Worst Series Finale of a TV Show

[Doug the Dem]

The Sopranos? Lost? Newhart? Roseanne? Lost In Space? The original Twin Peaks? Cheers? What had YOU ready to do an Elvis on your television?

For me, it was Donahue on MSNBC in early 2003. Phil had the highest fucking ratings of any show on that network! But since he opposed Bush's Magnificently Successful Holy Jesus Crusade in Iraq, the suits canceled his show!

[applegrove]

1. What happened in the last scene of the Sopranos? I watched it but did not register

Last edited Thu Jun 29, 2017, 05:36 PM - Edit history (1)

who the person was walking into the restaurant at the end?

[A HERETIC I AM]

9. "The Sopranos" creator David Chase was asked this question back in 2015

Much of the final scene was an homage to various other famous scenes in movies and TV. He basically wanted the viewers to make their own conclusions

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/16/entertainment/feat-david-chase-sopranos-ending/index.html

[red dog 1]

48. Thanks for that link

I read what David Chase had to say about the last episode (Season 6) of the Sopranos.

Funny he didn't mention that by then, nearly every member of the Soprano crew had already been recently whacked, (except for Tony)
- Sylvio Dante
- Christopher Moltisante (Tony killed him after the car wreck)
- Bobby "Bacala" Baccalieri
- Vito Spatafore (Season 5, I think)

Also, they finally got Phil Leotardo at a gas station
(His murder was the 92nd and final murder on the series)

The guy who came into the restaurant & sat at the counter kept looking over at Tony, and, just as Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" was ending, he got up & headed for the bathroom, after taking one last glance at Tony.

One reason I didn't particularly care for that last episode was that, in real life, if his entire crew had recently been killed, Tony would never have decided to have dinner at some restaurant with his family - instead, he would have likely left town or gone into hiding, since Bobby & Sylvio had just been whacked.

[Control-Z]

2. Lost had the worst finale,

final show, ending, of all time. Period.

[meadowlander]

5. Yes, the whole final season of Lost was an agonising train wreck.

Dexter's finale was pretty awful as well.

[mdbl]

6. Agreed.

Binged watch Lost on Netflix and was really disappointed at the end.

[Codeine]

13. The last two seasons of Dexter were just so, so bad.

And yeah, that last episode was just icing on the goddamned cake, wasn't it?

[Kablooie]

59. But he became a lumberjack!

Why didn't we see that coming?
Police serial killer to lumberjack.
So obvious ... or something.

[pansypoo53219]

65. killing trees instead. bloodless.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

67. He always wanted to be a lumberjack

[pansypoo53219]

64. i grew to appeciate the dexter ending.

i hate when the just cancel shows & no wrap up.

[rsdsharp]

30. For me the whole show was a train wreck.

My wife loved it, but I thought it was lazy writing. Write yourself into a corner? No problem -- Time travel! Write yourself into another corner? -- No problem -- Raise someone from the dead. Do it again? -- No problem -- Move the fucking island. Rinse and repeat in various combinations.


People raved about symbolism and how sophisticated it all was. To me it was like "...and the little boy fell out of bed and woke up from his dream."

[lame54]

54. It was experimental...

A lot of the great shows of today are because of it

[onlyadream]

77. The dream thing worked great in Newhart.

When the entire thing was a dream from the original show years before.
I think that was the BEST season finale ever.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. South of Sunset - CBS 1993

I was working with CBS at the time, and we got the word that this one was being canceled right when the first (and last - at least on network) was airing!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_of_Sunset

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

4. "The Prisoner"

The Prisoner is a British Agent who is relocated to an idyllic village which is actually a prison. Every time he tries to escape he's captured by a big weather balloon-thingy. He is only identified as Prisoner 6 during interrogations. This was the time of James Bond, Secret Agent, Get Smart, etc. The episodes were excellent until the last one, which ends up with the prisoner finally escaping in the back of a lorry whose sides have been removed. Weird.

?list=PLx7s00WFGzQ26CnfHkzR4f_yz5lzqG-Xw&t=2570

[Codeine]

11. I really enjoyed that finale, actually.

My then-fiancée did not, however, so I imagine it just comes down to your tolerance level for Weirdness of the Sake of Weirdness.

[jpak]

25. I loved that ending! it was so bizarre

I felt disturbed for days afterward

[Croney]

7. Seinfeld.

My favorite show otherwise.

