Great TV horror brings more than just jump scares; it immerses viewers in characters' lives and mindsets. So it's no surprise fans say some horror shows were completely "ruined" by a frustrating final episode.
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00:00 Great TV horror brings more than just jump scares.
00:03 It immerses viewers in characters' lives and mindsets.
00:07 So it's no surprise fans say some horror shows were
00:10 completely ruined by a frustrating final episode.
00:13 Based on the novel series,
00:15 The Southern Vampire Mysteries by author Charlaine Harris,
00:18 HBO's True Blood was a major success,
00:21 running for seven seasons.
00:23 The show features a world where vampires exist publicly with the help of
00:26 synthetic blood, which inspires other supernatural creatures to emerge.
00:30 In the middle of the paranormal action is Sookie Stackhouse,
00:34 a telepathic server caught in a bad romance with vampires Bill Compton and
00:38 Eric Northman.
00:39 In the final season, vampires are ravaged by a worldwide virus,
00:43 while Eric confronts the source of the synthetic blood, the Yakanomo Corporation.
00:48 In the series finale, Sookie helps an infected Bill stake himself
00:52 after Eric dismantles the corporation.
00:54 The story flashes forward four years, with Eric heading a company that provides
00:58 a new synthetic blood that cures the deadly virus.
01:01 Sookie is married to a new unnamed character and is pregnant with his child.
01:06 For a show that had so long embraced its campy premise,
01:09 True Blood ends on a bland note that forgets to have fun.
01:12 The final injustice is, after waiting seasons to see who Sookie ends up with,
01:16 seeing her with no established character at all.
01:19 True Blood ends with a misdirect, which is always vaguely insulting to viewers so
01:23 invested in the characters and their relationships.
01:26 Lucifer had a fervent fan base that saved it from cancellation on Fox,
01:30 with the show moving to Netflix for its final three seasons.
01:33 The Prince of Darkness grows tired of reigning in hell and
01:36 relocates to Los Angeles, assisting the local police department as a consultant.
01:41 As Lucifer connects with humanity,
01:43 he strikes up a romance with police detective Chloe Decker.
01:46 Lucifer's presence on Earth leads to heightened supernatural activity,
01:49 with the fallen angel taking on divine enemies, menacing him and his colleagues.
01:54 After confronting the forces of heaven and hell across the series,
01:57 the final antagonist is Vincent Lamech, a French mobster.
02:01 What the Lucifer finale lacks is that grand sense of scale that the series felt it
02:05 was building towards for several seasons.
02:08 This baffling choice in a closing adversary is followed up with Lucifer choosing to
02:12 return to hell rather than remain on Earth with Chloe and their daughter Rory.
02:16 Though Lucifer is changed by his time on Earth,
02:19 the show feels a bit too full circle with its narrative.
02:22 For eight seasons, audiences watch serial killer with a heart of gold,
02:25 Dexter Morgan, prey on the violent criminals of Miami.
02:29 A genius forensic technician, Dexter channels his secret bloodlust to target
02:33 those who have escaped punishment from the legal system.
02:36 This lethal side hustle as Miami's most murderous vigilante pits Dexter against
02:40 other devious killers, often resulting in deadly games of cat and mouse between them.
02:45 While dispatching these bloodthirsty criminals,
02:47 Dexter hides his violent double life from his family and
02:50 co-workers in the Miami Police Department.
02:52 [MUSIC]
02:53 >> Tonight's the night.
02:54 [MUSIC]
02:57 And it's going to happen again and again.
03:00 >> The final season of Dexter offers a lurid, uneven story, particularly for
03:04 Dexter's adopted sister, Deborah Morgan, and
03:07 the way she handles learning her brother's secret.
03:09 Deborah's questionable plot trajectory ends with Dexter euthanizing her in
03:13 a hospital after she becomes brain dead from a surprise stroke.
03:16 As his personal life crumbles, Dexter fakes his death, but
03:20 resurfaces working in Oregon as a lumberjack under an assumed name.
