, the second scene of the season premiere and the second-to-last scene of the season finale involve Barney expressing surprise that a woman is wearing a sundress, since he thought it was too late in the year for it (the season finale was set at the end of August 2011 even though it aired in May).
    • Likewise, the seventh season premiere opens with a flashforward of Ted talking to the groom at the wedding it's Barney, and Word of God has said that the season finale will end with a flashforward to Ted meeting with the bride, revealing her identity. It's Robin.
    • The Season 7 episode "Tick Tick Tick..." both opens and closes with the sound of a ticking clock.
    • The first episode of Season 8 ended the moment before Ted met the Mother. The last episode of Season 8 ended with us meeting the Mother.
    • The ending of the entire series exactly mirrors the ending of the very first episode, but 25 years later.
  • In the production of I Dream of Jeannie, Barbara Eden was pregnant when the show began and near the end of its run, but the former was a case of Hide Your Pregnancy and the latter ended in a miscarriage.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): In the Season 1 finale, Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" is heard at the beginning and at the end.
  • Jessie begins with Jessie arriving in New York and becoming the Ross family's nanny, and ends with her leaving them for Hollywood to become an actress. Also, she gets knocked out of her cab at the Fairfield in the first episode, and in the finale, the kids lose control on the cart they're driving and knock her over.
  • Kamen Rider Kabuto: When he appears in the first episode, Souji Tendou is carrying a bowl of freshly-purchased tofu; his final appearance in the last episode also has him buying tofu, except this time he's in France (studying to improve his culinary skills).
  • Kamen Rider Build: The first episode ends with Sento and Ryuga riding off on Sento's bike, during which Sento points out that Ryuga's fly has been down since when they first ran into each other, which prompts the two to start bickering and cause the bike to shake. This scene is repeated at the end of the final episode only this time they're in a new world where the Big Bad never existed and the only ones who remember what happened are the two of them.
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O: In the first episode, Sougo Tokiwa is biking home from school when a classmate from the Judo club throws him to the ground to "open his eyes". This sequence is repeated in the final episode with two changes: Sougo is going to school, and the student who throws him is Geiz Myokoin, who's an ordinary 2018 teenager rather than a rebel soldier from 2058 as a result of Sougo rewriting the Kamen Rider multiverse.
  • Lab Rats: The first episode was a two-parter where Leo arrives at the Davenport household and meets the three bionic teenagers. The last episode is a two-parter which ends with Leo leaving them.
  • The first episode of Lady Dynamite has Maria apologising to Mark McGrath, and it's only revealed in the final episode that she'd attacked him onstage at a corporate event.
  • The first episode of Liv and Maddie has Liv come home after her show finishes production and her family throws a welcome home party for her. The last episode ends with everyone going their separate ways and having a going away party.
  • David Letterman's first guest on both Late Night and The Late Show was Bill Murray, who was also his final guest before retiring in May 2015. Even more, Dave's introduction of him on the last show was recited almost word-for-word from Dave's introduction of him on the first show.
    Letterman: It's a pleasure for me to introduce my first guest. With credits that include Saturday Night Live, the films Meatballs, Caddyshack, Where the Buffalo Roam, and Stripes, Bill Murray has become one of the top box-office draws in show business, and besides that he's a very funny man, and it's a pleasure to have him [on our first program / as our next-to-the-last show guest]. Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Murray.
  • The pilot of Leverage has a scene where the team (minus Sophie, who had not been introduced yet) started out standing in a circle, but then walking away, with an overhead shot. The episode ended with the team (included Sophie this time) standing in a circle and not separating. The season ended with an overhead shot of them (again in a circle) going their separate ways.
    • The Grand Finale has another overhead shot, only this time only Nate and Sophie walk away, leaving Parker, Eliot and Hardison. The last shot of the Grand Finale is the same as the last shot of the Pilot, only with Parker in the armchair as Mastermind instead of Nate.
    • Heck, the Grand Finale has so many Call Backs the entire episode might as well be considered a Bookend.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: In the Season 1 debut, Galadriel tells Halbrand to bind himself to her to try to save him while on a rickety raft during a fierce storm. In the season finale, Halbrand revealed as Sauron recreates the raft in Galadriel's mind and with a peaceful sky overhead says they should bind themselves to each other as ruling King and Queen to save Middle-earth.
  • At the beginning of Lexx, Kai and some other Brunnen-G pilot outmatched fighters against the Divine Order's flagship, the Foreshadow. With no other means of causing damage, Kai deftly weaves his fighter around the ship's structure, crashes into the bridge just as it seals itself off, and is thrown from his cockpit to the deck. At the end of the series, Kai is using a moth from the Lexx, a small, unarmed transport, to drag a Doomsday Device into the center of an alien spaceship; being at the center of the blast would not normally harm the undead Kai, but Prince appears at the last minute, restoring Kai to true, mortal life. The camera work as Kai makes his run on the alien ship is identical to the first scene, and it ends with Kai crashing and being thrown from his cockpit in the exact same way before dying once again.
  • Life on Mars didn't quite open with the line "Word in your shell-like, pal.", but they are the first words spoken by Gene Hunt, upon meeting Fish out of Temporal Water Sam Tyler as he arrives in a new, confusing world. They're also the final words Gene Hunt speaks in Ashes to Ashes, to the new arrival in CID who's ranting about his iPhone, after Gene's helped Chris, Ray, Shaz, and Alex cross over and remembered what his true role is.
  • The first shot of the first scene of Lost is Jack's eye opening. The final shot is his eye closing.
    • More than that. The last few shots are Jack retracing his steps back through the bamboo grove he runs through in the Pilot. He even passes the shoe tangled in a bamboo tree. He lies down and faces right, and Vincent comes running out of the jungle. It was one hell of a bookend.
  • Malcolm in the Middle concludes both the first and last episodes with the background song "Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out)" by Citizen King.
    • Also, Lois gives Malcolm very similar speeches in both the pilot and finale, insisting that he live up to his potential and telling him that not many people get the kind of leg up in the world that his genius has given him.
    • In the pilot, there is a gag where Malcolm directs the camera to give him an overhead shot, revealing that the crowd around him has given him a wide berth so that he is sitting in the middle of a wide circle of emptiness that shifts a few inches whenever he shifts a few inches. In the finale, an identical gag is used, with everyone at the high school graduation giving Malcolm and his family a wide berth due to the stink bomb they got doused in recently.
  • Especially well done in M*A*S*H "A War for All Seasons". The episode opens with a boisterous New Year's Eve party, which turns quiet when Col. Potter makes his toast. "Here's to the new year: may she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we all be home by the end of it." The episode takes place over the course of a year, and ends with the next year's New Year's Eve party. Poignantly, Col. Potter makes the same toast he did at the previous party.
    • For the series as a whole: the first episode begins with the words "Korea - 100 Years Ago". In the final standard episode of the show (before the Grand Finale movie), the camp buries a time capsule to be unearthed in 100 years.
  • The Masters of Horror episode "Jenifer" begins and ends with a man dragging a tied up Jenifer to a seemingly secluded location so he can hack her to death, only for an armed stranger to notice their struggle and shoot the man before he can swing the blade. Her rescuer rushes over to her just in time to hear her would-be killer say her name with his dying breath. In the beginning, the protagonist is her rescuer. In the end, he's the one trying to kill her.
  • The Middleman opens with Wendy on the phone with her mother complaining about her job and life; it ends with Wendy on the phone with her mother telling her how happy she is with her job and life.
  • Monk introduces its title character in the pilot, fretting over whether he left the stove on before leaving for a crime scene. The series ends with him turning the knobs to make sure before leaving for a crime scene.
  • Mr. Young: In the pilot episode, at Finnegan High School, a student throws a piece of bread with jam on it at Adam's face. The same thing happens in the series finale at the college where Adam becomes a professor. The quote for both instances is roughly the same.
    • Adam: "See, we're learning already. Velocity, adhesion, (in disgust) mold growth..."
  • When the Brazilian MTV shut down as a broadcast channel in 2013 (before changing to satellite\cable channel), the last two VJs who talked before a montage were also the first two in the initial broadcast in 1990.
  • Murdoch Mysteries:
    • "Hangman" opens with an execution scene in a prison, with Murdoch, another detective and the crown prosecutor among the witnesses. Near the end, the scene returns to the same room, with the crown prosecutor being hanged.
    • At the start of the Season 5 premiere "Murdoch in the Klondike", Murdoch tosses his police badge into a creek to symbolize how alienated he is from his old life. However, after saving his landlady from the noose and catching a murderer, Murdoch decides to return to Toronto. His decision is symbolized by Jack London giving him back his badge, which Jack had fished out of the creek.
    • Early in "The Murdoch Sting", Brackenreid is refilling his office scotch decanter and waves the bottle under Murdoch's nose, praising the aroma and asking if Murdoch finds it appealing. Murdoch replies that he hasn't had a drink in years and doesn't intend to start now. Near the end of the episode, Murdoch goes to the same decanter, pours two glasses and actually drinks his fairly quickly, having decided to propose to Dr. Ogden.
  • The first aired episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured the movie, "The Crawling Eye". In the last episode, after Mike and the Bots make it back to Earth, they watch the same movie on TV (and Crow asks if it looks familiar to the others).
