When Should These TV Favorites Have Ended?
7th-heaven-ending
7TH HEAVEN
If you tuned in for 7th Heaven's "miracle" 11th season on The CW — The WB had heavily touted the Season 10 finale as a series finale, mind you — then we assume you're already nodding your head in silent agreement. Highlights included: Ruthie being detained as a potential terrorist, Lucy suffering a miscarriage and Eric having multiple brushes with death. (A bizarrely fascinating Internet theory suggests that he actually did die, but we'll save that for another gallery.)
angel-ending
ANGEL
Sure, ending the Buffy spinoff after Season 4 means we wouldn't have gotten Cordelia's moving swan song in "You're Welcome" or the majesty that was Puppet Angel. But it also means we wouldn't have had to watch the lean, tight group from Angel Investigations morph into a fractured, corporate mess whose separate storylines and in-fighting bore little resemblance to the gang that so captivatingly helped the helpless back in the day.
awkward-ending
AWKWARD
Under the watchful eye of series creator Lauren Iungerich, the first three seasons of this MTV dramedy spun a dark, funny, sophisticated tale of a girl desperate to find her voice — and herself — in high school. Everything that followed felt like well-intended but bad fan fiction, in which complex characters we once loved were reduced to unrecognizable caricatures.
buffy-ending
BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Buffy's legacy will always be strong, but it's unfortunate that the seminal series came to a close with the lackluster season of the slayerettes, aka Season 7. While Season 6 produced some of the cult fave's best episodes ("Once More, With Feeling," "Tabula Rasa," "Normal Again"), there's no denying that Season 5's finale, "The Gift" — which felt like (and certainly could've served as) a series finale — would have made a very fitting ending.
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CHARMED
After being all but cancelled by The WB, Charmed's eleventh-hour Season 8 renewal felt like a gift. But if we'd known what that gift would turn out to be — 22 episodes mostly focused on Kaley Cuoco's quest for her long-lost sister — we would've tried to return it.
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DEXTER
At its best, the Showtime drama was a stunning examination inside the mind of a psychopath, rich with complex characters and top-notch performances. At its worst? The series found itself lost in a web of meandering plotlines, and Dexter's transformation from world-class antihero to bearded lumberjack (?!) was among TV's most disappointing character journeys. Had the show ended after Season 4 — which featured the riveting Trinity Killer arc — it would have gone out on a high note, instead of earning a reputation as a massively polarizing, but ultimately unsatisfying, series.
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GLEE
We're not entirely convinced that Season 6 — in which Rachel and Kurt (temporarily) gave up on their big city dreams to teach a new group of randos at McKinley — wasn't a collective fever dream, especially given that Season 5 ended on such a hopeful note. (Just look at that fourth wall-shattering smize Rachel gave in the final moments of the Season 5 finale. She was ready, and so were we.)
the-good-wife-ending
THE GOOD WIFE
Imagine if The Good Wife had pulled the plug after the Season 5 finale — with Florrick-Agos still chugging along in its ramshackle offices, Alicia and Cary considering Diane's offer to board their ship, and Eli unexpectedly asking Alicia if she'd ever run for State's Attorney. We'd never have had to suffer through Alicia's ultimately futile campaign storyline, Peter's hard-to-fathom presidential run and (worst of all) Kaliciagate. And the legacy of Robert and Michelle King's brilliant legal drama wouldn't have even a spot of tarnish to blunt its spectacular gleam.
falcon-crest-ending
FALCON CREST
The classic CBS soap hit a glorious creative peak in its sixth and seventh seasons under visionary showrunner Jeff Freilich. But shortly after the thrilling Season 7 finale aired, the network fired Freilich and brought in a new regime whose first order of business was to make the show an unwatchable bore. Angela Channing & Co. hung on until Season 9, which was two seasons longer than us.
HENRY WINKLER ON WATERSKIS
HAPPY DAYS
Though the instinct may be to declare the end of Days prior to Season 5, in which a waterskiing Fonzie indeed "jumps the shark," not only would you miss out on that pop culture touchstone, you'd also never meet Mork. Rather, the close of Season 7 — shortly after Arnold's burns down, paving the way for that bizarre Western-themed makeover — is a better time to bid Richie adieu, especially since that marked Ron Howard's exit as a series regular (and with four seasons left to go!).
house-ending
HOUSE
Crashing a car into Cuddy's living room was House's jump-the-shark moment. Everything that followed in Season 8, including House's prison stint, his marriage to Dominika and his decision to fake his own death to spend more time with a dying Wilson, felt like the show embracing the worst possible version of its protagonist after seven seasons of trying to make him a better man.
how-i-met-your-mother-ending
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
The past-its-prime sitcom made a mistake having all 24 Season 9 episodes take place in one three-day vacuum. The 22 episodes leading up to Barney and Robin's "I do's" felt pointless in the wake of their series-ending divorce, and spending so much time getting to know Tracy was ultimately a mistake since the writers saw Ted and Robin as endgame. Flash-forwards to events taking place between 2013 and 2030, as well as Tracy's introduction, could have easily been sprinkled throughout the back half of the superior Season 8, allowing the show to go out with some modicum of dignity.
melrose-place-ending
MELROSE PLACE
Darren Star's Fox sudser found its bitchy voice in its first season as soon as it made a permanent "special guest star" of Heather Locklear as mini-skirted she-devil Amanda Woodward. But it should have shut up four seasons later, when the show lost not only the other members of her coven — Marcia Cross (Kimberly) and Laura Leighton (Sydney) — but also three original cast members. After that, the series — not to mention the apartment complex — began to feel like it was populated by strangers and temps.
