Just as an athlete is only as good as his last game, a TV show is only as good as its final season. More importantly, its final episode.
Nothing is worse than watching your favorite TV show crash and burn in its final season. When the final season is just so bad you can’t even watch the older episodes, which are perfectly fine. It has happened too many times to simply call it a glitch in the matrix. Whether the writers just got lazy or one of them had a brain aneurysm, there is no excuse for subpar season finales. We dedicated viewers deserve more than that! Here is my list of the biggest season finale let downs in recent history.
Game of Thrones
There is no way I could not put Game of Thrones on this list. After waiting two years for the final season, I couldn’t be more disappointed. All the character development from the past 10 years was effectively thrown out the window. In what world would Jaime go back to Cersei! Ugh. So frustrating. What is even more frustrating is the fact that we couldn’t even see half of what was going on. I could do a better job lighting the sets than the professionals did. Lastly, the white walkers turned out not to be such an unbeatable force. Who is Azor Ahai, the prince that was promised? The world may never know. I’m still bitter. It definitely needed at least one more season. I can’t even get into who ended up on the throne!
How I Met Your Mother
Seven years later and I am still upset with this ending. I still cannot understand why they killed the mother off. Talk about an anticlimactic ending. I mean seriously. Besides a few flashbacks, we never got to see Ted and the mother as a couple. We meet her, she dies and then he goes back to Robin. Are you kidding me! We established over and over again that they do not work as a couple. Why will it be different now? Another thing, the entirety of season 9 was about Barney and Robin’s wedding. Despite this fact, they get divorced in the first five minutes of the finale. What was the point of the whole season then? Anyways, rant over. Worst ending ever.
Gossip Girl
The Gossip Girl ending makes absolutely no sense. It wasn’t a critically acclaimed show to begin with, but the ending just solidified how bad it was. Please explain to me how it makes sense that Dan is Gossip Girl. While you’re at it, also explain to me how everyone just seemed to be okay with it. Serena even ends up marrying him! You’re telling me that when faced with the person who terrorized you your whole life, not only would you not care but you would also marry them? Not in my world. I think Georgina as Gossip Girl makes a ton more sense and would have made for a more interesting reveal.
Pretty Little Liars
Once again, I didn’t expect any better from Pretty Little Liars. They could have ended it once Mona revealed herself as A. Everything after that point, just wasn’t believable. We finally thought we got closure once Cece revealed herself at the end of season 6. That’s a whole different issue. Did the evil stalker have to be a transgender girl who was also Allison’s sister? In case that wasn’t disappointing enough, there was a season 7. I couldn’t even watch it but I googled the ending. The real A is Spencer’s long lost twin sister Alex Drake, whose mom is the twin sister of Allison’s mom. So unnecessary.
Scrubs
The fact that Scrubs was supposed to end after season 8, it is no surprise that season 9 is such a mess. It lost the original spark which made the show so great. Only a few members of the original cast returned so it felt like a different show. A lot of the focus revolved around new character which the audience didn’t really care about. The new character’s weren’t even doctors! They were med school students. I think, had they just ended the show when they were supposed to, with the entire original cast on board, it would have been way more successful. Their guest appearances in the finale, weren’t enough.
Once Upon a Time
Once Upon a Time had such high potential. Not to mention, an actually great ending. The season 6 finale neatly wrapped up every character’s arch and could have ended there. For some reason, they decided to do a seventh season. I will never understand why. None of the main characters returned and they weren’t even in Storybrooke anymore. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get myself into it. I stopped watching after two episodes and can’t be bothered to Google how it ends. The end of season 6 is the only ending I need.
Dexter
This TV Show had so much promise, yet was a complete let down. The only show that can make us love a serial killer went down in flames. After a lackluster season in general, fans were looking forward to a finale that would end the show on a high note. That, sadly, is not what they got. Dexter seemingly doesn’t care about the death of his sister, but later decides he cares so much, he has to fake his own death. This great character, leaves his son without a father, to go be a lumberjack. That is what we call a disservice to the character, and the fans.
Rosanne
This is a TV show beloved by people from all walks of life. It showed what life is like for middle class families in America. The last season in alone wasn’t bad, but all of it was retroactively erased when we found out, none of it happened. We learned that everything after Dan’s heart attack didn’t actually happen and was a figment of Rosanne’s imaginations. Dan didn’t survive the heart attack, which is the biggest upset of the finale. When the reboot stated in 2018, they decided to ignore the original ending. Yeah, it was that bad.
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is regarded as one of the best shows to have ever aired. It is also known for having one of the worst finale episodes of any show to air. The finale episode features the gang in a criminal trial, where minor characters from prior seasons criticize them on the witness stand. They end up in jail and then the show is over. Most fans complain that the jokes weren’t funny and the pacing of the episode was bad. The writers had a no sentimental moments rule, however I think they could have broken that rule, at least for this episode. It would at least provide closure, which is maybe what some fans were missing. At least this finale didn’t ruin the seasons that came before, and fans can still watch those happily.
St. Elsewhere
There is no bigger cop out, than ending a TV Show by revealing it was all a dream. All the emotional ups and downs the viewer experiences turns out to be for nothing. It cheapens the emotional connection fans make with the characters. Sure, we already know these people don’t really exist, but once you add the layer that they are a figment of someone’s imagination, it makes them all the more fake. That is exactly the case with St. Elsewhere. It was revealed that all the episodes actually took place in the mind of an autistic boy. That just sounds like the writers couldn’t come up with an actual ending.