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long running shows without a true season finale

N

nomadcowatbk

Shows that were unexpectedly cancelled or thought they would be picked up by another network, many of these went unnoticed (other than loyal fans) or unpromoted during the summer

Family Matters, the producers expected to be picked up by another network after the low rated final season on CBS after moving from ABC, Step by Step did not have a true season finale either

the last episode of Full House was mostly a clip show due to the lack of time to prepare for a true season finale after ABC cancelled them (the Olsen twins were driving up the cost of the show)
 
The Sopranos, in my mind, takes first prize when it comes to the worse finale of a TV show.
Another show that comes to mind is "Who's the Boss"?
 
'Night Court' had a finale, but it was poorly executed; NBC had offered to continue the show another year, but with cast and budget cuts. Some of the characters were written out, although it seemed more like a another season-ending cliffhanger, with the sense that it might ne resolved at some point, than a farewell. Then they tacked on that ridiculous last scene of Bull abruptly teleporting to Jupiter...
 
If I recall, "Less Than Perfect" with Sara Rue ran on ABC. It was cancelled, and I believe that ABC did not even burn off the last episodes. It also did not have a finale. It ran for 4 years with 81 episodes in the can. Have not seen it much in syndication.
 
I'm still wondering if Jessica Tate was executed on SOAP.
 
I still get upset over the finale for St. Elsewhere. That ending ruined the entire series to me. I still think they need to do a real ending and this is 25 years after the show ended.
 
therealjm12 said:
I'm still wondering if Jessica Tate was executed on SOAP.
Click to expand...

In 1983, Katharine Helmond played an 'out of body' Jessica Tate on an episode of 'Benson'. She apperared as a ghost, whom only Benson could see or hear, and explained that she was in 'limbo', and her body was 'in South America'. She had to help 'a good friend' in order to move on to 'the afterlife'.
At the emd of the episode, she accomplished her task, and she and Benson said goodbye, as she faded away...so basically, the answer is 'Yes'. ;D
'Confused? You won't be, after...wait, there IS no 'next week's episode.'
 
And on that note...'Benson' itself is one of the most notorious examples.
The show ended in 1986, with a 'cliffhanger' of Benson and Governor Gatling, opponents in the gubernatorial election, watching TV together, with the episode9and series) ending just before the winner was about to be called.
In fact, according to the tvseriesfinales.com site, had the show continued, Gatling would have won...but Benson would have been appointed as a senator, and moved to Washington DC, along with Kraus and Clayton. From there, the show would have been a lot more like its parent series, 'Soap', with a storyline involving a murder mystery where all the victims were in the line of succession to the presidency.
The 'real' finale was to have been a TV-movie in which Benson became President of the US.
 
The original WKRP was left with no real final episode, but then The New WKRP had ended with a cliffhanger where Donovan, the program director, was possibly killed in a plane crash. Since it was cancelled afterward there was no answer to what happened.
 
anotherguy said:
The original WKRP was left with no real final episode, but then The New WKRP had ended with a cliffhanger where Donovan, the program director, was possibly killed in a plane crash. Since it was cancelled afterward there was no answer to what happened.
Click to expand...

The original WKRP had what could have been a cliffhanger(Mama Carlson changing the format), but they resolved it at the last minute(she changed her mind)...apparently just in case the show was cancelled(as it was, in the spring of '82). Maybe the producers hoped CBS would have a change of heart, like Mama Carlson!
 
'Mork and Mindy' almost fits the category; late in season 4, spring of 1982, there was a three-part episode involving Mork meeting a Venusian living on Earth(a pre-'Murphy Brown' Joe Regalbuto). To cut a long story short, he was a killer, and M & M time-traveled to the Stone Age to escape him. At the end of the episode, he had been defeated, and they were on their way...somewhere, sometime; the episode ended without telling us if they made it back...the final scene was presumably the cave they'd visited, only now in the present...with drawings of Mork and Mindy on the wall.
ABC had planned that to be the season finale, before cancelling the series. The network decided to delay a different episode to the end of the season, so that the series could end with the characters in their usual setting. Maybe Season 5 would have opened with more time-travelling, but I guess we'll never know.
 
The final episode of the Wonder Years wasn't intended to be a series finale, just a season finale, the show was cancelled when the final episode was in production
 
Sometimes the best finale, is a finale that isn't a finale in the usual sense at all. Cheers ended just the right way--after Sam decides NOT to leave Boston and go off with Diane, he returns to the bar, chills out at closing time with the other regulars, bids them good night, closes down for the evening, and tidies up the place for the next day's opening. Life will clearly go on as usual there, we just won't see it on TV any more. (Ending a show that way not only puts a capper on things, it preserves the future watchability of reruns in syndication.)

Other shows close with a big question mark. Take Cheers spinoff Frasier. At the end of the show, Frasier goes off to Chicago in search of his sudden love interest. But does he connect with her? Does she reciprocate his love? Does he find a new job at WLS or WGN that matches the one he left in Seattle? We never found out how it all worked out. Left room for a reunion special (maybe a TV movie) to tie up the loose ends, but it's anyone's guess if that film will ever be made.
 
While it can not be considered a long running show, it would have been nice if the producers of "Branded" would have ended the series by having the character of Jason McCord found innocent of the charges that got him kicked out of the army.
 
"Lost In Space" should have had a series finale in which "our space travelers" either reached their destination (a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri) or return to Earth.

But such a finale might have hurt syndication sales of the reruns.
 
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