    • Interestingly, none of the people in that scene did the actual riffing of "The Crawling Eye". By the end of the show, Mike Nelson had replaced Joel Hodgson ("Joel Robinson" as the character), Kevin Murphy had replaced J. Elvis Weinstein as Tom Servo, and Bill Corbett had replaced Trace Beaulieu as Crow T. Robot. The bookends are not just for the movie on-screen, but for the cast as well.
    • Mike also tries to invoke the trope in an episode. Since Joel made his escape from the Satellite of Love after watching Mitchell, "a terrible Joe Don Baker movie", Mike believes he is allowed to escape too after doing the same by watching Final Justice. Servo and Crow has to inform him that it doesn't quite work like that.
    • Tom Servo also has the first riff in the first episode and the last riff in the final episode.
  • NCIS does this briefly in monotone at the start & end of each show as well as before & after commercial breaks.
    • Season 3 begins and ends with the team struggling to investigate the death/injury of a member (Kate and Gibbs, respectively) amongst a empathic Gray Rain of Depression.
  • Never Have I Ever: The show begins with a Silly Prayer from Devi to the Hindu gods, asking them to bless her high school life with frivolous desires. The penultimate scene before the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue is Devi thanking said gods for giving her a good high school life and asking them to take care of her mother.
  • Both the first and last of the omnibus editions of Night and Day end with Jane Harper walking through the graveyard before disappearing – in the final episode, forever.
  • Nikita: Percy begins Season 2 locked up in a prison cell at the bottom of a missile silo, having been deposed by Amanda. In the season finale, Nikita drops him down that silo, and he ends up smashing right into the cell.
  • Nip/Tuck begins with Christian meeting Kimber in a bar, who is uninterested until he reveals that he's a plastic surgeon. The final scene of the series has a similar scene with similar dialogue with a similar woman in an airport bar.
  • The Noah's Arc TV series opens and ends on the beach (with the beach not being seen all too frequently in between). There's a definite juxtaposition between the happy, carefree nature of the start of the first episode, and the end of the last episode being packed with so much drama.
  • In the live action drama of Nodame Cantabile, the first song the group plays as an orchestra was Beethovan No. 7, being conducted by Chiaki for the first time. At the last episode, the song they played before they all graduated was Beethovan No. 7, being conducted by Chiaki as his last performance with them.
  • The O.C. ended with Ryan asking a down on his luck kid if he needed help, the same thing Sandy asked him at the beginning.
  • In Once Upon a Time, The Dark Curse begins and ends with Regina losing someone named Henry.
    • In the pilot, the clock strikes 8:15PM when Emma decides to stay in to Storybrooke. In the final episode of Season 1, the clock strikes 8:15AM just as magic has been returned to Storybrooke.
    • Also the first episode begins with Prince Charming awakening Snow White with True Love's Kiss. The season finale ends with Emma kissing her son Henry in farewell after believing he was dead.
    • In the pilot episode, Rumpelstiltskin was in jail, trapped by Snow, Charming and Cinderella. In the first episode of Season 2, he is in another jail, none other than Storybrooke itself.
    • Season 2 begins and ends with people being kidnapped/sent off into another world.
    • The first half of Season 3 begins and ends with Emma giving birth to Henry.
    • The Arendelle arc in the first half of Season 4 begins with Elsa and Anna holding hands as they visit their parents' memorial to place flowers. It ends with them holding hands again as Elsa escorts Anna to the chapel to marry Kristoff.
    • The season finale ends many years in the future, when an adult Henry, living in Seattle, is visited by a young girl who says she's his daughter - just like how it all started when a young Henry visited Emma in Boston.
  • Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: The series begins and ends in the place where Alice first returned to the real world after her first visit to Wonderland. In the final scene, she's having a tea party there with her daughter, to whom she's reading a story-book accounting of her past: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • The Lifetime Movie of the Week The Other Woman begins with the second wife of the male protagonist doing Tai chi exercises on her own. By the movies conclusion, she's teaching it to her stepdaughters, having developed a better relationship with them.
  • The Outer Limits (1995):
    • Given that "Déjà Vu" involves a "Groundhog Day" Loop, the Control Voice's opening and closing narrations are identical: "We exist in time. Moving forever forward through moments in our lives. Moments that which, once experienced, can never be relived. Or can they?"
    • In "Fathers & Sons", the first scene after the teaser shows Hank Dell strongly disapproving of the influence that his father, the famous blues musician Joe "Madman" Dell, is having on his teenage son Ronnie as the two of them play their guitars. He is particularly disturbed when Ronnie uses one of Joe's lines about learning to play in a "cathouse in New Orleans." After Ronnie successfully rescues Joe from the retirement home Silver Sunset and Hank has a change of heart, the final scene of the episode shows Hank crying with joy at the sight of his father and his son playing together.
