The Best And Worst Series Finales In TV History

When a popular show nears its ending after several seasons of careful plotting and layered character arcs, it can be intimidating to figure out how to stick the landing perfectly without letting loyal fans down. Some shows manage to tie up plotlines neatly and in a satisfying way, leaving viewers happy with how their favorite characters said goodbye. Others completely botch their grand finishes, leaving audiences screaming and furious as they watch the universes they love get brought down by bad writing, sloppy execution, and inconsistent character development.

Over the years, TV fans have seen so many classic shows come and go, and while some have stuck their landings spectacularly, others have floundered, working against sky-high expectations and ultimately not delivering on years of potential. From big-budget fantasies to intimate period dramas to raucous comedies, here are some of our all-time favorite series finales, along with some that ended up squandering all the goodwill built up throughout their runs. Naturally, spoilers for all of these shows are to follow.

Created by J.J. Abrams after the success of his previous ABC juggernaut, Alias, this incredibly ambitious drama told the heightened story of plane crash survivors stuck on a remote and mysterious island. As if being stranded wasn't a big enough problem, the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 encounter plenty of weird issues on the island, from polar bears to smoke monsters to weird coincidences. Lost is still consistently ranked as one of the best television series of all time and remains endlessly rewatchable, as old and new viewers search for clues and Easter eggs throughout every episode.

Abrams, alongside showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, set up many mysteries that fans were anxious to see solved before the show reached the end of its six-season run. Wrapping up all that dense and twisting mythology, however, was always going to be difficult. After a shaky final season, the show ends just as it started, with a closeup on Jack Shepherd (Matthew Fox) as he seemingly dies. Each character is then seen in a church that seems to represent the afterlife, raising the question of whether or not everyone had been dead for the entire series (a claim the showrunners debunked). There were probably any number of satisfying ways to end Lost, but in the minds of many fans, this muddled yet weirdly saccharine ending wasn't one of them.

Based on a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay, Dexter told the dark and occasionally amusing story of Dexter Morgan, who works as a forensic scientist in Miami by day and hunts down criminals at night, leading a double life as a serial killer determined to channel his worst impulses in a way that provides justice rather than senseless carnage. Throughout the series, Dexter tries (and usually fails) to save his loved ones from other, worse killers, and even though the first four seasons were incredibly well-received, the quality started to slip in the later seasons, with the sixth season and the final eighth season getting the worst reviews of all.

With such a rocky road to the conclusion, fans were uneasy going into the series finale. They ended up being proven exactly right. After dumping his beloved sister's body in the ocean like trash, Dexter leaves his son with his girlfriend (another serial killer), allowing them to abscond to Buenos Aires before driving a boat into a CGI hurricane, only to resurface as a heavily bearded lumberjack in Oregon after faking his death. After eight seasons spent rooting for Dexter through even his worst moments, this ending couldn't have been more disappointing, completely abandoning the question of whether or not Dexter would get caught or get away with his crimes.

The ending of a show called How I Met Your Mother should have been pretty straightforward, in theory. The series, told in voiceover by an older version of its protagonist, Ted Mosby (voiced by Bob Saget but played onscreen by Josh Radnor), tells the story of how he met his children's mother to both of his kids as well as to viewers. The long story (nine seasons long, to be exact) winds through anecdotes about his friends, his career, and even the other women he meets along the way. The Mother, whose name is eventually revealed to be Traci, is the perfect partner for Ted... but unfortunately, they still don't get their happy ending.

After a frustrating final season that focused entirely on a three-day span (specifically, a wedding weekend) the finale provided unsatisfying endings for just about every character. Within the first half hour, the couple whose wedding took up the entire last season, Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) part ways, and the latter becomes a "changed man" once he has a daughter... which actually just means he starts shaming women. None of Ted's friends really get an ending that honors their entire story, but worst of all, the Mother is killed off in a silent montage just so that Ted and Robin can get back together. Unsatisfying is one thing, but betraying the show to go with a pre-planned conclusion is even worse.

After eight seasons of everything from political intrigue to full-out warfare, from fantastical locations to ice zombies and dragons, Game of Thrones had become a pop culture phenomenon, scooping up armloads of awards and tons of critical acclaim, smashing records in everything from Emmy nominations to viewership. Despite plenty of other subplots, the real question came down to which character would end up sitting on the Iron Throne, and fans around the world were anxious to see who would reign over the Seven Kingdoms, with fierce contenders like Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) vying for control.

In the end, nobody gets the actual Throne, which gets barbecued by a vengeful dragon after Jon stabs Daenerys for the good of the realm, and the newly elected leader of the Seven Kingdoms ends up being Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), an unexpected choice thanks to his lack of qualifications and young age. Pair an underwhelming finale with a disastrous final season, in which half of the show's character development and world-building was promptly thrown out as the creators raced to the finish line, and you get a pretty terrible ending to one of the biggest shows of all time.

An over-the-top look into the lifestyle of New York's most privileged and pampered teenagers, the CW's adaptation of the popular young adult book series Gossip Girl immediately posed an important question: who is the titular Gossip Girl, and why was she so determined to take down a very specific group of high schoolers? Running an anonymous blog, Gossip Girl spends years tormenting beautiful, super-rich teens like Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), without ever revealing her identity or true goals.

As the show progressed over six seasons, it certainly started to go off the rails, and after an uneven and overly dramatic final season, the show finally revealed the identity of Gossip Girl. It turns out that it wasn't even a girl: Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), the "ultimate outsider" from Brooklyn, had been pulling the strings all along. All of the characters seem relatively fine with the fact that their closest friend had been cyberbullying them for years, and Gossip Girl's most frequent victim, Serena, even marries her bully. The creators admitted that this hasty and unbelievable game plan was changed partway through the series when fans figured out their original intentions, and since there are plenty of moments where it's clear that Dan couldn't have been Gossip Girl, it certainly shows.

