JJ Abrams had always planned to have Ben (Scott Speedman) and Felicity (Keri Russell) end up together, and wrote the exact ending he wanted. Yay! And then...the WB gave Felicity five additional episodes after the finale was already all tied up with a bow. What to do when you've already finished your story? You time travel, of course! Our favorite little fickle pickle went all Quantum Leap in one of the weirdest TV show twists ever, with Felicity going back a year to try to change the future, and fans were left wondering W.T.F.?! Still, though, those last seven minutes of the Felicity series finale are pretty flawless. (Not gonna lie, we got all weepy while "researching" the video for this story. Ben to Felicity: "I don't want to live my life without you." Dead.)
Dexter never seemed the same after executive producer Clyde Phillips left at the end of season four (the Trinity killer season). The ratings took a turn, the fans ranted, and the series finale was, according to our "Series Finale Hall of Fame and Shame" poll, the absolute worst series finale of all time. We tracked down Phillips (now head of Nurse Jackie) who gave us his original idea for the very end of Dexter: That Dexter Morgan would open his eyes, be revealed to be on the execution table, and every single person he ever killed would be on the other side of the glass, watching. Chills! And the way he told it is even better than that hatch job we just gave you. Phillips' ending is a must read for any Dexter fan.
When Gilmore Girls mastermind Amy Sherman-Palladino left the show she created in 2006, after a "botched negotiation" with the WB, fans knew they would never get the "two lines" Amy had promised she knew to be the very ending. "I think that you have to look for another two lines now," she told fans upon her exit from the show. We just had one word: Noooooooooooooo.
Despite being one of the most critically acclaimed (and fan-worshipped, by even Joss Whedon!) TV shows of its time, Veronica Mars' surprise cancellation in 2007 left creator Rob Thomas no opportunity to end the show the way he had wanted. The final Logan and Veronica scene? Don't even get us started. The very last episode, "The Bitch Is Back" was wholly unsatisfying as a series ender. Now, of course, that finale-that-never-was outrage has turned into a fan-funded motion picture. Take that, CW suits!
In 2007, executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse told ABC they only had one or two seasons left of story, but ABC had already sold the series internationally for three more seasons. Ultimately, fans got three more seasons (albeit shortened to 16 episodes), but it's unclear how or if the final seasons would have looked if ABC had agreed to produce only five seasons instead of six.
Despite being one of the most imaginative and gorgeously shot TV series of all TV (and beloved by fans and critics alike!), Pushing Daisies was cancelled after 13 episodes of its second season, leaving showrunner Bryan Fuller to wrap up the show quickly in a way he had not intended. "For me, there was one ending, and that ending was decades later, and I couldn't really quite rush their story to any sort of conclusion," he told Sci Fi Wire. Which is why Daisies is our top pick for a fan-funded, Kickstarter movie effort, something Fuller has told us he's interested in doing. Let's get ‘er done, fans!
Three seasons, eight Emmys, one Golden Globe and one…superbly lame cancellation. This HBO series from David Milch was cancelled in 2006 (even though HBO insisted it wasn't at the time, the actors were let go). Milch had agreed to do two films to wrap up the story, but ultimately the sets were torn down and the movies never happened.
This ah-mah-zing ABC drama was too rapid-fire and over-the-top for some viewers, but oh, how we loved it. And oh, how we wept buckets of tears when ABC cancelled it in May 2013. The (nominally comforting) silver lining? Damon Wayans got to go back to New Girl, and Casey Wilson got her "Year of Casey" by getting engaged to Happy Endings creator David Caspe. Still, we wanted the gang to get their own happy endings on screen. (The series-finale kind and not Thai-massage kind, to be clear.)
Cancelled after one season, this post-apocalyptic drama series starring Skeet Ulrich was actually brought back by CBS after an impassioned fan campaign…And then cancelled again after season two in 2008. (Sad trombone!) Despite rumors of the show switching to another network, or a feature film in the works, we never got any more episodes or any kind of ending. Um…Never too late? Maybe?
One of the most talked-about cancellations of all time, Judd Apatow and Paul Feig's Freaks and Geeks didn't even come close to getting a second season, or any of the storyline they'd plotted out for future episodes, including the finale. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Feig ran down character by character what he had planned (nobody puts Linda Cardellini on a stretcher!) and we can't help but feel a deep sense of loss for the Freaks and Geeks amazingness that could have been.
After Cory Monteith's sudden death in July 2013, Glee producer Ryan Murphy was forced to come up with a new final moment for the series finale of Glee. "The final year of the show… was designed around Rachel and Cory/Finn's story," Murphy said. "I knew what the last shot was. [Cory] was in it. I knew what the last line was, [Lea Michele] said it to him." Murphy believes he has come up with a new way to end the series that is "very satisfying."