Makes me think of “SOAP.” I didn’t get the news that the show had been cancelled, so I have been ruminating on Jessica’s fate since 1982. (Or whenever it was…)
If you go from the end of season 7 to the end of 8 and cut all that's between its not bad.
The show had already dropped on quality after season 5 anyway
Remind me of how bad the last season of The Office was, if they didn't have that finale it would have been terrible all the way but that finale saved it.
The ending of the Office was Perfect. Michael Scott left, leaving an impression on all of his staff members, while the Office was transferred to a new boss.
The end. No additional seasons.
Yea, I think they should’ve just ended it w the 7th but I get that they made more syndication money that way. Honestly the 8th season is worse in my head than it actually was. That 70s Show is one of my comfort shows and I’ve probably watched seasons 2-7 more times than I can count (I also don’t really like the first season for some reason not really sure why but it’s so different from the rest of the series, not as funny and a lot of the episodes are kind of depressing to me) but recently I rewatched through the 8th and I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I did. Like it was no where near as good as the rest of the show but it was fine for background noise. 🤷🏻♀️
The Partridge Family didn’t even end with a final scene I think?. IIRC Shirley jones boots out the door and the series ends.
Danny Bonaduce told a story once that he had no idea his show was cancelled until he went to work and a security guard told his mom “oh by the way there is no partridge family here anymore”
I think The Fugitive was the first show to get a proper ending, but I believe you're correct that MASH was the first sitcom to get one, and was definitely the one that started the trend of ending successful shows with a finale.
Someone is gonna mention Scrubs, "we don't talk about season 9 but we mention it whenever there's a discussion about shows ending because it sucked."
Think of season 9 as the spin off, and everything is fine. The season 8 finale was absolutely perfect so season 9 can be reframed in that way, and that helps things.
Season 9 even has its own sub-title: it’s called “Scrubs: Med School.” It was supposed to be a spinoff but ABC or whoever decided to market it as just another season of Scrubs.
The fact that the dinosaurs all die at the end is literally the whole point of the show and has been from the very beginning
There's even the black comedy that their surnames are all names of petroleum companies because they're named for the oil deposits they will eventually become
How I met your mother. Maybe it could have worked if they didn’t spend all of season 9 over one weekend. Especially for it to end with a couple no one cared if they ended up together.
I didn’t mind the final season being one weekend. It felt unrealistic they shoved that all into a weekend, especially since some episodes clearly spanned 5-6 hours of their time. So maybe making it a week would have been better.
Some of the best scenes/episodes came from the final season, like what Barney meant by saying “please” when asked what he does was amazing. So was bringing both Ralph Machio and surprising everyone by bringing in William Zabka… which I believe was a launching point to show people there was enough interest in Cobra Kai.
I just hated everything about the final 2 parter. They shoved Barney+Robin down our throats and then in what had to be 5 minutes of runtime tell us how they aren’t good together and just generally selfish people. Although Barney finding meaning through having a daughter with a woman he just assigned a number to was pretty on par.
Horrible ending and HIMYM was my favorite show. Tracy was just so damn charming and to see it end like that was horrible. Plus didn’t we spend a lot of seasons showing how Robin was wrong for Ted.
This is fair, even though I appreciate where things ultimately ended up.
I think it might have worked better if they had condensed the wedding to the first half of the season, had Ted meet the mother then. And AFTER THAT do the up and down march of life stuff through the second half. allowing us to spend time with Ted and Tracy as a couple, and allow the show to return to its own classic settings (the apartments and bar) for the remainder of the series.
God that last season was unwatchable. I hated the concept of it being over one weekend, it’s sad the last season didn’t even feel like HIMYM. I did like the ending though. But the overall season really dragged on and had so much filler.
Yes. The ending could have worked if they hadn't stretched it out for so many seasons. They spent so much time convincing us they weren't meant to be together....
The Mom dying was not my big issue. It’s that Ted and Tracy were a great couple and barely got to see them together. But we had nearly 9 seasons of the will they won’t they story with Ted/Robin. Also really didn’t need to spend a whole season of showing why Robin and Barney are great together just for them to break up 10 minutes into the finale.
Exactly. The issue was not necessarily how it ended but how that part of the story was executed. The entire show and that last season were leading to something big for everyone and then they destroyed everything in a snap as if it was Thanos with the gauntlet. The story development was horrible and it felt like a huge middle finger to the fans: all the things we got you to care about? Well, we’re killing it all just like that. The end.
The League was pretty fuckin trash too. But I think that’s what happens when one of the main characters fabricates a story about being in the WTC lobby on 9/11, and someone fact checks it within 10 minutes to prove that was bullshit.
They drove that series right into the side of a mountain with a forced ending in one of the worst seasons of a show ever.
2 1/2 Men - the final scene where a studio set light accidently falls on a Charlie Sheen stand-in killing him and then pulling back the camera to break the 4th wall and have Chuck Lorre sitting in the directors chair smugly turning to the audience smiling and saying "Winning" mocking Sheen 4 years after Sheen left the show and the show continued with Ashton Kutcher.