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REVENGE
Just saying, Emily and Victoria's feud would have made a really terrific 22-episode miniseries.
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SCRUBS
The eighth season of the beloved sitcom was not only its best in years, but closed with a pitch-perfect series finale that put a meaningful cap on John Dorian's journey from naive med school grad to confident MD. Needless to say, we weren't too thrilled with the revamped Season 9, in which Sacred Heart's finest were suddenly med school professors, and J.D. was once again in desperate need of Dr. Cox's approval.
that-70s-show-ending
THAT '70S SHOW
With Ashton Kutcher's Kelso largely out of the picture, the Powers That Be were left to burn what remained of their audience courtesy of new addition Josh Meyers. The introduction of Cousin Oliver Randy, who was meant to fill the void left by Kutcher and Topher Grace, was just one detriment to an eighth and final season that also thought a Jackie and Fez relationship was a good idea. Long before Eric's reunion with Donna in the series finale, we were more than ready to bid this comedy a "good day!"
true-blood-ending
TRUE BLOOD
Vampire Tara. Bill's death. Whatever that ridiculous smoke monster was supposed to be. Those are just a few of the major missteps that could have been avoided had True Blood ended after its fourth season — more specifically, after Sookie chose herself over her supernatural suitors. Sure, that means we'd never get the infamous Eric/Jason hookup in Season 7, but at least the series would have met its True Death with dignity.
weeds-ending
WEEDS
Nancy Botwin semi-casually rolling out of Majestic-Agrestic on a Segway, moments after burning down her house, would have made for a perfect series-ending moment. Instead, Nancy's displaced clan soldiered on, bouncing from one ridiculous storyline to another — even for Weeds — until those "little boxes on the hillside" were but a distant, wonderful memory.
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13 REASONS WHY
Netflix's edgy teen drama had a perfectly natural stopping point after a single season — we heard all 13 reasons! — but then inexplicably dragged on for two more seasons... and counting.
EMILIE DE RAVIN, ROBERT CARLYLE
ONCE UPON A TIME
Seeing as the show's creators admittedly used their long-envisioned series finale to end Season 6 — replete with an emotionally magical montage that signaled a "happy beginning" for one and all (see photo) — the "requel" (reboot/sequel) season that followed couldn't help but feel "tacked on." Even the feel-good, guest star-studded, series-ending coronation of Good Queen Regina couldn't offset the tsunami of new characters/cursed alters we were challenged to keep track of for the 20 episodes prior.
arrested-development
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Fans of the beloved Fox comedy did a collective chicken dance when it was first announced that the Bluths would return on Netflix. What followed was a tepidly received fourth season that introduced a standalone-character format. By the time a fifth season rolled around, nostalgia for this once-ingenious family farce had all but dried up. Meanwhile, star Jeffrey Tambor had been accused of sexual misconduct by Transparent's Trace Lysette, as well as verbal harassment by Arrested co-star Jessica Walter.
Heroes
HEROES
Sure, ending on the Season 1 finale's massive, life-and-death cliffhangers would have been frustrating. But wasn't it even more frustrating to watch the once-exciting genre show devolve into a convoluted mess of mythology?
modern-family
MODERN FAMILY
One of the Dunphy children starting their own family always seemed a fitting way to bring the show full circle and end things. 'Cept Haley birthing her and Dylan's twins came at least one season too late. It would have been better to instead have that arc close Season 9, in May 2018, concurrent with Mitch and Cam accepting their roles as guardian to nephew Cal (which has arguably been the sitcom's most desperate ploy to add a new moppet).
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NASHVILLE
The ABC-to-CMT series' final chorus should've come right after Rayna went to the Grand Ole Opry in the sky — two of the show's finest hours were the ones that chronicled her death and its immediate aftermath — but instead, it lingered for another 28 episodes. Season 6's focus on secondary and tertiary characters, along with the prolonged absence of Hayden Panettiere's Juliette, meant the ballad of Rayna and Deacon ended on a decidedly discordant note.
svu
LAW & ORDER: SVU
While we're not on the Christopher-Meloni-or-Bust bandwagon, we would've loved to have seen NBC's sex-crimes procedural end after Season 14... that is, after Stabler's departure but before the torture porn also known as William Lewis' kidnapping of Olivia Benson oozed its way onto our screens.
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THE OFFICE
Steve Carell's bumbling boss Michael Scott bid a teary farewell to Dunder Mifflin midway through Season 7... and then the show inexplicably returned for two full seasons after that. Seasons 8 and 9, with holdover Ed Helms and new arrival James Spader trying and failing to fill Carell's shoes as boss, felt like a spinoff — and not a particularly good one. Memo to rewatchers: You can easily skip from Michael's Season 7 goodbye to the series finale and not miss very much.
the-walking-dead
THE WALKING DEAD
Season 9's Whisperers have been a scream, but without Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes — and, to a lesser degree, Chandler Riggs' Carl — AMC's drama has felt anchorless. If the show was going to veer from the comics by writing off the former to star in a series of movies and killing off the latter, it should've wrapped at the end of Season 8, when our heroes' victory in the Saviors war held out the potential for Carl's dream of a peaceful world to come true.