The worst TV sci-fi ending ever

[jamsy42]

Every day something reminds me of how terrible the BSG ending was, sure it tyed up the loose ends but I get the feeling that the writers gave up writing the fourth season, said God did it and left. Does anyone know of an ending of a sci-fi tv series worse than BSG's?{I guess this post is a little pointless, just curious}

[Aaron]

V:The Final Battle pulled out one of the worst cop-outs in TV as far as I'm concerned; after the Resistance releases the red dust, takes over the LA mothership, Diana sets it to self-destruct. The human-lizard kid uses her "magic" to disarm the bomb. Magic that basically appeared out of the blue. There were vague references to her being special in the show but nothing to that extent.

[jamsy42]

wow that is crappy

[Gramzamber]

Worse than the end of nBSG? Well, for something even more stupid and downright offensive I'd have to go with the ending of the old 3rd Robotech series.
Granted Robotech as a whole as 1 part Macross and 2 parts Macross ripoffs that some American lightbulb thought shoehorning into the same narrative was a good idea, but anyway. In the third series the Earth is occupied by aliens who spend the whole series being evil cunts.
In the last episode, out of the blue, the heroes who've spent all this time fighting the aliens suddenly side with them against a returning human fleet. This forces the human fleet to bomb Earth to get rid of the alien menace, so the "heroes" help the aliens leave. The aliens while leaving destroy the entire Earth fleet, killing who knows how many humans.
Why? Because one of the "heroes" is in love with one of the aliens who's a human clone or something. Yikes.

Wait a second that's not worse than nBSG, because that entire series was crap. It's not like it had anything to lose.

[Eviscerator]

Including Endings written because the season got canceled? If you do , SCC and Dollhouse certainly fit the bill, there was enough potential to drag out both series for another season at least.

[Thanas]

I find it hard to beat SW:Voyager and the last season of it, which did not make any sense at all.

[Zed]

Firefly - because that movie just didn't have enough time to finish off the series adequately.

Frankly, I don't see how the ending to BSG was so bad. There were plenty of hints about supernatural interference during the entirety of the series. Its ending was foreshadowed from the beginning, what with portals in the tomb of Athena, (Starbuck's, Roslin's, Caprica Six's, Athena's and the Hybrids') prescient visions, prophecies unfolding, Baltar's Six, Caprica Six's Baltar, Starbuck's mysterious resurrection, 'love' as the required ingredient for a Cylon-human child, 'love' allowing two Cylons to have a child, a ship that mysteriously suddenly contains new data, and a Cylon activation signal that nobody apparently actually activated.

Divine interference had been present in the entire series. The final revelation that angels were involved was perfectly justified.

[Gramzamber]

Zed, there's a difference between supernatural/otherworldly/alien/whatever interference and just "god did it" cop outs like the end of nBSG.
It undermines the entire premise of the show.
Then there's the utter retardation of not only abandoning all technology and culture becase it's somehow inherently bad (typical luddite bullshit written by self-righteous assholes in comfy high tech apartments on their state of the art PCs) but all the surviving Colonials agreeing to this. What? Not one of these opinionated argue-about-anything people says "screw you, we're keeping our ships and preserving our history!"? Yeah right.

[Zed]

I simply don't see how the entire premise of the show is undermined - I don't see it as a cop out. I see it as an ending that had been hinted at for the show's entire run - something that was anticipated for a long period of time and is finally vindicated.

As to the Luddism, I don't have significant qualms with that - there's a unique emotional atmosphere at the end of Battlestar Galactica which I think is very conductive to Luddism. Actual Luddism consisted of revolutionary tendencies triggered by a disgust of the Industrial Revolution and its labor conditions - I believe the situation the colonials found themselves in was far worse. The general loathing towards technology triggered by these conditions, coupled with the sudden promise of a new beginning, a new opportunity for mankind, makes the refusal of all technology quite believable. I didn't have any problems with suspending my disbelief, anyways.

[Gramzamber]

I simply don't see how the entire premise of the show is undermined - I don't see it as a cop out. I see it as an ending that had been hinted at for the show's entire run - something that was anticipated for a long period of time and is finally vindicated.

No it wasn't. Some supernatural involvement may be inferred but not as blatant as the ending.