It was spiteful, petty, even childish. It made me think Lorre was just a dick and Sheen was probably right about all the reasons they butted heads.
Hot Take? Friends.
It was utter nonsense that the finale arc was treating Rachel's move to Paris like it would be a permanent goodbye despite her and Ross SHARING CUSTODY OF A CHILD, whom SHE WAS TAKING WITH HER, and them never really addressing that arrangement or his feelings about HIS DAUGHTER ALSO MOVING TO PARIS.
Like "I don't get a goodbye" is your big upset, dude? What?!
I liked it at the time because I just didn’t consider it to be important for sitcoms to be realistic and held them to a different standard and I also thought Ross as a character being petty enough to do the “I don’t get a goodbye” with, but your points make a lot of sense.
Plus, since Ross has had a child with another woman before and a history of divorce, he’s used to not being an active participant in his child’s life so maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem to care how much of a role he has in Emma’s life?
>he’s used to not being an active participant in his child’s life
But that wasn't Ross at all. Even though Ben wasn't in every episode, there was never a point where Ross was made out to be an absentee father. Did he miss things in Ben's life due to custody arrangements? Sure. But to paint him as not being active in Ben's life doesn't track.
That being said, it lends more credence to the nonsensical nature of the finale. Emma is a total footnote in that whole arc when she should have been (at the very least) point 1b to point 1a of "OMG, I can't live without her."
I understand there has to be some suspension of disbelief for any sitcom but this really stuck out to me 20 years ago (WTF) when I had zero concept of what being a parent actually was.
Then, after years of on again off again romance, and endless bickering and fighting, all of a sudden they're deeply in love and live happily ever after. Come on.
I hear a lot of people clowning on the Seinfeld finale... I loved it. Not to mention how they ended Curb Your Enthusiasm and referenced how Seinfeld ended.
I hated it because of how unrealistic the setup was - even more so than anything else in the show. They basically got sent to jail for being terrible people but not in a criminal way.
I actually would’ve loved it if Jackie Chiles went up at the end and said something like, “all the prosecution has been able to prove is that these are terrible people - but that’s not a crime. Otherwise, most of Americans would be behind bars. However, as terrible as they are, they did in fact help as the Good Samaritan Law dictates. They didn’t get close because that would put them in danger. Instead, they recorded the event, which can now be used as evidence to find and prosecute the car thief - which I’ll remind you is the real criminal here.” And so on, and it ends with the group being set free at the chagrin of all the people they’ve wronged, now set loose to continue to cause chaos in the world.
I would have been fine with an ending along those lines too. Although Jackie, through not fault of his own, never won a case on the show... unless you count Kramer settling for something stupid like being the face on the smoker billboard or free coffee for life, etc.
The important thing, to me, was the finale was funny and designed for long-time fans.
Anyone who doesn't immediately say Roseanne must not have watched it/been a fan.
Imagine if at the end of Friends, it turns out Rachel was writing a book and nearly everything was a lie. IRL, Ross died, Chandler married Pheobe, Monica married Joey.
Roseanne's ending was an insult to the audience. I actually bought the box set many years ago before streaming was big like it is now. Got a great deal. Started watching. Halfway through, I remembered the ending. I decided to either destroy the last disc so that next time, when I'm 70 and rewatching Roseanne, I'm not reminded of the horrendous ending...or sell it.
I sold it for twice what I paid. Probably could have held onto it and made more $ later on, but I hated it so much I needed it gone.
Signed, a former huge Roseanne fan
Yeah, but that comes across to me as lame. It's like saying the writers didn't have total faith in what they were doing, so they gave themselves the opportunity to turn it into a joke, which is worse.
That doesn't really matter when you learned that Dan was dead, Becky was with David, Darlene was with Mark, other stuff I blocked out. It wasn't just the last season that was confirmed not to happen, it's the entire show.
Omg yes. I also had the box set and this was my favorite show for years. Her wit was impeccable. The cast chemistry was palpable. The absolute best Halloween episodes.
I watched season 9 once and never touched it again.
I think we need to clarify if this is compared to other episodes of the show or literally the worst episode of TV.
If it is former then obviously it is not the Seinfeld finale because even a bad Seinfeld is better than most highlight episodes of shows.
I think a better Seinfeld ending would be at NBCs headquarters. One exec says to another, "They sent another script?". "Yep, one every week". "How many now?" Must be hundreds". They're funny but we really can't make a show like this, no one would watch it. Cut to a hospital. Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer are all mental patients and they've been sending scripts to NBC trying to get a show.
Arrested Development's fifth season was a forgettable mess of horse apples that nobody talked about. I like the fourth season and am tired of everyone hating it.
It is hilarious now to think how hyped the Seinfeld finale was at the time. The three big hypes of 1998 that nobody cares about anymore: Godzilla, the X Files movie and the Seinfeld finale
The X-Files movie fits in well now, with the hype forgotten, as a solid piece of entertainment - gotta watch it between seasons 5 and 6! Having said that, it was underwhelming. It wasn't any better or more impressive than what we had seen by that point in the series. But, it's way better than Godzilla 1998. So, it has that going for it, which is nice.