    • The Teaser of "The Grid" involves Peter Bowman being killed by his wife Eileen, who is under the control of the computer, as he knows too much about it. In the final scene, Peter's brother Scott is likewise killed by his computer controlled wife Joanna and for the same reason.
  • Most episodes of "Off the Air" feature one of the beginning clips be featured before, during, or during the credits.
  • Oz: The episodes begin and end and with Augustus Hill narrating on some philosophical topic, which is usually the theme of the episode. This is notably subverted however in the Season 5 finale, where Augustus Hill dies. The final shot of the episode is of his empty chair, symbolizing that the voice of Oz is truly dead.
  • Parks and Recreation
    • The first season begins and ends with someone falling into the Lot 48 pit and getting injured.
    • The last scene of the season 6 finale ends with Leslie, who is extremely worried, and Ben entering an elevator alone. Ben asks if Leslie is ready, and she says she isn't. In the final scene of the final season, the two are surrounded by the Parks and Rec crew and preparing for a picture. Ben asks the same question, to which a relaxed Leslie confirms that she is.
    • The very first scene of the series begins with Leslie getting a drunk man who passed out and got stuck in a playground slide out. The final episode features that same man (sober this time around) coming to the Parks and Rec Department to ask them to fix a broken swing set in a local playground.
  • Person of Interest: The first and last episodes of the first season ("Pilot" and "Firewall") both involve a female POI who turns out to be the perpetrator, and both end with Reese looking into the same security camera.
    • The final episode of the final season ("Return 0") ends with Shaw looking into the same security camera, having taken over Reese's role as the rebooted Machine's new Primary Asset.
  • "Any Number" was the first pricing game ever played on The Price Is Right. Bob Barker's final episode on June 15, 2007 appropriately ended with a playing of the same game, as did the final episode ever shot in the Bob Barker Studio. (CBS sold Television City in 2019.)
  • The Prisoner (1967) ended with... the opening credits.
  • The Rangers' first right in Power Rangers Mystic Force has them turn the tide by announcing that they believe in magic and gaining access to their powers. The season finale has them alongside the populations of Briarwood and the mystic woods declare their belief once more, giving them enough power to force feed magic into Octomus until he bursts.
  • Probe's "Untouched by Human Hands": The episode starts with Austin telling Mickey about his discovery that there's a limited number of palindromic products, and ends with Mickey asking Austin about palindromic primes.
  • Radio Enfer: Carl is the first character to appear in the first episode, ending its teaser by saying "You're listening to Radio Enfer!" while looking into the camera. In the Grand Finale, he's also the last character to appear, looking into the camera as he says, "You have listened to Radio Enfer."
  • The first episode of Red Dwarf and the final episode of Season X both end with a character declaring "The slime's coming home!" The first time it's Lister, in reaction to Rimmer's claim he's primordial slime, the second time it's Rimmer, acknowledging that he's not so different from Lister. Also, over the course of the series, "home" has gone from Earth to the titular ship. Also, the first episode is titled "The End" (with "The Beginning" appearing onscreen at the episode's ending) and the last episode is titled "The Beginning."
  • Both the first and last episode of Rome have the Newsreader announcing a bounty on a fugitive slave girl.
  • Roswell started and ended with Liz introducing herself.
    Pilot: "I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird."
    Last episode: "I'm Liz Parker and I am happy."
  • In the first episode of Sanctuary, Helen offers Will "a chance to explore a world that you've been trying to understand on your own … with very little success" and the second episode ends with Magnus saying "Shall we begin?" In the series finale, Magnus says "What if I offered you the chance to explore a world that you've been trying to see since you were a child?" The last words of the episode are Magnus once again saying "Shall we begin?" to Will.
    • The first and last episode titles are also bookends: "Sanctuary for All" and "Sanctuary for None".
  • Season 3 of Scandal starts out with Eli pressuring Olivia to get on a plane that will take her to a new life away from everything. One season full of drama later, and she takes him up on the offer at the end of the season finale.
  • The first and last episodes of Season 1 of Scrubs begin with JD saying "Ever since I was a kid, I've been able to sleep through anything...last night, I didn't sleep". In the first episode, it's because he's excited about his first day as an intern. In the last, it's because it's his last day.
  • In the very first scene in the first episode of Schitt's Creek, as the Rose family's possessions are being repossessed, Alexis is seen calling her boyfriend about the scene going on while wearing a pink vested dress. In the final episode, as a going-away present, she gives that very same dress to Twyla, the waitress at the title town's Cafe Tropical diner.