[bagelsforbreakfast]

8. +1 n/m

[MiniMe]

10. Agree

The final episode was very disappointing

[Codeine]

14. Made even more painful by the fact

that you could see what they wanted to do, but somehow one of the great creative teams in television history just couldn't figure out how to pull it off.

[redwitch]

26. yup.

I agree.

[ghostsinthemachine]

37. I loved it then and

Love it even more now. "A very bad man" (wage finger)....... Love all the characters were in it, Jackie Chile's, the Soup Nazi, Baboo!...

[red dog 1]

47. Mulva, Manhands, Bania, LLoyd Braun, Mr Lippman, Mr Peterman, Morty, Frank Costanza, Puddy,

Uncle Leo, Newman, FDR, Sue Ellen Mischke,
Those are all I could come up with without doing a Google search
(I've seen every episode)

[Codeine]

12. Battlestar Galactica.

I mean, I saw the bullshit coming and I knew it was going to go that way, but DAMN was I disappointed when it happened. Left a bad taste in my mouth to the point where I strongly advise people who express an interest in the show to avoid it completely.

[stonecutter357]

31. I just posted Battlestar Galactica and Falling Skies .

And i think Falling Skies is the Worst ending of the two.

[earthshine]

70. It lost it in the 3rd(?) season when Cnl. Tye and others were revealed to be Cylons.

It felt like that was never in the writers' original plans, and the writing and plotlines of the show were uneven after that.

And WTF with Starbuck dying and coming back?

From the start, the whole thing about Cylons wanting to be human was very trite.

[Dave Starsky]

81. That "Am I human or machine?" thing was old in the '60s.

It was the plot of numerous Star Trek and Outer Limits episodes and I think a few issues of EC's sci-fi comic books before that.

I can just imagine the (relatively) young BG writers thinking that was such an edgy concept, while me all of the fans were merely rolling their eyes.

It's a shame, too, because that show started out really great. They just squandered it.

[earthshine]

85. BSG was trite from the start. Shame on Ron Moore for going there.

Dave Starsky? Starsky and Hutch?

Ron Moore, creator of BSG, wrote some good Trek TNG and Voyager episodes.

He was a trekker! He should have known better.

[lame54]

15. Answered too quickly...

Thought we were looking for great endings

[Doug the Dem]

18. I can't find your answer

So, by all means, try again, keeping in mind we are looking for your take on worst ending. (The best ending would be Trump being escorted out of the White House in handcuffs, but I digress.)

[Initech]

16. Dexter!!! *spoilers*

Started out so great. Loved seasons 1 - 4 and I still watch them. I've been meaning to revisit season 4 - arguably one of the greatest TV villains ever. But then the finale. OMFG. No closure. Tons of plot lines added. Dexter's kid goes to live with a woman who tried to kill him. Dexter gives his sister a burial at sea. And then we get this bullshit.

Just... WTF!!!!

[Codeine]

17. When they lost their showrunner it all went to shit. nt

[lame54]

55. I loved Dexter all the way till the last minute...

It made total sense to me
He was being cured
He should have ended up in Argentina
That ending would have made complete sense to me

[Initech]

62. Yeah I agree!

There were two logical endings to Dexter. Either he gave up the killing and ended up in Argentina, or his son takes over the code. But him as a lumberjack, just.... WTF.

[3catwoman3]

19. The last episode of...

...St. Elsewhere was pretty odd.

[Laffy Kat]

22. True. I loved that series, though. nt

[3catwoman3]

23. I did, too.

My first bedside nursing job was in the hospital that was part of my university (Strong Memorial Hopital at the University of Rochester, NY) and the building was about 50 years old at the time - 1973-74. The interior looked just like the St. Elsewhere hospital - long corridors, and really high ceilings. Our unit had call bells but no intercom, so any time a kid rang the bell, we had to physically go down the long halls to see what the problem was. We ran our asses off all shift long. And, no air conditioning - summers sucked.

[Freddie]

32. Loved the show but HATED the "conclusion"

All in the imagination of an autistic kid? No. The show was far too good for an "easy way out" end like that.
RIP actor Stephen Furst, Dr. Eliot Axelrod, better known as Flounder from Animal House. "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

[IrishEyes]

20. Quantom Leap

I loved that show but I hated how it ended.

[Doug the Dem]

40. The final episode turned the whole premise of the series into a lie, didn't it?

So he's hoping the next Leap will be the one home? And yet, the bartender reveals that Sam himself has been the person controlling the Leaps all the while! And, contrary to the very TITLE of the finale, we are informed at its end that he NEVER returned home!

