Re: Worst series finales?
 

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Re: Worst series finales?
 

in retrospect, probably Breaking Bad, but it's more about the build up to that finale. Dumping literal neo-nazis into the show was a lazy way to say "see, there are people even worse than these guys," and the pay-off of the big gun, teased earlier on when the writers admittedly had no plan for how it would be used, was dumb.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

It was actually 2 hrs.

Yeah, war sucks. Was that message supposed to change because they were going home? What would you have wanted to see in the finale? Not sure how a show about war and it's ugliness, could take itself too seriously.

Like milo bloom, I've watched the entire series a couple of times, apart from the original broadcasts, and never had a problem with the finale.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

I was somewhat disappointed with Fraiser's finale. The episode wasn't that funny and ended on a cliffhanger that would never be resolved, unless they actually get the new series that was announced several years ago off the ground.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Earth Final Conflict

Re: Worst series finales?
 

We didn't keep up with Supergirl, why is the ending bad?

Re: Worst series finales?
 

TRUE BLOOD...but it had gotten so awful by then, a rebound would have been impossible. That said though, the finale assured that I would never want to re-watch the series ever again.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Have to agree w/ Seinfeld. It was cool seeing all of the side characters but for how great the series was, a very poor finale.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Yeah, I remember being disappointed with the Seinfeld finale. I don't mind watching it now, but that's because there's no more overexpectation, I know what I'm in for. I didn't even watch it live, I taped it because I had a date with my then girlfriend/now wife (she didn't care about the show, and hey, I wanted to get laid rather than watch TV, even if it was the last Seinfeld :lol: ). I remember that the restaurant we went to was almost empty, everyone was at home watching the finale. It was a different era, that's for sure.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Yeah, it's hard to point fingers at the finales of Game of Thrones and Lost, because they started petering out well before the finales. They were both on downward trajectories with diminishing returns since their halfway points, at which point it felt like the creators were just fumbling around, trying to find things for the characters to do for a few more seasons until the pre-announced ending points. It's like they knew they had three/four more seasons guaranteed, and didn't even feel like trying to craft a second half that lived up the first half. World-building and carefully crafted storytelling took a backseat to just keeping stuff going for three more years.

HIMYM has sort of the opposite problem in that they were working toward a pre-planned ending, but over the course of the ten seasons it ran, it became apparent that that ending wouldn't work. It probably sounded good on paper when they started writing the pilot, but the show took on a life of its own and that ending just wasn't going to fly and felt like a big FUCK YOU to everyone watching it.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

I have forgotten about True Blood, even though the first three seasons on blu-ray sit on my shelf. :lol:

That's another one that just completely crawled up its own ass in its final years.

I can barely remember how it ended, but the last couple of seasons were generally awful.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Yeah, this. The concept of the show was so limited in scope that when it went 10 years, it essentially destroyed the very concept itself. They'd painted themselves into a corner (sort of like how Twin Peaks was 6 episodes about the murder of Laura Palmer, when it got picked up for a full season the year they had to start finding other stories along with a way to keep Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks).

I mean, no one telling their kids about how they met their mother would go back 10 years in time from the meeting to talk about shenanigans with his friends that had almost no bearing whatsoever.

But still, I'd like to believe there's a better story option than "I met your mom, you were born, she died, that's why Aunt Robin is your stepmom."

Re: Worst series finales?
 

The first half of the M*A*S*H finale was too heavy. Seeing Hawkeye having a mental breakdown in a psych ward after convincing a woman to smother her baby may have been a little dark for a sitcom.

Once he got back to the 4077th for the second half of the finale, the tone changed back to what viewers were used to and, IMO, ended on a high note.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Well said. I think a lot of the shows mentioned suffer from "disappointing" finales. Worst is whole other ballgame and HIMYM takes the cake for the reason you said. The story seemed to grow organically especially with the chemistry of Radnor and Milioti, which is a testament to the actors. After waiting 10 years, casting the "mother" should have been an impossible task. Viewers were destined to hate whomever was cast no matter what, except that didn't happen. The creators failed to recognize the lottery that they won and instead went with the concept they conceived 10 years prior.

Also there's the whole "let's waste an entire season on Robin and Barney's wedding" only to basically nullify it in the closing minutes.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

There's one I've been on the fence about for the longest time: Quantum Leap ("Mirror Image").

When I first saw it decades ago I thought it was a massive middle finger to the fans.

But...

as I've grown up some, I see it as a beautiful story about someone making a noble sacrifice for a friend and surrendering to a higher calling for their remaining days.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

I think sitcoms in general have terrible endings but I think it's more about the nature of the medium. By their nature sitcoms are generally following a group of ordinary people. It's not like it's a complex story with an overarching plot that needs to be wrapped up. So they tend to be low key. I just think people expect some kind of huge ending where sitcoms just don't lend themselves to that kind of finale.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

I don't remember that being the case for Lost. I know I was all on board until that very last episode when they really did play the whole "they were in purgatory this whole time" thing that everyone was afraid they were going to do. Granted it was in the cards the whole time since the writers never had a grand plan but the audience didn't know that for sure until the last episode. Definitely will grant you GoT but I think that one of the biggest problems people had with it was in the finale and the

Re: Worst series finales?
 

That was the episode before the finale.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

This has been brought up ad nauseam at this point. The Lost finale did not say they were in Purgatory the whole time. They lived their lives and all died at different times.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

I don’t mind the finale to Seinfeld. I know many people dislike it, but it has some funny moments. I guess I can understand being disappointed at the time due to overhype, but overall it’s not a really bad episode.

I guess maybe a more fitting ending for a show about nothing would have been a slightly more normal episode with the last scene being in the restaurant or something. Then again I’m not sure if people would have liked that either with just another episode rounding out the show.

At one point I would have said Dexter had the worst finale, but with the reboot maybe the show will get a better ending.

I think Breaking Bad was solid throughout its entirety, but in a way I can see your point. I don’t dislike the finale, but the neo-nazis angle maybe feels a bit forced.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

It wasn't bad to me. Just cut short. I felt they should have showed a bit more and some of what happens later.

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The Facts of Life felt like it kind of ended abruptly. I thought going in to the ninth season they knew it was going to the last, but it seemed like the last episode was rushed. Not too much happened. Natalie was already off living in NYC with roommates. The end scene only had Tootie announce that she was accepted at some drama school. i believe Blair was supposed to get her own spinoff where she would be the new Headmistress of the Eastland School but it wouldn't have any of the other characters in it. That show never materialized though.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Sopranos and unless we truly get that movie, Ray Donovan is totally incomplete.

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I disagree.

They chose to have the entire last season except the last episode be an almost real-time reenactment of a wedding where we're constantly told how these two are meant for each other, then after wasting all of our time on that they break up that relationship in minutes. And that's not even the true slap in the face that the finale gives you.

It may not have been the greatest finale of all time but introducing Milioti's character early in that last season and just showing them fall in love would have been so much better. Heck the "alternate" ending they put out on the DVD set was so much better. Heck, having him not even decisively meet the mother would have been so much better.

When you're being written into a corner, at least try to find a way out, don't waste an entire season and then just wrap things up in one episode. To my knowledge this wasn't a case where this was a surprise cancellation either.

Re: Worst series finales?
 

Yes, everything we saw on the first five seasons happened; the only parts that took place in "purgatory" were the flash-sideways bits in the final season that showed what happened after the plane successfully landed.

But it seems like 90% of the population thinks they were dead throughout the whole series.