It seems to be fairly common that long running beloved series will have sucky ending. Nominate the episodes that ruined the series, made no sense, or were just plain bad.
My nominees are:
How I met your mother
Seinfeld
Enterprise (not exactly a beloved series but it was getting better in the fourth season and it was a crappy ending none the less)
I have to say that the final episode of MASH was less than satisfying for me. It aimed high and had some success, but Hawkeye’s delusion about the chicken didn’t seem to work well. And that was central to the entire episode and thus to the entire closure for the series.
Probably not a popular opinion, but my big issue is that it was extremely risk-averse. Putting Ross and Rachel back together at the last possible second was very predictable and not supported by the storyline leading up to it. I don’t usually engage in shipping, but Phoebe/Ross and Joey/Rachel made a lot more sense than a last-minute Ross/Rachel pairing.
It didn’t turn out to be the last episode but Assignment Earth on ST:TOS sort of was. Gene wasn’t sure if Star Trek would get a third Season so he used it as a chance to basically do a pilot for another show he wanted to do. The enterprise crew were completely superfluous to the episode and had it turned out to be the last episode it would have been a terrible way to go out.
It wasn’t even an original premise within MASH. Hawkeye sees something and it causes deep psychological problems, the roots of which have to slowly drawn out, was the premise of at least three episodes:
#109: After commenting on and being agitated by the youthful ages of some of his patients, Hawkeye begins sleepwalking (and behaving and talking like a child while doing so) and having vivid nightmares of his childhood friends being injured.
#115: Hawkeye learns about an acquaintance of his - a mediocre doctor - who is doing very well for himself back in civilian life while Hawkeye is stuck in Korea. Hawkeye suffers severe psychosomatic back pain through the episode as a result.
#211: Hawkeye treats a soldier who arrives with his clothing drenched, having fallen into a watery ditch. This stirs a repressed childhood memory of Hawkeye being pushed into a lake by a friend and nearly drowning, leading Hawkeye to manifest sneezing and other psychosomatic symptoms.
At least in the final episode, the baby/chicken thing wasn’t tied to something from Hawkeye’s past. Crababble Cove must’ve been a nightmarish hellhole.