03:24 The ludicrous way for Dexter to escape the consequences of his actions and
03:28 abandon his young son split fans, who widely derided the finale.
03:32 Eight years later, the revival series Dexter New Blood rectified this reviled
03:37 ending by giving Dexter a far more fitting and definitive send off.
03:41 The CW's longest running original scripted series, Supernatural,
03:45 finally came to an end with its 15th season in 2020.
03:49 The show centers on Sam and Dean Winchester, two brothers who battle all
03:52 kinds of monsters that threaten to overtake the world.
03:55 Across the series lengthy run, the Winchesters take on everything from
03:59 Lucifer to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, preventing literal Armageddon.
04:03 The final season ups the ante by pitting the Winchesters against a vengeful God,
04:08 who is prepared to eradicate all life on the planet.
04:10 After defeating God in the series penultimate episode,
04:13 the Winchesters look forward to creating their own future free of divine manipulation.
04:18 The series finale focuses on an anticlimactic fight against a vampire
04:22 coven with Dean killed in an offhand manner to boot.
04:25 In a flash forward, Sam reunites with his brother in the afterlife,
04:29 after passing away from natural causes.
04:31 For a show that killed and
04:33 resurrected its leads on multiple occasions with its heavenly stakes,
04:37 Dean's forced permanent death is such a low level issue,
04:39 makes the Supernatural series finale to such a long running show feel like an afterthought.
04:45 Premiering in 1990, Twin Peaks grew into a surprise success,
04:49 embracing the narrative eccentricities crafted by creators Mark Frost and David Lynch.
04:54 FBI agent Dale Cooper investigates the small Pacific Northwestern town of Twin Peaks,
04:59 after local homecoming queen Laura Palmer is murdered.
05:03 - She's dead, wrapped in plastic.
05:07 - Dale descends deeper into the supernatural elements influencing the town,
05:11 including the malevolent entity known as Killer Bob.
05:14 The finale to the second season ends on a major cliffhanger,
05:18 with Bob possessing Dale as he laughs maniacally.
05:21 Lynch left Twin Peaks early into production on its second season,
05:24 with the season seeing a noticeable loss of direction shortly thereafter.
05:28 After solving Laura's murder midway through the season,
05:31 something Lynch and Frost didn't want to do,
05:33 the overarching story grew meandering and bizarre,
05:36 culminating in its abrupt finale.
05:38 Lynch publicly disowned the second season of Twin Peaks,
05:41 and like many fans, was thoroughly dissatisfied with the ending.
05:45 The 1992 follow-up movie, Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me,
05:49 which Lynch did direct, was largely a prequel and didn't resolve the cliffhanger.
05:53 To give the story a proper sense of closure,
05:55 Lynch returned to Twin Peaks for a revival series on Showtime in 2017,
06:00 26 years after the original series finale.
06:04 In an era when wholesome sitcoms like Leave It to Beaver were ruling the airwaves,
06:08 The Twilight Zone made its mark as the medium's early foray into the dark and twisted.
06:12 Created by Rod Serling, the original iteration of the anthology series ran for five seasons,
06:18 from 1959 to 1964, with each episode covering a standalone story.
06:23 From whimsical fantasies to intense horror-driven tales that embrace the macabre,
06:27 The Twilight Zone was an early pioneer of genre television.
06:31 The final season saw a change in producers behind the scenes that noticeably affected its quality,
06:36 including the show's series finale.
06:38 The last episode of The Twilight Zone to air was The Bewitchin' Pool,
06:42 a fantasy about children who can escape from unhappy homes through a magical swimming pool.
06:47 Running heavy on schmaltz with a flimsy premise and uneven pace,
06:51 the episode is among the worst in the series.
06:53 The last episode technically produced for the series is an occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,
06:58 which aired four months earlier.
07:00 The episode comes from a heavily edited French short film, repurposed to fit the show's format,
07:05 and bought for a significantly lower price than standard production costs for an episode.
