The worst TV series finale

[Trackman]

I was watching Youtube last night and it got me thinking, what was the worst series finale you have seen (the last ever episode)?

I have a few I'd like to discuss, but I'd like to see other peoples posts first.

I'll kick off things with The Brittas Empire.
I did O level Lit and was told never to use this is as an ending.
spoiler:

It was all a dream.

 

[GusB]

I was eagerly awaiting the new series of Trigger Point as I had enjoyed the first few. However, I was sorely disappointed at the rather far-fetched plot and when I got to the end I was left thinking "is that it"?

 

[TRAX]

One for the younger ones perhaps, Stranger Things...

 

[BAFRA77]

The Sopranos
Lost

 

[Harpo]

I found the end of series 2 of the otherwise superb ‘The Gentlemen’ a bit limp although Ray Winston got the line of the year with ‘Ciao xxxx!’

 

[Trackman]

Ashes to Ashes.
The US version and the UK version were equally dire.

 

[Broucek]

Battlestar Galactica (both versions)

 

[brad465]

The Traitors series 3 finale:

Spoiler: Finale

The Seer ruined the game and banished traitor Charlotte through no real fault of her own, then the end game was four faithfuls, there was no real suspense that would have occurred had one or two traitors still been in at this point. Jake as one of the winners though did deserve to win IMO

 

[SuspectUsual]

The whole final series of Roseanne

 

[BrandanM]

Does 'Going Straight' count as the finale to 'Porridge'?.

 

[C J Snarzell]

The last series of Line of Duty from 2021 ended on a whimper as we were still left wondering who ‘H’ actually was. I believe there is a further series (7th) due to be broadcast early next year so I hope this will finally tie up any lose ends and bring the show to a final conclusion. Adrian Dunbar is 68 so surely they can’t keep bringing him back as a Police Superintendent who will now have 40 odd years service under his belt!!!!

In terms of other series finales - Life on Mars was a strange one were we were lead to believe Sam Tyler and all the other characters were actually all deceased. On the subject of police dramas - I seem to remember the Bill ended with a really dire finale in 2010 which was such a let down after 26 years as an ITV fixture. I also felt the ending to the award winning Happy Valley in 2023 was rather rushed. They seem to wrap it up within minutes of Tommy Lee Royce’s death.

Only Fools & Horses has to win all awards for creating a perfect finale in 1996 only for it to be shattered by a further episodes in 2001-03, the spin-off with Boycie (that was average at best) and an awful prequel series set in the 1960s with younger actors (I can’t even remember it’s name it was that bad). John Sullivan just couldn’t put his baby to bed.

CJ

 

[m0ffy]

House had a dire last season, but a decent finale.
Derry Girls had an underwhelming finale, capping-off a mixed final series.

 

[Trackman]

Does 'Going Straight' count as the finale to 'Porridge'?.

No, the only decent and in fact brilliant episode of Going Straight was the first one.

 

[Statto]

Agree with Only Fools And Horses, they had the perfect end in 96, then brought it back with the 01 to 03 trilogy, & it was a complete anti climax, no Uncle Albert & no Mike as the actors who played them had died, coupled with one of the most ridiculous plots to go with it.

The Green Green Grass was the Boycie spin off, which was meh as well.

 

[flymo]

The Seinfeld finale could have been a lot better.

 

[Welly]

Frasier should have ended with Daphne and Niles driving off in the Winnibago but too many more series were made afterwards.

 

[Broucek]

Homeland had a sublime ending. In the same genre, honourable mention to The Americans

 

[nlogax]

Due to multiple reasons season 8 of the original Scrubs run was pretty bad, only saved by a great finale episode.

Season 9 was envisaged as a spin-off but ABC didn't want to market it that way, so it sat as a set of strange standalone episodes set in a completely different hospital with a handful of the original characters. S9 was so little regarded its storylines were completely ignored by the writers of the recent reboot, events in which followed on from the end of S8.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Only Fools & Horses and an awful prequel series set in the 1960s with younger actors (I can’t even remember it’s name it was that bad).

