The Dexter finale will forever be, in my opinion, one of the worst series finale of any television show that I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t simply a sad capper to what was ultimately an incredibly disappointing final season. No, the Dexter finale ruined the entire legacy of the show. Now anytime I watch one of Dexter‘s great seasons (meaning seasons one, two, four, and seven, in my opinion), I can’t enjoy it as much because the Dexter finale lingers like a terrible stench around the entire carcass of the show. However, while the Dexter finale was quite possibly one of the worst things to air on TV in the past few years, there are some other finales that may even beat it. Here are five TV finales that are worse than (or equal to) the Dexter finale.
Seinfeld
The Seinfeld finale is similar to the Dexter finale in the sense that it tarnished the legacy of a truly great show. Even though Jerry and the gang being put on trail for being terrible people isn’t as bad as Deb dying and Dexter faking his death in order to become a lumberjack (still makes me angry), it’s still not even a good episode of television from one TV’s beloved and acclaimed sitcoms.
How I Met Your Mother
Here’s another sitcom that had a clunker for a finale. While I understand that the How I Met Your Mother writers had planned out and actually shot scenes for their series finale way near the beginning of the show’s run, they had to realize, on some level, how unsatisfying everything would play out to its audience after nine years of investment. Barney and Robin? Divorced. The Mother that we just spent all that time getting to know? Dead. And Ted and Robin? I still don’t get it. After all the time How I Met Your Mother spent on the Barney/Robin relationship, how does Ted end up with her? This is one rare case where planning out your finale from the beginning proved to be the wrong move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAOVxqg49DQ
St. Elsewhere
What’s the best way to end a hard-hitting, intense medical drama like St. Elsewhere? Let’s just say it was all the dream of a kid with autism who was staring into a snow globe this entire time. That’s right. Six seasons worth of episodes, six seasons worth of character development, and six seasons worth of fans caring about this show, and it was all nullified by, in my opinion, the worst series finale ending of all-time.
Roseanne
Many people call Roseanne one of the most underrated sitcoms to ever air on TV. That may be true, but there was one thing that certainly was not underrated about the show: its series finale. The Roseanne finale revealed to the show’s fans that the disappointing final season of the show had all been a fictitious creation from the work of writer Roseanne Conner. The worst part about all of it? It turned out that Dan Conner, Roseanne’s husband (played by the always magnificent John Goodman), had died of a heart attack. What a sad, stupid, and terrible note to go out on.
Heroes
I’ve got an idea. We know our show has terrible rating and is most likely going to be canceled. This could very well be our last episode on the air. How should we end it? Oh, I know. Yes. Let’s end it on a cliffhanger! Heroes did a lot of moronic things in the three seasons following its near-perfect first season, but none of them may be more plain stupid than not giving fans closure on the series, instead deciding to leave the fate of the show’s characters open ended after Claire exposing herself to the entire world. Maybe Heroes Reborn, the new reboot/spinoff of the original series was able to course-correct this awful finale with its final episode tonight.
Follow Us
To be honest I don’t think the finale was THAT bad. It was still one pf the worst episodes of the series, but I liked how it was a more HUMAN episode. Something which Dexter had been trying to achieve throughout the entire series. While the finale doesn’t really give the supporting characters an ending. That’s OK cause the show never really gave them any story either. The series at heart was about Dexter and Debra, so it made sense that the finale focused almost entirely on the and their relationship.
The finale, like the entire final season was heavily underrated. The only reason it gets such negative responses is because it wasn’t what people expected. I thought the finale did a great job at showing the audience how much Dexter really loved Debra, although he still didn’t cry!! Seriously Dexter!!
As a whole it was actually a great ending. Or it would have been had the episode ended with Hannah and Harrison in Argentina. It was the final minute of the episode which ruins the finale. If Dexter was going to fake his death, then why on earth did he sail the boat into the storm?! By doing that he so easily could’ve died.
Another thing that the final season did wrong was keeping Hannah around. I liked that she came back for 3 episodes, but she should’ve got on the plane. That should have been her character’s ending. Forever on the run.
I personally wanted a finale where Hannah left on the plane earlier, Debra survived being shot and Dexter was eventually caught. He would then be executed. Then the show could have ended with Debra, back on the force chasing some sort of murderer, corner him and hesitate. She could have heard Harry’s voice telling her to arrest him, but then hears Dexter’s telling her to kill him. The final shot would be Debra looking directly at the camera and saying something like “Oh F-k me”.
Tie for St Elsewhere and Rosanne. One thing I kept hoping for during the six seasons of Tommy staring into a snowglobe was that he’d just be written off.