Bitter end: Beloved TV shows with awful finales

Honestly, the Lumberjack Dexter isn’t even the worst part of this whole thing. Deb dying and Dexter simply strolling out of the hospital with her is up there. As is Dexter driving his boat right into the awful-looking (as in, the computer graphics) storm and somehow surviving...to become Lumberjack Dexter. Dexter’s girlfriend Hannah ending up having to raise Dexter’s dumb kid in South America because Dexter decided to drive his boat into that awful-looking (just absolutely cheap) storm. The entire eighth season, honestly.

Dan Humphrey is Gossip Girl. Gossip Girl is Dan Humphrey. That means Dan Humphrey was a psychopath of the highest order — as Gossip Girl often insulted him and actively ruined his life — and it also means that Serena ended up marrying her abuser when all was said and done. But don’t worry: The same could be said for Blair (who married Chuck) and Serena’s mother, Lily (who got back together with her ex-husband…who gave her fake cancer). At least Rufus ended up with Lisa Loeb, five seasons after Lisa Loeb shows up one time on the show to sing “Stay.”

Honestly, "Game of Thrones" fans don’t really know bad series finales if they think this is truly one of the “worst” of all time. But they’ve complained enough about it — you may have heard of a little petition — that it makes the cut on a pure examination basis alone. But at the same time, to think that Bran winning the game of thrones and ending up king is a good idea — or good story — is a disaster in its own right.

The thing about shows that eventually go on to have revivals (like "Roseanne," "Will & Grace") or get saved by another network is that the original series finales still actually happened. Even if it’s retconned out of canonical existence. The original "Roseanne" series finale ended with an infamous 15-minute voiceover monologue that the events of the series were actually Roseanne writing a book based on her life, only she apparently changed some of the events that she didn’t like. Essentially a twist on the “it was all a dream” approach to bad storytelling but absolutely no better.

As I was saying. While the revival thankfully rectified the situation that was this disappointing series finale, it still aired on NBC, and for 11 years, it was the last memory anyone had about series. The series ended with Will and Grace having a falling out — after Grace forgives ex-husband Leo for his infidelity and accepts his marriage proposal — and remaining out of each other's lives (save for a single failed parent-trapping from Karen and Jack a couple of years after the falling out) until they finally run into each other when moving their children into college dorms. (Oh, and Beverley Leslie died after being blown off a balcony by a gust of wind.)

This is one of those unplanned series finales, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was still ultimately the series finale. No, “The Family Hour” wasn’t supposed to be a cliffhanger — the next season was supposed to feature Lois and Clark raise a rapidly aging Kryptonian baby together. But honestly, the show should’ve been put out of its misery the previous season, when Clark married a Lois clone (after all the promotion of Lois and Clark getting married).

Why couldn’t it have just ended with Ted meeting Tracy? Why did it have to undo years of work after the fact? Why couldn’t it just accept its own storytelling that Ted and Robin didn’t belong together and were actually toxic for one another? Why did it make Barney the type of guy who hates that his wife works all the time instead of (as it would have previously) thrilled that she continues to be so awesome? Why didn’t creators Bays and Thomas think for a second how it would look that Ted got to have the perfect life he wanted — one where he was able to have kids, which Robin physically wasn’t — and then settled for Robin after he got that whole thing (and dead wife) out of the way? At least we got Cristin Milioti out of all this.

Oh, yeah! But really: all right. Sure, it’s absurd to imagine that a show as mediocre as "Entourage" would’ve had a good series finale, and to put it on this list is kind of punching down. At the same time, "Entourage" deserves all the punching down it’s ever gotten. The series ended with Vince on the way to tie the knot (with a very unprofessional journalist), seemingly ready to settle down for the next stage in his life…which was immediately undone for the "Entourage" movie, because why would there be growth in "Entourage"? Despite clearly being created as a series finale, “The End” was, impressively, one of the most underwhelming episodes of the series. Oh, yeah.

The original “worst series finale,” in terms of people really talking about its badness. Six seasons of a medical drama ended up being a daydream world from a little boy named Tommy Westphall, who just so happened to have a snow globe with the hospital-building setting in it. (It was also apparently important that Tommy was autistic, for some reason.) The funny thing is that "St. Elsewhere" was “recognized for its gritty, realistic drama;” so the series finale just kind of spat on that. At the same time, this is the rare bad series finale that — despite the implications that it has — didn’t retroactively “ruin” the whole series. Though, that could also be because social media didn’t exist at the time.

