TV's Worst Series Finales Ever, Ranked

No Sopranos??

I know it might be sacrilegious, but I dislike the last episode of The Golden Girls. It basically betrays the whole point of the show, which is that the four women no matter what would always stick together. I know they had to do it because of that spinoff, but if they were going to marry Bea off, it should have been done gradually throughout the year. The whole thing felt rushed, forced and lame. And don't even get me started on that shit dress they made her wear.

I can't even watch it when it runs in syndication.

I’m surprised that Lost didn’t make the list.

um, Buffy where a guy saved the world in the final battle?

Game of Thrones

[quote]I know it might be sacrilegious, but I dislike the last episode of The Golden Girls. It basically betrays the whole point of the show, which is that the four women no matter what would always stick together. I know they had to do it because of that spinoff, but if they were going to marry Bea off, it should have been done gradually throughout the year. The whole thing felt rushed, forced and lame. And don't even get me started on that shit dress they made her wear.

It should top the list of worst finales if only for that horrible wedding dress.

The Facts of Life's series finale, which was a one-hour backdoor pilot for Lisa Whelchel. All of the main characters, other than Blair, only had one or two scenes. Mindy Cohn wasn't even in the final scene of the series with the rest of the cast.

No Lost? That's bullshit. That ending made me never trust a mystery show ever again.

The Lost finale has some who loved it. It’s polarizing.

R1 regarding Sopranos the rumor was that HBO wanted the ending ambiguous hoping to entice Gandolfini and the other cast to do a big screen film (as they did with Sex and the City and Entourage.)

Melrose.

R9, you're right -- as I recall at the time, the TV critic for USA Today absolutely loved it.

R7, similarly, I don't believe Kim Fields was in the series finale of Living Single. I can't remember if her character was married off or not but just remember she had made her exit the week before.

R12 yes, I’ve met people who loved it and others who loath it. That’s probably why it didn’t make the list. It’s more polarizing vs something like Seinfeld where most people hate it

R13 correct. Regine finds a rich man who proposes to her and her character is written off, with her dreams coming true, a few episodes early.

NBC incessantly hyped the Seinfeld finale. Not even the second coming of Christ would have lived up to NBC's relentless promotion.

I liked The Sopranos finale

How I Met Your Mother was absolutely terrible, the worst in sitcom history. I'm not exagerating. It really managed to take whatever slim redeemable qualities the final seasons of the show had and run them into the ground.

[quote] The Facts of Life's series finale, which was a one-hour backdoor pilot for Lisa Whelchel.

That's not the only thing backdoor Lisa Whelchel ever did!

Game of Thrones was extremely disappointing. Because George R R Martin is so narcissistic, he had Bran implausibly chosen King of Westeros because someone "needed to tell stories."

My biggest disappointment with the end of The Sopranos was that Dr. Melfi had no part in it, even though the show's entire starting premise was Tony's visits to her.

Mad Men was especially disappointing.

Since Betty was dying by the end (she had inoperable lung cancer), it was completely unclear who was going to take care of her children with Don: she wanted her brother William to do it (even though he was not wealthy and had two children of his own), Don would legally be entitled to take them (though it is almost unthinkable he could raise the two little boys without a wife), and the only one who seemed to want them would be Henry Francis, who would have no legal right to them. We never found out what happened to them, nor to Sally (although presumably she was OK since she was a teenager at boarding school--Bobby was still years away from that, and Gene even further).

It also seemed unthinkable that Pete would ever be happy in Kansas, since he complained bitterly even when he and his wife had to move to Connecticut since he was such a Manhattan boy (and he depended so much for his self-esteem on people recognizing who his family is, which no one would do in Kansas). But the series showed the Campbells in ecstasy when they boarded their Lear jet for Wichita.

All the ending resolved was that Don was going to join Seventies self-help movements (which did seem likely) and that he would invent the famous Coke commercial (which is untrue, and which no one cared about).

R22 I think Pete had some growth by the time he moved to Kansas, and was content with his life as a whole. He didn’t need to be in Manhattan anymore to be happy.

[quote]I liked The Sopranos finale

I loved The Sopranos finale and Seinfeld when everybody came back and testified against them all.

The Seinfeld finale was the ugliest, meanest show ever to be aired on television.

The Seinfeld finale just felt mean and ugly. It wasn’t funny. But it was their karma for being awful for all the years on the show.

I agree with R22 -- Mad Men's finale was extremely disappointing. That whole Coke commercial thing made it seem as if this successful but essentially crappy ad was the equivalent of Don winning a Nobel prize in literature. The whole episode just felt like the writers ran out of anything to say. It was sorry. Very sorry.

Agree, R26. Rather than being their sarcastic, ironic unkind selves, the writers just presented their characters as profanely and utterly unkind. A real turnoff. Whoever wrote the Seinfeld finale should never work in LA or other tv-dom again.

Did you people even watch the show? Their characters WERE profanely and utterly unkind.

I’m thinking many of you forget how big advertising was in the 60s and 70s. One big commercial could earn the creator millions over the years, as back then some commercials would get used on and off for years on end, unlike now.

Mad Men's finale was one of the worst. I didn't like Seinfeld's finale but it was true to its characters and - as someone mentioned above - all the guest stars testifying against them was hilarious.

Bob Newhart and Breaking Bad had the best.finales.

R27, I thought that Mad Men ending was perfect. In the ad industry and with the public that was like the Noble Prize of ads. It was never considered a crappy ad. Never.

[quote] The Facts of Life's series finale, which was a one-hour backdoor pilot for Lisa Whelchel. All of the main characters, other than Blair, only had one or two scenes. Mindy Cohn wasn't even in the final scene of the series with the rest of the cast.

What made it especially creepy was the circumstances that inspired Blair to suggest making Eastland coed. It started when Seth Green‘s character, a boy named Adam, pretended to be a girl named Eve. Blair wanted the school doctor to check and see just in case.

Also, why didn’t Andy go to Eastland now that it was coed?

On some level though, it makes sense that [italic]Facts[/italic] would end with a backdoor pilot when it started out as one.

I realize this will be regarded as a very random entry but I recently saw the series finale of "Barnaby Jones" on MeTV and it was beyond terrible. I think it was some kind of backdoor pilot focused on Kenneth Mars as the head of a father/son detective agency who keeps running afoul of Betty (Lee Meriwether), who's also working to solve the week's mystery (Buddy Ebsen and Mark Shera pop up but are mostly offscreen). In the end Mars and his son invite Betty to join their agency but I think she declines, though I looked it up and the episode was supposedly a candidate for a spinoff since "Barnaby" was coming to an end after 8 seasons. But it was godawful and I guess CBS thought so, too, because it didn't go anywhere after that but I just thought what an unfortunate end for "Barnaby" after such a long and successful run.

I hated the Friends finale, mostly because Rachel stayed for Ross. No. Let her accept the huge job offer in Paris and go. But nope, she throws away the career she worked hard for to be with Ross.

I at least liked that they had Chandler and Monica move to the suburbs to raise their new kids and not wanting to raise them in NYC, especially an apartment like Ross and Rachel were. Felt more true to Chandler and Monica to wanna buy a house and live in a quiet, peaceful suburb.

Yah, we watched Seinfeld, R29. We didn’t just get out of prison! You’re correct that Seinfeld characters were snarky, selfish, and (I repeat)IRONICALLY unkind, but the finale was written such that the characters were so BLATANTLY and CRINGINGLY unkind, that the viewer lost all interest in what happened to them during the final episode. It was a complete turnoff and very unfair to the characters as they had been written before that time.

Was NBC going to keep "The Facts of Life" title if it had continued with Blair as headmistress at Eastland?

"Maude" also had an awful series finale. No Rue or Conrad or Adrienne Barboobs. And it was a relaunch of the series with Maude as a Congresswoman in D.C. None of the new supporting cast were funny, so Bea made the correct decision not to go forward with it.

[quote]I hated the Friends finale, mostly because Rachel stayed for Ross. No. Let her accept the huge job offer in Paris and go. But nope, she throws away the career she worked hard for to be with Ross.

It was more proof the episodes before the finale weren't any good to begin with.

[quote] Was NBC going to keep "The Facts of Life" title if it had continued with Blair as headmistress at Eastland?

They were going to go the [italic]Archie Bunker's Place[/italic] route with a show called "The Lisa Whelchel Show." NBC even announced both it and [italic]Empty Nest[/italic] on the 1988 fall schedule. But Lisa's father arranged a marriage for her with that closet queen preacher, and that was it.

