10 Worst Television Finales

There’s no feeling like finishing a TV show.

Whether you are bingeing for the first time, or ending a long week-to-week journey, watching the end credits of your favorite television show for the last time can be both a heartbreaking and exhilarating experience.

But what happens when the series you put so much time in ends badly, when your illusions are shattered or questions are left unanswered. That disappointment happens more often than you might think as some stories have no perfect ending. (Spoiler Alert warning!)

Scroll through to see some of the worst TV finales of our time.

DEXTER

Deemed one of the most disappointing series conclusions in television history, even series star Michael C. Hall thought having Dexter become a lumberjack in the end was rather strange.

“Liked it? I don’t think I even watched it,” Hall told The Daily Beast in 2014. “I thought it was narratively satisfying — but it was not so savory.”

How I Met Your Mother

After nine seasons, the hour-long finale packed many plot points into its final moments. Barney and Robin got divorced. Ted marries the Mother. The Mother gets sick and dies. And then Ted asks Robin out, going back to the pilot episode.

Fans discovered that while they thought they were investing in meeting the Mother, they were actually listening to the story of how Ted always loved the kids’ dear Aunt Robin. Ted/Robin shippers got their happy ending, but many fans were left unsatisfied with the central premise of the series.

Lost

Ultimately polarizing not for its mysteries but for its answers, the Lost series finale had a grand sweep, giving many members of its cast glorious send-offs into the white light — and in the end, turned out to have been powered far more by feeling than fact.

The emotional finale felt somewhat like an insult to avid fans of the show’s mysteries, who wished for concrete answers.

Life on Mars

The American version of Life on Mars — about a modern-day cop (Jason O’Mara) who finds himself in the 1970s — wasn’t bad. If nothing else, it was a good excuse to see a ton of frayed leather jackets and co-star Michael Imperioli with a pretty cool mustache.

But while the UK original ended the series on a melancholic and ambiguous note, the American version decided to go for the obvious (they were in a spaceship to Mars) twist.

Roseanne

At least they’re getting a do-over for this one.

The final episode of Roseanne‘s original run undid so much of what fans had known about everyone’s favorite lower middle class family. Not only did we learn that Dan (John Goodman) had died after his heart attack at Darlene’s (Sarah Gilbert) wedding — meaning all of season 9 never happened — we also found out that Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) was just writing a fictional version of her life. In her actual reality, everything from couplings to characters’ sexuality was different.

Luckily, Roseanne’s book was thrown out of the writer’s room for the reboot season.

The Sopranos

After seven seasons of crime, you’d think Tony (James Gandolfini) would end up in jail or on the run, but the groundbreaking HBO drama chose the subtle ending. The series came to a surprisingly anticlimactic end as the family sat for dinner, having normal conversation ending in a now-infamous cut to black.

Critics called the episode a brilliant ending, but fans were left wondering if that was actually the end.

My So-Called Life

Just when Angela Chase (Claire Danes) seemingly got everything she wanted in the form of a soul-baring love letter from her less-than-verbal über-crush Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto), she realized the note was actually written by the boy next door Brian Krackow (Devon Gummersall). As Angela stepped into Jordan’s car, rekindling their romance, she paused to take a lingering look back at Brian, who was suddenly someone to consider.

The complication proved all the more heartbreaking after the series was no picked up for a second season, leaving the near-perfect series to end in a heartbreaking cliffhanger. 

Seinfeld

Fans who had followed Seinfeld through nine long seasons expected some closure at the end. Instead, co-creator Larry David returned to write a spiteful, near-absurd finale that literally put the foursome on trial for all its bad behavior.

A clever finale for sure, but it left the audience feeling stung by a show they loved.

Dinosaurs

The TGIF series focused on a family of prehistoric creatures had a tragic end despite being a light-hearted comedy. The series wrapped up with a predictable episode showing how the dinosaur family died.

Despite some jokes during the episodes, watching the Sinclairs meet their end proved a real downer for fans of the series, as dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago, did we really need to be reminded of that?

Gilligan’s Island

Instead of wrapping up the world’s longest three-hour tour, this island-bound finale might as well have been any old episode, with weird antics distracting from any actual plot that might wrap up the show in a meaningful way.

It was barely worthy of a season-ender, forget an unexpected series finale.