  • The very first episode of Seinfeld began with Jerry commenting about the second button from the top on George's shirt being in an odd place. At the end of the series finale, as the group sits in their prison cell, Jerry once again brings up the shirt button and quotes verbatim the first lines of the first episode. Larry David mentioned that he wanted the show about nothing to end right where it began, therefore going nowhere.
    George: Haven't we had this conversation before?
    Jerry: You think?
    George: I think we have.
    Jerry: Yeah, maybe we have.
  • Shadow and Bone: At the end of the first episode, Alina undergoes a Traumatic Superpower Awakening on a skiff in the Shadow Fold after seeing Mal heavily injured by a volcra while being carried off by one herself. Near the end of the last episode, Alina is once again on a skiff in the Shadow Fold but is now fully in control of her Sun Summoner powers. She breaks from Kirigan's control and harnesses said powers to save everyone else on the skiff.
  • Sherlock:
    • Season 2 begins and ends with a confrontation between Sherlock and Moriarty where the Bee Gees plays.
    • Season 1 opens with John speaking with his therapist just before Sherlock enters his life. Season 2 ends with John visiting her again, 18 months after his last appointment after Sherlock's assumed death.
    • The first case of the series involved apparent suicides without a note. In the Season 2 finale, Sherlock leaves a "note" saying "This call is my note. That's what people do right?" before committing suicide.
    • Ignoring the Previously on… segment, Christmas Episode "The Abominable Bride" starts with a view of 19th century Baker Street with horses and carriages and ends with the same view, but in the 21st century, with buses and cars.
  • Sleepy Hollow Season 1 began with Crane digging himself out of a hole and ended with him getting Buried Alive.
  • Smallville Season 10 begins and ends with planets falling from the sky
    • Lazarus: Night time, the Daily Planet globe falls to the street below and is caught by Clark, who super jumps and takes it back to the roof, wearing his dark trench coat costume.
    • Finale, Part 2: Day time, Apokolips is falling to Earth and Clark, now flying and wearing the Superman costume, pushes it back into space
      • The finale episode itself may count, as it both begins and ends (not counting an obligatory scene) with Chloe telling the story of Superman to her son.
  • Implied in The Sopranos. Although the show's infamous Ambiguous Ending makes it difficult to know for sure, it's strongly hinted that the final season begins and ends with Tony getting shot, and with a man in a "Members Only" jacket shooting someone to death in a diner.
  • In the first episode of Staged, "Cachu Hwch", Simon the director proposes doing a warm-up game before rehearsals, such as "Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?", and Michael Sheen stares at him in contemptuous disbelief. At the very end of the final episode, "The Cookie Jar", David Tennant asks Dame Judi Dench if she has any advice for his own directorial debut, and she suggests exactly the same thing. This time Michael enthusiastically joins in.
  • Station Eleven opens with Arthur's death and Kirsten ending up in Jeevan's care. It ends with Jeevan and Kirsten bidding goodbye with a promise to see each other next year.
  • Stargate:
    • Played with in a major Stargate SG-1 storyline. The Season 8 episode "Threads" ended the series whole Myth Arc (thus far) and the last scene of the episode was a Dénouement at Jack's cabin by a lake. It was followed by a two-part episode where the team went back in time five thousand years, revisited the universe's first and (thus far) biggest enemy, created an alternate timeline, and then fixed it. The two part episode ends with them all going to the lake and revealing that the universe is just a little bit different from the one in "Threads", but it's no big deal.
      • The eighth season finale "Moebius", was this to the show's first eight years; through time travel, the main characters end up fighting Ra again, and in an altered timeline, discovering the Stargate and being brought together to form the Stargate program, and even recruiting Teal'c again.
    • Stargate Atlantis, the first and last person we see firing one of the Ancients' drone weapons is Dr. Beckett. Also in the pilot Dr. McKay in essence complaining about not having the ancient gene and thus not being able to use the chair and in the finale that he has a lower aptitude for using the chair. Also, the pilot ends with the characters looking out from a balcony at the seascape of Lantea. The Grand Finale ends with them looking out onto San Francisco Bay from the same balcony (not to worry, the city is cloaked from prying eyes).
    • Stargate Universe begins with the Ancient starship Destiny emerging from FTL as a barely visible speck in the distance and approaching the viewer until it takes up the entire screen. From there the camera pans through the various locales on the ship as lights turn on and systems boot up before revealing the ship's stargate itself. The series ends with a near shot-for-shot reversal of the ship's systems powering down and the lights turning off, leading to a final shot of Destiny flying away from the viewer until it is a barely visible speck in the distance.
  • Star Trek has played with this a lot.
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation's first and last episodes both feature Q testing humanity's potential. The first and final lines in the series are also spoken by Picard.
    • In the first and last episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, they visit Rigel.