Season 10 had a handful of decent episodes r39, but most of them weren’t good. It was probably their worst written season, especially leading up to the finale, having Rachel accept the job only for Ross to now want her back now that he knows he is losing his crutch, and then in the end she stays for him and throws away the opportunity of a lifetime in Paris.

Granted I don’t think it was ever mentioned who Emma would be with during all this…

Mad Men was the absolute worst. Six Feet Under was the best.

I gave up on [italic]Mad Men[/italic] when Sal left.

More about the proposed Lisa Whelchel Show that never was:

I have only watched 3 out of 18 of the finales listed.

[quote]17. Will & Grace

I lost interest when Grace got married.

[quote]13. Quantum Leap

I don't remember anything about this show but I know I watched it.

[quote]10. Two and a Half Men

I have only seen this in syndication and have never watched an Ashton Kutcher episode, why wasn't this show cancelled after Charlie Sheen left?

[quote]9. Roseanne

I lost interest when they replaced the original Becky.

[quote]8. How I Met Your Mother

DL had a live viewing thread when the episode aired, I think it was the first time everyone in a thread agreed on something.

[quote]6. Seinfeld

&%$#@!!!

[quote]5. House

Didn't watch the finale, I think I only watched thru season 4 or 5.

[quote]4. Weeds

Last week I noticed Weeds is on Hulu so I started rewatching it, it really goes downhill after Agrestic burns down, I'm on season 5 and I'm ready to call it quits.

With the exception of Seinfeld (and maybe Quantum Leap), all of these shows should have been cancelled long before their series' finales.

[quote]Season 10 had a handful of decent episodes [R39], but most of them weren’t good. It was probably their worst written season, especially leading up to the finale, having Rachel accept the job only for Ross to now want her back now that he knows he is losing his crutch, and then in the end she stays for him and throws away the opportunity of a lifetime in Paris. Granted I don’t think it was ever mentioned who Emma would be with during all this…

The whole show was a disaster from start to finish and it just got worse and worse.

I hated the Quantum Leap finale. The finale tried to state that Sam always had the power to leap home, and the final images are of a title card saying that Sam never made it home.

Wtf.

On the other hand I think the ending of the series Six Feet Under was the best I’ve ever seen.

Mad Men’s finale disappointed me at first. But after a rewatch, I think it’s great— messy and very real to the universe of the show. Don never changed; every moment of enlightenment for him was squandered to become his next ad. Pete got a fresh start that he would likely fuck up. After every man she was close to fucked her over, Joan said fuck it and started her own company.

As for Sally and the boys, it’s stated by Sally she would be leaving Miss Porter’s to return home (and presumably go to the local high school.) Henry with Sally would probably raise the boys in spite of Betty’s wishes.

Breaking Bad on the other hand— that was just predictable and silly.

I loved HIMYM. I absolutely loved that show. So much I rewatched it on Netflix a few years ago and loved it again. And I personally didn’t hate the final season like everyone else.

Season 9 of Facts was a mess. They introduced Pippa almost midway through the season, and then gave her nothing to do. They had Jo get engaged and married in the same episode. And the last two episodes were backdoor spinoff pilots.

Natalie wasn't in the finale because she had already moved to New York. Big Apple Blues was supposed to Mindy Cohn's sendoff/spinoff. Given that NBC was the top rated network at that time, I find it interesting that they wanted two spinoffs from Facts of Life to debut the following year.

Lisa Whelchel show was going to be on Saturday nights in the timeslot that Empty Nest wound up getting.

Scrubs season 9 shouldn’t even exist, and it didn’t even get a series finale, but a season finale and then wasn’t renewed after season 8 set them up as the series finale with the original characters.

But then they came back for a 9th with new characters and messed it up.

I lost interest in [italic]Will & Grace[/italic] 10 minutes into the first — and last — episode I attempted to watch and failed. It is unwatchable.

The Seinfeld finale was written by Larry David, who had been away from the show for a few years, and Jerry Seinfeld.

Okay, I loved Weeds. It was brilliant. And I actually liked every season but the final. The final season was such a bore.

I think the "how I met your mother" ending was always intended as the show's ultimate joke where the actual tale of the mother is just a mere footnote.

Skins (UK) was terrific until the shows final season. The entire final season is awful, way too dark, and devoid of any hope for its 3 main female characters. It made me sick.

R55 it was. The writers always knew that would be the ending, and the scenes of him speaking to his two kids in the future were all filmed at once, with reason.

[quote] Henry with Sally would probably raise the boys in spite of Betty’s wishes.

That would be extremely unlikely. As their father, Don would be legally entitled--especially under 1970 law--to raise the children, and Henry would absolutely not be (especially if Betty wanted William to raise the children). And since Don had an obsession with ostensibly doing everything the way somebody in his position would do things (except for when his darker urges got the better of him, as with his philandering), he would likely insist on his legal rights to raise the children.

My guess is that he would move back to the suburbs, and re-marry to provide a proper mother for the children.

There might have been an interesting custody battle between Don and William and/or Henry to raise the children, though: Henry knew of Don's past, and my guess is that Betty would have told William before she died so he could sue Don for custody (though again I doubt William would want them, since he could not afford to raise three more children).

Also, William would be unlikely to be able to afford custody lawyers as good as Don could--although Henry could afford them. (How Henry was so rich as just a political consultant was something the series never adequately explained--his mother had a very nice house in the NYC suburbs, but wouldn't she have inherited his father's money?)

I loved Soprano’s ending. I like that fact that I was so engrossed and carefully watching each person who entered the diner and the bell ringing, that I thought my cable had gone out when the screen went black and no sound. It was just like what I imagine death to be be. After all the years of watching and knowing the characters intimately, it was such a shock to feel the finality.

[quote]Season 9 of Facts was a mess. They introduced Pippa almost midway through the season, and then gave her nothing to do. They had Jo get engaged and married in the same episode. And the last two episodes were backdoor spinoff pilots. Natalie wasn't in the finale because she had already moved to New York. Big Apple Blues was supposed to Mindy Cohn's sendoff/spinoff. Given that NBC was the top rated network at that time, I find it interesting that they wanted two spinoffs from Facts of Life to debut the following year. Lisa Whelchel show was going to be on Saturday nights in the timeslot that Empty Nest wound up getting.

I blame Coca-Cola for that. When they bought Embassy, they left every pre-existing show they still had running for dead to pay for that stupid Tony D@nz@ show, which was never good and kept getting worse and worse. At least this show died a more dignified death than [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic].

I thought I'd seen an article where both the proposed Blair Warner's School or whatever they would have called would still have co-existed with [italic]Empty Nest[/italic]. Except that would have forced either [italic]227[/italic] or [italic]Amen[/italic] to move to another night.

R59 I always assumed his family comes from a line of money.

The series finale of the US Shameless was a meandering, open-ended mess, and a huge disappointment (as was much of the final few seasons). We at least got to see Ian & Mickey solid and in love, but overall so many wasted opportunities for a great cast.

The only shows that ever had satisfying endings, to my eyes, were The MTM Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart (the funniest and most surprising finale of all of them, with the absolutely brilliant joke in the very last line about Mary Frann's sweaters), and Six Feet Under.

Cheers could have had a great ending (with Dianne's return), but it was much too long and too sentimental.

Van Helsing.

Lost.

[italic]All in the Family[/italic] basically has three endings: Mike and Gloria's move to California (the one Norman Lear actually wanted to end with), the last episode of the season after that, and the last episode of [italic]Archie Bunker's Place[/italic] which was not intended as a finale, CBS had just had enough and used the goodbye party budget on the [italic]M*A*S*H[/italic] finale. Carroll O'Connor wanted one more year.

Gossip Girl. Dan Humphrey being GG made no sense, and only means he is a psychopath. And Serena ends up with her abuser!!!

[quote]I know it might be sacrilegious, but I dislike the last episode of The Golden Girls. It basically betrays the whole point of the show, which is that the four women no matter what would always stick together. I know they had to do it because of that spinoff, but if they were going to marry Bea off, it should have been done gradually throughout the year. The whole thing felt rushed, forced and lame. And don't even get me started on that shit dress they made her wear. I can't even watch it when it runs in syndication.

