While the big ones, "Lost," "House," and "Heroes," have yet to bow, a lot of the shows I watch regularly have wrapped up for the summer already. You like weddings, births, deaths, and cliffhangers? This is your time of the year.

"How I Met Your Mother" Despite low ratings, the CBS comedy will return for a third season, which is good because while the cast dynamic improved in the second year, the writing kind of lost track of the show's original premise. The best episodes of the season dealt with the runup to the nuptials of Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan), which is why it's a bit peculiar that the showrunners elected to deal with the wedding in the episode before the season finale. The closer proper dealt with the end of the vastly less interesting coupling of Ted (Josh Radnor) and Robin (Cobie Smulders), with Neil Patrick Harris's Barney being used as he often was in the first season to inject humor into a not-all-that-funny and not-all-that-unpredictable plot. Kind of a letdown after the very funny wedding episode, where Marshall took a razor to his accidentally frosted hair and Lily's failed-umpire high school boyfriend showed up to try and stop the ceremonies. It's no secret I love Alyson Hannigan like a family member so it was a shame to see her having to play a clumsy drunk for most of the half-hour. Her character was the least-developed in the first season and got a lot more attention this year; the lovely episode "Aldrin Justice," where she punished Ted's mean boss by stealing his prize Pete Rose baseball, is my favorite "Mother" ever. Thus far. I'm glad they will get another season, as the end of Ted and Robin's involvement means they can go back wringing more humor out of the one thing the first season had over the second, Bob Saget's bait-and-switch narration.

"Reno 911!" With fresh swagger after the success of their first big-screen project, the "Reno" cast has been on fire since the second half of their fourth season began in April. Paul Rudd (who was also great in a "Veronica Mars" guest shot last week) has done the impossible and topped my former favorite "Reno" recurrer, Brian Posehn's dazed morgue attendant, with his performance as a hugely disturbing Lamaze instructor. Rudd was just about the only thing the jam-packed season finale lacked. A proposal! A baby arriving! A shock paternity announcement! Kilts! All that and a twist ending. Mostly this one merits mentioning for the ridiculously game Kerri Kenney-Silver, who spent most of the episode topless and trapped in a giant fake wedding cake.

"My Name Is Earl" I don't want to say too much about this one in case you haven't seen it yet, but it's quite impressive the way the "Earl" writers constructed the comedy's sophomore year with clear recurring themes and a running story arc which came to an entirely unexpected head in the finale. After the success of the first season it would have been quite easy to keep churning out standalone episodes given the show's ironclad premise and enormous stable of Camden County color. Instead, Greg Garcia and his staff have not only given the show's regulars dimension worthy of an hourlong drama, but they've constantly found creative ways of recycling members of the extended cast into unexpected new combinations. I can't wait to see how this will all play on DVD. And the left-field cameos! Move over, "Entourage," "Earl" has Tim Stack and Dog the Bounty Hunter in the same episode.

"Gilmore Girls" It's too bad that contract waffling between the CW and Alexis Bledel kept "Gilmore" from getting the sendoff it really deserved, but given how terrible most of the seventh and final season was, Amy Sherman-Palladino's replacement David Rosenthal did an admirable job with the series finale. After a couple of seasons where it seemed like the show's core values were adrift, the finale got most everybody back where they were supposed to be. Since it took place in a magical storybook town, longtime fans might have been expecting some kind of happily-ever-after ending for "Gilmore Girls." But I think the finale "Bon Voyage," which concentrated first and foremost on the bond between Rory and Lorelai and then on the attachment between the Gilmores and Stars Hollow, made the right choice by introducing no major eleventh-hour curveballs. (Let's be realistic, Milo Ventimiglia wasn't about to leave the set of "Heroes" for a CW finale even if they'd wanted him to do so.) The finale smartly tied into many ideas from the very first episodes of the show, with Rory meeting Christiane Amanpour and the last shot showing the girls downing coffees at Luke's just like always. I wish there had been more time for proper sendoffs for beloved supporting characters like Paris, Kirk, Jackson, and Taylor. But a two-hour extravaganza wouldn't really have been in keeping with the laid-back, everyday "Gilmore" feel. What's more, after all this time playing these characters, most of the cast members can communicate everything you need to know with only a handful of lines. The scene with Emily and Richard hovering awkwardly at the edge of Rory's farewell party was perfectly played, and indicative of the producers' correct sense that not everything needed to be perfectly resolved. Lorelai will always be in her parents' lives, but just the same there will always be tension there. Lauren Graham's best scene of the whole season didn't have any words at all -- it was just her watching Rory sleep one last time in her childhood bed before going off to be a cub reporter on the Obama campaign trail. (Perfect fate for Rory too, with that textbook "Gilmore Girls" mixture of fairy-tale treacle and liberal-intellectual hipness.) We don't know if it'll work out for Luke and Lorelai this time or what the future holds for Rory, but they'll be okay, because they've got each other. Sniff.

"Supernatural" Creator/executive producer Eric Kripke did an amazing job with this one. Unsure as to whether the second-season finale would also be the series finale, "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two" had to deliver at once closure and hope for the future. What Kripke came up with reminded me of the "Angel" finale "Not Fade Away," which didn't lack for major developments but ultimately hinged on the point that for true heroes, the battle is never over. It might have been a risky move after a very successful second season, but Kripke and Part One writer Sera Gamble made the right choice in finishing off the demon whom the Winchester family has been pursuing since the pilot. While the episode certainly didn't fail to deliver on the action end, it was powerhouse acting from Jim Beaver and especially Jensen Ackles that made the finale really sparkle. It was a little surprising for what's normally a two-man show that Jared Padalecki's Sam had a relatively reduced presence in the episode, but between Beaver and Ackles' bravura turns and a final sendoff for the proud patriarch played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, where was there room? Much like that "Angel," the fallout of the final battle with the yellow-eyed demon released hundreds more nasty things into the human world, specifically into southern Wyoming (uh-oh, I live in Colorado). That means there's tons of new directions the story can go, especially with the exact nature of Sam's psychic abilities still to be explored. And the story will get to go there, since the CW is springing for another season. Awesome.