i'm sorry but I don't see the brilliance in that ending. come on, a blank screen leaving you hanging is brilliant? the truth is they didn't want to tie off things any more than that, either cause they wanted to leave options open, or couldn't come up with a truly brilliant ending where you watch it and then afterwards say, "man that was a great ending to a great series".
I'll say it again, ending the way it did with the heavy implication that something big was about to happen and then just going blank is like flipping off the audience.
on another note, I heard an alternate ending proposed on the radio this morning that made me laugh. Instead of the blank screen, the final shot is of a startled Bob Newhart waking up in the middle of the night, sitting up in bed and saying, "wow, I just had the strangest dream that I was a gangster in New Jersey".