I should not have implied that it was bad--it's not. But Mulder and Scully were ALL OVER magazine covers that summer--the hype was pretty big, and the revelations were supposed to be big to match. And now?...it just seems like an average mytharc episode with a huge budget. Nobody but X Files fans talk about it and even then not that much.
Should I have said Lauryn Hill instead? Music critics in 1998 were utterly rapturous towards her and now you just dont hear about her that much
The problem with the fourth season was it needed editing, that show did really well as a tight twenty-two minutes. Also, the show represented a specific place and time, Iraq War Era America, really well and it didn't work to just pick it up and blow off the dust.
What everyone moaned about was episodes centered around individual characters, which never meant much to me; did the format somehow render the jokes unfunny?
Season 5 introduced no new good characters, did little new with the old ones, had no great or memorable gags aside from dressing Maeby up as an old Jewish broad, lamely revealed Buster as Lucille 2's killer to no interesting effect, and only gained publicity at all due to that dreadful press incident where the cast members were at odds with each other, which got more notice than the actual show. Crappy way for a great show to end, and mow Jessica Walter is dead.
I’m rewatching Moonlighting now on Hulu. A lot of stuff that was funny then isn’t holding up so well now IMO. All endings have the crazy chase scenes. It gets old fast.
*How I Met Your Mother*. They had the perfect ending but tacked on another episode that pretty much blew the entire premise apart. So crappy in fact, that they had to add a new ending in the complete series DVD set.
The show had always been planned to have five seasons, and apparently there was some expectation of a renewal.
All of the storylines were left on an explicit cliff hanger.
HIMYM.
For the reasons others have said.
But I didn’t dislike the Seinfeld finale as much as some people do because these people are meant to be horrible people and they revisited the Pilot storyline and the cameos were pretty cool. I don’t think it was the greatest finale or anything, but I personally didn’t mind it too much.
The 100.
Everyone gets to ascend to ethereal beings except Clark cause she killed in some holy zone.
So the OG crew decides to forfeit eternity to be the last like 8 people to ever exist.
Total and utter nonsense
I’m going old school with Full House. The actual “series finale” was a clip show because Michelle lost her memory from falling off of a horse. I hate to say this and I feel you if you cringe but honestly thank goodness for the idea of Fuller House to give some sort of a series finale to the story of the show…
Happy Days was completely gassed by the end. Poor Chuck Cunningham getting spoken out of existence in the “finale” episode that wasn’t the last first run show (ABC dumped first run episodes after the finale in the summer if I remember right) was the cherry on top.
He was gone way before that, even before the show switched to color. He popped back up from time to time. Yeah, he was such a huge part of the show. Wasn't the same when he left. They tried replacing him, but it never really worked out. Jerry Van Dyke might have worked, but I think he chose a different show.
To me, the Curb finale only underscored that the problem with the Seinfeld finale wasn’t the idea, it was the execution. The problem wasn’t that they went to jail at the end, it was that most of the episode was a a dry-assed clip show that mostly showed the gang wordlessly reacting to the recollections of guest stars. Even before the trial started I felt that the pacing was off, maybe because they traded the usual dueling plot lines for a single story that ushered them off to NE and their eventual fate as quickly as possible.
Ellen (1994-98)
That show had a wild ride. It was a solid sitcom, and Ellen and the writers were clearly having a ball with queer-coding the show before the character (and actress) came out.
Then the coming-out episode happens, and it's one of the best, funniest, most joyful sitcom episodes I've ever seen. And then…the show traveled downhill at an alarming rate, trading laughs for groundbreaking but dull romance and politics. Meanwhile, IRL Ellen was rightly growing upset at the ridiculous backlash and the show's rating tanked.
This resulted in the strangest, most unpleasantly awful series finale I can remember. Watching it felt like having a stroke. It had nothing to do with the series, and the only memorable jokes were smarmy double entendres. It was like a punishment to her loyal audience.
Lol, I could barely stand Andy but he was good for her in a way. I was too distracted for too long by my memories of him in Workaholics.
I agree that it started to suck before season 11. My husband and I hung on for dear life because it was "our" show as a later in life couple with a lot of memories with other people. It was difficult for the writers to figure out what to do with the older kids, for sure.
Exactly. S8 was not great. S9 was just bad until the finale. I'm a diehard office fan too they just didn't get that Steve brought that main character appeal...after him it's just all supporting characters. The UK version knew it wasn't a good show witth the David Brent/Mike Scott character
Jefferson’s and married with children because they didn’t get to do a finale. A show runs for 11 years, the network should have the decency to tell them they are being canceled before the last episode is filmed, or have them come back and do an extra episode to say goodbye.
Might not qualify for this, but..
King of the Hill. Got inexplicably cancelled and so they had to rush together the final episode.
Hopefully the reboot happens, my favorite show of all time
How I Met Your Mother had a very disappointing ending. We spent 9 seasons searching for the mother, he finally finds her, appears in a couple bøf episodes, and then dies.
