OldBoy

I’m curious. I would think not and even though West Wing’s last season was a bust for me, I did love the last episode and how it went out. One of my fav shows. No other show that I loved have I disliked a final episode, except Seinfeld and GoT series’ finale, those will always standout as worst Ive ever seen. But, I still love Seinfeld, every show but that last hour and I do love the first 7 seasons of GoT and while I’ll always watch Seinfeld, I was planning a GoT marathon, but that last season and knowing how it actually ended versus the ending I envisioned, left a bad taste and not so eager to jump into so quick. Though it was such an incredible 7 seasons!

So, curious does a bad series finale ruin that show for you or you can let it go and enjoy what lead up to or does it depend?

Mike86

OldBoy

Wow. That’s powerful. I heard it was bad and always wanted to binge this and watched most of S1, but abandoned for no reason particular, that I remember.

OldBoy

I’m stunned at results so far. Early of course, but trend, perhaps. I don’t think it could ruin the whole series that I dedicated each week or on dvr a day after or so. The whole series, no. Not even the far out, like St. Elsewhere...

Jericho

I would say no. Plenty of good shows have mediocre endings, but I still like the shows. Though How I Met Your Mother's ending was somewhat bizarre and basically made the whole last season pointless. Can just ignore it if one wanted

Mike86

andicus

I said it depends. If the show had some underlying mystery that turned out to have a shitty explanation in the ending, then yes, it could ruin the rest of the series. Of course, it can't go back in time and ruin your enjoyment of the series as it played out.

I figured we would see Dexter mentioned in this thread, but I didn't dislike the ending as much as I disliked the Deb stuff that happened, later in the run. As an overall, I still enjoyed the series.

B5Erik

One bad episode doesn't outweigh another 80 or 100 good episodes, even if it's the last one.

Bluelitespecial

I'm fine with the way How I Met Your Mother ended even if it's still hated.

Mike86

I'll mark for spoilers in case anyone wants to watch the show.

hippie68

Dexter is the first show that comes to mind for this question. I do, however, don't think it ruined the whole series for me. There are too many amazing scenes that outweigh the crappy finale.

OldBoy

I didn’t hate it either. I thought it was bittersweet. Like the show at times...

GoldenJCJ

Josh-da-man

Series finales aren't generally the problem. TV series usually start going to shit when they enter the home stretch of their run... Dexter, Lost, Game of Thrones, etc.

HIMYM is a bit of an exception, where the big reveal at the end was more like a big FUCK YOU aimed at the audience. I mean, I can dig that they had that planned all along, but the series ran for so long that it just didn't work as a finale to the series. Maybe if it only ran for three or four or even five seasons it would have worked, but after nine fucking years of not to mention that it was completely chickenshit to

fujishig

The worst part was revolving an entire season around a concept they destroyed in like half of an episode. An entire season! The last season to boot. Ugh. I disagree with the above, I love HIMYM but I have no desire to rewatch because of the way they handled that, and it's a series like Seinfeld that is built to stand apart from the overarching plot. But it just left such a bad taste in my mouth.

Otherwise, comedies usually will stand alone. Like I don't hold a lot of the Office's terrible later seasons against them. But for serial stories that end up meaningless, forget it. Like I have no desire to rewatch Heroes season one ever. Or even the early Alias seasons, with the Rimbaldi fizzle.

Michael Corvin

HIMYM was the first to come to mind. I have no desire to ever rewatch. It's one thing to end on a low note (Seinfeld) but to actively piss on everything that came before? It's like Josh said, it was a big 'fuck you' to the fans.

Similarly, Lost just went off the rails in the final 2 seasons. The show also suffered from too much back and forth with the creators. Unlike HIMYM the first four seasons are phenomenal enough to carry the series.

I'm currently waiting on the GOT Blu-ray to see how it all ended.


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Why So Blu?

Sort of but not really, if that makes sense. I saw that GOT was mentioned. It had about 85% killer material until the series finale. I'm reminded of Californication. It had great seasons until they introduced Hank's Jewish son. Wow, that totally tanked the show, but I would still watch it all except that last season that jumped shark.

Stuff like that is plentiful across the board. There are some great and classic seasons of material that stagger to the finish line. It doesn't necessarily mean that the show sucks.

DJariya

The problem is so many "fans" have their picture perfect ending scripted inside their heads and if they don't get that perfect ending, their knee jerk reaction is that it sucks or they're disappointed. Everyone to a certain extent is guilty of this behavior. Sons of Anarchy, which was liked and regarded as one of FX's best shows had a very divisive final season among the active posters here. So many had such an angry knee jerk reaction to it, that they've completely written off the series and won't even touch the spinoff Mayans MC.

I loved Dexter. It was water cooler/must see TV for me every Sunday when it aired on Showtime. I watched it live with my Mom, who became a huge fan of the show while catching up via the DVDs.

But, it ran out of steam and a few seasons too long. My knee jerk reaction after seeing the series finale was that it was pretty good. I looked back at my initial thread comments and maybe I was being way too nice back then because I was so passionate about it. But now that I look back years later, it was a terrible series finale. One of the worst ever. It was so bad that I got rid of all my Dexter DVDs as I knew I would never ever re-visit them.

So yeah that series finale completely ruined the entire series for me. I would never re-visit it in any shape or form.

Original Desmond

It does for sure, i was all set to rewatch GOT from the start when Season 8 finished, but the shit show that was Season 8 has totally put me off the show.

MrRound2

For me if i enjoy a show the finale wont ruin it. Not every episode of a show is going to be great so if i like the series as a whole that's what matters. I'm just happy if a show gets a finale instead of ending on a cliffhanger. Sure some finales are better then others but im just happy with what i get.

Gunde

For me, only Lost. That final season and especially the finale ruined my interest in the show completely and I'll never rewatch it. That's after having loved seasons 1-5.
But it was not because the last episode was bad, it was just a shitty ending to the show, and the amount of indifference shown by the writers to the plot and story was an insult.

~~ PAL ~~

While many have cited Dexter as the prime example and I agree with those points. For me, it was Lost, which just left me with such a bad taste that I have no desire to ever re-visit it again.

Granted, it was not just the very last episode that has fallen off a cliff. Rather, it was more or less the final season collectively and how they chose to close out the show. It was quite plain that the people in charge did not have have an end goal planned out. So when it comes time for the "Final Season" and they start to look back, and realized that everything they have created up to this point has been such a convoluted mess that they didn't even know how to walk everything back into a logical conclusion. Thus, we were left with an unsatisfying ending with many things simply left unresolved or addressed.

morriscroy

In practice, I've found that this can also happen when one doesn't have a picture perfect ending (and/or later seasons) "scripted" inside one's head a priori. For example, when a show becomes "rudderless" and is meandering around.

More generally, I was recently discussing these points on the killjoys thread on here.

https://forum.dvdtalk.com/tv-talk/62...-thread-5.html

This retroactive assessment of a show where lousy finales and/or later crappy seasons end up "contaminating" an entire show's run for me, has largely led to my exit from the tv on bluray/dvd market. Another case where I was glad in hindsight that I didn't buy the bluray (or dvd) seasons, are shows which were abruptly canceled on a cliffhanger or no adequate finale. (For example, such as the scifi show Dark Matter).

Noonan

Lost came to mind first but the show was already garbage by the series finale. It went from garbage to pure dumpster fire.

Shannon Nutt

I don't know if a final episode can ruin a series, but a bad final season sure can: I have no desire to re-watch either True Blood or Game of Thrones because both those final seasons were an insult to loyal fans.