What The Actual Fuck?

[IrishEyes]

41. Yes, also one of the episode features his wife that he loves.

I guess she is just screwed waiting for a husband who isn't coming back. I know that the ending was just tacked on since they weren't expecting to be cancelled but it was a terrible way to end a really great show.

[Laffy Kat]

21. "Seinfeld" was pretty lame. nt

[Coventina]

24. I'm one of the few who hated the ending of "Newhart".

Yes, it was "cute" to revisit the previous show, but I thought it was a disservice to the beautifully constructed, unique small town and its characters of "Newhart." They deserved better than to be dismissed as "all a dream."

[exboyfil]

27. i heard a joke about Sons of Anarchy - SPOILER ALERT

Gemma (otherwise known as Peggy Bundy) wakes up next to Al and says she just had a horrible dream about a motorcycle gang and her son, the President, killing her in the end. Oh by the way she engineered the deaths of both of her husbands.

[mucifer]

46. I love that it made fun of the sexism in most mainstream tv shows including themselves.

It forced the viewer to acknowledge Bob aged but his wife on the new show was far younger than Suzanne Pleshette.

[csziggy]

56. Wasn't the Newhart show ending a poke at Dallas & "Who shot JR?" nt

[RoBear]

61. Yes.

I've always considered it that way. Also helps explain some of the bizarre things that happened in the show: towards the end there were some pretty strange things happening, and the last episode, for me, explained that all. I loved the show in general, and loved the ending.

And no, I don't think it was an "easy out" ending.

Now, the "Lost" finale, however, left me cold...

[John1956PA]

66. "St. Elsewhere" ended with its entire story residing in the imagination of an autistic child. n/t

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elsewhere :

"The most common interpretation of this scene is that the entire series of events in the series St. Elsewhere had been a product of Tommy Westphall's imagination, with elements of the above scene used as its own evidence. Author Cynthia Burkhead explains that with this final shot, "St. Elsewhere managed to take the idea of a dream and alter it just enough, putting it in the imagination of an autistic boy," and surmises that an ending constructed in this manner 'reminds viewers that the fiction they have watched for six years is actually fiction within a fiction, occupying a second level of unreality, one level beyond the space of illusion filled by all narrative television.' A notable result of this ending has been the attempt by individuals to determine how many television shows are also products of Tommy Westphall's mind owing to its shared fictional characters (e.g., the 'Tommy Westphall Universe')."

[nuxvomica]

82. I wish Matlock had ended like Newhart

"Helen, I just had the craziest dream. I was a bigshot Atlanta lawyer solving crimes!"

[Coventina]

84. Haha! Now that would have been awesome!

[Catmusicfan]

87. I am the opposite. I loved it. I thought it was awesome. unique

[Va Lefty]

28. Dallas

The whole "It's a Wonderful Life" thing with JR was just depressing.

[stonecutter357]

29. battlestar galactica are Falling Skies ..

[rurallib]

33. O'Reilly

I was kind of hoping for a frogmarch.

[Bayard]

34. The West Wing

Only because I was sad to see a great show ending. It was actually a good way to leave it.

[PassingFair]

35. In recent memory: "Grimm"

Uninteresting, unfunny and unsatisfying.

[TeamPooka]

36. How I met your mother.

[DUgosh]

63. Agreed

I wont even watch reruns now ...hated the ending

[Awsi Dooger]

38. I don't remember a Lost In Space finale

I was in elementary school and loved that show. It was canceled without warning, from what I remember. My friends and I were sad.

None of those '60s offbeat shows had a finale. The only finale I remember from that era was The Fugitive, a two-parter. I thought it was pretty good. I remember a confrontation with the one-armed man on a huge tower in a closed amusement park, and then a court scene with Kimball vindicated and walking off into the sunset with his new lady friend.

[Dave Starsky]

83. People didn't care about stuff like that back then.

There wasn't such a huge drive for "continuity", where EVERYTHING had to be explained or wrapped up in order for the viewers not to lose their minds.

Shows that were canceled or ran their course just stopped. Actors that died or were fired either had their characters written out of the show entirely or they were just replaced by another actor. The audience never batted an eye.

I think, for the most part, people took TV less seriously then. Maybe because they actually had lives.

[Shrek]

39. "Better Call Saul"

Trust me, I'm from the future.

[Leith]

42. Soap

Anybody remember that one? It was cancelled abruptly with cliffhangers.