As to the Luddism, I don't have significant qualms with that - there's a unique emotional atmosphere at the end of Battlestar Galactica which I think is very conductive to Luddism. Actual Luddism consisted of revolutionary tendencies triggered by a disgust of the Industrial Revolution and its labor conditions - I believe the situation the colonials found themselves in was far worse. The general loathing towards technology triggered by these conditions, coupled with the sudden promise of a new beginning, a new opportunity for mankind, makes the refusal of all technology quite believable. I didn't have any problems with suspending my disbelief, anyways.

Bullshit. What opportunity? For Adama to get gangrene and die when he cuts himself building his hut? Yeah, great.
Even if I somehow accepted the sudden hate of all technology, to also reject their own culture and revert to the year 0 is idiotic. Pol Pot did that to his people, and we call him a monster.

[Zed]

I simply don't see how the entire premise of the show is undermined - I don't see it as a cop out. I see it as an ending that had been hinted at for the show's entire run - something that was anticipated for a long period of time and is finally vindicated.

No it wasn't. Some supernatural involvement may be inferred but not as blatant as the ending.

That's the point: the ending renders explicit what had been present all along.

As to the Luddism, I don't have significant qualms with that - there's a unique emotional atmosphere at the end of Battlestar Galactica which I think is very conductive to Luddism. Actual Luddism consisted of revolutionary tendencies triggered by a disgust of the Industrial Revolution and its labor conditions - I believe the situation the colonials found themselves in was far worse. The general loathing towards technology triggered by these conditions, coupled with the sudden promise of a new beginning, a new opportunity for mankind, makes the refusal of all technology quite believable. I didn't have any problems with suspending my disbelief, anyways.

Bullshit. What opportunity? For Adama to get gangrene and die when he cuts himself building his hut? Yeah, great.
Even if I somehow accepted the sudden hate of all technology, to also reject their own culture and revert to the year 0 is idiotic. Pol Pot did that to his people, and we call him a monster.

I don't have to agree with a series' characters to find their actions believable. People, particularly when gathered in large groups joined by a common purpose, do not always act rationally.

Your comparison with Pol Pot, however, is flawed. Pol Pot's rejection of his own culture was accompanied by mass murder - Adama's choices weren't. (Although he had his share of advocating genocide and mass murder earlier on in the series.)

[Gramzamber]

That's the point: the ending renders explicit what had been present all along.

The problem is it uses what has been hinted at to come up with an ending where they don't have to explain anything.

I don't have to agree with a series' characters to find their actions believable. People, particularly when gathered in large groups joined by a common purpose, do not always act rationally.

Flying your ships into the sun goes beyond rationality.
I'm certain there'd be groups like Baltar's band of retards who'd embrace the soil and reject technology, but I'm equally certain there'd be those who'd dearly cling to their ships and tech, and those who'd accept their new situation but seek to preserve Colonial history and culture.
This unanimous back to nature crap is utterly unbelievable.

Your comparison with Pol Pot, however, is flawed. Pol Pot's rejection of his own culture was accompanied by mass murder - Adama's choices weren't. (Although he had his share of advocating genocide and mass murder earlier on in the series.)

Aside from the mass murder, Cambodians were forced to live in squalid conditions thanks to the rejection of existing infrastructure..
The Colonials would fare no better. What about the elderly and infirm? The diabetics and people with other conditions that need constant treatment?
What about the engineers and miners who are now stripped of their tools and utterly unable to contribute to a hunter-gatherer society?
I'm not even getting into the Mitochondria Eve absurdity here because that's a whole other level of stupid.

[Sarevok]

Including Endings written because the season got canceled? If you do , SCC and Dollhouse certainly fit the bill, there was enough potential to drag out both series for another season at least.

T:SCCs ending was perfect. Who knows if they dragged it the series might have sucked as much nBSG. Remember that nBSG reached a high mark at the end of its second season. If it was canceled after second season finale it would have been fondly remembered instead of being a textbook example of how to destroy a good tv series.

[Shroom Man 777]

T:SCC's ending was hanging. I miss my Robot Rivers.

v__________v

[Sinewmire]

It's not a TV, but Soul Survivors largely destroyed Eliza Dushku's chances at being a silver screen actress.

The ending was, if I recall correctly, it was all a dream. Worst. Episode. Ever.

