Worst final episodes

[Andy_L]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

The problem with the final episode of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER – uh, spoilers, I guess? Kinda figure that’d be implied in this thread – is that they obviously had the finale planned from way back when they had the kids film it, because they weren’t going to still be kids years and years and years later when he finally finished telling the story and they can finally tell him what they think of it.

Which means, to use that ending, they couldn’t ask during the last season hey, should we rethink this? This would’ve been great if we’d been cancelled in another season, but now we’re at a place where – no? We’re sticking with the footage we filmed way back when? Uh, okay.

I suspect they filmed several versions of the kid’s side of the conversation, just in case.

ETA - but I can’t find any evidence of this online, so maybe I’m wrong.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Andy_L

As I recall, in one early episode, Al witnessed a change while it happened - he was in a hearing that a Senator was holding about the funding for Sam’s project, and just as the Senator was going to order funding cut, Sam’s change kicked in, replacing the Senator with someone else.

Al also remembered an alternate history in which Lee Harvey Oswald killed both JFK and Jackie (or at least that’s what he told Sam).

Heck, there’s an episode where Sam’s mucking around with a court-martial gets Al executed – at which point Dean Stockwell exits the episode and Roddy McDowall replaces him until Sam manages to start scraping together some exculpatory evidence and Al is back to at least having a chance of getting acquitted.

[Andy_L]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Heck, there’s an episode where Sam’s mucking around with a court-martial gets Al executed – at which point Dean Stockwell exits the episode and Roddy McDowall replaces him until Sam manages to start scraping together some exculpatory evidence and Al is back to at least having a chance of getting acquitted.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Loved seeing Roddy’s take on the job of being Sam’s watcher.

[JohnT]

I know it’s been mentioned, but when your final episode of your long-running series:

1. Is a clip show,
2. That explains the past 9 years,
3. As if the writers found a fan website that, finally, tied all their ignorant shit together

It really shouldn’t even be mentioned in threads like this. See, the X-Files finale Transcended beyond mere “bad” final episodes and actually became the God to which all other bad episodes aspire to… and ultimately fail.

[Kent_Clark]

@Andy_L

I suspect they filmed several versions of the kid’s side of the conversation, just in case.

ETA - but I can’t find any evidence of this online, so maybe I’m wrong.

Supposedly the storylines were written so the show could’ve ended at several points. At one point, Ted could’ve ended up with Victoria, at another point with Stella, and at a couple of other points he would have ended up with Robin without the Barney drama.

Another sitcom that was SUPPOSED to end in a certain way was Designing Women. I remember one of the writers saying they really wanted the series to end with Suzanne and Anthony running off together. Unfortunately, Delta Burke’s contract problems with the producers blew up that idea.

[cochrane]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Not to spoil the joke, but it’s more retcon-y than that: IIRC, Sam doesn’t realize he has a wife until an episode in the fourth season, when he arrives home; and, IIRC, he forgets her again by the end of that same episode, since he heads out on another leap: half-convinced that, now, the process will work better.

“The Leap Back.” The episode ends with this conversation between Donna and Al.

DONNA
Does he…remember me?

OBSERVER
No.
(determined)
But, I’m going to tell him this
time.

DONNA
(turning)
No, you’re not, Al.

OBSERVER
Donna…

DONNA
Four years ago you convinced me
his amnesia wasn’t caused by
leaping. That who or whatever was
leaping him from life to life did
it to free him to think with his
heart. So he could put right the
terrible wrongs in people’s lives.

OBSERVER
I don’t know anymore.

DONNA
I do.
(beat)
Sam’s back on the job and you’re
going to treat him exactly as you
have the last four years.
(turning)
He came back to me once. He’ll
come back to me, again.

Al wraps her in his arms.

OBSERVER
(tenderly)
You’re one hell of a woman.

[Blisters]

my top three: Lost, Dexter, True Blood

[fiddlesticks]

@Andy_L

As I recall, in one early episode, Al witnessed a change while it happened - he was in a hearing that a Senator was holding about the funding for Sam’s project, and just as the Senator was going to order funding cut, Sam’s change kicked in, replacing the Senator with someone else.

Al also remembered an alternate history in which Lee Harvey Oswald killed both JFK and Jackie (or at least that’s what he told Sam).

As I remember it in that episode, Sam resolved the problem Al/Ziggy told him to resolve, but he didn’t leap out. Later on, he’s helping his girlfriend/wife(?) in that timeline practice for the bar exam and he corrects her on a major point. At that point he leaps. Then switch to the “present” and Sam’s girlfriend becomes the Senator who approves the continuing funding for the project.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@fiddlesticks

As I remember it in that episode, Sam resolved the problem Al/Ziggy told him to resolve, but he didn’t leap out. Later on, he’s helping his girlfriend/wife(?) in that timeline practice for the bar exam and he corrects her on a major point. At that point he leaps. Then switch to the “present” and Sam’s girlfriend becomes the Senator who approves the continuing funding for the project.

It was his wife – they were on their honeymoon, which is why it’s hilarious that Sam keeps trying to get her to hit the books while she’s enthusiastically trying to bed him. (That said, he’s also doing his best to bodyguard her against her jealous ex, but that technically still counts as “helping her pass the Bar Exam.”)

(Incidentally, he didn’t resolve the side mission that Al came up with to impress the Senate, of getting word to the wise before the U-2 Incident could go down.)

[DrDeth]

@kunilou

A bit unfair, as the final episode of St. Elsewhere was in 1988. The dream thing hadn’t been done to death at that time, and when it was done, it was like* Dallas*, a big fat reset button that allowed the show to escape from its own problem.

Many more before that, including of course the Wizard of Oz.

All Just a Dream - TV Tropes

[Mallard]

I thought Person of Interest had a rather silly ending.

[PapSett]

@black_rainbow

Mad about you. I hate that Paul and Jamie got divorced.

Yes! I hated that too.

Another is Will & Grace. Oh, how I loved that show, but the last episode left me feeling so empty.

[TBG]

You had me at

@Mahaloth

I like Lost’s finale and think it is massively overly attacked.

then lost me a little at

And I think Battlestar Galactica’s final episode is a masterpiece.

Granted I think BSG’s last episode is about the best you could have expected given the mess the various plots and twists had turned into, but masterpiece takes it way too far.

Not worst, but I was pretty disappointed in the Scrubs finale. The third, really truly forever final finale. I actually liked the “massively retooled should have been a spinoff instead” final season, but I didn’t even know that the last episode was the last episode until after I’d watched it then couldn’t find an episode the next week. It’s like all those old shows that just stop instead of having an ending. The previous season’s finale would have been a good series finale if it had actually stayed one. The less said of the first finale from the NBC run that was just “random episode run out of order” the better.