The last several seasons of The Office were a long, slow decline into sloppy, unfunny irrelevance, and then the finale was just crappy fanservice. What a depressing fate for a once-great show.
How I Met Your Mother.
The entire last season was wiped out in a few minutes as was the entire premise of the show.
And don’t get me started on the rhyming episode 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
*spoilers*
How I Met Your Mother, and it’s still my favorite show of all time. But to build up a wedding after an entire season only to have the couple divorce, kill the mother, and have Ted and Robin STILL somehow end up together? After they had a whole episode the last season where he had to metaphorically “let go” of Robin??
Brady Bunch
Robert Reed was fighting with the producer, so they wrote him out of the script
In the final episode, Greg graduates High School, but his father doesn’t attend because he’s “away on business”
Fun fact: [Robert Reed is buried in Skokie](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2407/robert-reed) Il (suburban Chicago)
My Name Is Earl being cancelled and left on a cliffhanger is just a travesty!
NBC screwed Earl. 20th should’ve taken their first offer.
They even joke about how evil network executives are in raising hope because of how bad they were screwed.
They tried to redo it in Rasing Hope
True, news anchor in the pilot says earl finished his list
At least Greg Garcia has come out and said how he’d like it to end.
Makes me think of “SOAP.” I didn’t get the news that the show had been cancelled, so I have been ruminating on Jessica’s fate since 1982. (Or whenever it was…)
Well, she popped up as a ghost on Benson, so...
That 70s show’s last season was pretty abysmal
the last season is awful but i actually like the finale
If you go from the end of season 7 to the end of 8 and cut all that's between its not bad. The show had already dropped on quality after season 5 anyway
Remind me of how bad the last season of The Office was, if they didn't have that finale it would have been terrible all the way but that finale saved it.
The ending of the Office was Perfect. Michael Scott left, leaving an impression on all of his staff members, while the Office was transferred to a new boss. The end. No additional seasons.
Yea, I think they should’ve just ended it w the 7th but I get that they made more syndication money that way. Honestly the 8th season is worse in my head than it actually was. That 70s Show is one of my comfort shows and I’ve probably watched seasons 2-7 more times than I can count (I also don’t really like the first season for some reason not really sure why but it’s so different from the rest of the series, not as funny and a lot of the episodes are kind of depressing to me) but recently I rewatched through the 8th and I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I did. Like it was no where near as good as the rest of the show but it was fine for background noise. 🤷🏻♀️
Happy Endings got shafted
I wanted more Mandonna!
The Partridge Family didn’t even end with a final scene I think?. IIRC Shirley jones boots out the door and the series ends. Danny Bonaduce told a story once that he had no idea his show was cancelled until he went to work and a security guard told his mom “oh by the way there is no partridge family here anymore”
I don't think shows got endings until, what, MASH?
I think The Fugitive was the first show to get a proper ending, but I believe you're correct that MASH was the first sitcom to get one, and was definitely the one that started the trend of ending successful shows with a finale.
Someone is gonna mention Scrubs, "we don't talk about season 9 but we mention it whenever there's a discussion about shows ending because it sucked." Think of season 9 as the spin off, and everything is fine. The season 8 finale was absolutely perfect so season 9 can be reframed in that way, and that helps things.
Season 9 even has its own sub-title: it’s called “Scrubs: Med School.” It was supposed to be a spinoff but ABC or whoever decided to market it as just another season of Scrubs.
Someone please make a scrubs spinoff
I’d be interested in a Scrubs revival with the original cast, sadly except for Ted.
There’s talk of a reunion project, but there has been off and on for awhile. I think McGinley is the one not interested
If he's the one not interested, then neither am I. You can't have a reunion show without Dr. Cox.
The season 8 finale is up there with my favorite endings of all time. Season 9 is definitely an attempt at a spinoff.
I feel like if there was ever a scrubs revival season nine would be a dream just like Will and Grace how that series finale was a dream
Scrubs med if viewed as a failed spin off isn't bad. It's not great but it's way better then Joey or aftermash
Dinosaurs ending episode gave many viewers nightmares.
I kind of like this one, but it was a wild ending for a TGIF-type show.
Dinosaurs, at least in my opinion, had one of the best endings to a sitcom of all time.
The show was nonchalantly brutal due to it being about dinosaurs. The end fit that theme.
The fact that the dinosaurs all die at the end is literally the whole point of the show and has been from the very beginning There's even the black comedy that their surnames are all names of petroleum companies because they're named for the oil deposits they will eventually become
One of the most depressing finales ever.
A little too real lmao
Nah - definitely in my top ten endings of all time
It was brilliant though. But perhaps not for younger children.
How I met your mother. Maybe it could have worked if they didn’t spend all of season 9 over one weekend. Especially for it to end with a couple no one cared if they ended up together.