Dorothy's two-part [italic]Golden Palace[/italic] guest appearance was partly to make up for that. It ended with them saying she could come visit whenever she wanted. That was the first time they actually showed Shady Pines, and it looked nicer than the hotel the girls were running! Yet when this new show ended and Touchstone dumped Sophia onto [italic]Empty Nest[/italic], it was a dump again, and Sophia finally fought for reforms there. But that show's audience already left with Kristy McNichol and never returned when her replacement left.

St. Elsewhere. That ending spit on everything about the show.

No, it didn't. It was their way of acknowledging that TV isn't real and poking fingers in [italic]Dallas[/italic]'s eyes.

[quote] Yet when this new show ended and Touchstone dumped Sophia onto Empty Nest, it was a dump again, and Sophia finally fought for reforms there.

Estelle wasn't dumped on the show. She needed the work to still have health insurance from the actors' union. If you don't have any acting gigs for a year you are no longer insured by the union.

She was obviously in the early stages of dementia and her lines were pieced together take-by-take. The lines themselves were not bad but it was sad to watch her degress.

I've seen the whole show many times, but I can't remember what happens in the final episode of "Bewitched". Was it just a regular show or was there kind of a wrap up? Back then, did they even do that, or did they always just suddenly end? If they didn't, then what should have been the wrap up for "Bewitched"?

[quote]Six Feet Under was the best.

What I found bizarre about the "Six Feet Under" finale is that critics were calling it original despite the fact "Mad About You" had already done something similar (flash-forwarding to see the characters age far into the future) in its finale several years before. When "Mad" did it, however, the reviews were bad with critics saying the idea was "too ambitious." Perhaps they found the "Mad" finale forgettable enough that it was completely out of mind by the time the "SFU" finale came along.

R74, the last episode of "Bewitched" was just a regular episode. I think it was the usual "Larry brings a client to dinner at the Stephenses and magical chaos ensues" kind of plot.

It was 1972, so there really weren't many series finales in those days, though "Leave It to Beaver" had done one several years before in which the Cleavers all sit down to look through a family album and reminisce about episodes gone by.

[italic]The New Leave it to Beaver[/italic] ended with the Beav almost remarrying; the reunion movie started with his wife dumping him and leaving him with their sons. That movie also put Larry Mondello in a cult and changed his name to Vishnu or something like that, but in the last episode of the series proper, he was deprogrammed and just plain old Larry again.

[italic]The New Leave it to Beaver[/italic] ended with the Beav almost remarrying; the reunion movie started with his wife dumping him and leaving him with their sons. That movie also put Larry Mondello in a cult and changed his name to Vishnu or something like that, but in the last episode of the series proper, he was deprogrammed and just plain old Larry again.

Full House series finale was awful.

The last episode of "Bewitched":

So was the rest of the show, R79.

[italic]Webster[/italic]'s ending was … weird. Not their best work, not their worst, but you can tell the budget for finales that year (1989) obviously went to [italic]Family Ties[/italic]. It was a clip show where Web got beamed onto the Starship Enterprise and met Worf, who explained how feelings work by using clips from past episodes. Susan Clark and Alex Karras didn't even bother to show up for the taping since they are only in clips. But it was enough to get the show into the Tommy Westphall Universe since having Chad Allen play a different character on this show was not enough in and of itself.

R74 I’d prefer if sitcoms went back to that; no “important” season finale. The characters just go on and you can imagine whatever you want.

Better that then endings like Will & Grace, Rosanne and especially How I Met Your Mother.

Dexter deserves to be #1 worst ending. Thank god the show is being rebooted & they can make some corrections!

Didn't Robert Reed skip the last episode of "Brady Bunch"?

[italic]Weeds[/italic] jumped the shark pretty early on. I'm not surprised the finale is listed here. Jenji Kohan has such a poor ability to see a story arc through to its logical conclusion, she might as well be the female Ryan Murphy.

R85 it was the season finale that ended up being the series finale because the network decided to just cancel it.

He was fired and if a season 6 happened they would either recast, kill off Mike, or have him working away from home where we never see him.

The “MASH” finale was so popular at the time. It’s really bad, though, if you watch it now.

Hawkeye’s chicken breakdown, overall dialogue corniness and Klinger’s nausea inducing wedding are painful to sit through.

I put much of the blame on Alda’s ego. The last few seasons were basically the Alan Alda I Hate This War! variety hour, honoring the sensitive 70s man.

[quote] Didn't Robert Reed skip the last episode of "Brady Bunch"?

Yes. He reached the limit of how much stupidity he could take, wrote a diatribe to end all diatribes (published in Barry Williams' book), and refused to show up. What made it sad is that that episode was about Greg's high school graduation. How long does it take for hair to turn orange in real life after applying hair dye? One rewrite and that would have shut him up.

r41, in the Friends finale they said Rachel's mom would be bringing Emma over once Rachel had found an apartment and settled in Paris.

I agree the 10th season was terrible, but thought it was perfectly in character for her to dump the new job to stay with Ross. I disagree that she was ever shown as working hard at her career. Her bosses consistently seemed to hate her (and the recurring theme was that she kept making an ass of herself in front of Zellner, who ultimately fired her), she fucked her assistant, and she never seemed to do any actual work.

Designing Women had an odd finale as well. An episode where everyone imagined they were Scarlett O Hara in Gone With the Wind.

The episode ended With Bernice and Anthony going off into the sunset together. It should have been a Delta Burke cameo and Suzanne and Anthony should have exited arm in arm. Had Burke stayed with the show, the storyline was going to be that Suzanne and Anthony were going to get married. It was hinting towards that way in the fifth season, but the feuding with Burke put the kibosh on that.

If you can recognize that the last season of [italic]Friends[/italic] was terrible, then you should be able to recognize that the nine seasons before it were also terrible.

"Hart to Hart" had just a regular standalone episode for its series finale. I assume maybe they didn't expect they were getting canceled? Who knows. Anyway, it was about the Harts having to pretend that they were killers who had been hired to pose as ... wait for it ... Jonathan and Jennifer Hart. Patrick Macnee was the guest star.

[quote] The “MASH” finale was so popular at the time. It’s really bad, though, if you watch it now. Hawkeye’s chicken breakdown, overall dialogue corniness and Klinger’s nausea inducing wedding are painful to sit through. I put much of the blame on Alda’s ego. The last few seasons were basically the Alan Alda I Hate This War! variety hour, honoring the sensitive 70s man.

The show should have died with Henry Blake.

[quote]CBS had just had enough and used the goodbye party budget on the M*A*S*H finale.

Since CBS didn't produce either of those shows, that doesn't make sense.

Most TV critics failed at being critics of actual art forms, so they lionize the most pretentious anglo-centric crap.

"The Lisa Whelchel" show would have featured DL fave Mayim Bialik as one of the students at the school.

[quote] CBS had just had enough and used the goodbye party budget on the M*A*S*H finale.

[quote] Since CBS didn't produce either of those shows, that doesn't make sense.

The network pays the production company for the exclusive right to air the show in exchange for the production receiving funds to produce it. These days, networks can cut out the middleman and just own production companies, but that was not the case in 1983.

[quote] "The Lisa Whelchel" show would have featured DL fave Mayim Bialik as one of the students at the school.

And if it had been a success, there would have been no [italic]Blossom[/italic].

Instead, Mayim did a shitty Fox sitcom two years later called [italic]Molloy[/italic] co-starring DL archvillian Jennifer homewrecker Aniston, who ruined this and the TV version of [italic]Ferris Bueller[/italic] in the same year.

R99 and what a tragedy that would have been.

I used to love Blossom during its first 3 seasons.

[quote][R99] and what a tragedy that would have been.

Only because we wouldn't have gotten to see Joey Lawrence turn 18 while actually on a show.

Wow. I did not know there was Dexter revival.

Six and Joey were both more interesting than Blossom.

R28/R37. What show were you two watching for 9 seasons?! They were always horribly shallow, mean people. Hence bring back all the people they’ve wronged in the past. The finale for the show was perfect IMO. What else could they have done, put Elaine and Jerry together? Make George an overnight success? That would’ve been terrible.

The Adam-12 series finale sort of brought the series full circle in a way. The first episode was Jim Reed's first day on the police force (and being sort of out of his element) and the last episode 7 seasons later was him receiving a medal from the police chief (or perhaps it was the mayor, I can't remember) for great police work, including having saved his partner, Malloy, from death.

