Soap - The Ending That Wasn't

I think it would have been funny if the firing squad all fired, but it's revealed in the fifth season that they all used blanks. They argue over why nobody shot and followed orders, and it turns out none of them could go through with it after getting to like her.

This scene draws the parallel between capital punishment we so love to denounce with our righteous indignation and the shutting down of this wonderful show by the Moral Majority because it offended their morals.

Hey, doesn't that last sentence remind you about the idiots who don't allow nativity scenes and Santa Claus because they might offend others sensibilities?

The more everything is different, the more it's the same!

I like to think that if there was a 5th season that everyone would have come out of their "situation" just fine.

Jessica appeared after this ep. on 'Benson' (as a ghost) in which she stated that she was definitely NOT dead. Very confusing....

great eye!

The last 5 or 10 seconds are chilling to watch, esp. the freeze frame.

I find it interesting that everybody is so focused on Jessica. I too enjoyed her character but I am more interested in what happened to Bert? In that last episode as the Sheriff he is walking into a trap.

The last shot of Burt shows a man standing behind him about to kill him. Just as Jessica, Chester about to kill Danny: everything remains unsolved.
I never found anywhere why the fifth season eventually never got made. I understood the plans where in a pretty advanced stage and that the rough plotlines were worked out. It probably had something to do with ratings and money.
Recently I rewatched all seasons and the unsolved ends remain frustrating. This shows remains brilliant though.

The reason it was cancelled had to do with a group called the "Moral Majority" they railed against the show mainly because they felt the show was showing homosexuality in a good light with the chatacter Jody. The TV show "WKRP In Cincinatti" did an episode where they had to deal with a group like this over what songs they could or couldn't play.

My reasoning (that she was in a coma and not dead), at least I figured that this is how the writers would continue it, was that El Puerco (Gregory Sierra) came back to S. America at the last moment and threw himself in front of the firing squad. Jessica would be injured but survived. He was the reason she was in that situation to begin with. Sound good?