Best TV Shows With the Worst Endings

All good things must come to an end, even successful television shows, and sometimes the best shows have the worst endings. Whether it’s a show that’s gone on well past its prime, or a show whose original cast left and were replaced by actors who paled in comparison, or a reboot or revival with a promising start that stalled after a season or two, even great shows aren’t perfect.

To determine the 50 best TV shows with the worst endings, Stacker compiled data on the best TV shows on IMDb with more than 50,000 votes and ranked them according to the average IMDb user rating across the final season. User ratings are ranked according to full value, but only two decimals places are shown. Those listed as ties are exact ties down to the last decimal. Data is up to date as of Sept. 16.

These shows represent every genre from sci-fi to drama and come from all over the world. They are about witches and horsemen and include a British sketch comedy. One is set in a fifth dimension not known to man, another is about a suburban mother who resorts to selling drugs, and there are three versions of a space show with a cult-like following that spans five decades.

While it may seem many of these shows have little in common, the thread that ties them together is that somewhere along the line things went bad. In the end, they left a trail of disappointed or confused fans who wondered what exactly happened to that show they loved.