There are few things in this life worse than spending years watching a great TV show only to be totally disappointed by its final episode. This happens more often than it doesn’t—seriously, the list of all time great series finales is pretty short—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. It’s gotta be tough to close out something as long and complex as a television show in a way that will satisfy absolutely everybody watching it, and even harder if your long and complex television show happens to be very popular, but the pop culture landscape is littered with universally despised final episodes.
Because we’re feeling contrarian, we’ve decided to look back at some of these so-called worst TV finales of all time and see if they really are as bad as we remember. And what did we find out? Well, a lot of them are actually pretty good. Or, if not good good, they are at least thematically appropriate. Maybe it helped that we went into this expecting the worst. Maybe certain shows’ endings only work if you already know what they are. And maybe we were all way too picky way back when and didn’t know how good we had it.
Whatever the case, here are ten of the most unfairly maligned television series finales, and all the reasons why it’s worth giving them another shot. Some of these, we’ll admit, aren’t the best episodes out there, but a lot of them still work with what the show itself was going for. Even if something is unsatisfying, sometimes that dissatisfaction is still thematically appropriate. There are still bad finales out there (looking at you, eternally hated St. Elsewhere snow globe), but these deserve a rewatch.
10 Famously Hated TV Series Finales That Are Better Than You Remember
These “terrible” final episodes are worth revisiting.
Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
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