I never actually reached that point, but there was a scene in both series finales that came pretty darn close. Angel's return in "Chosen," was, to me, totally unnecessary, mostly in the delivery of the deus ex machina in the form of the amulet. Willow should have been able to activate the Potentials, and the power in the Scythe could have destroyed the ubervamps just as easily and effectively as any piece of costume jewelry provided by Wolfram & Hart. The only thing that the scene actually did was provide a (poor) excuse to bring Angel back to town for one final scene, to provide an excuse for Buffy's totally ridiculous cookie dough speech, and to inform Angel that he was no longer the only vampire in the world who had a soul.
Angel's return could just as easily been explained by him coming to let everyone know what had happened to Cordy. The cookie dough thing served no purpose whatsoever, and I have always believed that it would have been far more dramatic to have had Angel and the others find out about Spike's soul on their own, maybe during the attempt to re-corporealize him.
As for the "Angel" finale, it's no secret that I hate the ending. Joss can call it whatever he wants to, a cliffhanger is a cliffhanger, and there's no way to justify ending a series that way. Even worse, I thought, was the explanation later, in IDW's "After The Fall" arc, where it was explained that yet another deus ex machina had to be employed in the form of a fire breathing dragon. What a let down!
And speaking of let downs, having the entire premise of "The Girl In Question" tossed away in the first issue of Dark Horse's continuation of Buffy's series really made me mad. The Immortal had, to me, totally unlimited possibilities as a character, and Joss just tosses him away in a single sentence, by saying that it was all a hoax. I hated that almost as much as the end of "Not Fade Away."