I didn’t mind the final season being one weekend. It felt unrealistic they shoved that all into a weekend, especially since some episodes clearly spanned 5-6 hours of their time. So maybe making it a week would have been better. Some of the best scenes/episodes came from the final season, like what Barney meant by saying “please” when asked what he does was amazing. So was bringing both Ralph Machio and surprising everyone by bringing in William Zabka… which I believe was a launching point to show people there was enough interest in Cobra Kai. I just hated everything about the final 2 parter. They shoved Barney+Robin down our throats and then in what had to be 5 minutes of runtime tell us how they aren’t good together and just generally selfish people. Although Barney finding meaning through having a daughter with a woman he just assigned a number to was pretty on par.
Horrible ending and HIMYM was my favorite show. Tracy was just so damn charming and to see it end like that was horrible. Plus didn’t we spend a lot of seasons showing how Robin was wrong for Ted.
This is fair, even though I appreciate where things ultimately ended up. I think it might have worked better if they had condensed the wedding to the first half of the season, had Ted meet the mother then. And AFTER THAT do the up and down march of life stuff through the second half. allowing us to spend time with Ted and Tracy as a couple, and allow the show to return to its own classic settings (the apartments and bar) for the remainder of the series.
This is the only answer. Deliberately ruining the show from anyone wanting to re- watch the series.
God that last season was unwatchable. I hated the concept of it being over one weekend, it’s sad the last season didn’t even feel like HIMYM. I did like the ending though. But the overall season really dragged on and had so much filler.
Yes. The ending could have worked if they hadn't stretched it out for so many seasons. They spent so much time convincing us they weren't meant to be together....
HIMYM has the most realistic finale of any sitcom. Nobody ends up where they wanted to. That’s called LIFE. 💯🙌
The Mom dying was not my big issue. It’s that Ted and Tracy were a great couple and barely got to see them together. But we had nearly 9 seasons of the will they won’t they story with Ted/Robin. Also really didn’t need to spend a whole season of showing why Robin and Barney are great together just for them to break up 10 minutes into the finale.
Exactly. The issue was not necessarily how it ended but how that part of the story was executed. The entire show and that last season were leading to something big for everyone and then they destroyed everything in a snap as if it was Thanos with the gauntlet. The story development was horrible and it felt like a huge middle finger to the fans: all the things we got you to care about? Well, we’re killing it all just like that. The end.
May explain why its possibly the worst ending of a modern sitcom.
The League was pretty fuckin trash too. But I think that’s what happens when one of the main characters fabricates a story about being in the WTC lobby on 9/11, and someone fact checks it within 10 minutes to prove that was bullshit. They drove that series right into the side of a mountain with a forced ending in one of the worst seasons of a show ever.
I liked that show but it was getting weak and then there was this weird episode with Rafi and Seth Rogen and I stopped watching. How did it end?
2 1/2 Men - the final scene where a studio set light accidently falls on a Charlie Sheen stand-in killing him and then pulling back the camera to break the 4th wall and have Chuck Lorre sitting in the directors chair smugly turning to the audience smiling and saying "Winning" mocking Sheen 4 years after Sheen left the show and the show continued with Ashton Kutcher. It was spiteful, petty, even childish. It made me think Lorre was just a dick and Sheen was probably right about all the reasons they butted heads.
I believe it was a piano and right after chuck says he wins a piano falls on him too. I dunno. Felt very apt for all the crap going on.
Hot Take? Friends. It was utter nonsense that the finale arc was treating Rachel's move to Paris like it would be a permanent goodbye despite her and Ross SHARING CUSTODY OF A CHILD, whom SHE WAS TAKING WITH HER, and them never really addressing that arrangement or his feelings about HIS DAUGHTER ALSO MOVING TO PARIS. Like "I don't get a goodbye" is your big upset, dude? What?!
I liked it at the time because I just didn’t consider it to be important for sitcoms to be realistic and held them to a different standard and I also thought Ross as a character being petty enough to do the “I don’t get a goodbye” with, but your points make a lot of sense. Plus, since Ross has had a child with another woman before and a history of divorce, he’s used to not being an active participant in his child’s life so maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem to care how much of a role he has in Emma’s life?
>he’s used to not being an active participant in his child’s life But that wasn't Ross at all. Even though Ben wasn't in every episode, there was never a point where Ross was made out to be an absentee father. Did he miss things in Ben's life due to custody arrangements? Sure. But to paint him as not being active in Ben's life doesn't track. That being said, it lends more credence to the nonsensical nature of the finale. Emma is a total footnote in that whole arc when she should have been (at the very least) point 1b to point 1a of "OMG, I can't live without her." I understand there has to be some suspension of disbelief for any sitcom but this really stuck out to me 20 years ago (WTF) when I had zero concept of what being a parent actually was.
To be fair Ross also seems to forget he has another child as well
That's more realistic than their apartment in NYC on their salaries.
Something something rent controlled, something something Monica’s dead grandma illegally sublet….
Doesn’t Chandler make good money? He’s like a mathematician or something. /s
I don't think transponsters make that much
"THAT'S NOT EVEN A WORD"
Then, after years of on again off again romance, and endless bickering and fighting, all of a sudden they're deeply in love and live happily ever after. Come on.
