One thing television fans hate is saying goodbye. Unlike films, good TV series often run for several years. Spending that much time with a set of characters can make viewers feel like they're actually friends with their favorite characters. And when a show ends, it means never seeing those characters again.
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That's why it's all the more important to create a good finale. Even the best show can have its reputation destroyed by a bad ending, or worse if they don't get the additional season they deserve. Fortunately, the best series often know exactly what they're supposed to do, creating finales that are beloved by fans years after the series ends.
Updated 9th of September, by Isaac Williams: A TV show's finale remains one of its most important episodes, the destination the entire show is a journey towards. Although a perfect finale is rare, there is a selection of shows with prestigious and beloved finales, and so this list has been updated to celebrate even more of them.
Few shows have made a mark on pop culture quite like Friends. For ten seasons, its core cast of six everyday New Yorkers are relatable, sympathietc, entertaining protagonists, inviting the audience to care about their struggles and their achievements. Its finale has the unenviable task of wrapping up one of the most beloved shows ever made.
For the most part, it succeeds. Although 'The Last One' isn't Friends' best episode, it is nonetheless a fiercely endearing hour of television that soothes the blow of parting. Characters make huge steps in their lives, take the time to bid each other farewell, and the show wraps on a happy note made poignant and affecting by the simple fact that it's the end.
Angel is a grittier and more mature spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and never is that better-represented than in its ending. Whereas Buffy ends things on a satisfying, victorious note that emphasizes the sweet over the bitter, Angel decides to instead end on a defiant defeat with hints of sweetness in a bitter taste.
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Although the final arc is slightly rushed, the show sees Angel and his group realize that they can't ever truly defeat Wolfram and Hart. Instead, they launch an all-out final assault to set their plans back as far as possible before preparing to die fighting against a huge demon army in retribution. It's the only way the character could rightfully go out, and it hits the perfect note for the series.
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is a show that instantly feels like home. The opening song about Will Smith leaving his home in Philly and living with his aunt and uncle in Bel-Air has been repeated so much it's become a meme, but that's only because it's so beloved.
The finale, "I, Done," shows Will finally breaking away from the Banks family. After six years of having the support he needed to grow, the ending depicts Will doing what's necessary to stand on his own. It's a touching finale, and the ending shot is still one of the most iconic in sitcom history.
Few sitcoms are as bitter or as painfully real as Fleabag. The series follows the struggles of a heavily-flawed woman, struggling to overcome her guilt both justified and unjustified. Despite this subject matter, it somehow manages to be utterly hilarious. Fleabag straddles a fine line of poignancy and comedy that can cross into the absurd. Both its seasons end on bittersweet notes, but the second's feels more complete and more earned.
The nameless main character repairs her relationships with her family, helps her sister leave her awful husband, and puts aside her reservations to help her father get married. Although the love of her life leaves, she is able to make peace of it and leave the audience behind rather than use them like an emotional crutch as she has all series.
Breaking Bad is a show that continues to receive widespread acclaim, considered by many to be one of the finest TV shows to ever air. In the last episode, the show's best character Walter White was really at the end of his rope, but it was only after achieving everything he'd ever wanted.
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Walter White saved his friend and made sure his family was secure. In the end, however, he was left alone after gunning down an army of Nazis. Walter was undoubtedly a terrible person, but his journey was compelling right to the last episode.
The Wire is more than a show about cops and robbers. Every season of The Wire meant something because the writers understand how connected everything is in the city. Politics, schools, organized crime - it all ties together, sometimes in ways that aren't easily visible. The Wire series finale manages to finish off so many stories.
At the same time, so many other stories are left unfinished. That's because David Simon and the other creators also know there's no possible way to "wrap up" that world. Everything keeps going. As some characters find their way out of that world, new people find their way in.
As a show about eternal life after death, The Good Place looks to be incompatible with a true ending for much of its run. However, its very final story arc sees its protagonists solve the problem of eternal paradise by introducing a true exit, allowing people to meet their end in the best way - once they've made their peace with the world and done everything they want to do.
As such, The Good Place's finale focuses on its protagonists doing just that. It manages to be heartbreakingly sad and achingly funny at the same time, finding the sad parts of its funny moments and the mirth of its tragedy. Wrapping up each character's story perfectly while leaving things just open-ended enough to keep the audience wondering, the show gives itself as poignant a send-off as it does its main cast.
