Underhated TV finales - What ending you were the only one dissapointed at?

[Dr Cruel]

Jericho. CBS just murdered this great show. They nuked it.

 

[Hijo de D. Woodchucks Jr.]

Just so you know what kind of dogshit we’re dealing with here: Season 10 sets up Apokolips and the New Gods, like they’re gonna pull off Infinity War on a Nickelodeon budget. And if you’ve ever seen one of these pre-streaming superhero shows, you know that means absolutely no fights. CW was uniquely bad at this. They’d hype up Zod or Doomsday or Brainiac for six episodes and then Clark just shoulder-checks them into a JPEG explosion and it’s over in three seconds.

I think my brain somehow buried the trauma of watching this garbage and now you reminded me.

I think I must have had a sort of deathwish or something, between sticking with both this and Supernatural to the end like an abused dog.

 

[LazyLizard]

It kept running on the fumes of people who liked the actors or just needed some DC content in the Bush years.

didn't one of the stars join a cult and go to jail? or am i thinking of a different show.

 

[Captain Syrup]

didn't one of the stars join a cult and go to jail? or am i thinking of a different show.

She decided to brand women for a failed Canadian sex cult. She played Chloe on Smallville, the spunky computer girl. Her purpose kind of evaporated but I had a huge crush on her.

At least Hudson Leick went into an ashram, and not an MLM.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Warner wouldn't have sued over Smallville, as they produced the show and had a stake in the CW network, which was formed by the merger of UPN and the WB Network.

The reason the Superman suit was off-limits to Smallville was due to WB creative, who were also the reason The Joker couldn't be used in the Justice League cartoon.

Basically, Warner Brothers had a bunch of suits who had no knowledge of, or respect for, the source material making decisions about how the characters were to be used. This is why we got the Halle Berry Catwoman film and Superman Returns.

Smallville was supposed to be the origin and setup for Tom Welling to eventually be Superman in the movies, but when they hired Bryan Singer to make a Superman movie, he insisted on total creative control and wanted nothing to do with Smallville, because he wanted to make a substitute Superman III.

 

[Party Hat Wurmple]

The Walking Dead. Now let's be real, anyone who still watched that crap after Carl died hates good television, but really? We're ending a show and still leaving fucking cliffhangers?

 

[Dr Cruel]

The Walking Dead. Now let's be real, anyone who still watched that crap after Carl died hates good television, but really? We're ending a show and still leaving fucking cliffhangers?

At least Lennie James got to recycle his character from Jericho.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

This is why we got the Halle Berry Catwoman film

Dan DiDio had a great story at a con panel about hollywood and movies, and he explained how a buddy of his was assigned the horrible task of "report each day what's inaccurate in Catwoman" during production
he did his duty, and the suits had no obligation to give a fuck what he said, but he still had to do it every day

Jericho. CBS just murdered this great show. They nuked it.

nuts.

 

[The greater a'tuin]

Ozark ended on a wet shart. The car crash cliffhanger amounts to nothing. The Byrdes' debt is still unresolved. Cartel boss man has a sister randomly spawn from the aether and kill the lady who will play Silver Surfer, thereby wiping out her family, except not really because they forgot the ginger kid exists. Final scene is the last season's only semi-interesting new character being killed as a middle finger on top. Feels like the show actively resisted resisted any idea of concluding.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Moonlighting

Ended up writing and deleting this three times because it’s impossible to talk about the show without going into the behind-the-scenes. Which, unfortunately, is relevant. Season 5 starts after a long stretch of reruns because they basically ran out of show. Maddie (Cybil Shepard) spent all of season 3 waterboarding David (Bruce Willis), then ghosted him entirely in S4. Meanwhile, Maddie got pregnant, and they decided to go with a Mamma Mia! paternity arc.

---

The season 5 opener "Womb With a View" kicks off with one of those network apology openings where David promises no more reruns (spoiler: lies). Then instead of going to work, he interviews a parade of pornified nanny candidates for his unborn child. Tasteful stuff.

We cut to Bruce Willis in a diaper, floating in a clear plastic bag meant to be Maddie’s uterus. It’s not a joke about Look Who’s Talking, and somehow pre-dates that movie. An angel shows up and forces the baby to watch a clip show of his parents, confirming David is the dad. The baby decides his parents are deranged, but the angel tells him they’re fated to be annoying in every lifetime.

Anyway, the angel shows Baby Willis some public domain cartoons followed by a war crimes supercut (literally Pol Pot and Hitler footage) to illustrate the duality of man.

