Which show had the worst finale?

Reni

Now that Game of Thrones has ended, a lot of people are bringing up Lost. But these are not the only two shows that ended disappointingly. What did you think was the worst? For me, Dexter takes the prize.
I also found this infographic, and the fan in me must point out: Lost isn't even in the top 8! Stop shitting on us, people!
I almost forgot about True Blood, too. A friend of mine quit the show around season 5 and when I told her how it ended she legit did not believe me because it was so stupid. She thought I made it up, lol.

MrX

Dexter and True Blood were truly terrible. I didn't watch How I Met Your Mother but a lot of critics have said it basically ruins the series. I think Game of Thrones is rated "worse" than those not because the finale was actually worse, but that relative to the body of work of the show it was a bigger drop in quality. Dexter and True Blood for example had been pretty bad for a few seasons so the bad finales weren't necessarily as jarring.

And also because for Thrones there is likely a bigger vocal group of the fans who would be motivated to rate it on IMDB (remember - IMDB ratings can be a useful snapshot but ultimately it's a self-selecting group - people have to choose to go and leave a rating. Folks who are pissed are more likely to leave rating that people who were "meh" or even thought it was good).

bizmarkiefader

Dragonball Z, really? Weird.

Dexter was the worst for a show I was invested in. That entire final season was such a joke and they somehow managed to make it worse almost every shot until the final one. Just a clinic in terrible TV endings.

telephoneofmadness

Twin Peaks should definitely be on there. David Lynch is the master of trolling the audience with bad endings.

All the Chickens

Most seem to enjoy the actual final episode of GOT itself, if judged in a vacuum, but many didn't enjoy how the series wrapped up as a whole. It seems like critics and fans who actually go on these sites to give a rating are mostly hung up on just not enjoying a certain story arc that was launched a couple of episodes ago moreso than how we left our characters and the story in this particular final episode.

I think that once you crack that lid on the vehement "Luke in TLJ" style nerd anger of (some) fans, they could have given us 10 more episodes after episodes 4 and 5, and all 10 of those subsequent episodes would have been rated poorly. 

Dee

I actually cannot stand the Six Feet Under finale. It’s so cheesy and cringy and the ageing makeup is terrible. It baffles me that it is almost universally beloved. 

cdrive

Isn't it supposed to be Dexter?  That's what I heard but I stopped watching somewhere in the middle of the seasons. 

That would mean Michael C. Hall starred both in arguably the worst show finale ever (Dexter) and the best show finale ever (Six Feet Under) 

All the Chickens

Dexter was the far and away worst for me. Then True Blood. The rest of those I either didn't finish watching  to the finale or never took serious enough to judge or remember how the series ended.

joepinetree

I'd say the x files was worse, but the reality is that since they ended it so many times it was never just one massive drop, but a series of stumbles

MrX

telephoneofmadness said:

Twin Peaks should definitely be on there. David Lynch is the master of trolling the audience with bad endings.

 The finale of the original run (season 2) or "The Return" (season 3).

telephoneofmadness

MrX said:

telephoneofmadness said:

Twin Peaks should definitely be on there. David Lynch is the master of trolling the audience with bad endings.

 The finale of the original run (season 2) or "The Return" (season 3).

Both :-D

Reni

Just thought of another one that was very disappointing to me - Penny Dreadful. The third season started out amazingly, each week I couldn't wait for the next episode, they were even actively setting up for a season 4 storyline - and then the final 2-3 episodes were a freaking trainwreck.

bizmarkiefader

avcpl

I don't think it's just recency bias, but I gotta say Thrones.  I kept apologizing, rationalizing up until the end and still thought they could maybe pull it off. But I really didn't think it would be as disappointing as it was. So bummed. 

MrX

telephoneofmadness said:

MrX said:

telephoneofmadness said:

Twin Peaks should definitely be on there. David Lynch is the master of trolling the audience with bad endings.

 The finale of the original run (season 2) or "The Return" (season 3).

Both :-D

Laura Palmer in both episodes disapproves of this take.

Travis

I'm actually both shocked and not shocked at all to see Thrones on here. I think there is definitely an "ask me in 10 years" component at play (not for everybody, of course, but for most). One thing to consider is are we just looking at the episode in a vacuum or is the lead up fair game too? Strictly on the finale, I thought GoT's end was a good episode of television. I think it was more so the previous episode that set up the finale that was problematic. If you take just the finale and thus having to accept the circumstances of where the episode started, it was pretty good. I also went all in on fan bankruptcy though and kind of accepted that GoT is really two shows (working from the books and thereafter). Anyhoo, I'll move off of that, but I do believe that once the dust settles and a couple of years go by sentiments will not be quite so harsh. Could be wrong, of course, but that's what I believe.

For me it's gotta be Lumber Jack Dexter. Jeees-sus. How I Met Your Mother was also a ridiculous and terrible finale that did everything it could to tear down the whole show. 100% true statement. If we're extending into the lead up, truth be told I don't really remember the finale so much, but I didn't like what they did with Fringe in the last season. They went with this whole new show direction and it was just a bummer. It wasn't terrible, but to see it go out like that was pretty frustrating. I also agree that, though I didn't hate it as much as everyone else did (I still didn't like it much), but Penny Dreadful going out how it did was a really big bummer too. That show had been so crazy good and to see it kind of whimper off in a puddle of bullshit that wasn't in the same ballpark of as smart as that show had been was super frustrating.

Michelle

Re: Penny Dreadful, we should remember that the show was cancelled all of a sudden by Showtime without the showrunner/creator having much say about it, so they kind of had to rush to tell the end.  They didn't get a chance to finish telling the tale of Vanessa or the other characters that they really wanted to tell - in fact, Vanessa's storyline was still mid-arc when this all went down.  While I'm not happy with how Vanessa ended, I did like how they wrapped up Rory Kinnear's humanized 'creature' character.  All in all I think the blame for this finale's failures falls on Showtime and not on John Logan himself.  I do think that he did the best he could with what he was dealt by the network in that moment.  