It had some of the funniest scenes ever in a TV show. My faves:
- the blindfolded ventriloquist dummy guessing what the ventriloquist was holding while the brother went wild trying to figure out how it did it.
- Burt was too drunk to climb down from the coffee table.

[mucifer]

45. That one should have ended a season earlier.

Taking the one gay character on national tv and making him straight was just wrong. The show just got too over the top.

[red dog 1]

49. I remember Soap

Last edited Sun Jul 2, 2017, 03:08 PM - Edit history (1)

It was "canceled abruptly with cliffhangers"...but that wasn't the show's creator-producer-writer's fault.

Susan Harris created Soap, and also produced & wrote every episode
Harris had planned for 5 seasons, but the series was abruptly canceled by ABC after Season 4, so the last episode of season 4 was not meant to be the "finale"

The official reason given by the network for canceling Soap was "it's declining ratings"
However, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, "Soap ended under suspicion that resistance from ad agencies may have caused ABC to cancel it at that point."

In short, Soap was just too controversial for ABC to continue producing it.

Back in the 1970s, topics such as homosexuality, racial & ethnic minorities, the mentally ill, marital infidelity, impotence, incest, sexual harassment, rape, student-teacher relationships, kidnapping, organized crime and new age cults were simply NOT to be the subject of humor.

Despite the fact that every show was preceded by a disclaimer that Soap "included adult themes" and "viewer discretion was advised," many organized groups, especially national religious organizations, were appalled by the show's content

It's one of my all-time favorite sit-coms, and Chuck (the ventriloquist) & Bob (his dummy) are my favorite characters.

The scripts were very funny & well-written by Susan Harris.
Billy Crystal went on to become the Hollywood star he is today: but Ted Wass, Richard Mulligan, Diana Canova (Judy Canova's daughter), Katherine Helmond, Robert Mandan (Chester Tate), and Donnelly Rhodes as "Dutch" Leitner the kidnapper, were all outstanding in their roles.
Time Magazine praised the "talented cast" and TV Guide said there was a "heap of talent" in the cast.

Soap was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards - not bad for a sit-com that only lasted 4 seasons.

More about Soap, (including the famous "Soap Memo&quot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_(TV_series)

[csziggy]

57. My favorite scene was the one in the bar

When each of the men were dealing with their losses. The Bert Campbell does philosophy:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Burt Campbell: Life plays funny tricks...You see what happens in life is this - something bad happens to you and you say “Oh God, look at this bad thing that just happened to me.”

Then you figure it’s over and it will all get good again but then what happens is another bad thing happens and then you say “Pffft, that was a surprise. I mean, two bad things in a row but I guess that’s it for a while ‘cause I just had my quota of bad.”

And then what happens is some awful thing happens to you like everything gets taken away from you and you say “Pfft, well, that’s it, there is nothing else that can happen - I lost everything.” And then life plays it’s ‘funny trick’ - you die.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It doesn't read as funny as the way Richard Mulligan who played Burt performed it, but it still cracks me up. Unfortunately I haven't found just that scene in a video. Here is a really bad copy of that episode:

[First Speaker]

43. Nowhere Man...

...this was a show from the 90s, starring Bruce Greenwood, about a man whose identity is stolen from him by a mysterious secret society, and his running around trying to get it back. It just stopped after a season, no explanations, no closure, not even a two-hour special to wrap it up. Just stopped cold, and I've been wondering for 20 years what happened...

[csziggy]

58. That is similar to Coronet Blue

It only ran one season and they never found out who Frank Converse's character was. Well, not until the writer put the solution on the internet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The show was unexpectedly popular and had the makings of a hit, but CBS, feeling that the show was too intellectual for its audience, axed it and left the mysterious storyline unresolved. But ever since, viewers who remember the show have wondered about it.

The mystery is resolved in a passage about Coronet Blue from a biography of TV creator and writer Larry Cohen, "The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker."

"When the Brodkin Organization took over the series, they wanted to turn it into an anthology... so they played down the amnesia aspect until there was nothing about it at all in the show. It was just Frank Converse wandering from one story to the next with no connective format at all. Anyway, the show ended after seventeen weeks and nobody found out what 'coronet blue' meant. The actual secret is that Converse was not really an American at all. He was a Russian who had been trained to appear like an American and was sent to the U.S. as a spy. He belonged to a spy unit called 'Coronet Blue.' He decided to defect, so the Russians tried to kill him before he can give away the identities of the other Soviet agents. And nobody can really identify him because he doesn't exist as an American. Coronet Blue was actually an outgrowth of 'The Traitor' episode of The Defenders."
http://wesclark.com/webnoir/coronet_blue.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[area51]

44. Star Trek Enterprise series ender was pretty bad. n/t

[earthshine]

68. It would have been better without Riker.

Jonathon Frakes muscled his way into the finale of a different series and made it all about him. P'd me off.