    • Star Trek: Voyager's first and last episodes both end with Janeway ordering "Set a course. For home." (Tom Paris in the Pilot, Chakotay in the finale, as Paris is heading to sickbay to meet his newborn daughter.) This line also bookends the titular ship's journey in the series, being spoken at the beginning and end of their unexpected voyage.
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine begins with Bajor calling for Federation aid after being devastated by the Caradassian Occupation. In the final episode Cardassia is asking for aid after The Dominion devastated their planet at the end of the war.
      • In addition, Sisko and Dukat first meet in the pilot, and have their final showdown in the finale.
    • In two instances, the opening narration is used to imply that "we're back to the beginning" or "it's come full circle":
      • Star Trek: Enterprise, at the end of its series finale, uniting all three Enterprise captains:
        Picard: Space, the final frontier... these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission...
        Kirk: ... to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations...
        Archer: ... to boldly go where no man has gone before!
    • The 2009 movie, with Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime reciting the famous lines just before Michael Giacchino's magnificent orchestral rendition of the original Star Trek theme blasts over the end credits. Trekkies everywhere cried tears of joy.
    • Star Trek: Picard:
      • "Blue Skies" is heard during the opening Picard/Data Dream Sequence in the pilot. It plays again in the Season 1 finale when Picard terminates the simulation housing Data's consciousness and allows him to die.
      • At the beginning and the end of "Stardust City Rag", a blond woman (Seven of Nine and Dr. Agnes Jurati, respectively) is crying when she kills a man she loves (Icheb and Bruce Maddox, respectively) who is lying helplessly on an operating table.
  • Stranger Things:
    • Season 1 begins and ends with D&D. Specifically, it begins with Will telling Mike the Demogorgon got him in the game when everyone thought he was safe, and ends with the revelation that the Demogorgon actually did get Will when everyone thought he was safe.
    • In the last episode of Season 1, Mike asks Eleven to go with him to the Snow Ball. In the last episode of Season 2, she does!
    • The first and last episode of Season 1 both begin with the same "Pan from the Sky" Beginning shot from the night sky onto Hawkins Lab.
    • Season 3 begins and ends inside a Russian Black Site, with the opening scene showing their attempts to open their own doorway into the Upside Down. The Stinger shows that they were successful.
  • Stuck in the Middle: Episode 2 is about Harley's thirteenth birthday. The Grand Finale does the same with her quinceañera.
  • The pilot of Supernatural starts with Sam's mother pinned to the ceiling on fire over Sam's crib. The episode ends with Sam's fiance in the same state over his bed.
    • The fourth season of Supernatural has a subtle example. The first episode is "Lazarus Rising", the last is "Lucifer Rising".
    • The first episode of the first season concludes with the brothers standing over the trunk of the Impala. Sam picks up a gun and says "We've got work to do", referring to them hunting down Azazel. In the last scene of the Season 2 finale, they're again standing over the Impala, and Dean drops the Colt, which is out of bullets (having used the last to kill Azazel into the trunk and says the same line.
  • The original version of Survivors begins and ends with a man and woman eating dinner by candlelight.
  • Many an episode of Takeshi's Castle has a starting challenge that takes place near the castle itself.
  • Taken:
    • The first episode "Beyond the Sky" begins and ends with the same narration. It is heard again at the end of the final episode "Taken":
      "My mother always talked to me a lot about the sky. She liked to watch the clouds in the day and the stars at night...especially the stars. We would play a game sometimes, a game called 'What's Beyond the Sky?' We would imagine darkness or a blinding light or something else that we didn't know how to name. But of course, that was just a game. There's nothing beyond the sky. The sky just is and it goes on and on and we'll play all of our games beneath it."
    • Also in the final episode "Taken", Charlie, Lisa, Allie, Tom and John hide out from the government in Sally's old house in Lubbock, Texas. In "Beyond the Sky", Sally found John in her shed and began a relationship with him. Sally's pregnancy with Jacob marked the beginning of the aliens' Super Breeding program, of which Allie is the end result. Tom was the only human character to be present on both occasions.
  • The first spoken dialogue in the Ted Lasso episode "Trent Crimm, The Independent" is Rebecca yelling "FUCK!" after realising her plan to get Ted and Keeley Mistaken for Cheating has failed. The last spoken dialogue of the episode is Rebecca yelling "FUCK!" after realising that her follow-up plan - getting the titular reporter to write an exposé of Ted's training methods - has backfired, as Ted's sincerity wins Trent over and the resulting article is highly sympathetic towards him.
  • In the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Pilot and finale, we get a long list of Sarah's crimes. In the Pilot, Ellison is interviewing Charlie and researches Sarah. In the finale, we catch up with what she's done since.
