(Hated Trope) Endings so awful they completely destroy the legacy of the media.

[u/MeepMan324]

1. Two and a Half Men's final episode teased Charlie Sheen's character coming back and going to harm the other characters whilst also having insults to his character and Charlie Sheen himself. It's clear the director had a grudge and the ending where his character comes up to knock then get crushed by a piano before it cuts to the director before he says "winning" before getting crushed by another piano
2. This was an upbeat animated show about a magical teen princess. The writers desperately wanted a romantic endgame for her and her best friend, but the way they got there was essentially multiversal omnicide. To stop a villain, the main character unilaterally decides magic is the root of all evil and destroys it entirely. By doing this, she casually commits mass genocide against every purely magical being in the multiverse. It also triggers a massive apocalyptic event that violently crashes different dimensions together into a chaotic hellscape. But the show frames this horrific, mass-extinction catastrophe as a sweet, triumphant ending just because two teenagers get to hold hands in the rubble (Star Vs The Forces Of Evil)

[u/Aggravating-Raisin-4]

While I do hate how Netflix tends to cancel stuff early, I also kind of get it. It seems like everything that goes on for more than a few seasons (on Netflix) dips in quality pretty fast.

So they can either spend a lot of money & people get annoyed at the quality, or they can spend less money & people get annoyed that it gets cancelled.

[u/tyrantganado → u/Aggravating-Raisin-4]

I maintain that three, maybe four seasons is enough to tell most serialised stories.

Dark, for example, works very well as a three season show but I remain disappointed we never got to see where 1899 was going.

Stranger Things, on the other hand, would be far better remembered if the story as it is was condensed into 4 seasons since so much of season 5 was a meandering mess.

[u/Patch86UK → u/tyrantganado]

Stranger Things was originally pitched as an anthology type show with different (broadly unrelated) stories each season. It was a relatively late decision to make it a single story with the same core characters for the whole run.

And I think that shows. Practically perfect first season, and then seasons 2-3 it felt like it had good ideas but couldn't stop getting in its own way. Season 4-5 got so bogged down in "wrapping up" the story that it lost a lot of its charm.

[u/tyrantganado → u/Patch86UK]

Season 4 I actually quite liked, because I found the government conspiracy stuff fun, and Vecna was a cool villain. The real issue is that it ends with world-altering occurrences that are quite literally paved over out the gate in season 5. If they'd skipped from Hawkins splitting open to the last few episodes of season 5 it could have worked, but the preceding five or six episodes just feel so redundant.

And normally I don't mind a plot taking its time if the character moments are good but season 5 whiffs even that.

[u/briefNbrightfirefly → u/Patch86UK]

Stranger Things would have been awesome as an anthology series.

[u/ThisIsntRael → u/tyrantganado]

Dark got three seasons to match 3 timelines. The beginning is the end...

[u/brutinator → u/Aggravating-Raisin-4]

I think the problem is, if Netflix just told creatives straight up: you only get a budget of X, only get 1/2/3 seasons with no chance at an extension, and can not end on a cliffhanger (obviously a bit subjective), I think people would have less of a problem. Esp. given how chaotic streaming programming is, that'd be a breath of fresh air.

Maybe allow creatives to pitch a sequel series, but again, it can't be leveraged because the original show ended on a cliffhanger.

[u/ctan0312 → u/brutinator]

Also if a show is indefinite then the people behind it have a vested interest in keeping it going as long as possible so that they have a job as long as possible.

[u/Blu- → u/Aggravating-Raisin-4]

Best/worst example : House of cards. They got greedy trying to drag it out.

[u/SolomonG → u/Aggravating-Raisin-4]

The real problem is just how the money works.

In legacy TV you get money from the adds you run next to a show. So season 35 of NCIS: Memory Care Unit still makes bank as long as Grandma is still watching.

In streaming, shows need to bring in new viewers to tip the needle, so season 4 of just about any show isn't doing much for Netflix anymore unless it's something so popular that people are subscribed just to watch it (a la GOT).

I feel like the more people that understand this, the more people that might be OK with streaming services running adds. They literally help keep your shows on the "air".

[u/ICLazeru → u/Aggravating-Raisin-4]

Netflix needs to pick scripts a little more carefully and commit to finishing shows, even if they are short runs, instead of letting them end with no resolutions. A catalogue of shows with no endings is not a catalogue holding longterm value.