I've never found any history on the show stating that was the case but the last half of the last season felt like an audition for a possible spinoff for Kent McCord, only with Reed as the senior officer and a new person as his partner. (IIRC, at the end of the 7th season, Martin Milner had already signed on to do a new series, "Swiss Family Robinson.") For several episodes Malloy was sidelined and Reed was paired with someone new, one of which was a very young Mark Harmon and a female officer played by Joann Pflug. Though Milner would have been missed, Harmon especially would have made a good replacement had the show continued with an 8th season.

[quote][R28]/[R37]. What show were you two watching for 9 seasons?! They were always horribly shallow, mean people. Hence bring back all the people they’ve wronged in the past. The finale for the show was perfect IMO. What else could they have done, put Elaine and Jerry together? Make George an overnight success? That would’ve been terrible.

That's basically what [italic]Good Times[/italic] did for their finale: actually get the Evanses and Willona and Penny (and by now Thelma's husband) out of the ghetto.

90210 finale was shit. Party of Five also.

Aaron Spelling jumped the shark with the Moldavia Massacre on [italic]Dynasty[/italic].

Most shows with a back door pilots have been terrible. Three’s Company comes to mind. The main focus was on Jack’s (miscast) instalove interest and her father. Janet was totally disregarded and didn’t even get a proper wedding. Not sure how things were with SS at the time, but why not try and bring her back along with the Ropers?

One Day at a Time was an even bigger mess with Schneider. I guess everyone else was neatly settled, except maybe Julie’s character.

Cheers... to me a huge disappointment in that they brought Shelly Long back only for Diane and Sam not to end up together. The whole disregard for her character in the finale was off putting.

I disagree on [italic]Cheers[/italic] because they wanted to show that their lives were better apart from each other. Woody and Kelly already got the "happily ever after" marriage, and there was almost as much hype over that as the finale next year.

[quote]What show were you two watching for 9 seasons?! They were always horribly shallow, mean people.

Actually, R106, I disagree. If you watch the early seasons, the "Seinfeld" characters were not really these "horrible people" they later famously came to be. They morphed into that along the way but in the beginning they were all just regular New Yorkers who got into everyday situations that anybody could identify with (e.g., waiting for tables in a Chinese restaurant, trying to meet up at the movies, walking around lost in a parking garage, etc.). It was famously tagged as being "the show about nothing" before it became the show about these four awful human beings. I could name any number of episodes in the beginning when Jerry and Elaine were both portrayed as being fairly nice and decent people.

R111 why would Diane and Sam get back together after all those years?

[quote]Most shows with a back door pilots have been terrible. Three’s Company comes to mind. The main focus was on Jack’s (miscast) instalove interest and her father. Janet was totally disregarded and didn’t even get a proper wedding. Not sure how things were with SS at the time, but why not try and bring her back along with the Ropers?

Both [italic]Three's Company[/italic] spinoffs followed the template of the original [italic]Man About The House[/italic] from the UK: [italic]George and Mildred[/italic] and [italic]Robin's Nest[/italic]. Robin Tripp, the UK equivalent of Jack Tripper, also married a woman other than his two female roommates, one of whom was also named Chrissy while the landlord and landlady were also named Roper.

[quote][R111] why would Diane and Sam get back together after all those years?

To see if they could make it work one last time. But they couldn't. Diane knew what she was doing walking off that altar. It would have been disastrous for the show. [italic]Silver Spoons, Diff'rent Strokes,[/italic] and [italic]One Day at a Time[/italic] all had single parents get married, and that didn't do bubkes for any of their ratings.

“Man About The House” looked smelly.

Weddings rarely do anything for ratings. It only helped in some cases, mostly daytime TV.

I know the wedding arc on Growing Pains gave them their highest ratings ever, and then Kirk had the actress fired.

And then [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic] cast her as an unwed mother for two reasons: one, to spite you-know-who (and I don't mean Alan Thicke), and two, so she could see what an actually funny sitcom looked like for a change.

How dare they, lol.

There was so much more to the series finale of Mad Men than just Don sitting and meditating.

Was that Golden Girls episode intended to be a spin off series? I remember hearing rumors that they were thinking about it. Instead we got Nurses pulled out of thin air.

The remaining Disney old-timers never would have allowed a show about an unwed mother.

The [italic]Three's Company[/italic] producers already tried a similar show, and it failed. It, too, was a remake of a UK show:

R83, I agree, and will go one step further: I miss the days of the self-contained episode. For the last 25 years or so, most shows, be they comedy or drama, have a continuing storyline that weaves its way through the entire season and, after a while, it gets tiresome. Quite frankly, it was nice watching shows back in the day knowing a plot would begin and end in one episode (except, of course, for the occasional, usually-saved-for-sweeps two-part episode).

R121 I know the TERRIBLE episode about the friend who isn’t happy with her home life was supposed to be a spin-off.

I wouldn’t be shocked if the unwed teenage pregnant chick was supposed to be one too.

The season where Mike Seaver was dating Julie on Growing Pains was their golden season. The ratings were higher than ever that season, and that season finale was their highest episode ever, left on a cliffhanger.

The following season she was supposed to be recurring again but Kirk got her fired for posing in Playboy and he didn’t wanna be associated with that, so she was in the premiere and then let go.

Stupid move.

I am still upset that Betty was essentially killed off at the end of "Mad Men."

R126 what difference did it make? She was pretty much a background character by season 4.

R125: How did a show that bad become a top 10 show? That and [italic]Who's the Boss[/italic] were among the worst sitcoms of all-time, not just of the 1980s, but they had the best time slots in TV at the time, the ones that used to belong to [italic]Happy Days[/italic] and [italic]Laverne and Shirley[/italic]. For all those shows' flaws, they were never anywhere near as obnoxious.

One of [italic]Laverne & Shirley[/italic]'s producers ended up on a little show called [italic]Punky Brewster[/italic]. That and [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] have aged better than they deserve to, but they got sentenced to the Sunday night death slot up against [italic]60 Minutes[/italic]. Well har har har, who's got the last laugh now:

R128 idk why but people loved watching those shows, adults too. I knew many adults who watched Who’s The Boss?

Regarding Sam and Diane... then why bring her back? It was a complete tease to the audience because they knew what people wanted to see. The fact that both were single at the end of the show and into Frasier showed how insufferable they were to other people.

Were they all committed to mental institutions, R129?

[italic]Who's the Boss[/italic] was nothing but an inferior ripoff of the mutually exclusive parts of [italic]Gimme A Break![/italic] and [italic]Cheers[/italic], yet they forgot to steal any actually funny jokes.

I love Who's the Boss.

And I give that show a lot of credit for not caving in to audience and network pressure and having Tony and Angela get married. They ended with Tony coming back to work as Angela's housekeeper, just like it started.

One of the better series finales.

Yeah, I do like that they never had Tony and Angela get together and married, like fans wanted.

There was nothing about that relationship that had any dramatic motivation. It was a terrible show, plain and simple.

And it's fucking racist, too. They stole from a Black show and took the Black people out. Just like [italic]Friends[/italic] did to [italic]Living Single[/italic].

Those shows are the televisual equivalent of Mussolini's attempted invasion of Ethiopia.

Lara Jill Miller did a better job playing a tomboy named Samantha and she did it first. And even when they femmed her out just like they did to Jo on [italic]Facts of Life[/italic], she still managed to get uberhunk William Zabka.

I remember dozens of funny lines from [italic]Gimme A Break![/italic], if not hundreds.

I don't remember one from its ABC knockoff.

Even [italic]Webster[/italic] held up better than that horrific mess. Seriously, give ME a break from your racist yt ripoffs of Black people's shows. You want to keep copying [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] like you did yet again with that backbreaking minstrel show [italic]Modern Family[/italic], then why not do a show about what it's like for people of color to adopt children.

Oh, shit, another good thread about to be ruined by a deranged troll.

A lot of these shows were so bad at the end I forgot how they ended. Tony and Angela should’ve never been together in the first place.

Another ending I can’t remember is Moonlighting. I just recall a lot of reruns and Maddie and David separated mist of the season after they finally got together. Disappointing to say the least.

[quote] A lot of these shows were so bad at the end I forgot how they ended. Tony and Angela should’ve never been together in the first place.

They never should have canceled [italic]Soap[/italic] or [italic]Taxi[/italic], and the latter show should have gone with the original plan to have Andy Kaufman play Tony Clifton as Tony Banta.

Oh shit, another racist at R138 left his cross-burning early to defend the integrity of the yt race and their crappy, derivative, and militantly unfunny sitcoms.

