My local ABC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio experienced technical difficulties during the entire broadcast.
http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2010/05/lost_goes_out_on_symbolic_note_but_finale_is_lost_for_many_channel_5_viewers.html
I am a DishNetwork customer, and I was quick to try and blame the weather shifting the position of my dish. I also have an over the air antenna connected to my DN DVR. After stepping outside and noticing the air was calm and not a cloud in the sky, I went back and compared the Standard Definition signal from DN, the High Definition signal from DN, and the HD signal over the air. All feeds were experiencing extreme pixilation, then picture loss and drops in the audio feed. This process of pixilation, video loss, and audio loss would happen between every 1 to 4 minutes. My DishNetwork DVR has a meter which gives me a measure of the over the air signal strength. Throughout the entire episode last night the signal read at 100%, and yet I was still experiencing the pixilation and audio drop outs. I've waited six years for this finale, and for four and half hours last night I was cursing like a sailor at my TV. I thought it was funny that the local ABC affiliate was encouraging viewers to join their online chat while the show aired. I checked out the chat log, and it was riddled with complains on the video/audio feed.
So I wish I could comment on how the series ended. But I can't comment until after work today when I'll have time to watch the episode at abc.com.
This experience proves to me that far too many concessions have been made for local HD channels to put up a poorly broadcast signal. Cleveland Ohio is rated 18th in market size in the United states. Why is it they are able to get away with substandard performance you'd expect from Green Bay with a market rank of 139.