ncDukeBoy01

Hello Everyone:
My name is Will and I just discovered this forum thru my Dukes following on Facebook and so glad I did.  I live in Fayetteville, NC, 41 years old and am a lifelong Dukes fan. I still have my Dukes of Hazzard watch which still works, my General Lee matchbox car and a polaroid pic of me as a kid with a General Lee in front of Kmart. My biggest regret in life was never getting the original Dukes of Hazzard game and Steering wheel console for my Colecovision.  I love learning anything about the Dukes and am looking forward to reading all the great content on here. Thanks for having me and thanks to the people who started HazzardNet and keep it going. 

Hello Everyone:
My name is Will and I just discovered this forum thru my Dukes following on Facebook and so glad I did.  I live in Fayetteville, NC, 41 years old and am a lifelong Dukes fan. I still have my Dukes of Hazzard watch which still works, my General Lee matchbox car and a polaroid pic of me as a kid with a General Lee in front of Kmart. My biggest regret in life was never getting the original Dukes of Hazzard game and Steering wheel console for my Colecovision.  I love learning anything about the Dukes and am looking forward to reading all the great content on here. Thanks for having me and thanks to the people who started HazzardNet and keep it going. 

Ha, no, I didn't mean that the series might have ended with the Dukes leaving Hazzard and the whole country being destroyed. Can you imagine the series ending like that It would have always been written with the same outcome as we see on-screen; I meant it was likely conceived as one 'final, ultimate challenge' to the Dukes, with them literally fighting to save everything they love dearly.
Also the show thankfully ran for two more seasons, I think that "Farewell, Hazzard" in terms of design would make a really good final episode.

Has anyone else ever considered / noticed that season five's "Farewell, Hazzard" may have been conceived as a possible finale to the show?
Think about it. After the show had Coy and Vance in place of Bo and Luke for most of the season (as well as slowly declining script quality), ratings were seriously down on the previous seasons. So it was uncertain for a time if the series would be renewed for another season.
As such, "Farewell, Hazzard" can really be seen as a bookend finale to the show. Boss finally succeeds in taking the Duke farm from the Dukes, leaving them homeless and forced to leave town. Meanwhile, a dodgy property developer is conning him and plans to obliterate much of the whole county for strip mining. It really does have a "(possible) final episode" feel to it. Even the unusual General Lee engine sound effects being used with the closing credits kind of feels to be a "send off" of sorts. Not to mention the episode title itself!
It's a very strong episode with a real challenge to the Dukes and one of my personal favourites; The final few minutes, with the General Lee vs. the villains in the helicopter, is one of the most exciting climaxes to an episode of the entire show's run.
Of course, the show was renewed (helped in no small part by the return of Bo and Luke), and it was shown prior to "Daisy's Shotgun Wedding" as the penultimate episode of season five. (It's not uncommon for an episode of such a show to be held back in case of a writer's strike or need of an additional episode in the schedule).
Has anyone else ever noticed or felt this? It's great that the series was renewed, it would have made a terrific show finale.