The finale: Maddie and David go to a baby shower, have one nice dance, and then bam! Miscarriage. Baby dies. The angel promises he might come back as Bill Cosby’s grandson if he “plays his cards right,” which aged like a turd in a microwave. Then the baby sings “Sunny Side of the Street” as he ascends to Heaven. Maddie is rushed to hospital. David reacts with all the concern of someone realizing he just missed closing time at the post office.

 

[Hijo de D. Woodchucks Jr.]

The finale: Maddie and David go to a baby shower, have one nice dance, and then bam! Miscarriage.

Hold up, I knew the show had a bunch of issues, but you're telling me it ends in fucking Loss?!

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

Moonlighting

Not one of the finer moments of one of my favorite actors. :/

 

[Captain Syrup]

I’m not a Highlander guy. I was the right age to watch the show when it was on, though. It had beheadings (well, implied ones) on basic cable, which felt transgressive. Even back then, I remember thinking: okay, there are a lot of immortals. Like an unsustainable amount. Despite Duncan killing one every week, he never gets any stronger. Wouldn’t it be cool if he got new powers every season! Super strength, lightning hands, maybe float a little.

Instead, they kill off Richie, who’s basically the Scrappy-Doo of the show but still, he's been around since the pilot, it's kind of a slap in the face to anyone who’d stuck with Highlander for five seasons. He gets used as cannon fodder to introduce Ahriman, a clumsy version of Buffy’s “First Evil" (which came out years afterward), but with even less of a budget. Duncan reacts to this world threatening evil by… staying indoors and reading about "evil". Jamie, can you pull up Pure Evil real quick?

As for Ahriman, he’s a joke. His idea of tormenting Duncan is,

"You’re tuned to H-E-double-hockey-sticks FM! Up next, a HOT track for my boi Duncan MacLeod!"

Eventually, Duncan defeats him by sitting still and meditating. I am not joking. Evil vanquished! I guess the devil died of boredom.

All of this is all happening in an abbreviated season because the lead actor wanted out. The show then rapidly collapses in on itself as they try to spin off every female guest star into her own Highlander. Which is not a real season! That’s a tax write off! The producers, especially Bill Panzer, a classic Hollywood sleaze-bag guy... Every interview with Bill is just him sitting with his cigar and Brylcreem, lying his ass off about how this next iteration is gonna be big for Highlander.

Well, because of all this, in the end it stopped being a show and became a graveyard for failed pilots. None of the Z-grade actresses from the backdoor pilot parade got cast as the next Highlander. Claudia Christian is the only vaguely recognizable face, and even she didn't get cast. She bailed on Babylon 5 to guest star on Highlander, which might be the most depressing footnote in this.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Highlander

I was like 10 when it aired and I thought it was the coolest shit ever. I remember the show going on after Richie's death with some four horsemen of the apocalypse shit.

And then there were the films....

 

[ZMOT]

As a teen, I thought that was awesome. Now, I feel like I am having a stroke. When I rewatched it as an adult with friends, their first reaction was: “Wow, this is stupid as hell.” I've never regretted a childhood interest faster.

it was one of those weird 90's things, and pretender was never really a big show. getting 2 movies to wrap it up was already uncommon in itself.
at least you still had ms parker influencing your childhood...

Star Trek: Enterprise is probably the worst I've ever seen. People don't hate it enough.

in it's defense it was kind of a knee-jerk since it was getting canceled (shame, because S5 with shran becoming a bridge officer could've been some of the best trek).

EDIT:

Another series the Glades had done something similar except the main character is shot and falls down to the floor. In what was supposed to be the cliffhanger for the next season but it also got canceled. Yet due to do how the series was structured, having the protagonist getting killed at the end didn't hurt the series. Granted the Glades was already borked when the network executives wanted the female demographic to watched it. So they inserted female protagonist love interest and romance drama midway through the series.

wasn't the love interest established pretty early? either way it didn't really feel off and at least made some sense in-universe while adding an interesting b-plot.

however, something that hasn't been mentioned yet: human target.
S1 is great entertainment for dudes, ex-contract killer with an implied death-wish due to a tragic past protects the innocent. S1 in itself was pure bond-kino considering it was a tv series and on fucking fox. seriously, everybody who loves jackie earle haley as rorshash needs to watch it just for guerrero.
S2 I assume execs wanted less of an chad alphamale kicking ass and bring in more female viewers, so they added 2 females to the roster, and with one ofc becoming the designated love interest. there were still some good episodes, which probably would've been better in a S1 format.

anyway it's not that the ending is underhated, but it rather stretched out over the whole season.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Oh, hell yeah dude! BONUS BULLSHIT HIGHLANDER ROUND!