Mary Tyler Moore had a brilliant finale. The group hug, then they move as a group to the door. Then Mary realizes they didn't turn the light out and she opens the door again to do that, and has one last look around. Genius TV.

Another reason to hate that lousy show is that it kept Jessica Tate permanently in limbo as a ghost. They had her appear on [italic]Benson[/italic] that way because they were hoping that [italic]Soap[/italic] might someday get revived. Too late now.

I’ve been watching reruns on Antenna tv of Gimmee a Break and what struck me is how nasty Nell was, especially to the kids lol The Chief also was also a bit blunt.

Nell was much nicer when she was fatter.

I love MeTV, AntennaTV, and Laff… they show all the classics. Love it.

I wish old shows were shown more

Who believed Mr. Belvedere getting married to a woman?

R147 I was a tike but my mother would watch that show all the time. She loved it.

I don’t remember anything about it past the title.

I don't understand. Unless you're a TV professional with a stake in it, who's going to watch these terrible TV shows, to the end or not even all the way to the end? If I'm following a TV series and it's bad, I stop watching it.

R148: It held up better than I expected when it came out on DVD. ABC probably gave it a second chance to make it up to 20th Century Fox for how they mistreated the TV version of [italic]9 to 5[/italic].

[quote] I don't understand. Unless you're a TV professional with a stake in it, who's going to watch these terrible TV shows, to the end or not even all the way to the end? If I'm following a TV series and it's bad, I stop watching it.

It was easier to ignore bad TV in the 1980s by just changing the channel or doing something else because unless it was made for children it wasn't promoted with merchandise.

But what makes [italic]Who's the Boss[/italic] so awful is when you realize just how much better all the other Tandem/TAT/Embassy shows before it were. Even [italic]227[/italic] and especially [italic]Married With Children[/italic], which dispensed with the sappy/preachy stuff altogether, have aged much better. It is unforgivable that the people who gave us [italic]All in the Family[/italic] lowered their standards this much, even compared to the kids' shows they were turning out concurrently. That's where the action was right before Norman Lear sold the company altogether.

[italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] was the Embassy show that still had life left in it when it was canceled.

When I was a kid my whole family loved Mr Belvedere and we were never warm fuzzy types. It was on the DL where I saw people crucifying it.

I loved Wings and Just Shoot Me also. Though I have no idea how they latter ended. The former I saw the ending years later.

R153 funny because my family loved all those shows too!

Me and my sisters were too young for Mr Belvedere, but we remember my mother and stepdad and Grandmother watching it.

Wings and Just Shoot Me were favorites, especially the latter.

[italic]Gimme A Break![/italic] also named Nell's deadbeat ex-husband Tony. That guinea show took so much from them that they forfeit their right to throw shade at [italic]Webster[/italic], which didn't do anything to [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] (also from one of the same Lear-owned companies) that that show didn't do to [italic]The Brady Bunch[/italic] first.

Tony made the steal when Nell joined the religion that said "Thou shalt not steal":

That's why I loved [italic]The Nanny[/italic]: it was basically a 1980s sitcom without the Very Special Episodes.

God I miss Network TV before the rise of cable and streaming.

It felt special, thinking back.

The last episode of [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] should have been Derek and Ricky admitting their feelings for each other.

Just Shoot Me had a decent finale. The creator came back to write it. Jack decided to retire and named Maya the editor of the magazine. The last half of the episode was really just the main characters in Jack's office saying goodbye and telling each other what they meant to each other.

The Wings finale was great, surprisingly so considering how rough that last season was, and may be one of my favorites ever. They picked up the treasure hunt their father had left them in the pilot episode, revealed they'd never actually finished it and discovered $250,000. Brian planned to leave with his share. They brought back Helen's cellist career, which had largely been abandoned by then, had her reconnect with it and get an opportunity to study in Vienna for a year. Joe decided to give up the airline so she could have her dream, a welcome change from so many instances of the woman having to make the sacrifice. At the last second, Brian agreed to stay for a year to take care of the airline, making the sacrifice for his brother. Joe and Helen leave, things continue at the airport. Sweet and satisfying.

I always loved The Wonder Years final season, and the finale. It was lovely.

That is a show I have rewatched a handful of times and can again. What a terrific series that was.

I was so sad when we find out Winnie and Kevin don’t end up together and Kevin’s dad died not long after. And then the final scene is Kevin and his father sitting in the kitchen or living room chatting and laughing.

It was terrific.

The original Land of the Lost and Lost in Space. They both never had proper series finales.

It sucks that we will never know if they make it back home.

R161: I remember watching that as it originally aired.

My stepfather would always speak about his love of Lost In Space r162. He was excited with the movie they made in the late 90s and then pissed after seeing it.

You'd be pissed, too, if they took something you loved and ruined it by putting someone from [italic]Friends[/italic] in it. See also: season 7 of [italic]LA Law[/italic], almost ruined beyond repair by the repulsive David Schwimmer. Needless to say, Susan Dey, has nothing to say about it. So I'll say it for her. Blecch. Yuk. Gag. Barf. Ugh. Bring back Conchata Ferrell!

For some reason I can’t rewatch the Wonder Years anymore. It makes me too emotional. For me the drama really outweighed the comedy. I wasn’t a child of the 60s either so not sure why it makes me sad to watch it as an adult.

NBC should have used the 7th season finale ("The Apartment") of The Facts of Life as a spin-off. Natalie and Tootie moved into a crackhouse apartment. That episode was written by Jane Anderson, who would go on to write DL's fave movie of 2018, The Wife.

R166 I think we can all relate to it, no matter when you were born (minus Gen Z, maybe) and there is a sense of nostalgia and realism to it.

I grew up in the 90s, but The Wonder Years feels very true and real to me. I have been in some situations they were in, saw things or heard things they did etc. I relate to them at times. At times not as much.

But it feels very nostalgic for me. And it makes me cry. I too get emotional with TWY. Just watching that finale clip again made me get teary eyed.

Seventh Heaven had not one, but two terrible series finales.

[quote] NBC should have used the 7th season finale ("The Apartment") of The Facts of Life as a spin-off. Natalie and Tootie moved into a crackhouse apartment. That episode was written by Jane Anderson, who would go on to write DL's fave movie of 2018, The Wife.

All their backdoor pilots failed and they were the only successful one to come out of [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic].

[quote] For some reason I can’t rewatch the Wonder Years anymore. It makes me too emotional. For me the drama really outweighed the comedy. I wasn’t a child of the 60s either so not sure why it makes me sad to watch it as an adult.

Because by doing it as a laugh track-free one-camera show, that lends a more melancholy tone and lets you decide what parts you find funny. It was after that show that the three-camera sitcom started to go out of style.

R151 I think you prove my point. You know all of this stuff inside out.

How did Enterprise not make the list? It should have been #1.

Lmao r173 I was just thinking about that one but I actually never saw the finale, I just remember the anger from fans at the time.

Didnt Voyager also get a negative response?

Boobyprize is what it should have been called.

R175 what is?

R165, speaking of L.A. Law, how was its series finale? I don't remember the last few seasons at all. I think I must have checked out when Jimmy Smits and Harry Hamlin did.

Oh man, the barn part of the finale. The night Kevin became a man.

I always hated how Paul was treated during the final seasons of the show. I get it, people grow apart, but Kevin sort of forgot him fully.

[quote][R165], speaking of L.A. Law, how was its series finale? I don't remember the last few seasons at all. I think I must have checked out when Jimmy Smits and Harry Hamlin did.

My parents used to watch the show and checked out around the same time you did. They had no interest in watching it.

Another thing about The Wonder Years was the amazing music used. Part of why the entire season hasn’t been released on dvd was because of all the music rights. They would have to change most of the music, if not all.

It’s a shame music use laws changed.

You could tell how desperate they were to regain lost viewers:

My cousins went to school with Jimmy Smits son in the 90s.

I also liked the final scene to the other Savage, Ben’s show Boy Meets World.

The finale was rushed and lame but I liked them saying goodbye to Mr. Feeny and him saying class dismissed at the end.

R158, I just love you for saying that and agree 100%. Yes, a lot of the shows back then were bad and it's nice having all of the choices we do now, but there's always such a nice feeling of nostalgia one gets when looking back on those days.

I even miss the corny-ass promos the networks would do every summer with all of their stars heading into the fall season.

A lot of the shows are bad now, too, and what's worse is that they are celebrating the destruction of gay men and lesbians like never before.