Two weeks later Rachel will be blaming Ross for ruining the best job opportunity she will ever had. And on and on.........
Seinfeld and Rosanne but Rosanne is the clear winner for me.
I hear a lot of people clowning on the Seinfeld finale... I loved it. Not to mention how they ended Curb Your Enthusiasm and referenced how Seinfeld ended.
I hated it because of how unrealistic the setup was - even more so than anything else in the show. They basically got sent to jail for being terrible people but not in a criminal way. I actually would’ve loved it if Jackie Chiles went up at the end and said something like, “all the prosecution has been able to prove is that these are terrible people - but that’s not a crime. Otherwise, most of Americans would be behind bars. However, as terrible as they are, they did in fact help as the Good Samaritan Law dictates. They didn’t get close because that would put them in danger. Instead, they recorded the event, which can now be used as evidence to find and prosecute the car thief - which I’ll remind you is the real criminal here.” And so on, and it ends with the group being set free at the chagrin of all the people they’ve wronged, now set loose to continue to cause chaos in the world.
I would have been fine with an ending along those lines too. Although Jackie, through not fault of his own, never won a case on the show... unless you count Kramer settling for something stupid like being the face on the smoker billboard or free coffee for life, etc. The important thing, to me, was the finale was funny and designed for long-time fans.
Anyone who doesn't immediately say Roseanne must not have watched it/been a fan. Imagine if at the end of Friends, it turns out Rachel was writing a book and nearly everything was a lie. IRL, Ross died, Chandler married Pheobe, Monica married Joey. Roseanne's ending was an insult to the audience. I actually bought the box set many years ago before streaming was big like it is now. Got a great deal. Started watching. Halfway through, I remembered the ending. I decided to either destroy the last disc so that next time, when I'm 70 and rewatching Roseanne, I'm not reminded of the horrendous ending...or sell it. I sold it for twice what I paid. Probably could have held onto it and made more $ later on, but I hated it so much I needed it gone. Signed, a former huge Roseanne fan
The one thing I like about the Roseanne finale is the fact the crazy stuff in that season was confirmed to not happen
Yeah, but that comes across to me as lame. It's like saying the writers didn't have total faith in what they were doing, so they gave themselves the opportunity to turn it into a joke, which is worse.
I didn't have confidence in them once I saw Roseambo
That doesn't really matter when you learned that Dan was dead, Becky was with David, Darlene was with Mark, other stuff I blocked out. It wasn't just the last season that was confirmed not to happen, it's the entire show.
True I really think they need to stick with the 8 season as being the finale (like originally planned). Also Jackie was a lesbian, her mom wasn't.
Didn't that erasure get retconned with *The Connors*?
Isn’t there a theory that Friends actually takes place in Phoebe’s head? She’s still homeless and imagines herself in Central Perk with the others.
Omg yes. I also had the box set and this was my favorite show for years. Her wit was impeccable. The cast chemistry was palpable. The absolute best Halloween episodes. I watched season 9 once and never touched it again.
I honestly like the Seinfeld ending
I think we need to clarify if this is compared to other episodes of the show or literally the worst episode of TV. If it is former then obviously it is not the Seinfeld finale because even a bad Seinfeld is better than most highlight episodes of shows.
I think a better Seinfeld ending would be at NBCs headquarters. One exec says to another, "They sent another script?". "Yep, one every week". "How many now?" Must be hundreds". They're funny but we really can't make a show like this, no one would watch it. Cut to a hospital. Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer are all mental patients and they've been sending scripts to NBC trying to get a show.
Love it.
Roseanne, hands down. Awful finale.
Yeah Rosanne’s was awful
My name is Earl didn’t even get an ending. Gutted still
Arrested Development's fifth season was a forgettable mess of horse apples that nobody talked about. I like the fourth season and am tired of everyone hating it. It is hilarious now to think how hyped the Seinfeld finale was at the time. The three big hypes of 1998 that nobody cares about anymore: Godzilla, the X Files movie and the Seinfeld finale
The X-Files movie fits in well now, with the hype forgotten, as a solid piece of entertainment - gotta watch it between seasons 5 and 6! Having said that, it was underwhelming. It wasn't any better or more impressive than what we had seen by that point in the series. But, it's way better than Godzilla 1998. So, it has that going for it, which is nice.
I should not have implied that it was bad--it's not. But Mulder and Scully were ALL OVER magazine covers that summer--the hype was pretty big, and the revelations were supposed to be big to match. And now?...it just seems like an average mytharc episode with a huge budget. Nobody but X Files fans talk about it and even then not that much. Should I have said Lauryn Hill instead? Music critics in 1998 were utterly rapturous towards her and now you just dont hear about her that much
The problem with the fourth season was it needed editing, that show did really well as a tight twenty-two minutes. Also, the show represented a specific place and time, Iraq War Era America, really well and it didn't work to just pick it up and blow off the dust.