07:09 Both episodes fail to give The Twilight Zone a send-off befitting a groundbreaking series.
07:14 The 90s television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, inspired by a 1992 film of the same name,
07:20 became a cult favorite that expanded into a whole franchise, encompassing comic books and video games.
07:26 Buffy's initial love interest, the tortured vampire Angel, received his own spin-off series,
07:32 simply titled Angel, which ran for five seasons from 1999 to 2004.
07:37 The series covers Angel continuing his quest for redemption from all the evil he committed as a vampire,
07:42 defending Los Angeles from the armies of Hell.
07:45 The Angel series finale revolves around a confrontation with an insidious cult,
07:49 the Circle of the Black Thorn, who plan to unleash Hell on Earth.
07:53 Angel's group of allies endure betrayal and murder ahead of the final battle,
07:57 including the death of fan-favorite characters Wesley Windham Price and Lindsay MacDonald.
08:02 However, the big battle that Angel and his friends prepare for is never actually seen,
08:06 with the show ending as the heroes charge into the fray.
08:09 The showrunners defend the finale to this day,
08:12 explaining that lack of payoff suggests that the fight is truly never-ending for Angel.
08:16 But this feels like a cop-out.
08:18 The low-key killing of Lindsay by one of Angel's associates rather than Angel himself,
08:22 after years of shared antagonism, is a real letdown.
08:26 The popular daytime soap opera Dark Shadows started as a gothic romance
08:30 that quickly veered into supernatural horror with the introduction of ghosts, vampires, and werewolves.
08:36 The paranormal hijinks escalate when vampire Barnabas Collins is freed from his coffin,
08:41 with actor Jonathan Frid quickly becoming the star of the show.
08:44 Dark Shadows aired from 1966 to 1971 and spawned an entire wave of merchandising,
08:50 not to mention three theatrical features.
08:53 Though Barnabas eventually overcomes his vampirism and receives a happy ending,
08:57 Dark Shadows continued without him, ending the series with a decided whimper.
09:01 Frid grew tired of playing Barnabas and, fearing typecasting,
09:05 declined to continue the undead role in early 1971.
09:08 This complicated not only plans for a sequel to the movie House of Dark Shadows,
09:13 but also the future of the television series, which was still very much on the air.
09:17 For its final months, the narrative took a detour to an alternate timeline version of the Collins family in 1841.
09:24 Though the supernatural elements remain, they are considerably downplayed,
09:27 with the story leaning more into romantic intrigue.
09:30 Dark Shadows was cancelled in April 1971,
09:33 with the narrator providing closure to the outstanding plotlines in the rushed series finale.
09:38 The X-Files has the dubious distinction of providing two separate entries to the canon of terrible series finales,
09:44 but will consolidate it into one.
09:46 This is a shame, because the X-Files was an early success for Fox,
09:50 and inherited the crown from Twin Peaks for network horror television.
09:54 [knocking]
09:55 "Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."
09:59 For a franchise that defined an era and spawned two feature films and two spin-off shows,
10:04 the X-Files whiffed with the finale of its original run.
10:07 And though the revival series initially started with Promise,
10:10 reuniting FBI agents Scully and Mulder to investigate paranormal conspiracies,
10:15 it fell apart with its final season.
10:17 The ninth and final season of the X-Files' original run placed Fox Mulder on trial
10:22 for exposing a government conspiracy involving a predicted alien invasion.
10:26 Spending too much time with its courtroom drama centerpiece,
10:29 and the forced return of the villainous cigarette-smoking man,
10:32 the finale feels incomplete.
10:34 The revival series ends on a worse note,
10:37 killing both the cigarette-smoking man and former protagonist Monica Reyes
10:41 in an offhanded, anticlimactic way.
10:43 More bizarre, Scully explains to Mulder that their son William was actually an implant,
10:48 while announcing she is pregnant with her and Mulder's first true baby.
10:52 This undercuts years of in-show mythology for a fake-out,
10:56 with no current plans for a proper resolution.
10:58 [outro music]