Sabrina The Teenage Witch gave us the finale we deserved, her and Harvey ending up together.

"Fame" had a nice series finale with many of the stars from its past 6 seasons showing up and performing the title song one last time.

R184 the thing is we have too much now, and even with that, most of it sucks. And so much of it is juvenile. And so much of it has to be aimed toward the youth. Back then most of prime time was geared toward adults. Now it’s all teens

“Fame” was on for 6 seasons?! Wow. I think I only saw like 2 or 3 lmao

The new Sabrina finale was opposite of the 90s show, so dark and sad.

Dynasty had numerous cliffhangers on the final episode of season 9...and then ABC cancelled it...surprising the audience and the production team.

R189: The last few years were in syndication.

Shows and especially TV movies from the 80s are shambled on, but they were so much better for the most part. TV movies were more mature, but so were teens and young adults back then compared to the coddled ones of today. Everything gets them ‘triggered.’ In general, I dare anyone to say Lifetime and Hallmark TV movies are better than the 70s/80s stuff, including after school specials.

[quote]Dynasty had numerous cliffhangers on the final episode of season 9...and then ABC cancelled it...surprising the audience and the production team.

There's no excuse for Aaron Spelling not to have read the tea leaves. ABC had moved it from Wednesdays to Thursdays, and it was getting CRUSHED by Cheers. Then, the ratings took an additional nosedive when Linda Evans was pushed out mid-season. Joan Collins had said she wouldn't be returning for a 10th season, John Forsythe wasn't sure he would return (he hated doing the show without Linda), and Stephanie Beacham shot the Sister Kate pilot, believing the show wouldn't be renewed. Creatively, it was actually one of Dynasty's strongest seasons, but American had already dropped it.

I loved after school specials. R193 they had them in the 90s too. Loved them lol.

80s TV was fun.

I liked the last episode of "Alice", mostly because I was glad that show had a wrap-up (unlike "The Jeffersons"). Like in "Three's Company", Alice and her colleagues' lives abruptly change in ONE and the SAME episode. Mel sells the diner, Jolene buys a beauty shop, Vera learns she's pregnant, and La Lavin decides to go on the road with a country singer.

r196, it was kind of rude how they left Belle out of the final montage though. Linda Lavin really must have hated her. Even Flo made it.

OP's linked list is deeply flawed because it ignores Game of Thrones, which must be one of the most reviled endings of all time, and was particularly tragic because of the amount of talent and money poured into making the show such high quality.

I agree the last episode of Seinfeld was among its worst, except for one thing. As they settle down in jail, George and Jerry start the same conversation that began the whole series, and so it ends. THAT was absolutely perfect, and that idea probably Larry David's sole motivation for wanting to come back.

If the end of How I Met Your Mother was "always intended to be the show's big joke", then it at least works as a tragic illustration of what the writers thought was funny.

So many once-loved shows wither away without any sort of finale/wrap-up...Rhoda, The Hogan Family, The Jeffersons, Family, Sanford and Son, My Name is Earl, ALF, etc.

ALF ended on a cliffhanger, with ALF thinking he was going to be picked up by his fellow aliens, only to have the government swoop in and capture him. That was definitely one of the worst. Even though they thought they'd get another season, doing that kind of season finale on a kids show is just shitty. (Seriously? They thought kids needed to be left hanging during the summer with that? It's not like adults were watching that.)

They finally got around to doing a wrap-up movie six years later, without the family, long after much of its audience cared anymore.

Another show with a terrible cliffhanger ending: Earth 2. They ended up airing two remaining episodes after the intended finale, but the actual ending was a cliffhanger that was never resolved. I barely remember the show but do remember how annoying that was.

The first X-Files finale wasn't great. The second was atrocious. William wasn't really Mulder and Scully's kid, but an experiment implanted in her...but it's okay because now she really IS pregnant with Mulder's kid! Bleh. No wonder Gillian Anderson wanted nothing more to do with the show.

"That Girl" ended without the wedding we wanted! Thanks for nothing, Marlo!

I was a huge Lost fan, used to read forums and discuss it. The last season was terrible and the ending was a slap in the face.

[quote]ALF ended on a cliffhanger, with ALF thinking he was going to be picked up by his fellow aliens, only to have the government swoop in and capture him. That was definitely one of the worst. Even though they thought they'd get another season, doing that kind of season finale on a kids show is just shitty. (Seriously? They thought kids needed to be left hanging during the summer with that? It's not like adults were watching that.)

Actually, it was a popular show with kids and adults, but after the birth of baby Eric and writer Jerry Stahl going to rehab and some of the others going to [italic]The Simpsons[/italic], the show just ran out of steam so they decided to end it right there rather than accumulate zombie episodes.

R205, if that were the case, it would actually make the cliffhanger ending worse. If they really were intending to end it, they could have, without a cliffhanger. ALF gets on the spaceship, he leaves, everybody goes home. The show's done. But they didn't.

In the 2012 Hollywood Reporter retrospective the creator confirms NBC said they'd get a fifth season, then took it back.

I’m one of those fans who wanted to see a wedding at the end of Who's the Boss; without one, the entire series seems pointless, building to a finale that never comes.

I ran into the creators once while on vacation in Key West, and we talked a little and I told them my thoughts, and they told me that they ended the way they did because they thought that it would reduce syndication potential if the series actually came to an end; they thought people would watch once and it would be over and that would be it.

Although I loved the series while it was on, I never watched it again once Tony and Angela did not get married. What was the damn point?

Tell that to the [italic]Cheers[/italic] creators; their show is still far more popular in reruns and outsold it on DVD by a wide margin.

[quote] I was a huge Lost fan, used to read forums and discuss it. The last season was terrible and the ending was a slap in the face.

After that, I will never say a word against [italic]Gilligan's Island[/italic] again.

Cheers was not mainly about Sam and Diane for most of its run, so a wedding did not seem inevitable, Especially since Diane been off the show for so many years already.

How much longer would they have run if they had gotten married?

Kate and Allie, bad finale, no wrap-up.

[quote]I’m one of those fans who wanted to see a wedding at the end of Who's the Boss; without one, the entire series seems pointless, building to a finale that never comes.

The only good thing about it is that it fully vindicated [italic]One Day at a Time[/italic] and that it got that awful blond brat off ATWT, which my mom was usually watching when I came home from school, so he could be replaced by someone who could act.

[quote] Kate and Allie, bad finale, no wrap-up.

The producers also made [italic]Gimme A Break![/italic], and they should have learned from that how not to end a show, but they made the same mistake by moving them to another city, then doubled down on it by adding a husband which they didn't (just Rosie O'Donnell who was never skinnier). They undermined the point of the show just like ODAAT did by getting Ann a new husband (to make up to Howard Hesseman for cancelling WKRP). This time they couldn't even hide behind a dead cast member as an excuse to make changes.

[qulte]I think the "how I met your mother" ending was always intended as the show's ultimate joke where the actual tale of the mother is just a mere footnote.

Planned or not, it still was a rotten idea. That ending was pretty much despised by most longtime viewers of the series.

The last season of [italic]The Nanny[/italic] was kind of a mess. Now that Fran and Maxwell were married, the title no longer applied, and they took the supporting characters to some unusual places. Maggie getting pregnant … ? Niles and C.C. getting married … ?!?!?!?!?!? They might as well have had Aunt Yetta become a gangsta rapper.

Alf wasn't supposed to end with a cliffhanger. It was supposed to be retooled with ALF living on a military base. But instead of moving on with the idea, the show got canceled and a movie special was done instead.

I am surprised that the finale of Xena, Warrior Princess isn't mentioned more in this thread. The fans were livid, or as other call it: Divisive.

I liked the LOST finale in spite of the hate. It was emotionally satisfying and made me cry. The plot you had to largely piece together yourself but they’d given enough details that you could do that. It’s been a while though.

Hated Lost with that Christian Shepherd bullshit. When that new show, Manifest, got more Christian with its mystery it got canceled. NBC knew that it would not end well.

The Seinfeld finale was great and ahead of its time.

Actually, Fran and Maxwell getting married ruined The Nanny. Everyone says this, and the ratings plummeted that season.

Once you give the viewers what they want (like, Fran getting married to Maxwell in The Nanny) the viewers go "wham, bam, thank you ma'am".

The Nanny, Frasier and Cheers all set up relationships that couldn't possibly work as marriages in any real world. Cheers knew it: the other two didn't. (Joe Keenan did leave after Niles married Daphne, though, so I guess he had a clue.)

