It’s incredibly easy to get emotionally connected to television characters and their journeys after dozens, if not hundreds, of episodes that tell a serialized story over multiple years. It’s also not unusual to have high expectations over how their stories conclude.
Endings are not easy, and a false finish can be enough to completely taint a series’ reputation. Ideally, a strong series can still stand on its own and rise above a disappointing final episode, but the worst of the worst are hard to recover from and become fascinating failures to examine.
10/10 Dexter Murders Common Sense In Its Conclusion
Dexter is driven by a compelling premise where its titular character is a serial killer, albeit one who only targets other killers and criminals. Unfortunately, this strong foundation gets shakier each season. Dexter’s final season goes out on a weak story, but the finale does a major disservice to Debra and pushes Dexter down a nonsensical, unsatisfying path.
What’s even more frustrating about Dexter is that the series was given a second chance at a series finale with the sequel series, Dexter: New Blood, which somehow manages to go out on an equally confusing conclusion. It doesn’t redeem the series and properly erases any lingering goodwill.
9/10 How I Met Your Mother Discards Seasons Of Development To Stick To The Original Plan
Unconventional chronology, structure, and other stylistic flourishes help How I Met Your Mother go beyond standard sitcom expectations. The comedy’s ninth and final season distills all 24 episodes down to a single weekend that leads up to Barney and Robin’s wedding.
How I Met Your Mother orchestrates some masterful serialized storytelling that many fans feel gets completely discarded at the tail-end of the series finale. Not only does Ted’s wife, Tracy, become an afterthought, but seasons of development for Barney also seem to be callously tossed away in favor of the show sticking to its original plan.
8/10 Killing Eve’s Star-Crossed Partners Are Denied The Happiness They Earned
Killing Eve is an espionage and assassin series that ran for four seasons but really only has one excellent season. Much of Killing Eve’s success is credited to Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh’s performance and respective chemistry as Villanelle and Eve. Each season gets a little shaggier, but the final year, at last, allows these two unlikely lovers to be together in some capacity.
The series’ final episode almost feels cruel in its construction. It teases happiness for Eve and Villanelle before viciously taking it away. A sad ending can be incredibly powerful, but Killing Eve’s just comes across as manipulative.
7/10 The X-Files’ Constant Conspiracies Start To Verge On Problematic Parody
The X-Files continued to turn out satisfying monster-of-the-week episodes throughout its initial nine seasons, but its ongoing lore became increasingly convoluted. Its series finale, “The Truth,” is mostly characters in a room who give out answers and get lost in exposition for the bulk of the episode.
It’s not thrilling television, but the two-season X-Files revival concludes on an even more disappointing and insulting note that disregards canon and puts Scully through needless psychological pain. Season 9 of The X-Files at least ends in a place where audiences were excited about a potential return. After Season 11, fans–and the cast–are ready to let the truth stay out there.
6/10 Merlin’s Grand Victory Gets Reduced To An Afterthought
Merlin turned out to be an entertaining adaptation of one of the greatest fantasy stories of all time, but its botched ending has destroyed most of the series’ fandom and taken the whole series down with it.
Merlin spends five seasons building to the idea of a united Camelot that learns to embrace magic and properly respect Merlin, but the series never fulfills this promise. Merlin’s big showdown is seriously subdued and a letdown compared to what audiences have envisioned for years. Furthermore, the tag with Merlin in modern times plays as comical rather than poignant.
5/10 ALF Goes Out On An Unintentionally Intense Note
ALF is the gold standard of the odd sitcom subgenre where an alien lives with a typical American family. There’s a surprising amount of charm in this alien’s exaggerated antics and desire to feast on felines. ALF is comfortable in its broad sitcom role, but it goes out on an unintentionally morbid conclusion that’s the result of the show’s unexpected cancelation.
Season 4 of ALF ends with the titular alien captured by the government and ready to experience dissection. ALF was under the impression that it would get another season otherwise it would have never ended with its lovable lead in such dire straits.
4/10 True Blood’s Cyclical Love Triangles Run Their Course Long Past Their Expiration Dates
The soapy, steamy romantic exploits of Sookie Stackhouse and a slew of supernatural creatures in True Blood overstayed their welcome with seven seasons on HBO. True Blood found great success with its gothic taboo relationships and increasingly heightened horror subversions. So much of True Blood has to do with the matters of Sookie’s heart and if she’ll choose vampires Bill or Eric.
The final episode allows Sookie to properly move on from all of this as she stakes Bill and eliminates him once and for all. It’s just such a treacle-y and manipulative finish that occurs at a point in the series where it no longer means anything.
3/10 Quantum Leap Receives A Frustrating Finale
Scott Bakula’s body-hopping sci-fi shenanigans in Quantum Leap were a popular genre hit during the 1990s. The Season 5 finale, which becomes an unintentional conclusion to the series, sends Sam Beckett on a leap that has very important connections to his own life. Expectations of a Season 6 lead to an unresolved finish that’s forced to add a depressing addendum to serve as closure.
Quantum Leap’s final message affirms that Sam does not return back home and that something must have gone wrong on this leap. The existence of a new Quantum Leap reboot at least has the luxury of potentially wrapping up the original series’ tragic cliffhanger.
2/10 Hubris & Arrogance Push Dinosaurs To Extinction
Dinosaurs is an ambitious sitcom that ran for four seasons on ABC and is a workplace family comedy that’s set in the prehistoric era. Remarkable costumes, puppetry, and animatronics from Jim Henson Television helped make Dinosaurs one of a kind.
The series finale to Dinosaurs is actually one of the more powerful conclusions to come along in television. The series finale showcases environmental abuse that leads to the Ice Age and, inevitably, the extinction of all of these lovable characters. It’s a contemplative conclusion that urges the audience to change their ways, but it seems quite out of place in what’s ostensibly a children’s series.
1/10 Sloppy Storytelling & Egregious Oversights Hinder Game Of Thrones
Game of Thrones begins as one of the decade’s standout accomplishments in storytelling. The writing was on the wall ever since Season 6, but the final two seasons feel particularly removed in quality and pacing from their predecessors. The grander story beats of its series finale would make sense with the right plotting and development, but they’re rushed in such a fashion that they feel unearned or downright confusing.
The abysmal Game of Thrones series finale tanked the property’s appeal for years. However, the colossal success of the spin-off series, House of the Dragon, is proof that audiences haven’t given up on this fantasy universe.
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