Chinaski

Dee said:

I actually cannot stand the Six Feet Under finale. It’s so cheesy and cringy and the ageing makeup is terrible. It baffles me that it is almost universally beloved. 

really? i loved it and is one of my all time favorites. funny how Michael C Hall was in my favorite and my  least favorite finales. Dexter as many are mentioning was laughable awful). i was waiting for Doakes to show up in Alaska and be all' SURPRISE LUMBERJACK!!'

Hunkulese

Wasn't the finale finale, but Dany nuking King's Landing for no reason after she'd just won is probably going to go down as the worst decision in television history. Give her a reason to do that and most of the stuff that happened afterwards isn't nearly as bad.

Shum

I don't know if Got is the worst finale, but for me it's definitely the most disappointing.  The show was so good for so long, and I was all in right up until the penultimate episode.  After that I couldn't invest in anything that was happening, because it no longer felt like the real story.  It was just mediocre fan fiction.  Lost went off the rails with its mythology, but I cared about the characters until the very end, and I got some decent emotional closure in the finale.  HIMYM was pretty bad, but the stakes were never as high with it being a sitcom.  I stopped watching Dexter in Season 5 and it sounds like I dodged multiple bullets.

GredalBee

When they cut to a disheveled Jon after the dragon pit election, I honestly leaned forward to check for a flannel shirt.  That's how poorly I thought the finale was going.

Hunkulese

And since no one's brought it up yet, while it's probably not the worst, I thought the Seinfeld finale was pretty bad.

alexander.klassen

Deadwood and Rome come to mind, because even though they had great finale episodes they were cancelled prematurely and had to end in the middle of a story arc (Deadwood) or rush things (Rome). For the second and seventh best shows of all time that was disappointing.

ken hale

If you’re talking about just the final episode I don’t know, but in terms of final seasons I would say GoT is better but also more disappointing than Dexter because I have a hard time believing that anyone still thought of Dexter as “prestige” television by that point. Basically, I agree with @MrX

It’s been a while but I’d have to revisit the final episode of The Wire. I don’t like to think about that fifth season very often. 

Travis

Michelle said:

Re: Penny Dreadful, we should remember that the show was cancelled all of a sudden by Showtime without the showrunner/creator having much say about it, so they kind of had to rush to tell the end.  They didn't get a chance to finish telling the tale of Vanessa or the other characters that they really wanted to tell - in fact, Vanessa's storyline was still mid-arc when this all went down.  While I'm not happy with how Vanessa ended, I did like how they wrapped up Rory Kinnear's humanized 'creature' character.  All in all I think the blame for this finale's failures falls on Showtime and not on John Logan himself.  I do think that he did the best he could with what he was dealt by the network in that moment.  

That is totally true, but it still doesn't change how it played out on the screen. As to it being a stain on those involved, that is 100% valid though.

Dummy

Hunkulese said:

And since no one's brought it up yet, while it's probably not the worst, I thought the Seinfeld finale was pretty bad.

I've seen this one a lot and have never understood it. They were finally put on trial for being bad people and it was funny. It seems like a fitting end to me so I'm not sure what people were hoping for with this. Not to say that I'm right and they're wrong, it's just that I don't get it. 

Chinaski

Dummy said:

Hunkulese said:

And since no one's brought it up yet, while it's probably not the worst, I thought the Seinfeld finale was pretty bad.

I've seen this one a lot and have never understood it. They were finally put on trial for being bad people and it was funny. It seems like a fitting end to me so I'm not sure what people were hoping for with this. Not to say that I'm right and they're wrong, it's just that I don't get it. 

same, i'm a huge Seinfeld fan and i didn't mind it. it was basically a montage of them being terrible people and getting called out for it.

Travis

I don't remember the mechanics of them much because it's been too many years, but I was looking over a list at ranker of the worst finales and was reminded of how bad the ends of Angel, Burn Notice, and if I remember correctly Buffy the Vampire Slayer were. Similarly, I don't really remember it aside from it being the end of the stupid carnival plot, but f'n Heroes man. Ugh.

Shum

@Travis ; The last season of Buffy had some issues, but I think the actual finale is pretty good.  I absolutely love the Angel finale and will fight anyone who disagrees!!  Never watched Burn Notice or Heroes.

Travis

Maybe I need to revisit the Angel and Buffy ones. In both cases I may be mixing up the last seasons as a whole with the finales. It's been so many years. For what it's worth, I was super into Angel for a spell there. I remember remarking that it may just be better than Buffy a handful of times.

Burn Notice was fun, got pretty dumb at the end, but it was a fun kind of "shut your brain off and enjoy some action" show. Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, and Bruce Campbell made a pretty fun team to follow. Heroes season 1 is fantastic, but it went to shit pretty quickly after that. I definitely recommend the first season though.

Dee

Chinaski said:

Dee said:

I actually cannot stand the Six Feet Under finale. It’s so cheesy and cringy and the ageing makeup is terrible. It baffles me that it is almost universally beloved. 

really? i loved it and is one of my all time favorites. funny how Michael C Hall was in my favorite and my  least favorite finales. Dexter as many are mentioning was laughable awful). i was waiting for Doakes to show up in Alaska and be all' SURPRISE LUMBERJACK!!'

Yeah, I know lots of people who say it’s their favourite and I when they start going on about it I just mumble vaguely about how “I probably saw it years ago but I don’t remember much about it” so I upset them, because people are SUPER attached to it. 

BUT I REMEMBER IT.