[Zed]

You guys mustn't have seen the ending to Twin Peaks. (Though it wasn't Sci-Fi, it warrants mention in any list of bad endings.)

[Thanas]

Including Endings written because the season got canceled? If you do , SCC and Dollhouse certainly fit the bill, there was enough potential to drag out both series for another season at least.

T:SCCs ending was perfect. Who knows if they dragged it the series might have sucked as much nBSG.

Given from all that I heard about the planned Season 3, I very much doubt that.

[Shroom Man 777]

Thanas I think you owe it to me to PM me about those planned stuff for Season 3! We're ROBOT RIVER PALS after all! ^______^

[Gemini-Preserver]

The American version of Life On Mars? That was just. Banging your head against a table bad really.

[Nephtys]

Dollhouse's was pretty bad. I mean, we go from episode 39 with 'oh look, more hooker assassins' to final episode 40 with 'oh, look zombie apocalypse.' Wait, what?

nBSG is of course, one of the most exceptionally bad endings ever. It literally was the writers going 'Oh shit, we have no idea how to finish this. I know, some lame tie-ins to earlier stuff, and then god did it!'

It counts as Sci-fi, but goddamn you Evangelion for being so stupid. So very, very stupid.

How about the entire ending Arc for Stargate Atlantis? Such a jumbled clusterfuck.

[Gramzamber]

I don't even consider SGA's an ending, more like "Ahhh they pulled the plug! Quick, throw this random crap together and give the Wraith an uber hive that's everythingproof oh but make sure to make them the stupidest Wraith ever so our heroes have a chance!"

[Marcus Aurelius]

Including Endings written because the season got canceled? If you do , SCC and Dollhouse certainly fit the bill, there was enough potential to drag out both series for another season at least.

T:SCCs ending was perfect. Who knows if they dragged it the series might have sucked as much nBSG.

Given from all that I heard about the planned Season 3, I very much doubt that.

Yeah. I think it was more likely that in Season 3 T:SCC would have finally took off and become a truly great series. The fact that nBSG started to suck after S2 means nothing. Let's consider DS9 and Babylon 5, which both continued to improve after Season 2. TNG as well, although it did not have any kind of story arc, but still, Season 1 and most of Season 2 of TNG were only marginally better than Voyager or Enterprise.

[Majin Gojira]

A lot of Anime that overtakes its manga source material often ends up like this--or they only have a limited amount of time to complete the series and truncate everything.

The first Negima Anime puts the title characters driving focus down in a single side line in order to do something completely different.

The anime of Claymore jumps the series from its arguable quarter-way the way through point to the final battle with the arch-nemesis--which has yet to happen in the manga proper (even several years after the anime's release).

Given how boringly invincible said arch-nemesis has been, there is some satisfaction to it...if the anime did not hav ethe fight end in the heroine's victory, but instead ended in a massive cop out.

I'll take a incomprehensible, intentional Gainax ending over the rush-job, gecko ending any day.

I'll also take it over Filler Seasons too. Bleach? Naruto? Do you have something to say for yourselves?

[Simon_Jester]

Bullshit. What opportunity? For Adama to get gangrene and die when he cuts himself building his hut? Yeah, great.
Even if I somehow accepted the sudden hate of all technology, to also reject their own culture and revert to the year 0 is idiotic. Pol Pot did that to his people, and we call him a monster.

Yeah. But if we can imagine any conditions under which people would do that to themselves, it would be when they just had something like 99.9999% of their population get killed off in the Robot Uprising. The survivors are going to be about as technophobic as it is possible for human beings to be.

If every time they turn on a computer it reminds them of The Day The Cylons Hacked The Network and killed everyone, getting rid of all the computers may seem a bit more palatable even if it means having to work your ass off in the fields.

That doesn't mean it's a smart decision, of course. But bands of refugees who have just managed to shake pursuit from a ruthless genocidal enemy aren't known for being at the height of rational objectivity.

[Coyote]

There's always the ending to Alf, where the lovable-but-sarcastic little furry alien gets taken by government agents to be vivisected.

I didn't mind the ending to Dollhouse since it did just show what would really happen with that technology when it got away from them. Although they jumped ahead to it way too quickly.

The ending to Jeremiah. That was a letdown.