The further removed we get from the original run of "Gilmore Girls," the clearer it becomes to see that Rory Gilmore was the worst. (Lorelai’s not exactly great either, but Rory got the “perfect kid” designation early on, and it was never taken away, despite her imperfections.) So an episode that culminates in the whole town having a party dedicated to Rory’s farewell is more annoying than heartwarming. The series finale also historically didn’t end in the way series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino had originally intended, as she and her husband Daniel had left the show before the seventh season.

You know, there’s nothing inherently wrong about rebooting an entire series — during the series run — and getting new cast members.  The show still just has to be, you know, good. That’s not what happened with the original BBC iteration of "Being Human." The show about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost living together as roommates actually could have worked as an anthology with a rotating cast, but since that wasn’t what anyone signed up for, it had a spectacular failure. (People like to say all British shows know when to pack it up, but the five-season "Being Human" is proof to the contrary.) And the series finale involved the new trio facing the literal Devil…and losing.

(Please note that this means Donald Bellisario wrote two episodes on this list: The other was the "Quantum Leap" series finale.) “Apollo and Starbuck, in the series finale's last scene, narrowly miss receiving Apollo 11 Moon landing transmissions from Earth.” Wow, I can’t imagine a more absurd way to end a series that seemingly takes place in the future.

Wait. Never mind. Where to start…angels (and God) existing? The crew of the Galactica abandoning technology and coexisting with early humans on Earth? The epilogue with Baltar and Six? And even more God talk?

You know how great all the “future” touches in the "Parks and Recreation" series finale were? That’s not the same for the "Weeds" series finale. Plus, "Weeds" was already long past its expiration date at this point. But like "Dexter," this finale says a lot about Showtime’s anti-hero problem (in addition to running shows past their prime): Considering how much Nancy ruined the lives of everyone she supposedly cared about with her selfishness, you would think she’d finally get her comeuppance. Instead, she gets filthy rich, and the whole crew — Silas, Shane, Andy, and Doug — all share a one big, happy family moment to end it all.

You might not remember this, but "House" ended with Dr. Gregory House faking his own death. Really think about this show — think about the type of show it was, its genre, everything — and try to understand how there was any world in which “House fakes his death” was a natural end to anything. At least this episode had some good cameos, which is really all you can give it credit for.

Another “we didn’t mean for it to be the series finale” cliffhanger type of ending. In this episode, Sam ends up actually leaping into himself…his fully grown self…in 1953...on the day of his birth. (Not his birthday, but the actual day he was born. So he should’ve been a baby. Don’t worry, it gets more confusing.) He leaps into himself in a bar where the people there are actually people he’s met before in his time-leaping, only as new characters, Ziggy, Gushy and Al. (Sound familiar? And like it had no pay-off) Then he leaped again to save the real Al’s marriage. The series ended with a post-script: “Dr. Sam Becket [sic] never returned home.” Yes, the show ended by misspelling its lead character’s last name wrong.

Scrubs ultimately went on to have a second life on ABC, with a far superior “series finale,” despite the fact that it also pulled a "How I Met Your Mother" in terms of having the couple it spent the entire series explaining were completely wrong and toxic for each other end up together. (The season eight finale was the “series finale,” prior to the underrated "Scrubs: Med School" season, which really should’ve been a spin-off instead, as intended.) But its last episode in its original NBC run — another one of those finales that was only meant to be a season finale and not a series — was literally a fairy tale. Even “just” as a season finale, it was a mind-boggling decision...but it was also the result of the infamous Writers Strike. Because of that, the season was only 11 episodes, and this one — originally episode nine — was moved into the finale spot. Really, an unwinnable situation.

Why? That question could be used a lot for many things about "Two and a Half Men," but in this particular instance, it’s all just about the series finale. Specifically the conclusion: “Charlie, shown only from the back, approaches the beach house and rings the bell, but before anyone answers the door, he is killed when the helicopter drops the piano on him. The camera then pulls back to reveal the series' set and Chuck Lorre, sitting in the director's chair. He says ‘Winning!,’ just before a second grand piano falls on him.” ...Why?

Again, sometimes a show just needs to know when to call it quits — and by season nine, "The Office" should’ve been long past quits. Especially as the finale was just another reason for "The Office" to trot out celebrities for cameos, which was ultimately what the later seasons were more about than a good show. The final season also decided that the documentary aspect of the show really needed to be focused on, so that’s what we get here. More of that.

Sorry, "Game of Thrones," the "Lost" ending is still the most hated (and referenced as such) series finale of all time. To the point that I don’t even have to explain why people hate it, especially as a lot of that hatred tends to come with misunderstanding the ending altogether.

Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer end up in prison for being the worst. Well, not exactly that reason, but pretty much. And you know what? They deserved it. Sorry, not sorry.