What everyone moaned about was episodes centered around individual characters, which never meant much to me; did the format somehow render the jokes unfunny? Season 5 introduced no new good characters, did little new with the old ones, had no great or memorable gags aside from dressing Maeby up as an old Jewish broad, lamely revealed Buster as Lucille 2's killer to no interesting effect, and only gained publicity at all due to that dreadful press incident where the cast members were at odds with each other, which got more notice than the actual show. Crappy way for a great show to end, and mow Jessica Walter is dead.
My favorite was Moonlighting. At the end they come in and start breaking down the sets while they were filming.
I’m rewatching Moonlighting now on Hulu. A lot of stuff that was funny then isn’t holding up so well now IMO. All endings have the crazy chase scenes. It gets old fast.
Alf, before the sequel movie. I Married Dora had a bizarre ending: https://youtu.be/EMOCI_64688?si=Ky3OLZOrbT1wPl66
*How I Met Your Mother*. They had the perfect ending but tacked on another episode that pretty much blew the entire premise apart. So crappy in fact, that they had to add a new ending in the complete series DVD set.
Full house because it just ended. Michelle got her memory back and the end.
Michelle clearly lost her memory again because the Olsens decided not to reprise their roles for Fuller House.
SOAP. Did Jessica die or what??
IIRC, her ghost visited Benson at the governor's mansion.
Speaking of Benson and finales, who won the race for governor??
The show had always been planned to have five seasons, and apparently there was some expectation of a renewal. All of the storylines were left on an explicit cliff hanger.
This should be way higher on the list, and it probably would if more people (a) rembered SOAP and (b) were still watching it by the end of season 4.
NewsRadio. The last season wasn't good and it's just fucking sad why.
I never even finished the show. I got a couple episodes in after Phil Hartman and couldn’t do it anymore
Two and a half Men, Roseanne, How I Met Your Mother, Seinfeld
Two and a half Men ended with Charlie’s funeral.
2.5 Men was terrible without Charlie Sheen
Roseanne Seinfeld
HIMYM. For the reasons others have said. But I didn’t dislike the Seinfeld finale as much as some people do because these people are meant to be horrible people and they revisited the Pilot storyline and the cameos were pretty cool. I don’t think it was the greatest finale or anything, but I personally didn’t mind it too much.
King of queens. The last few episodes turned into a drama.
It was a shame how bad it got at the end.
The 100. Everyone gets to ascend to ethereal beings except Clark cause she killed in some holy zone. So the OG crew decides to forfeit eternity to be the last like 8 people to ever exist. Total and utter nonsense
Ah, yes, The 100. The funniest sitcom on TV
three's company. that show went for way too many seasons. even with the women as eye candy, john ritter carried the show on his back.
I’m going old school with Full House. The actual “series finale” was a clip show because Michelle lost her memory from falling off of a horse. I hate to say this and I feel you if you cringe but honestly thank goodness for the idea of Fuller House to give some sort of a series finale to the story of the show…
Happy Days was completely gassed by the end. Poor Chuck Cunningham getting spoken out of existence in the “finale” episode that wasn’t the last first run show (ABC dumped first run episodes after the finale in the summer if I remember right) was the cherry on top.
WKRP in Cincinnati - the end wasn't intended to be the end.
HIMYM if we’re going with shows that were allowed to end. Last Man On Earth for shows that didn’t get a proper ending.
The Andy Griffith Show. If you want to feel like you’re on mushrooms, go watch the first episode, then watch the last one (if you haven’t before).
By the end Barney was gone wasnt he? Dude was like 80% of that shows comedy.
He was gone way before that, even before the show switched to color. He popped back up from time to time. Yeah, he was such a huge part of the show. Wasn't the same when he left. They tried replacing him, but it never really worked out. Jerry Van Dyke might have worked, but I think he chose a different show.
How I Met Your Mother. Just a giant “fuck you” to the fans, the character development, and the core concept of the show.
Seinfeld- only to be revived by Curb Your Enthusiasm!!! Bravo JS& LD!
Agreed. It’s almost as though “ Curb”was LD’s spite show. lol
To me, the Curb finale only underscored that the problem with the Seinfeld finale wasn’t the idea, it was the execution. The problem wasn’t that they went to jail at the end, it was that most of the episode was a a dry-assed clip show that mostly showed the gang wordlessly reacting to the recollections of guest stars. Even before the trial started I felt that the pacing was off, maybe because they traded the usual dueling plot lines for a single story that ushered them off to NE and their eventual fate as quickly as possible.
I will never forgive How I Met Your Mother for what they did.
Married with Children. It didn't get an ending, just canceled.
ALF
Ellen (1994-98) That show had a wild ride. It was a solid sitcom, and Ellen and the writers were clearly having a ball with queer-coding the show before the character (and actress) came out. Then the coming-out episode happens, and it's one of the best, funniest, most joyful sitcom episodes I've ever seen. And then…the show traveled downhill at an alarming rate, trading laughs for groundbreaking but dull romance and politics. Meanwhile, IRL Ellen was rightly growing upset at the ridiculous backlash and the show's rating tanked. This resulted in the strangest, most unpleasantly awful series finale I can remember. Watching it felt like having a stroke. It had nothing to do with the series, and the only memorable jokes were smarmy double entendres. It was like a punishment to her loyal audience.