  • Season 1 of The Terror begins and ends with the same scene, told from different perspectives. In the first, an Inuk Hunter tells a group of searchers about what happened to the expedition, and that they are “dead and gone”. In the final scene, it is revealed that the sole survivor of the expedition is sitting just outside the tent, listening, having decided not to return to England.
  • The series Twice in a Lifetime has a person dying and given a chance to go back in time and convince their younger self off a dark path. Many episodes end with them finding themselves in an altered present much like when they had died but a happier life.
    • An episode opens with an architect at a fancy club party with her hateful wife and spoiler children, the son making a spectacle of himself. Sent back, he discovers his girlfriend had tricked him into thinking he was the father of her child. The episode ends with the real father stuck in the exact same drunken kid spot while a few tables off, the architect is with his true love and a better family watching.
    • A cold-hearted teacher is shot in a robbery after passing a now-homeless former student. In the altered present, she finds that student is now a teacher himself who takes the bullet for her (luckily, the husband she ended up gaining is a top surgeon).
    • A bigoted prosecutor has a heart attack out of terror of being in a rough neighborhood. After she mends her past self's racist ways, she's back in that neighborhood but getting along great with a black car mechanic.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959):
    • In "In His Image", Alan Talbot comes to Jessica Connelly's apartment and jokes that he belongs to the Junior Woodchucks in the first scene after the prologue. In the final scene, Walter Ryder, Jr. does the same thing.
    • "Spur of the Moment" begins and ends with a rider in black chasing a rider in white and a narration that begins "This is the face of fear..."
    • "The Jeopardy Room" begins with Major Ivan Kuchenko picking up a telephone handset and ends with him hanging up a telephone handset. In the first example, he's getting a call from Commissar Valisoff, who has planted a bomb in the room, and in the second example, he’s sending a call to Valisoff to kill him with said bomb.
  • The Twilight Zone (1985):
    • In the first scene of "Memories", Mary McNeal is using hypnosis to regress Lorraine Gustin to one of her past lives where she was a dressmaker whose shop was raided and burned by British soldiers during The American Revolution. In the final scene, Mary uses hypnosis to help Ruth Gordon forget all of her memories of her past lives so that she can lead a happier life.
    • At the start of "20/20 Vision", Warren Cribbens gains the temporary ability to see into the future when he bumps into Sandy and she breaks the right lens of his glasses. At the end of the episode, he catches her from falling off a ladder and the left lens is broken, which causes him to lose this ability.
    • In the first scene of "There Was an Old Woman", the children's author Hallie Parker is saddened because no one has turned up to her last storytime session in the local library. She feels that she has outlived her usefulness and her books have lost their appeal. In the final scene, she discovers that her books meant a great deal to Brian Harris and other deceased children, whose ghosts ask her to read to them.
  • That '70s Show: The first and final episodes shows the protagonists in the Formans' Vista Cruiser singing Todd Rundgren's "Hello, It's Me" during the end credits.
  • Used in many episodes of Third Watch, often with the same song playing at the beginning and end of the episode.
    • Not only that, the entire series: The first sequence in the first episode concludes with Sully's trademark "Crap". The last scene in the last episode does, too.
  • Two Sentence Horror Stories: In "Hide" when the robbers attack them, Araceli tells Gracie to hide. Near the end of the film, a group of ICE implied to have learned they're undocumented as a result of the publicity, come to the Gomez' house. Araceli tells her kids to hide
  • Ultra Series:
    • Ultraman Taro: The series begins and ends with Kotaro meeting with the Lady in Green, who just happens to be none other than Mother of Ultra.
    • Ultraman Leo: "Behold! The sun setting there is me. The sun which will rise again tomorrow... is you [Ultraman Leo]!" — the very words said by Dan Moroboshi/Ultraseven the first time he meets Gen Ohtori in the first episode. These words also echoed on Leo's thoughts during his final battle vs. Black End.
    • Ultraman Orb: Gai's adventures on Earth begins and ends with him playing his Orbnica.
  • The Untamed:
    • Wei Wuxian's existence as the Yiling Patriarch starts the same way as it ends — by falling off a cliff in the Burial Mounds.
    • The Yi City arc begins with Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, two cultivators clad in white and black respectively, walking the path towards the eponymous city, facing the audience. Shortly before it ends, Song Lan leaves the city, his mind now free, holding Xiao Xingchen's soul in the sprit-trapping pouch. The scene blurs to both him and Xiao Xingchen walking side by side, clad in black and white respectively, backs turned to the audience.
    • Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji part on top of a cliff as Wei Wuxian plummets to the drop Lan Wangji was trying to save him from in Episode 1. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian part in Episode 50 on top of another mountain in front of a cliff, amiciable, both at peace, to fulfill the oath they made to and with each other as disciples, with the hope to meet again... and they do.
