I have some bad news to share with you. It is inevitable that your favorite TV shows will come to an end. Unless your favorite show is The Simpsons, and if that is the case you could be watching that forever. A TV finale should give a proper send off to the characters you have grown to love and also give you a feeling of satisfaction. However, not all shows give us want we want, some even make us angry. Here is a list of the most disappointing television finales of all time.
10. Seinfeld, May 14, 1998
You may be surprised that Seinfeld only ranks as #10 on this list. Personally, I liked the final episode. After doing my research for this piece, I found out that everyone disagrees with me. The episode did turn into an hour-long clip show reliving the last nine seasons from the soup Nazi to Babu Bat. Maybe if NBC hadn’t decided to air a clip-show prior to the finale, not as many people would not have been upset with the episode. I mean c’mon. It was the show about nothing. What else did you expect to see?
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9. Little House on the Prairie, February 6, 1984
Who knew people would love their town so much that they would blow it up to save it? Well, the citizens of Walnut Grove did just that in the final episode of Little House on the Prairie. The townsfolk were not happy that a railroad tycoon took ownership of the town. They decide to send him a message and let off explosives in every building. I don’t think they entirely thought this plan through. But as Reverend Alden said, “Walnut Grove did not die in vain,” so I guess they proved some point. I am not sure what it is though.
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8. Desperate Housewives, May 13, 2012
When Desperate Housewives first hit the airwaves, it was everyone’s guilty pleasure. By the time the 8th season rolled around, viewers felt guilty for still watching this nighttime soap. In the final moments of the series, we watch as Susan leaves Wisteria Lane. As she drives away, viewers caught a glimpse of all the people who have died over the years. What should have been a touching good-bye turned morbid very quickly. It also made me never want to move to the suburbs.
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7. Dinosaurs, July 20, 1994
If you were born in the 1980’s, you probably remember Dinosaurs. You may not remember how the show ended. Earl poisons all the plants on Earth. This then caused the sun to be blocked out. The Sinclair family are stuck together in their home freezing and knowing their lives would be ending. I remember watching that episode almost twenty years ago and crying because all of the characters were going to die. You don’t expect something like that from the Jim Henson Company.
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6. Full House, May 23, 1995
Full House was always known as a sappy family sitcom, but the finale took that one step further. Michelle falls off a horse and ends up with amnesia. Yes, I kid you not. The rest of the episode is spent trying to get Michelle to remember her family and how much they love her. As luck would have it, Michelle remembers everyone right before the series concludes after 8 seasons. The show ended with that special music we grew to love and the family hugging it out one last time. It just seemed like every other episode and not a finale. Now we are left wondering what happened to Jesse, DJ, and even Kimmy Gibbler…
5. Friends, May 6, 2004
Over 52 million watched as Rachel, Joey, Phoebe, Chandler, Monica, and Ross said good-bye on the last episode of Friends. As someone who was an avid watcher from the very beginning, I was happy that Ross and Rachel ended up together and that Chandler and Monica were greeted with not one but two beautiful babies. In the final minutes, I was hoping for a look into the future to see that they did truly stay friends. Instead, I watched as the group walked out of the apartment and one final shot of that picture frame on Monica’s apartment door. After 10 years of being a devoted fan, I felt cheated by this ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Lxh1yEO5U
4. Alf, March 24, 1990
You usually expect a sitcom, especially one that is aimed to a younger audience, to end on a happy note. That was not the case for Alf. Our favorite alien was about to head home to Melmac, but instead was captured by the U.S. Military. This finale was intended to be a cliff-hanger, but NBC never did produce the following episode so viewers could find out about poor Alf’s fate. Hopefully, he made it out alive.
3. The Sopranos, June 10, 2007
When you were watching the finale minutes of The Sopranos, you most likely thought that your television was on the fritz. Luckily, your TV was not broken that was just how the show ended. So instead of being mad at your cable provider you are now fuming over this pathetic ending that left you wondering what happened to Tony, Carmela, AJ, and Meadow. My guess is since they were in the mob, their lives would not have ended that well anyway. Tony did say when life ended it turned to black…
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2. Dexter, September 22, 2013
8 years of watching Dexter murder hundreds of people, could not prepare fans for one of the most disappointing finales of all time. The final minutes show a bearded Dexter in a lumber camp far away from his son in Beunos Aires. The show ended without an answer as to how Dexter is handling his murderous tendencies. Plus, he receives no redemption for his actions, only exile. Are we to assume that he ends up taking his own life with no one else around to murder?
Photo by Kevin Winter Getty images
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKhMLoWPtbE
1. Lost, May 23, 2010
Viewers of Lost expected all of their questions to get answered in the series finale. After all, they did dedicate six season to watching a show about mysterious numbers, polar bears, and even a smoke eating monster. Instead, fans found out something they had predicted since season one: everyone was dead. The final episode runs 100 minutes sans commercials and answered zero burning questions. Talk about almost two hours (two and a half if you watched it live with commercials) of your life you will never get back and to enjoy better series finales like Friday Night Lights or Six Feet Under.
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Dinosaurs ended as it *had* to end. If you’re doing a show where the characters are dinosaurs, you know that eventually they are all going to die, sitcom or no sitcom.
Aren’t there like 20 “Land Before Time” movies?
You are correct, dinosaurs did eventually die out. However, that does not mean a sitcom, with a largely young fan base needed to kill off the entire cast.
It just would have been fake to end the show indicating that everything continued on indefinitely and that everyone lived happily ever after.