After the unwatchable Season 6, we got....

The spin-off no one asked for! Amanda, the immortal jewel thief from the original series, shows up with a new, aggressively terrible haircut. Let’s talk about the title: The Raven. She’s blonde. Like, unmistakably so. The rumor mill says this was meant for that Nazi-hunting female immortal from Season 6, and they just forgot to change the name. Mind you, Amanda was introduced as comic relief. She can’t sword fight for shit, and it shows.

Actress Elizabeth Gracen, former Miss Arkansas and confirmed Bill Clinton side piece, decided to lay low during this period. She spent too much time in Paris and met a guy who told her he was in the Vatican Mafia. It doesn't take a genius to see the producers were grasping at any warm body who could wave a sword and hit their mark. So they signed Gracen with zero vetting.

Her co-lead is Nick Wolfe. He’s supposed to be the new Richie Ryan. Any shot The Raven had of winning over fans died the second Nick showed up. He makes Johnny Utah look like Rustin Cohle. Apparently Gracen was convinced he was also a spy sent by the Clintons. Like pulling off a rubber mask to reveal Ken Starr.

The show itself? Utterly mid. Same Highlander formula: sword guy appears, cue flashback with bad wigs, someone loses a head. But by this point the immortals feel like community theater versions of Xena villains.

And then, in a move so stupid it feels illegal, they tried to re-Richie the whole thing by killing Nick with a poison laced paint ball (?) and having Amanda shoot him so he’d die fast enough to become immortal. Yes, they fridged a man with a Glock so he could come back as the new diet sword guy. Everyone on set hated it. Nobody claims credit for the idea. Watching Bill Panzer try to distance himself from it in the DVD extras is more entertaining than the entire series.

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

I’m not a Highlander guy. I was the right age to watch the show when it was on, though. It had beheadings (well, implied ones) on basic cable, which felt transgressive. Even back then, I remember thinking: okay, there are a lot of immortals. Like an unsustainable amount. Despite Duncan killing one every week, he never gets any stronger. Wouldn’t it be cool if he got new powers every season! Super strength, lightning hands, maybe float a little.

I think, the actual finale was a double feature that was kind of mixed. In it Duncan killed one immortal out of mercy, who went insane over killing too many evil immortals, but this way he consumed their power and became evil too. He ended up killing his sidekick and love interest(she was resurrected, I think), but since his sidekick was a good immortal, he absorbed his power and went back to normal again, albeit dying I mean, suffering of guilt of what he's done. The end is basically It's a Wonderful life with immortals where Duncan watches how people from his life would've lived if he never existed.

Funnily enough, I think the first season of Nightman had the same kind of final episode, where Johnny Domino failed to save his friend who died while getting robbed, then died himself and in Heaven was lectured that AKSHULEE he was saving people's lives all this time after which he begged the angel to put him back on Earth and he is like "oh, ok". He then comes back in time and kills the guy who tried to rob his friend. Yeah, morals of this show were weird like the show itself. It started as a supernatural show since the hero can have visions of the future, then added sci-fi with his supersuit that has lasers and can let him fly, then quickly added witches, aliens and interdimensional monsters. Like X-files but completely bonkers and directionless.

 

[LazyLizard]

is that a real person or onision with a fake moustache? i can't be the only one who sees it right?

 

[Captain Syrup]

in its defense it was kind of a knee-jerk since it was getting canceled

At least people still talk about the ENT finale. STD wrapped and no one noticed. If the whole show turned out to be a holodeck malfunction starring Tom Paris, it would be better than what they filmed.

It was one of those weird 90's things, and pretender was never really a big show. getting 2 movies to wrap it up was already uncommon in itself

You’re not wrong. The haunted island movie is at least entertaining.

The first TV movie is boring. Jarod is a cop....again. They introduce “Dark Jarod”....again ...who’s supposedly just as smart, but mostly speaks in riddles and murders people. Jarod fails to save him...again. Broots is now fully reduced to "what if Kronk worked at the NSA." He and Jarod trade some banter...again. I’d rather they keep ripping off Northern Exposure or some shit than watch this.

At least you still had ms parker influencing your childhood...

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

is that a real person or onision with a fake moustache? i can't be the only one who sees it right?
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Now I can't unsee it, thanks a lot.