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Forum » Retro T.V. & Movies » Worst Series Finales
blueluigi
Well, here's a topic that has popped up in my head that I think we can all share.

What were the worst series finales you've ever seen?


Here's a few that I can name.


ALF - CONSIDER ME GONE


I know that ALF is not exactly the most well written television show out there, but I do have a soft side for this type of show. Anyway, the plot to this episode involves ALF recieving a message from his friends, Skip and Rhonda, telling him that they bought a new planet, and they want ALF to join with them. Meanwhile, the Alien Task Force has been working on tracking down ALF as they received the message that was from ALF's Melmackian friends.


Part of the episode did feel like a nice way to closing up the series as the Tanner family have been giving their warm goodbyes to ALF. But then... came the ending. The Tanner family dropped off ALF on his destination, and they stayed to watch ALF get picked up by the Melmackian spaceship. But then the Alien Task Force came along, the spaceship left behind, ALF is left surrounded by the ATF, and..... the episode ends. That is quite a way to end the show, don't you think.

I know this wasn't originally planned on being the series finale, since there was another season planned that would pick up right where that episode left off. Unfortunately, NBC did not renew ALF, and this left people speculating that ALF has been dissected by the Alien Task Force.

They did eventually make a TV movie to resolve the series finale, which is titled, Project ALF. The movie told us that ALF did indeed stay alive, but they've been performing different experiments on him over the years and he eventually escaped. Unfortunately, this TV movie left an even bigger set of problems. Like how the Tanner family was sent to some rehabilitation program, and were moved to Iceland. But what's worse is how ALF himself, for some reason, does not remember the Tanner family, or even his Melmackian friends. It was never explained why in the whole film, AND he never reunited with them. It just felt to me like this TV movie was made as a half-assed attempt to close the gap that people felt over the years from the series finale. However, it's because of those problems that I can't accept this as the official continuation. Besides, I'm pretty sure the producers had a much better continuation planned if it weren't for ALF getting cancelled.


DINOSAURS - CHANGING NATURE


This seems to be designed as one of those "very special episodes". There was even a warning in a TV Guide issue that this episode may be disturbing to audiences. It ended up in what's probably one of the most WTFish series finales out there.

The plot started off when the Bunch Beetle were supposed to arrive to start eating up the vines of the Cider Poppy and mate together. Everyone counted down for their arrival... but nothing happens. They didn't show up when they were supposed to. It was revealed later in the episode that there was only one Bunch Beetle left, and all the others were exterminated in a new wax candy factory that replaced the Bunch Beetle's mating swamp. Because this wiped out all the Bunch Beetle's in the world, it did damage to the entire ecosystem as the Cider Poppies would not go away because of it.

It was revealed that this was caused by the Wesayso corporation, the company that Earl Sinclair works for. Earl was put in charge to by the company to help solve the world problems. This led to him... causing the end of the world. Yup, apparently, Earl caused the end of the dinosaurs. He's the one that was put in charge of setting off the active volcanoes, and the family turned bitter towards him. Earl realized in the end that he may have been gullible for causing the Ice Age and apologizes in the end.

While I don't find this as bad as the ALF series finale, one of the main things I didn't like about this episode was the harsh tone they set it to. Earl and the rest of the Sinclair family may have been portrayed as ignorant and dangerous before, but not something like this. I can't really say much to describe my distaste for this series finale.


TEEN TITANS - THINGS CHANGE


Yeah, I know Teen Titans isn't exactly retro. But still, this is a series finale I just simply can't get over. I have no idea what they writers were thinking when they came up with this. I thought the episode before it was a great way to close the series as it reunites all the Titans, and pretty much all of the villains in the whole show were through. That should have been the series finale.

But... they made another episode... and this is one that came out of nowhere. It was where Beast Boy finds a young girl that looked like Terra, the titan from season 2 that betrayed the other members and was turned to stone in the end. After Beast Boy meets up with Terra in this episode, she doesn't seem to remember her past and was now just a normal high school girl. After Beast Boy started thinking it was his imagination, he decided to visit her statue, which was now gone. Slade returns, and Beast Boy asks what he's done with her. The episode ends with Beast Boy giving up on trying to convince her to remember... and that's it.

I know they did eventually come out with the Teen Titans TV Movie, Trouble in Tokyo. I personally found that to be better than what the series finale turned out to be. However, it still didn't resolve anything that happened in the final episode.

They did recently make Teen Titans GO!, but I have no interest in that show. To me, it seems to be the producers attempt to try to cash in on the success of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. An idea, which I think is dumb in itself, and the adult fanbase that watches girly shows like these are a bunch of idiots anyway.


Phew... well, this post turned out longer than I expected. So, what were your worst series finales?


EDIT: I have no idea how most of this post turned out with orange text. I guess you'll have to highlight it to read.


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Mr Magic
Full House's series finale.

I mean, it's bad enough it was all about Michelle, but why did it end the way it did? It just didn't have a series finale type of ending. Heck, the episode itself didn't even feel like a series finale, but an ordinary episode. One good thing about it, though, was that Steve made a comeback to the series.
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pikachulover
Seinfeld.

It was just so dumb in a bad way. I was sorely disappointed with it.

Survivor Borneo (First series)

I really wanted Rudy to win.
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Vaporman87
What about Lost? I can't say I was exactly thrilled by the ending. It left too much unexplained. I was really hoping for everything to be spelled out at long last.

EDIT: Not "retro" either, but I can't say I watched very many finale's in my youth.
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shakin steak
Hm. I like the endings of Alf and Dinosaurs. Every ending doesn't have to be happy. Even though they were silly shows.
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Mr Magic
I don't know how many people like How I Met Your Mother, but the ending to the series finale was said to be pretty bad. That and The Sopranos finale.
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shakin steak
Since my last post ITT, I've watched Dinosaurs again.  They were always pretty "harsh" with the environmental and social messages.  Good ending that was appropriate for the series overall, IMO.
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ThatDudeintheHoodie
The Scubs Finale. The season 8 finale was so perfect that they should have made that the final episode. Then they made season 9 and ruined it. I still think Scrubs is one of the best comedies to come out in the past 10 - 15 years. But that finale and 9th season screwed it all up.

As for the whole Teen Titans GO! thing I hated that show cause they used the same characters and isn't related to the show at all. They really were trying to ride the MLP:FiM wave and fell on their face since they were only going on an established IP. MLP has more to it then that since the person that brought it back also worked on PowerPuff Girls with her Husband as well as Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends which also was a good show. Such as good writing, Actual character development, Animation that you can't really tell is Flash animation and good voice acting.
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vkimo
I rarely followed any shows throughout their entirety and recalling finales is pretty hard. Although finales can be bad I much prefer a bad finale to a show that was just cancelled and left unresolved. Or like a lot of cartoons where the last episode was no different than any other.

I watched the Rosanne finale and thought it was bizarre. The whole show was made up to begin with, and to say the whole last season wasn't what really happened was just equally preposterous.
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Vaporman87
Some folks don't care for the Sopranos finale.
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Mr Magic

Vaporman87 wrote :

Some folks don't care for the Sopranos finale.
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It just cut off.

 

Why is it that popular shows always have poor series finales?

 

 



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