Lost is #1 on your list. Oh please, get over it. You didn’t get it. Move on.
To be honest, I have never watched Lost. I was basing this on the countless articles I read devoted to Lost claiming how disappointed fans were with the outcome. Thanks for reading the article.
There was no finale to that show that would have satisfied everyone, unless it was just 2.5 hours of the characters sitting down and asking each other questions and giving answers. Would that have been more satisfying? It definitely would have been more boring.
And you put Lost on your list, #1 even, and you never watched the show before? Isn’t that like reviewing a movie that you didn’t see?
In order to be able to include every television show, I have to base some of my findings on research. I am only one person after all and can’t watch every TV show.. I read numerous articles, not just fan posts, when I came to my conclusion. And since so many fans were disappointed at the ending, that is why it was number one. Hornacek, I wrote a paper in college about the effects of cocaine usage and I have never done drugs. In order to write the paper, I used articles related to the topic like I did for this piece.
LOST is an awesome series with a ton of questions answered over it’s run, and even into the finale, including definitively answering if they were dead the whole time (They weren’t, what happened, happened).
The only real questions left hanging were plot threads from early on in the show that had to be abandoned for very obvious production issues, like the 8 year old kid hitting puberty like a brick wall, and in demand actors leaving to pursue film roles. I heard a few of them also had to leave Hawaii after a couple DUIs.
I highly recommend sitting down and watching the series. I’ve convinced a few friends to marathon it and no one who pays attention is let down by the finale. Fans of the first season who tuned in for the finale were the vocal confused internet majority. It definitely gets a worse rap than it deserves. Unlike the sopranos or some of the other shows on your list, LOST has a very tidy “this is what happened to everyone” ending.
James, I have always wanted to watch the show. It is on my must watch list before I turn 30. I have two more years. Thanks for reading the article.
Tim. TIM. You can’t NOT watch Lost and then make that your number one. That’s SUPER unfair.
If you’re basing it on the complain-y Internet’s reaction, that’s also unfair.
My experience is that for every fan that was disappointed, there was a fan who LOVED the finale, and was totally satisfied by it.
And also from my experience, most fans who didn’t like it, also didn’t GET it, or didn’t understand that the characters were NOT all dead, but the show instead fast-forwarded in time to when after ALL the characters were dead, and their meeting in the afterlife/heaven/whatever. I’ve had to explain that to MULTIPLE people. Usually because they watched the first two seasons, and then skipped to the last episode. You have to watch every episode.
TIM. Haha, come on, man!
every was dead, but they didn’t die from the plain crash come on, that prediction from season was false!
Alf’s cliffhanger was resolved, in a telemovie years later
Project ALF
It is sad that viewers had to wait 6 years to see the outcome.
They didn’t have to answer whether Tony lived or died definitively. Just end the show with the end of a scene, not cut it off in the middle of one. Very disappointing.
Although i do not agree with this list, it was still a good article buddy. I love nostalgia
The X Files ended with 2 hours of Fox Mulder explaining in a hearing what happened over 7 seasons, boring the audience, and then with some unresolved bs from the smoking man at the end about 2012. Much worse ending that Friends.
Roseanne, the famous sitcom from the late 80’s early 90’s, ended with it being some kind of dream or in her head, which was really lame, which had already been done on other shows.
Actually the ending of Alf was appropriate. They probably dissected him. But didn’t it continue in that cartoon in the 80’s? So it didn’t end. He ends up on Melmac.
The Friends ending made sense. The show ended with the babies, not continued, but then they made a spin off that quickly didn’t make it.
Dinosaurs should not be on the list. You just needed 10, right?
Agree with Lost and the Sopranos.
The Little House ending was kind of cool. They realized the show needed to go out with a bang.
What about the ending of Happy Days?
What about the ending of Murphy Brown, the show that coined the net expression ‘the baby factor’ and forgot about that baby by the final season. Nobody even remembers how it ended.
I loved the X-Files finale. It gave me all the answers I needed. I still think it’s the best show ever made.
I honestly liked the finale of “Friends”. I was disappointed with the finale of “How I Met Your Mother”.
Dexter was awful, but the entire final season of Weeds was the worst of all time.
Agreed Dinosaurs is one of the saddest finale I ever remember seeing I cried while watching it. I’m in my mid 30’s and I still have my Baby Dinosaurs stuffed animal.
My most disappointing finale was actually Caroline in the city. Four years of wanting Caroline to get with Richard only to break them up in the finale season. Then have Caroline be about to marry someone else when Richard showing up in the end.
Married with children I could barely remember their finale. Did they even have one.
I thought the Friends finale was fine and same with the Seinfeld one. They were sitcoms. It’s not like they were going to throw in some big dramatic twist. The worst finale to me was How I Met Your Mother. We barely see him meet the mother and they kill her off….then it turns out the whole show was really How I Met Robin and she was in the pilot. So they strung viewers along for years about meeting the mother and he ends up with the same girl we meet at the very start of the show. The mother was made completely irrelevant to the entire show. What a screw you to viewers.
Don’t think I’d call it “brilliant”. If they had shown him get shot or shown his family’s reaction it would have been the exact same scene minus the fade to black at the end. All the did was stop the scene short and cut out because the scene was from point of view. Nothing really brilliant about that.
I liked the Friends finale. I thought it gave plenty of closure and that’s why I don’t think there necessarily has to be a reunion show. I was happy with the ending.