Worst series ending concepts

[Villano]

X-Files.

M.A.N.T.I.S. - Blew up himself (and his girlfriend) in order to kill an invisible dinosaur.

Dallas - My mom used to watch this show when I was a kid. I taped the final episode for her and watched it out of curiosity. It ends with an "It's A Wonderful Life" take off where J.R. is shown (by Joel Grey) that the world would have been a better place if he was dead. To make things even dumber, it turns out Grey is the Devil.

Highlander - Speaking of bad "It's A Wonderful Life" endings...

 

[wingsandsword]

I actually liked the last episode of Seinfeld, all those jerks getting thrown in prison. I normally never watched the show because every one of them was a reprehensible person and I found it boring to watch them, but they actually got their comeuppance in the end with a finale devoted to pointing out what terrible people they were.

Star Trek: Enterprise had a finale that was actually an insult to fans. The entire episode is told as a Next Generation episode featuring Riker and Troi, as Riker plays a historic holodeck file reenacting the last mission of the Enterprise NX-01 as a subplot to the TNG episode "The Pegasus", set 10 years after the main body of the series, we see a main character die a meaningless death, and we get a glimpse of the signing of the charter of the Federation itself (the day NX-01 was decommissioned, thus it was never a Federation Starship so Enterprise-D can be the fifth Federation Starship Enterprise), but just as Archer is about to give a speech that Riker and Troi have talked about being incredibly historic (they had to memorize it in grade school, sort of the Federation version of the Gettysburg Address), it fades out.

The MASH finale was very preachy to be sure, but Alan Alda's original concept was much worse, to have a normal episode, but at the end you hear the Director say "Cut" and stagehands appear and start carrying everything away and taking the sets apart, and Alda breaks character and the 4th wall to give an anti-war speech directly to the audience. The network scoffed at this one and we got an end to the war at least. Personally, I prefer MASH before it became the "Alan Alda Propaganda Show".

I didn't care for the end of X-Files, with Mulder being sentenced to death by a secret military court and ending up as a fugitive on the run.

I missed the last episode of M.A.N.T.I.S., sounds like I should be glad I did.

 

[Nightfall]

Same here, M.A.N.T.I.S got a little goofy with that whole "Men in Black from another galaxy" thing.

For Highlander the TV show, they didn't actually END it so much as it was the last one they could run, much like what happened with Farscape.

 

[Crothian]

I liked the end of Highlander, any way they bring back Fitz is a plus in mky book.

 

[Nightfall]

Agreed, Fitz was, unquestionably, one of the best characters on that show.

 

[mojo1701]

I dunno. I thought the ending of Enterprise was an interesting concept, but only if pulled off brilliantly.

 

[Crothian]

Friends was pretty bad. Night Coiurt has horrid.

 

[Dark Jezter]

The MASH finale was very preachy to be sure, but Alan Alda's original concept was much worse, to have a normal episode, but at the end you hear the Director say "Cut" and stagehands appear and start carrying everything away and taking the sets apart, and Alda breaks character and the 4th wall to give an anti-war speech directly to the audience. The network scoffed at this one and we got an end to the war at least. Personally, I prefer MASH before it became the "Alan Alda Propaganda Show".

You aren't the only one. Even Peter Griffin from Family Guy once commented that he hated MASH after "Alan Alda took control behind the camera and the show got all depressing and preachy."

 

[Nightfall]

Like Peter Griffin has any room to talk. He got his comeback thanks to CN.

Crothy,

I forgot how Night Court ended.

 

[Templetroll]

Came up in the LOST thread. What was the worst ending concept for a series?

I'd go with St. Elsewhere. It ends up the whole show was the brainchild of some genius kid staring at the hospital in a snowglobe. Anything worse?

He was autistic and the episode was great!

Fiscus' last E.R. patient is a lady from the opera... But is it really over? The jaw-dropping climax culminates in a blue-collared dad placing his young autistic son Tommy Westphall's miniature St. Eligius snow globe on the living room TV set, having summoned him to dinner. "St. Elsewhere's" entire six-year saga had all been a figment of little Tommy's imagination! Finally, the poor MTM kitten lay wavering on a respirator during the final slew of end credits; after which, he flat lines and expires.

Even the end credit was an inside joke. It was a great show and went out with a great twist that tied in all the other TV references during the series.