Elementary is in a category all its own on this. A show that had run too long and lost its way a bit, it pulled out a really clever ending: with hindsight you could see that was where it always had to end. But apparently the fans were upset that Holmes and Watson hadn't discussed their feelings enough or some similar bullshit, and an entire extra series was whacked on to give them the ending they wanted.

It certainly wasn't one of the worst ever, but they had something perfect and they overlaid it with something that read like the fanfic it essentially was. Very disappointing.

r194 It WAS a good season! I was one of those who stopped watching around the Moldavia debacle...plus I was 19 and started going out more/no time for TV. About 15 years ago I watched the show from start to finish again and was impressed with 9's back to core values story.

R211, nobody is talking about when Shelley Long first left. We’re talking about when she came back in the finale. I didn’t necessarily want them to get married, but it would’ve been nice for them to have a let’s see where this goes end. Since they went to all the trouble of having her back, why bother otherwise? Overall, I think they did her character very dirty.

I’m in the minority in that I liked the ending of Seinfeld. I thought it fit the show. For those of you who didn’t, how would you have liked to have seen it end?

Felicity is a show with a terrible ending arc. The time traveling bit was convoluted and stupid, up until that point the show was great.

What can you say about a show that plummeted in the ratings when its lead character got a haircut?

[quote]After that, I will never say a word against Gilligan's Island again.

Gilligan's Island essentially got its series finale 15 years later with the TV movie in which they were finally rescued.

To the poster up thread who mentioned “XFiles”…agreed…

Chris Carter sucks.

The whole thing with Roseanne that everyone keeps getting wrong is that they think she only meant the last season was fantasy. But if you actually watch the finale, she goes into how Mark and Darlene were actually together and Becky fell for Johnny Galecki's character, Jackie was actually gay, I think she said something about Leon as well. She basically retconned her entire show.

Mark and Darlene was the biggest WTF? since there was nothing remotely believable about that pairing.

[quote] Gilligan's Island essentially got its series finale 15 years later with the TV movie in which they were finally rescued.

That’s what I mean. Sherwood Schwartz tried to pass off a lot of crazy stuff on the TV viewing public, but he never tried to pull anything nearly as insulting as what JJ Abrams did.

Everything up to the episode where Roseanne is gifted the typewriter and room happened. The finale says everything after was complete fantasy, which is the whole series pretty much.

And then with the reboot that finale is retconned.

Why would you wanna see Diane and Sam get married during the finale of Cheers, after her being gone for so many years? You wanted to see her show up after being gone for 6 years and them just get married? Wtf. That would have been an AWFUL ending.

The way they went felt REAL. That’s why I liked the Cheers ending. I would have rolled my eyes if they decided to get married after 6 years apart.

Also, they got Shelley back because she was a major part of that series and one of the originals. A lot of shows liked bringing in old cast members or at least acknowledging them on finales.

Seventh Heaven even made it a goal to get Jessica Biel to cameo in the first finale, after she left on a bad note with them.

I hated how Bill Cosby wouldn’t have Lisa Bonet on their finale! Something felt missing because of it.

"Bionic Woman" had an interesting series finale with Jaime becoming disillusioned with her life as an OSI agent. She tells them she wants to quit but they won't let her, so she goes on the run and they go after her. I think Lindsay Wagner may have come up with the story idea but someone else wrote the script (at least that's what I recall hearing at the time).

R233, you keep going on about the audience wanting a marriage and wedding in the finale, nobody here has said that. People just wanted to see them get back together. In Frasier we could’ve learned that they ultimately split. They brought Diane back as a tease only to let the audience down. There was no other reason to bring her back after she and Sam had their ending years early.

[quote] I hated how Bill Cosby wouldn’t have Lisa Bonet on their finale! Something felt missing because of it.

The last two seasons of that show were basically "The Olivia and Pam Show With Special Guest Stars: The Huxtables." The condescending way he treated Lisa Bonet is almost as unforgivable as his sex crimes.

They brought Diane because fans didn’t want the show to end and we never see her again. Even then the fans never demanded they be a couple again.

"Becker" had a decent ending (he finally realizes he is happy with his life). "Barney Miller" had a good ending (the precinct building closes). I recently watched the (original) "Dallas" ending for the first time (a bit boring and stupid, but at least that show had a closing). Abby returns to the cul-de-sac on the finale of "Knots Landing" (LOVE!). "Falcon Crest" had a recap of the show (narrated by Jane Wyman) during the last few minutes of its final epidode.

Oh man, r238. Becker? I haven’t heard about that show in YEARS. My stepdad and sister loved it. Would watch it every week.

My grandma would watch “Cosby” (not to be confused with The Cosby Show) every week. I don’t know if that one had a proper ending.

Les Moonves was one of the worst things to happen to TV. His reign at Lorimar saw the prime-time soaps pushed aside for a bunch of godawful sitcoms, then when they merged it into WB he enabled the worst TV show ever in [italic]Friends[/italic] simply by ripping off the former worst TV show ever, [italic]Full House[/italic] (as well as the mutually exclusive parts of [italic]Seinfeld[/italic] and [italic]Living Single[/italic]). Then, they put him in charge of CBS and we got one more repulsive show glorifying violence against women after another with the CSI franchise. At least he got his comeuppance.

And how much of the money CBS/Paramount "saved" by cutting songs out of old TV shows when they came out on DVD ended up in this motherfucker's pocket.

[quote]The condescending way he treated Lisa Bonet is almost as unforgivable as his sex crimes.

HELLO? He gave her her own show.

And then he fired her when she got pregnant. ^

This thread is a very fun read.

Lost is one of my two or three favorite shows of all time. I was sort of lukewarm about the finale when it aired, and overall Season 6 was definitely its weakest. But I re-watched the entire series at the start of the pandemic and I will say that, when you know from the beginning what they're doing with the whole "flash sideways" thing, it actually works quite a bit better and takes on more emotional resonance than watching it the first time. I think introducing a big new mystery in Season 6, ie What the hell ARE these flash sideways, was frustrating for fans who were just ready for the mysteries to be solved. That said, binging the entire series made me realize that the whole thing made a lot more sense than it gets credit for. Also, Season 5, the time-travel season, is an amazing season of television and, IMO, overall the best of the show's seasons.

r226 wrote: "I’m in the minority in that I liked the ending of Seinfeld. I thought it fit the show. For those of you who didn’t, how would you have liked to have seen it end?"

I don't hate the Seinfeld finale but ending the "show about nothing" with a hugely contrived scenario always felt a bit off to me. That's one finale that should have been just a routine episode, IMO.

I'll admit it: I was disappointed that Sam and Diane didn't get back together at the end of Cheers.

Love "MASH" but the finale is kind of hard to watch now mainly for Hawkeye's histrionics. I actually though Winchester got the best storyline and the moment where he shatters the record still chokes me up.

[quote]I recently watched the (original) "Dallas" ending for the first time (a bit boring and stupid, but at least that show had a closing).

I hated the "It's a Wonderful Life" trope. Also, they brought back Ted Shackleford, Joan Van Ark (who were both on Knots Landing the night before -- no big thrill seeing them) and Mary Crosby, but I would have rather seen Barbara Bel Geddes, Susan Howard and Charlene Tilton. I think the best ending would have been Bobby and Pam reuniting. However, at the time they were writing the finale, they weren't 100% certain they would be cancelled. And Victoria Principal said she would only return for the final episode of the series, and they couldn't guarantee that.

[Quote] Seventh Heaven had not one, but two terrible series finales.

I'll take Simon's non-wedding over an RV trip with Reverend Camden.

[Quote] Seventh Heaven even made it a goal to get Jessica Biel to cameo in the first finale, after she left on a bad note with them.

Jessica appeared on 7th Heaven alot even after her nude scandal happened. So her showing up at the end of season 10 wasn't very shocking.

R245 lies. She didn’t appear a lot.

How did Brothers and Sisters end? Currently on season 2 (it's on hulu). Just tell me!

R246 the writers easily could have written Mary out after she went to her grandparents. We didn't need to see her with a husband and/or kids.

R247, The mother got a new hat and a strong wind lifted her up and off to the convent San Tanco

I loved the Sopranos finale. Killing him off that way was brilliant.