[Orrex]

73. Yeah, that one gets my vote

Jolene Blalock famously (and correctly) described Berman/Braga's handling of the finale as "appalling."

[red dog 1]

50. Rescue Me

Last edited Sun Jul 2, 2017, 02:58 PM - Edit history (1)

I guess the Sopranos finale was the most disappointing one, but not the worst

Denis Leary's "Rescue Me"'s finale was the worst.
Despite this, I highly recommend this excellent "dramady" (dramatic-comedy) which ran for six seasons.
There are very realistic, well-produced firefighter action scenes, as well as some truly hilarious scenes when Leary & the other firemen are not fighting fires.
Except for Denis Leary running his fingers through his hair every 3 or 4 minutes, and the crappy, heavy metal music Leary chose for the series theme, the series was excellent, imo.
I highly recommend Rescue Me.

K&R, thanks for posting this thread

[ghostsinthemachine]

51. Cheers

The last half of the last season was a let down. The finale, I didn't like at all.

[FM123]

52. La Femme Nikita. Loved the show but not the ending.

[Zorro]

53. Reboot or the original?

I thought the original's finale was appropriate.

[FM123]

60. The original one that was on USA network like 20 years ago.

I found the last scene where Nikita became Operations sad, I had wished more for her....

[earthshine]

69. The Daily Show with Jon Stewert

Some of the last episodes, and especially the very last one, were just garbage.

Much of these plot involved Stewert's subordinates taking turns insulting him with unfunny sarcasm.

By contrast, Colbert knocked it out of the park with his finale.

[Doug the Dem]

75. "We'll Meet Again"

PERFECT. Brought tears to my wife's eyes and mine!

[earthshine]

71. Miami Vice - what happened in the final scene?

Crockett and Tubbs are facing off against dozen evil, corrupt "Feds."

Everyone's guns are drawn. The music builds. (Oh! That music ... awesome.)

Something nasty is about to happen.

Suddenly, Castillo shows up and says, "Wait. There's another way."

The music climaxes, and then fade to black, then a commercial.

Next scene is Crockett driving Tubbs to the airport like nothing happened. Show over.

Well, after five seasons, I want to know what happened!

[betsuni]

72. I have a grudge against "The Sopranos."

What's wrong with knowing the ending as the writers intended it to be? Years later, why not? I'm offended, not allowed to compare my ideas with what was in the script. Fine. Obviously, Tony got wacked. Just admit it already.

I hate-watched "Girls" and thought I was missing something, that there must be a point to the whole thing. Then I found "Inside the Episode" videos on YouTube where Lena Dunham discussed her vision for each episode and I realized that nope, it was even more pointless and vacuous than I ever imagined. Would've been better off not knowing the creator's thoughts in that case. So who knows.

[yellowdogintexas]

74. a few: Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior; Glades;

Both dropped off of a cliff then the shows were cancelled. No one picked either of them up

Glades would have been a good pickup for Netflix or Amazon even if just one season to close the loops.

[Catmusicfan]

76. Mad Men...

Just so disappointing how a lot was confusing and REALLY Don creates the "Teach the World to Sing" commercial. No real punishment/justice

Also wish Peggy did go into business with Joan.

[DeadLetterOffice]

78. Alias

Killing off every flipping member of the show except the heroine and her should've-been-dead-from-a-million-bullet-holes husband was just AWFUL. They should've stopped the show at the end of Season 4.

[sweetloukillbot]

79. It wasn't the finale, but it seemed like it

"Crime Story."
They didn't know if they would get renewed, and it ended with a witness, or someone hiding out, in a shack in the Nevada desert. Right before a nuclear test.
Then the series got renewed and it was explained away badly, IIRC.

[NCjack]

80. The Sons of Anarchy has an ending that I don't like. As a young man,

I drove a 18-wheeler for 3-months. I was alway afraid a motorcyclist was going to crash into my truck head-on. Instead of involving an innocent trucker, I wish the Irish mob had murdered him on the steps of the courthouse. Or maybe lung cancer quickly overtook him before the justice system could get him sentenced.

[Mosby]

86. The MASH finale was pretty bad.