    • Wei Wuxian's bloodied, tear-stained face in close up is one of the first shots in the series. The very last shot is Wei Wuxian's face in close up again but this time, he breaks into a wide, warm smile as he turns around after Lan Wanji calls his name.
  • The original V (1983) miniseries begins and ends in the mountain camp of two different resistance groups. Further, they both feature a courageous Rebel Leader firing at an attacking flying vehicle (a helicopter in the first case, a Visitor fighter later) with only a handgun (originally, it's even brought down this way).
  • Van Helsing (2016): The series beings and ends with Axel keeping guard over Vanessa's comatose body — in the pilot, it's because she was "killed" by a vampire three years before the start of the show, and in the series finale it's because she's become the container for the Dark One. Axel lampshades this with a brief speech musing over how things have come full circle.
  • Vera: "Dark Road" begins and ends with Vera announcing that she is going to walk because she needs to clear her head.
  • Wallenberg: A Hero's Story: The miniseries begins and ends with a narration by Per Anger.
  • Waterloo Road : In the first episode, the headmaster has a nervous breakdown on top of the roof and English teacher Tom Clarkson goes up to help him. In the finale of series 8, Tom goes on the roof again to stop former bad boy Kyle Stack jumping off after he attacked another pupil. Unfortunately, this one takes a more tragic turn and Tom falls off the roof and dies.
  • The West Wing did this a few times - for example, in "17 People", which begins and ends with the sound of Toby bouncing his rubber ball.
    • Also, the entire storyline begins and ends with Josh springing Sam out of a meeting of lawyers to come work for the president, and Sam promptly lampshades it:
      Sam: Your showing up does have a nice nostalgic symmetry.
      Josh: Style points...
      Sam: ...if nothing else.
    • However, this is only an instance of bookends in-universe; actually the first scene was shown in a flashback in the second series opener, and the second in the last episode but four.
  • The very popular Dutch game/reality show Wie is de Mol? ("Who is the Mole?", adapted into English as The Mole) started its 18th season with each of the candidates arriving in a hotel, touching down. On each TV is a different show going on until it cuts to black and the presentator explains what they have to do. This is soon followed by The Reveal they're actually in five different countries ('We are not in Kyiv, my friend!'). It ends with the last three finalists arriving in a hotel, touching down, but this time, on each TV is the same show going on (to show they're in the same country this time) until it cuts to black and the presentator explains what they have to do. Or not. Outside of their view, a timer appears counting down to the Saturday that followed, which is likely the day 'the Mole' will reveal themself).
  • The Wire:
    • The first season ends with a sequence showing that despite Avon and D'Angelo getting arrested, nothing has really changed in the projects, including Poot passing on D'Angelo's advice to separate payment and delivery.
    • The entire show ends with scenes showing that nothing has changed.
    • The first season intro song is used in the final montage.
    • And a specific episode example: "The Wire" opens and closes on the same image: Brandon's dead body displayed on the hood of a car, the beginning on the real thing, and the end in the photograph on Lieutenant Daniels' desk.
  • In the episode "Teenage Mutant Ninja Roommates" of Workaholics, it begins with the guys all arguing and yelling at each other at the same time, only to stop and share a few contented bites of food, at the beginning, it's pizza, then at the end, donuts.
  • The World At War begins with a description of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre. This massacre would be referred to again at the end of the final episode.
  • The X-Files:
    • The pilot episode and Season 7 finale "Requiem" which was written as a possible ending of the whole series bear several touching resemblances. Mulder and Scully go back to Oregon which was the place of their very first assignment. They saw a faded X sign on the road which Mulder painted there to mark an anomalous electrical disturbance in the pilot and they also meet again the same people, some of which are multiple alien abductees.
    • The pilot and the finale both have a touching scene in a motel room. In the pilot it was a place where they bonded for the first time, and in the finale they reminisce about their lives.
    • "Fire" from Season 1 features Phoebe Green, a Scotland Yard inspector and Mulder's Old Flame from Oxford who requested his help on a case. She sends him a tape at the beginning and at the end of the episode. This is what Mulder says both times:
      Mulder: Ten-to-one, you can't dance to it.
    • In addition, the pilot and Season 1 finale both end with the Smoking Man putting away a piece of conspiracy-related evidence in the Pentagon.
  • Zoey 101: In the first episode, when Zoey sees Chase for the first time after he falls off his bike, she asks him if he's okay and notices that his arm is bleeding. In the series finale "Chasin' Zoey", when he falls down the stairs she does the same thing.


Then again, when you have a series that's so profitable, why have a final season?

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