[quote] Seventh Heaven

Seventh Heaven was so bad, even Ashlee Simpson was a guest star. I can just hear the commercial in my head: "guest star of a famous attempted singer, it's her little sister [quiet voice] Ashlee Simpson."

That should say "guest starring a sister of a famous attempted singer."

The early cancellation of [italic]What's Happening!![/italic] meant their last episode was about the youth center promising Sammy Davis Jr. would show up for a benefit and then failing to deliver on their promise. Just as they are about to be held accountable, Dee tries to guilt them into supporting it anyway for the benefit of the community. What happened? They went WAY off the rails in season 3.

R253, I thought the Doobie Brothers played at that benefit. 🤣

That was the year before that.

I just watched a What’s Happening marathon the other day. Off the rails is right! S3 was horrendous. The entire premise of the show changed and losing mama was a big mistake. Why did she leave?

R256, IIRC, it was the producers' decision to get rid of her. They wanted to focus the show solely on the younger cast members.

Mabel King wanted the kids to have a mother and a father who had an active presence in their lives. Instead, they both got married to different people. The whole reason she was divorced is because they wanted to show a Black woman working and raising children without a man. Bud Yorkin split from Norman Lear to start his own company and make this show right around the time Lear paired with Jerry Perenchio and made [italic]One Day at a Time[/italic]. The timing was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

Friends should've ended at Monica and Chandler's wedding. It was a perfect cap to the series and nothing worthwhile happened after.

[Quote] Seventh Heaven was so bad, even Ashlee Simpson was a guest star.

I'll take Ashlee Simpson and Haylie Duff over these two.

R259, it seems that all anyone cared about who watched Friends was whether Ross and Rachel would get together (correction: that they SHOULD end up together), so that would have angered the majority of fans. I don't get it myself, but there is plenty of evidence that's the case.

Personally, I always thought the Monica-Chandler relationship was devised only as a way to separate Chandler from Joey due to fans saying they acted more like a gay couple than just roommates (and should eventually get together). Of course, NBC and the producers not having the balls to do this, instead had Chandler fall for Monica, everyone ate it up, and they lived happily ever after.

All 6 friends were straight. The creators had Monica and Chandler ending up together since they were casting. These characters were created based off themselves and their real life friends from when they were 20somethings and in NYC.

If they had a main character who was gay the show wouldn’t have lasted 10 seasons and still bringing in a ridiculous amount Of money annually to its producers and cast. Let’s be honest for once.

Monica-Chandler was not supposed to be a big thing. But when Monica popped her head out from under the sheets, the studio audience in London went bonkers. That's when production decided there might be something to work with.

R264 the creators themselves said they always planned on having Monica and Chandler end up together.

You are wrong, r265. Their initial thought was JOEY and Monica. But they dropped that.

R266 yes, INITIAL thought means first thought. And they dropped that idea. Meaning another idea came after. Are you slow?

Around season 2 the writers began toying with the idea of Monica and Chandler getting together, they just did not know how to go about that in the right way.

“The idea had been “kicking around” since before Silveri and Goldberg-Meehan joined the show in season three, he remembers, with his predecessors taking note of the chemistry between the two characters as early as the season-two episode “The One Where Ross Finds Out.” That plot had Monica acting as a trainer for Chandler as he tried to shed a few excess pounds, and “there was a real fun dynamic between the two of them,” Silveri says. “So even as early as that, they said, ‘Oh, they’re kind of special together. If we’re ever looking for another relationship, that’s something to file away.’”

And that’s the writers, not the creators, who always envisioned them together.

You don't seem to know what the word "always" means.

The Xena finale felt like a middle finger to the audience. I refuse to watch it again to this day.

R268 and I have stated the CREATORS of the series always envisioned Monica and Chandler together. The WRITERS are a different thing. The fact you can’t seem to understand the most basic things is alarming. M The creators did not write for the series past the very beginning f.

R261 if you remove the pregnancy cliffhanger and add a Ross/Rachel reunion, you have a perfect finale.

The creators did not envision Monica and Chandler. I dont know why you insist on this.

My issue with the Xena finale is that it came out of nowhere. The show spent a lot of time exploring Xena's history and backstory and then to have the finale and her final sacrifice be about an event never hinted at before? K.

I liked the Seinfeld finale because it was a clever way to have guest stars back without doing a boring clip show and it was true to the show’s anti-sitcom ethos: no sentimentality, no weddings/babies, no learning life lessons. The way the cast, Jason Alexander in particular, treated Heidi Swedberg (Susan) was the most objectionable part of the series.

The six feet under finale was strong. I still remember the very end with Sis’s song “Breathe Me.”

Sia’s*

R269 I know Lucy regrets how the show ended. I think she was over Xena and wanted it so she couldn't be brought back.

YEP

[quote] The episode carried on a running theme of Xena, in that she would sacrifice all to right the sins of her past. Throughout the series, her main aim is to seek justice for those she had wronged, and in the finale, she does just that. The problem audiences had was that this story was not introduced early on, but at the last minute. Viewers had never heard of Akemi or her father and had no connection to a single one of the 40,000 souls that Xena sees as important enough to lose her life over. Xena tells the audience—rather than showing them—that these 40,000 souls are the biggest weight on her conscience, saying that it is the greatest crime for which she could ever be guilty. However, while fans spent season after season with characters that earned scorn and sympathy such as Callisto, Ares, Alti, Caesar, they were expected to invest in a new storyline for Xena's ultimate resolution.

Charlie's Angels' god-awful finale: script and acting-wise. This used to be an iconic show. Once its two stars had left it was nothing but a parody. So the serie's finale reflects just that.

R278, I always liked Charlie's Angels (and still watch the reruns occasionally) but to this day have never seen the last episode. I just had no interest in seeing Kelly get shot and all of the melodramatics I figured would ensue thereafter.

R279 I know exactly what you mean!! Never watched S 4 and 5. But just recently I was curious and watched some of the final episode. I only lasted because I fast-forwarded the whole thing to see the "important" moments. I gotta tell ya it wasn't even entertaining just plain ridiculous.

Lucy wanted to have a big finalé, but Gary talked her out of it.

"Mame" was Lucy's big finale.

TVLine is now ranking the best series finales of all time:

I think when Ross and Rachel had the baby and still did not get together I stopped caring them as a couple. I think a TV couple can have one break-up and get back together once after that. When they do it more than that, then it just seems contrived and trying to milk the will they or won't they past its due date. That is one thing I appreciate about Monica and Chandler, they had a pretty normal relationship projection without a lot of contrived drama. Even Sam and Diane had pretty much run their course by the end, and while I prefer the Diane Cheers years, Long might have been right to leave in the respect that there was not much they could do for their story. I am not sure them as a married couple would have worked.

Back to finales... while I did not care about Ross and Rachel, I can see why they had them together due to all the people who did. However, why not have Ross join Rachel in Paris. Why have her give up her dream job for a man she had already broken up with 100 times. Semi-related, The Different World finale did the same sort of thing. They spent most of the show on the evolution of Whitely going to college to find someone to marry to deciding she wanted a career for herself and doing extra steps to accomplish that to have her move to another country because her husband got his dream job and she was jobless and pregnant. The whole family was a little rushed - am guessing they got the cancellation notice 2/3s into the season and quickly threw together a series finale. The show should have probably ended with Whitely and Dwyane's marriage - the last season was pretty weak. The original cast seemed awkward to be still hanging out at Hillman and the younger cast was just not clicking, plus having them all around made the cast too big to really develop the new characters.

Another bad finale was Mad About You. While it was realistic that their marriage went south, it was a sitcom that spent most of its time wanting you to cheer on the couple. Plus, if I remember correctly, it was done in kind of, aren't we clever with how we are doing this finale that came off a bit self-important. Another show that should have probably ended sooner.

I had stopped watching Cosby, because I got tired of how it just seemed to evolve into Bill Cosby mugging. It seemed like there would be ten minutes an episode of him just making faces at Rudy's friends. I did watch the finale after not watching the show for a few years. I do not remember much about it, but that it was bad, and everything I had disliked about the show to stop watching was magnified ten fold.

I know the MASH finale had huge ratings and hasn't aged well, but even at the time when I watched it, I thought it was bad. Like Cosby it kind of magnified everything annoying about the later years of the show.

R284 …about MASH….

When the series became Alda’s bleeding heart 70s vanity project it started to go downhill.

Lost's ending I could see coming from season 1.

It was basically the Cloris Leachman/Lloyd Bridges movie "Haunts of the Very Rich" ripped off over years.