The Sopranos has one of the more frustrating finales in television history. That doesn't stop it from being great, but fans have continued to debate its merits and its very meaning ever since it aired. In the midst of a mob war in which characters find themselves growing more and less important, Tony finally seems like he's managed to clear most of the trouble going on in his world.
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Taking a chance to sit down with his family for dinner, Tony looks up as a bell rings at the diner he and his family are eating at. Then the episode abruptly cuts to black, leaving viewers to make their own decision as to what happened to the Mafioso.
The Office finale skips ahead to a year after the documentary covering everyone's time at the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. It's this bit of distance that gives viewers a chance to see what's happened to everyone now that the series is over.
Even though the documentary is over, the format still finds its place and offers one last introspective look at all the characters. Getting the whole cast of The Office to reflect on their time at "this stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job" is a great send-off to characters joining the ranks of some of the best in sitcom history.
Cheers was such a monster success that its finale, "One for the Road," was watched by almost half of America. It didn't let viewers down. Even though it brought back Diane and teased at the possibility of her and Sam getting together for good, that wasn't what the show was about.
Diane had been gone for over half the series' run. There was only one thing that had stayed with Sam all that time, and only one thing he cared about the entire show's run. So it's only fitting that by the end of the show, there was still a place people could go, where everyone knew their name.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a revolutionary series that changed how people looked at sitcoms going forward. Before the show, sitcom "endings" weren't all that common - the show wrapped up, and that was that. But Mary Tyler Moore decided to give the cast a proper storyline to wrap up their adventures.
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After years of working at the news station, the worst happened: they were bought out by someone else and all of them were fired. With everyone (save for Ted) needing to find new jobs, they were all forced to come to terms with their time together being over. It's a heartbreaking, but hilarious finish to one of the classic television programs.
Better Call Saul manages to buck expectations by being at least as good as its parent series, the acclaimed Breaking Bad, retaining its high quality all the way through to its finale. Much like Breaking Bad, the show follows a sympathetic character on his moral decline, before the finale sees him attempting to pull himself back.
The finale of Better Call Saul takes place entirely in the show's present day, rather than the earlier years that most of the series covers. It chronicles Jimmy McGill finally being brought to justice for his many crimes, but negotiating a lenient plea deal. He detonates this plea deal to fully confess his sins and reaffirms himself as Jimmy McGill. Combined with cameos of beloved characters from both shows, many consider the final episode of Better Call Saul even better than Breaking Bad's own finale.
M*A*S*H's "Goodbye. Farewell, And Amen" is the most watched television episode of all time, even 30 years after it aired. After eleven seasons about a hospital's attempt to survive in the midst of a harrowing war, the show sent its viewers off with a two-and-a-half-hour film.
What makes the M*A*S*H finale work so well is how it's unafraid to leave its characters deeply changed. It isn't as simple as "and then they went home," and the main cast isn't asked to say goodbye to one another. They're forced to confront the ways in which the war has left them different, many of which are not for the better.
So much of Scrubs from the first episode was about trying to go against all the sitcom clichés which had become common by the time it aired in 1999. The ending, "My Finale," was no different. Focusing on JD's last day at Sacred Heart, much of the two-part finale was about JD coming to terms with how his last day was just another day for everyone working there.
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The Scrubs ending finally gives fans what they need by playing some classic tropes straight. Dr. Cox saying how he truly feels about JD and JD getting glimpses of what his future might be what make this episode a key moment in television history.
"I love you all. Class dismissed." With those final words spoken by a teary Feeny to an empty-classroom, one of the greatest sitcoms of all time came to an end. Boy Meets World should've been another forgettable sitcom of the '90s. But as the characters got to age, they broke away from their stereotypes and became real people.
By the end, Boy Meets World became a sneaky pick for one of the best shows of that era. After seven seasons of watching the Matthews and their friends grow up, "Brave New World" set them off on new journeys - but not before the kids said their goodbyes to one another, and to the people who helped them grow into adults. It might've tied up the loose ends a bit too much, but Boy Meets World was exactly the sort of show which deserved that kind of fairy tale ending.
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