One of Netflix's inaugural original series, Beau Willimon's House of Cards was a groundbreaking series upon its release. With a pilot directed by David Fincher and a cast that included Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Kate Mara, and Michael Kelly, the show focused on the dark underbelly of American politics, specifically concerning the underhanded machinations of Frank Underwood (Spacey) and his very own Lady MacBeth, Claire Underwood (Wright). As the series progressed, the two literally killed to gain and maintain power, and despite being passed over for Secretary of State at the series' beginning, Frank becomes President... and ultimately, so does Claire.

Spacey, however, was hastily written out of the show after serious allegations broke about his history of sexual misconduct. At the start of the show's sixth and final season, audiences were told that Frank had died, leaving Claire to assume the mantle as the show's lead. Despite a formidable performance from a talented actress like Wright, the show had just clearly run out of steam, and the finale finds her in a showdown with Stamper (Kelly), who admits to poisoning Frank before attempting to kill Claire, who wins the battle and watches as he bleeds out in the Oval Office. Cards was always bombastic, but in the wake of Spacey's exit, it's disappointing that it ended with an underwhelming twist.

The infamous "show about nothing," Seinfeld starred stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld in a non-biographical role; despite playing a comedian named Jerry Seinfeld, the character bears little resemblance to the real Seinfeld. Focused on Jerry's life in New York alongside his friends Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander), and Kramer (Michael Richards), the show shines a spotlight on the smallest details of everyday life, pointing out relatable but seldom-discussed mundanities. Holidays like Festivus, terms like "regifter," "low-talker," and "close talker," and catchphrases like "No soup for you!" have firmly remained in the cultural lexicon since the show ended its run in 1998, and thanks to streaming and syndication, it continues to find a new life with new generations of fans.

One of the best things about Seinfeld was its complete lack of morals — each one of the four main characters was, at heart, a selfish and generally pretty bad person, drifting through the series committing petty social offenses without a second thought. However, in the finale, the four are arrested for breaking a "Good Samaritan Law" and end up standing trial for every rude or weird thing they've ever done, sending a fairly muddled message and making the entire thing into a bizarre fable about being a good person, despite everything that had happened throughout its nine-season run.

Though Roseanne has lived two lives on TV, thanks to a short-lived revival in 2018 (which shifted to The Conners after star Roseanne Barr went on a racist Twitter rant in that same year), the original series was one of the most beloved sitcoms during its 1988-1997 run. Consistently praised for its down-to-earth and realistic portrayal of a blue-collar family, the sitcom starred Barr alongside John Goodman, Laurie Metcalfe, and Sara Gilbert, telling the day-to-day stories of the Conner family as they dealt with raising teenagers and what it's like when both parents work outside the home.

During the ninth and final season of the original series, things seem to be going pretty well for the Conner family. Dan (Goodman) has survived the heart attack he suffered in the previous season, Roseanne's sister Jackie (Metcalfe) has found love, and the Conner family even wins the lottery, earning them millions of dollars. However, it turns out this was all a made-up story written by Roseanne to cope with trauma, since Dan is actually dead, Jackie is alone and struggling with her sexuality, and the family's financial situation has never improved. This maudlin twist (completely ignored by the eventual revival) stripped the show of the warmth and humor that characterized the rest of the series and left fans confused, angry, and shocked, giving the darkest possible ending to what had been an uplifting and relatable family sitcom.

Alan Ball may have provided a perfect ending for Six Feet Under, but he pretty much, well, dropped the ball when it came time for his next hit series. True Blood, a ridiculous, heightened campfest set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, imagines a world where vampires are real and figuring out how to live among humans without killing them, thanks to the recent invention of synthetic "True Blood." However, some are still dangerous, and as an added complication, vampire blood is a potent hallucinogenic for humans, so the two sides remain at an impasse. Amidst all of this, a local waitress and telepath, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), falls in love with a peaceful vampire named Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), which offers up plenty of complications.

True Blood, despite using the pro-vampire movement as a fairly overt analogy for real-world civil rights struggles (notably, it features complex and diverse characters of all races and sexualities), always trafficked in the absurd. For seven seasons, fans enjoyed the parade of fairies, werewolves, were-panthers, and even maenads, making the lackluster finale even more frustrating. After putting Sookie in the midst of several love triangles throughout the show, she ends up with a never-seen husband rather than any of her previous love interests, while everyone else basically gets a happy ending. For a show that provided such a fun ride for its viewers, fans were furious at the way the finale fizzled, and it's pretty hard to blame them.

Led by Zach Braff, who starred as Dr. John "J.D." Dorian, Scrubs focused on a group of medical interns making their way through residency and struggling with annoying bosses and tough cases as they grow from meek interns to fully-fledged doctors. Alongside Braff, audiences fell in love with characters like his outgoing best friend Turk (Donald Faison), Turk's wife and nurturing nurse Carla (Judy Reyes), J.D.'s best friend and on-again, off-again love interest Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke), and J.D.'s perpetually pissed-off mentor Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley). The show told their stories through heightened fantasy sequences as well as more grounded moments that made for a well-rounded comedy.

The last few seasons, however, were disrupted by a network switch, and when Scrubs made the leap from NBC to ABC, the show dipped in quality and aired a series finale during season eight, even though it reappeared with an entirely new cast of interns for another full season, airing one more finale (for which many original cast members returned). Thanks to the fact that actors like Braff, Faison, and Chalke were absent from the bulk of the final two seasons and creator Bill Lawrence seemed hesitant to revive it for a ninth season, Scrubs had not one, but two disappointing finales, neither of which did justice to the entire series.