Have you ever watched a television show that you really enjoyed at first, but you saw the series become more disappointing as it progressed? Have you ever felt confused, underwhelmed, or even a little angry after watching a show’s last episode, wondering why the series had to end in such a lackluster way?
Fans of “Game of Thrones,” “The Boys,”“Stranger Things,” and countless other popular shows might be able to relate. The Bad Finale Epidemic is a phenomenon that frequently happens with big productions that honestly shouldn’t have let such poor writing slide. But why do many big-budget, popular shows seem to fall flat when they reach their finales?
To understand this issue, we need to revisit the most iconic, timeless example of a series with a terrible ending: “Game of Thrones.” This show faced a major challenge: The author of the book series hadn’t yet written the final “Game of Thrones” book. Therefore, the “Game of Thrones” show writers were forced to wrap up years of story buildup with original conclusion. Many of their decisions felt underwhelming and nonsensical and undermined the previous seasons’ careful plotting that followed the books. Also commonly cited were the cast’s contracts becoming too expensive to keep for more seasons, causing the show runners to rush the endings of their character arcs.
But “Game of Thrones” and every other show with an awful finale ultimately suffered from one core issue: burnout.
“Game of Thrones” aired from 2011 to 2019, and it was in production for over a decade. “Stranger Things” shares a similar timeline, in production for about a decade and airing from 2016 to 2025. 10 years is an incredibly long time to spend on a single story, and television shows (especially wildly popular ones) take a lot of labor to make. It’s understandable that at a certain point, TV writers burn out. They reach a point where they start to view their show as the obstacle hindering them from pursuing new projects, leading to phoned-in writing decisions and rushed finales.
This is why a TV show’s popularity is sometimes a double-edged sword. This is especially apparent with “Stranger Things,” which initially was supposed to be a single-season show. However, the show blew up on both Netflix and social media, so it was renewed for several more seasons. Therefore, the writers needed to conjure more seasons out of thin air. As the seasons progressed, writers’ burnout and lack of inspiration became apparent. (In the “Stranger Things” behind-the-scenes documentary, the writers reveal that they were still writing the script in the middle of actively filming the show’s last season, despite having years to write a compelling finale.)
Recently,Amazon Prime’s “The Boys” released its final episodes, which even diehard fans regard as some of the show’s worst episodes. The finale of “The Boys” is the series’ lowest-rated episode on IMDB (5.6 stars). In comparison, itscompare highest-rated episode netted a 9.6-star rating. Unfortunately, while its early seasons sucked viewers in, “The Boys” (like “Stranger Things”) fell victim to its own popularity — most of the final season just set up the show’s new spinoff instead of concluding its existing story.
Don’t get me wrong — some popular TV shows do have great finales. But far too often, otherwise fantastic shows end in disappointing ways. The fault doesn’t lie with the writers alone; it lies with studios making unreasonable demands in the pursuit of a bigger profit.
What do you think? Why are some shows’ finales so terrible? Let us know in the comments!
Photo by Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash
