What is your LEAST favorite final season?

[Temis the Vorta]

My votes go to X-Files and SG-1 - both series that got so bad at the end, I never did more than peek at the final seasons and slog through the finales. To me, Oz was always OTT nonsense (entertaining regardless), so I didn't think the final season was a big letdown. BSG had become convoluted and nonsensical before the final season, so that also wasn't a big letdown. And hey, S4 had that great mutiny plotline, that was among the best sequences the show ever did.

The HBO series "Rome." Yeah, I know it was only two seasons long, but that second season was awful compared to the first.

S2 of Rome had Brutus' final stand, which was cool, and I loved the whole "moral decay in Egypt" plotline for Marc Antony.

should it end in 2010 then Heroes

S4 for me isn't as boring as S2 was. S4 at least has that zany Nathan-Matt-Sylar-Peter plotline, which is entertaining (perhaps for more reasons than the writers intend) but I can't recall a single thing I found worthwhile in S2.

 

[selina]

I'm not a huge fan of the last season of Charmed, but at least there were some good moments now and then. I wish I could say the same about the X-Files, but the show really got unbearable to watch. So the X-Files really win the price for the least favorite season.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Thing is about "Roseanne", they tried to do two things:

1. Give us the appearence that the Conner family had finally gotten out of their poverty rut.

2. Inject humor into the situation after the fact.


Part of what made the show so fucking hilarious was them being poor. Even if all just a lie, it was nice to see the Conners become rich anyway. And those last five or so minutes of the series finale, more than made up for the poor season.



"Knight Rider".

Added a new character in an attempt to gain ratings. Nothing wrong with R.C. per se, but tossing in someone ther series didn't need, was a wrong move. Add that to Super Pursuit mode (what a pointless ratings grab gimmick) and that the show didn't have a finale, we have just another season.


"Gunsmoke"

Simply because it was beginning to get just way too common in it's plots and simplification. Don't get me wrong, there were still good episodes later on ("Matt Dilon Must die!" being a good example), but it was all sort of becoming Western white noise, and add to that there were no advancements in the characters (or a series finale), you have yet again -- just another season. And the less than average TV movies afterward (especially one really bad one that needlessly resurrected a one-shot killed bad guy) were a poor send off.

 

[Top41]

I'm not sure I can think of one! I agree with some of the complaints about the final season of Buffy, though I still found a lot to like about it and really liked the way things turned out in the finale (for the most part)--basically, I thought the resolution was good, at least for Buffy as a character (possibly my favorite character in all of television). But I do think a lot of the episodes were weak, as was the big bad that season.

I'm not as crazy about Angel's final season as most people are, but I definitely wouldn't call it bad.

Thinking of the shows I stuck with until the end... I can't think off hand of a really horrible final season. Maybe not as strong as previous ones, but nothing truly wretched. But then, if a show loses my interest, chances are I've given up on it long before the final season (like Heroes and even Will & Grace, which I really enjoyed for a while but eventually lost interest in).

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Just to preface this, 'Airwolf' was never really a "good" show, and every episode essentially ended exactly the same way with String taunting the bad guys until the music reached its crescendo and his visor came down, thus allowing him to finally stop screwing with the enemy and just kill them, but for an eleven year old kid it was awesome. Then came Season 4, the final season, and the move to the USA Network.

It was a valiant effort to try and continue the show after canning the entire cast and writing them off by critical wounds, death by explosion, sudden transfer, or just neglecting to mention what happened to them while replacing them with a bunch of new people who suddenly found the hidden lair and rescued String's brother. All of which happened at the same time.

And it took perseverance to keep a technical based show running with just a third of the budget it had on CBS.

But when your ENTIRE show hinges on a cool helicopter, and you no longer have access to the cool helicopter so you're forced to just reuse stock footage from the first three seasons, maybe it's time to just call it a day and not bother with that last season?

 

[Caligula]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The seventh season is gawdawful compared to the previous six. Most of the main characters are pushed into the background by the red shirts... I mean Potentials. Other more familiar characters like Giles and Faith are brought in but aren't given near enough to do. And I'm sorry to any Season 7 fans out there, but Robin Wood is the most boring character that Joss Whedon & Co. have ever come up with. He'd be right at home in the first half of Season 1 of Dollhouse, methinks. The fate of Xander's eye in "Dirty Girls" is probably the most nauseating thing I've ever seen on network TV, and Buffy being forced out of her own home at the end of "Empty Places" is hopelessly contrived.... and that's putting it nicely.

I've been witness to worse final seasons, but not when compared to the rest of their series' runs.

 

[The Evil Dead]

Star Trek - The Next Generation. I love the finale and there's a few fun episodes but overall it's a drastic dip in quality for the show.

 

[tharpdevenport]

And the official Seaon 8 comic series is worse. Much, much worse.

 

[I am not Spock]

I'm not sure I can think of one! I agree with some of the complaints about the final season of Buffy, though I still found a lot to like about it and really liked the way things turned out in the finale (for the most part)--basically, I thought the resolution was good, at least for Buffy as a character (possibly my favorite character in all of television). But I do think a lot of the episodes were weak, as was the big bad that season.

I'm not as crazy about Angel's final season as most people are, but I definitely wouldn't call it bad.

Thinking of the shows I stuck with until the end... I can't think off hand of a really horrible final season. Maybe not as strong as previous ones, but nothing truly wretched. But then, if a show loses my interest, chances are I've given up on it long before the final season (like Heroes and even Will & Grace, which I really enjoyed for a while but eventually lost interest in).

I agree, the final seasons of Buffy and Angel respectively weren't too bad. I still enjoyed them. Not as stellar as past seasons, but still fun most of the time.

 

[Othello]

Battelstar Galactica was HORRID! Ruined the entire series for me.

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

Right now, I'd have to say Scrubs. This season has been a tremendous disappointment. I understand the reasons for returning after a note perfect "series finale" last year, and I even cheer them. But it's just not working for me.

 

[tharpdevenport]

If ever there were polar opposites ... the "Series finale" of the original run of "Scrubs", was terrible. And the season as a whole was very, veyr sub par.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

NewsRadio. Losing Phil Hartman was a blow from which the show never recovered. And I think losing him in the way that they did really left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. So beyond just losing the best character, they also started doing all of these really bitter, depressing gags. Dave & Lisa were drunk all the time. There was one episode where Dave discovered that the only thing that made him feel better was to beat up Matthew. Then there was the whole Lisa/Johnny Johnson romance. If only NBC had put this show out of its misery a little sooner. The only good thing about Season 5 was Bill's heartbreaking funeral episode (although it did feature the beginning of the Lisa-is-always-drunk gags).

 

[Ptrope]

Enterprise. Never a fan of the show, but the first two seasons had some good or even great ideas, let down by poor executions. The last season was worse than bad fan fiction, with nothing original, nothing interesting - just a bunch of stolen or rehashed crap disguised as "giving what the fans want."

Frankly, fans don't know what the hell they want, and a TV producer should never use their ideas as the main guide to a show.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The seventh season is gawdawful compared to the previous six. Most of the main characters are pushed into the background by the red shirts... I mean Potentials. Other more familiar characters like Giles and Faith are brought in but aren't given near enough to do. And I'm sorry to any Season 7 fans out there, but Robin Wood is the most boring character that Joss Whedon & Co. have ever come up with. He'd be right at home in the first half of Season 1 of Dollhouse, methinks. The fate of Xander's eye in "Dirty Girls" is probably the most nauseating thing I've ever seen on network TV, and Buffy being forced out of her own home at the end of "Empty Places" is hopelessly contrived.... and that's putting it nicely.

I've been witness to worse final seasons, but not when compared to the rest of their series' runs.

I remember I started watching Buffy about this time (I kick myself in the ass for not watching Angel and Buffy first airings since the moment I could...*sigh*), and it has been a while, but I am also bothered by the forced out of her home thing. There's no frickin' way someone would force me out of my home like that. Deaths would ensue. As for the worst character? Man, I am sorry to disagree with you here, but I'd have to say Connor was the worst character ever (in the Buffyverse).

I'm somewhat surprised no one has mentioned the final season of Sliders. What a horrible season.