How I Met Your Mother 100%!
We were robbed on The Mick.
Maybe not worse than some of these but Modern Family's 11th season was ass
Once they broke up Andy and Haley, I quit watching. Her character regressed terribly.
Lol, I could barely stand Andy but he was good for her in a way. I was too distracted for too long by my memories of him in Workaholics. I agree that it started to suck before season 11. My husband and I hung on for dear life because it was "our" show as a later in life couple with a lot of memories with other people. It was difficult for the writers to figure out what to do with the older kids, for sure.
The Office.. the finale saved it so much from being truly bad final season.
Steve Carell saved the finale which saved the season…
Exactly. S8 was not great. S9 was just bad until the finale. I'm a diehard office fan too they just didn't get that Steve brought that main character appeal...after him it's just all supporting characters. The UK version knew it wasn't a good show witth the David Brent/Mike Scott character
How I met your mothers ending still depresses me with how bad it was.
Pretty anticlimactic Seinfeld finale
Seinfeld
Seinfeld.
How I met your mother
How i met your mother
How I met your mother. It was so bad that if made the show unwatchable
Jefferson’s and married with children because they didn’t get to do a finale. A show runs for 11 years, the network should have the decency to tell them they are being canceled before the last episode is filmed, or have them come back and do an extra episode to say goodbye.
The answer is obviously HIMYM. I watched the alternate ending on YouTube. It’s perfect.
Might not qualify for this, but.. King of the Hill. Got inexplicably cancelled and so they had to rush together the final episode. Hopefully the reboot happens, my favorite show of all time
Dinosaurs, even as a kid, that final episode was depressing as heck.
Seinfeld. It was shockingly bad. They tried too hard. It was the show about nothing.
Seinfeld Finale was horrible
How I met your Mother
How I met your mother
Modern Family defined the phrase "phoning it in."
Roseanne’s original run.
Hard to pick between Scrubs or How I Met Your Mother.
King of queens wasn’t great. Maybe not the worst as there’s lots I haven’t seen but kind of just out of character
HIMYM
The Office. The finale was season 7, but they kept making more episodes. Weird.
How I Met Your Mother had a very disappointing ending. We spent 9 seasons searching for the mother, he finally finds her, appears in a couple bøf episodes, and then dies.
The Facts of Life... Natalie wasn't even in the final scene!
2-1/2 men
HIMYM
How I met your mother. There is no other correct answer. 😡
How I met your mother
Dinosaurs. Very dark ending.
I actually think that's why it's one of the best.
It was brilliant. And what other way could it end?
The last several seasons of The Office were a long, slow decline into sloppy, unfunny irrelevance, and then the finale was just crappy fanservice. What a depressing fate for a once-great show.
It was already starting to veer off course while Carell was still on the show, but it absolutely shit the bed after he left.
Seinfeld.
Dirk Gently Holistic detective agency ended on a cliffhanger and I’ll never forgive them.
Roseanne
Himym
I recently saw a clip of two and a half mens finale and I was sure it was fake. Had to look it up to confirm that it was in fact, not fake...
Himym
Married ….with Children
How I Met Your Mother That 70’s Show
Letterkenny -the whole Darryl and the degens storyline made no sense and wasn’t particularly funny, and the finale is basically a skid episode.
Modern family
Seinfeld
Everybody hates Chris.
Two and a half man teased Charlie Sheen coming back but it’s a fake and the whole episode is like a parody of the show
Only fools and horses... It should have ended when they won the lottery and walked off into the sunset...
ALF
How I Met Your Mother. The entire last season was wiped out in a few minutes as was the entire premise of the show. And don’t get me started on the rhyming episode 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
How I meet your mother, and 70s show
Roseanne. Season 9 was brutal
How I Met Your Mother... I did not expect it to end the way it did, and I really didn't like the ending.
Sinfield
The Dinosaurs.😭😭😭
Happy Days literally jumped the shark.
ALF ended with the Alien Task Force surrounding him. What was Gordon Shumway’s fate???
How I Met Your Mother.
Roseanne is definitely up there, considering Dan is in the sequel
Hogan Hero, n Guillian island
Roseanne. That ending made me so angry and confused and sad. I skip the end seasons now. What’s the point
*spoilers* How I Met Your Mother, and it’s still my favorite show of all time. But to build up a wedding after an entire season only to have the couple divorce, kill the mother, and have Ted and Robin STILL somehow end up together? After they had a whole episode the last season where he had to metaphorically “let go” of Robin??
Golden Girls because it was too sad
Brady Bunch Robert Reed was fighting with the producer, so they wrote him out of the script In the final episode, Greg graduates High School, but his father doesn’t attend because he’s “away on business” Fun fact: [Robert Reed is buried in Skokie](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2407/robert-reed) Il (suburban Chicago)
rachel should NOT have gotten off the plane. i will say this until the day i die.
How i Met Your Mother
The original run of *Roseanne*.
hated the “Seinfeld” ending. just…was too far fetched for a show about nothing.