Escapist Podcast - Movies and TV: 019: The Worst TV Series Endings Of All Time

[Team Hollywood]

019: The Worst TV Series Endings Of All Time

Recently, a television series we like to call Porno Vampires ended with what has gone down as one of the most legendarily terrible series conclusions of all time. So bad that Ross Lincoln and Heather Barefoot are still sore about it. So this week, they roped Bob Chipman into a lengthy discussion of just how once-good TV series can go so hilariously wrong. We talk Battlestar Galactica, True Blood, Lost, and Alf, as well as shows that managed to go out right, like Roseanne and plenty more. It's failuretastic!

NOTE: As this Podcast discusses the endings of several now-concluded TV series, expect heavy, and unmarked spoilers from here on out.

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[TwistedEllipses]

The irony of the continuing Star Trek: Voyager bashing is that it actually had a decent ending that gave a resolution to the premise via a crazy/stupid/very Janeway-ish route.

I'm surprised no-one mentioned Dexter...

 

[Sanunes]

The irony of the continuing Star Trek: Voyager bashing is that it actually had a decent ending that gave a resolution to the premise via a crazy/stupid/very Janeway-ish route.

I'm surprised no-one mentioned Dexter...

I think Dexter falls into the category of it disappointed people, but people weren't as invested in it.

Its kinda like Mass Effect 3 and how people are still upset about it, for I remember many games over the years that disappointed me with their endings such as Mass Effect 1, Assassin's Creed 3, or BioShock: Infinite for all those games left me with the same feelings I had with Mass Effect 3, but with the other games they didn't grow the character the same as they did with Commander Shepard.

 

[Alakaizer]

My vote would have to go to Scrubs. Scrubs's pants-shitting lasted an entire season. Season eight ended so goddamned perfectly, and then ABC renews it for a sudden ninth season where we've lost a big chunk of the main cast to be replaced with significantly inferior newbies, the biggest emotional throughline of the season 8 finale was completely erased within the first few moments, and the whole thing was just shit.

Honorable mention goes to Burn Notice. The thing that took the most away from that ending for me was that Michael's choice in the second-to-last episode felt like a lame revisit of the final mission in inFamous 2.

 

[Tanis]

BEAST MACHINES!

O, for the love of...WHY?!?!?!

'Hey, Cybertron was ORIGINALLY ORGANIC!'
'Hey, EVERYONE LIVES...as PARTLY ORGANIC!'
'Hey! LISTEN!'

I...I just hated that ending.

Beast Wars?
Best TF EVER.
Beast Machines?
Even Bayformers looks good compared to it.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Its kinda like Mass Effect 3 and how people are still upset about it

I didn't like Mass Effect 3, then I installed the Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod. Now I love it.

 

[Remus]

The Sarah Connor Chronicles. This was a FOX show so after Firefly, I kinda hoped it wouldn't be canceled but knew it would be. So.......

Spoiler

It turns out that Weaver, the T-1000 in charge of Zeira Corp was a plant by old John Connor and her goal wasn't to make the world ready for Skynet, but to discover an A.I. able to combat Skynet, machine vs machine. Uncle Derek is taken out like a punk, surprise headshot, Sarah, John, and Cameron go to Zeira to confront Weaver and her growing A.I. John Henry. They all get attacked by a Hunter-Killer, and are saved by Weaver. John and Weaver go forward in time, where they end up in a ruin, found by Derek and Cameron, both now alive, and in the case of Cameron, not metal, because time-travel. John is now stranded in a future he tried to prevent, only he never grew up to become the leader of the resistance so nobody knows who he is. TO NOT BE CONTINUED...

 

[JPArbiter]

Bob's Bee Movie Summary could have been a perfect Big Picture.

MOVIES!
ARE!
WEEEEEEEIIIIIIRD!

 

[Sanunes]

Its kinda like Mass Effect 3 and how people are still upset about it

I didn't like Mass Effect 3, then I installed the Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod. Now I love it.

I am glad you found a way to enjoy it, I feel pretty "meh" to the ending just like Mass Effect 1 so the MEHEM didn't improve or hurt the game for me. Normally I just stop playing the game when I get to the Citadel during Priority: Earth and that works for me.

 

[Jennacide]

Dexter definitely deserved mention, but it's last season on the whole was so weak that a lot of people abandoned it before they even got to the idiotic ending.

One thing that annoyed me about this discussion, and talk of Lost in general, is the fixation that "oh, the writers lied about it being purgatory!" Except they didn't. The writers kept saying "The island is not purgatory." And that never changed, the island wasn't. What the finale ended up being was Jack in purgatory waiting to pass on, and the final episode was him meeting back up with everyone, when everyone had finally died some time in the future. The final season was the only time purgatory was part of the show, and only for Jack when showing him off the island. Remember, he died ON THE ISLAND. So how could it be purgatory if that's where he ended up again? There are plenty of reasons the last season sucked, and a lot of unfulfilled promises like explaining the point of Walt, but the purgatory angle wasn't one of the big ones.

 

[Xirema]

I was gonna be one of the people insisting that Evangelion's ending didn't work. =P

It's a bizarre specimen, to be sure, and these days I actually really like Evangelion's weirdness, but End of Evangelion was a legendarily bad movie, and while I like the TV ending a lot more, it's still broken in lots of ways. I should be clear though, they weren't bad *because* they went nuts at the end, but because they went nuts in a logically incoherent fashion. Frankly, if End of Evangelion had taken even a few minutes just to explain what the hell was going on..... Well, it wouldn't have made it a good movie, but it definitely would have elevated it a lot.

 

[omegawyrm]

I'll be the anime fan saying that the ending of Evangelion works. The shows ending is a really great summation and resolution of the themes and character arcs. When we get into End of Evangelion it gets a little fuzzier, but I've always appreciated that the director slightly elaborated on what had happened "in-universe" while also thumbing his nose at everyone who had been a whiny dick about it. If only Bioware had had the balls to do that for the ME3 ending.