Rock & Chips.
First of the Summer Wine was also a dire prequel that didn’t really work.

 

[ainsworth74]

It's a popular one but Game of Thrones whole last season went completely off the rails. It was pretty obvious that whatever creative juice had existed had just completely fled the writers and producers. It had been rocky for a while (basically once they ran out of book material to adapt) but it was a whole other league. Impressive really that it was so bad that it basically killed off Thrones as a pop culture entity for a while until the reputation has been somewhat salvaged by House of the Dragon (though that has problems of its own) and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Another would be How I Met Your Mother. That one clearly suffered from a team who had settled on an ending years before it was shot but the characters had changed and grown in the interim meaning the planned ending fell flat and just felt forced. Quite apart from the fatigue that any show develops after nine seasons and 200 episodes!

House had a dire last season, but a decent finale.

I think that was another show that suffered with fatigue of just running for too long. There's only so long that the characters and situations they encounter can remain with the confines of the show as imagined before everyone ones out of creative juice. It managed a decent last hurrah but had clearly been running on fumes for a while!

That being said in the modern streaming world people would kill for the idea of a 20+ episode season being released every year for six or seven years! The only thing I've watched recently that's even come close to that formula (outside reality TV or legacy shows from ye olden days like NCIS) is The Pitt which does fifteen episode seasons and has managed annual releases so far. Everything else seems to be stuck in some mixture of short 10 episode seasons released maybe every other year.

 

[Foxcover]

The Prisoner (original series). In fact the last 3 or 4 episodes were a bit ropey…

 

[barringtoncem]

The last series of Vigil as i quiet enjoyed the first series

 

[Welly]

The Prisoner (original series). In fact the last 3 or 4 episodes were a bit ropey…

Oh Lord! I watched it on ITV's YouTube channel last year and the last episode was utterly ridiculous.

 

[Trackman]

The Prisoner (original series). In fact the last 3 or 4 episodes were a bit ropey…

That was on my list, caused uproar at the time

 

[trainmania100]

Primeval on ITV used to be quite fun. It ended with two versions of Matt and was left as that ...axed.

 

[Trackman]

Will chip in with another one, Psychoville (from Shearsmith and Pemberton -LOG) . Brilliant first series and superb halloween special but the second series not so - they killed off a character per episode. Finale.. well .. very poor.

I still say when someone picks the post up 'Is there anything from NASA?'

 

[ajwffc]

Agree about lost will also add.
The Man in the high castle - ruined any character development the way they ended it
Quantum Leep - couldn't even get the characters name right when using a title card to end it.
Star Trek Enterprise - was worse considering at the point is was due to be the last ever episode of Star Trek

 

[ainsworth74]

The Man in the high castle - ruined any character development the way they ended it

Yes that sudden pivot into that weird portal nonsense really didn't work for me. Which is a shame as it had been good fun (well as much fun as "the bad guys win WW2 can be" ) until then!

Star Trek Enterprise - was worse considering at the point is was due to be the last ever episode of Star Trek

Yeah which is another shame as that final season had been developing well and it felt like the show had really found it's feet. I was looking forward to the Earth - Romulan war they were building towards. Plus the Mirror Universe two parter in that final season was excellent. Only to then end the show on basically a reheated Next Generation spin off episode...

 

[SargeNpton]

Primeval on ITV used to be quite fun. It ended with two versions of Matt and was left as that ...axed.

Any sci-fi series that has multiple conflicting timelines where history has changed.

I give you "Heroes". Great first series and then it all gets horribly confused.

 

[DelW]

The Prisoner (original series). In fact the last 3 or 4 episodes were a bit ropey…

Oh Lord! I watched it on ITV's YouTube channel last year and the last episode was utterly ridiculous.

That was on my list, caused uproar at the time

Allegedly, the last 4 episodes (14 - 17 inc) were cobbled together largely from footage that had already been shot for a second 13-episode series, which had by then been cancelled due to escalating costs. Whether Patrick McGoohan would have been able to achieve a satisfactory ending even with a full second series is another question though.

It did indeed cause a lot of viewer complaints after the original broadcast.