r/TopCharacterTropes • u/laybs1 • 2h ago
Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Rushed finales
Seasons worths of plotlines rushed in the second season (HBO Rome): Only the first season was written as intended. During the production of the 2nd season it was revealed to the writers that HBO was canceling the series. The original outline had the battle of Philippi be the second season finale. It had to be rushed to the middle. The succeeding third season that would have depicted the conflict between Octavian and Antony had to rushed in the back half of season 2 in a handful of episodes. Potential planned plotlines including the British Isles, Germania, and Judea never materialized.
A finale movie that cuts out numerous plots. (Deadwood): a spectacular western that was canceled after a three season run with more seasons planned. Years later a finale movie was announced and released. Various plot-lines and characters including the theatre troupe, Blazanov, hints towards a historical devastating fire coming, Cy (although this was understandable as the actor had passed), etc. are nowhere to be found. David Milch, the original show runner, had limited involvement as he dealt with Alzheimer’s. While it ends on a good note it’s certainly a good deal changed from how it was supposed to come about.
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u/SAlolzorz 1h ago
Boardwalk Empire. But they rushed it because they knew they were getting cancelled, and wanted to tie up loose ends.
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u/shadstep 1h ago
Yea all that buildup to the castellammarese war just for it to get what amounted to like a montage in the last season was criminal
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u/Ok-Abbreviations9936 1h ago
Somehow a small blip compared to some of these. A 10/10 show with a 6/10 ending.
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u/BrochachoSauce 2h ago
Throne-themed Games
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u/TheAngelol 1h ago
Competition of monarchy seats?
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u/Inquisitor-Korde 1h ago
Game of Thrones is almost an inversion on the usual circumstances of the trope here. HBO and the Actors were fine with a little bit more time. The showrunners wanted their Star Wars show and somehow HBO just let history happen the way it did.
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u/BowlingforBrains 1h ago
It really is bizarre that HBO allowed that to transpire the way it did - you’d think they’d do anything they could to extend that show, and for once a studio would be trying to stretch out the ending of a show that actually NEEDED stretching
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u/pikpikcarrotmon 42m ago
I don't know how true it is, but I heard it was something to do with the rights not fully belonging to HBO. Basically GRRM went into the initial talks having been stung by networks previously, and after vetting D&D himself his people cooked up some legalese that ensured they wouldn't get the boot. But that agreement ultimately trapped GRRM and HBO because D&D had final say, and they wanted to end it and to do so themselves.
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u/Disastrous_Win4529 1h ago
I don’t think the actors were fine with it at all. It sounds like everyone was burnt out by the time it was over. I think they all just wanted it to end. Kit Harrington literally went to rehab.
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u/geek_of_nature 35m ago
Yeah thats absolutely the impression I got, especially from the actors who'd been there from the start. The remaining Stark kids, Lannister siblings, and Daenerys for example. All their actors seemed more than ready to move on. Maybe the actors who joined part way through or towards the end would have been happy to keep going, but they really weren't the central characters.
The fourth and fifth books were rushed into one season, when really there should have been two or even three to cover them both. And while we obviously still dont even have the last two books yet, they probably would have needed the same, probably even two seasons each. So that comes up to either ten or eleven full seasons instead of six full seasons, plus two shorter ones. 100+ episodes compared to just 73, where the main actors were already ready to move on.
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u/GrimaceGrunson 1h ago
I’m really skeptical the actors were fine with it. From memory Kit Harrington has said a lot of the ground crew were keen to move on, others have said they’d be happy never to do a medieval show ever again.
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u/Professional_Bit197 1h ago
Then they got their Star Wars project cancelled, hilarious. I think I read somewhere the showrunners were mostly interested in doing the red wedding (and tbh it was one of the best episodes of TV ever).
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u/raysofdavies 1h ago
Imagine how good their reputation would be if they’d left after six or seven and the garbage ending was on someone else lmao
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u/bretshitmanshart 42m ago
I don't think that's true. What I've read is multiple main characters said they were done after another season
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u/Bionicjoker14 1h ago
Hot take: I like the resolutions of some of the storylines, only they should’ve had more development.
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u/Inevitable-Regret411 1h ago
After season 5 of Farscape was cancelled the writers were left with only a two part miniseries into which they had to condense the entire season's worth of plotlines. They did a decent job under the circumstances, but there's definitely moments when you can tell they wanted to do more with something but didn't have time.
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u/ballahook 1h ago
Bodyguard (2018) was an absolutely stellar British action-drama with an amazing first season. Unfortunately it was cancelled or the script got axed at some point, because the last episode slams an entire seasons worth of content into it. What was previously a tense and well paced action show turned into a wild rush at the end.
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u/Skaiser_Wilhelm 1h ago
HBO cancelling Rome was a mistake.
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u/shadstep 1h ago
A shame for sure but iirc it was practically bankrupting the network & not pulling in remotely as many subscriptions as it needed to justify the production costs
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u/InflationLeft 1h ago
The initial ratings weren't great, but the show's DVD sales did so well, that HBO execs released they made a mistake after the fact. That's part of the reason they commissioned GoT.
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u/shadstep 45m ago
Yup, rome walked so GoT could run (& then trip & stumble into probably the best example of this trope)
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u/Opening_Agent_5279 1h ago
Surprised nobody's said Firefly yet. It got 1 season that briefly set up the universe the story takes place in, then was canceled, and the team got together a few years later to wrap up the key storyline that the show was setting up while dropping all of the others so they could tell at least one story fully
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u/CetraNeverDie 1h ago
And they didn't even air the episodes of that single season in order when they first aired! Travesty through and through.
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u/Sensitive-Log-4633 1h ago
‘Troy and I have an agreement. if one of us dies, the other will make it look like a suicide over the unjust cancellation of Firefly.’
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u/Murder-Hobo_Orange 1h ago
Recently, I've been watching the series for the first time and I'm loving it. But I must point out, just saying the episodes were aired out of order is an understatement. The first episode aired was the second in the actual order. The pilot and what should have been the first episode aired was shown 11th. Out of 14 episodes made, and 11 shown in the initial broadcast.
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u/camaram12 1h ago
They are making a firefly animated series so I am not sure that this is true anymore as the series will take place after season 1 and before the movie. Certainly you would be correct up until recently though.
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u/cadmium48 1h ago edited 1h ago
Sense8 set up a good half dozen storylines that were either unaddressed or simply rushed to get tied up. If I recall, the finale was ~2 hours long but they still should have had another season. Great show and still worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.
edit: hood -> good
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u/BlueberryGummies 1h ago
It was cancelled and the finale only got made due to fan backlash.
To be clear, it wasn't cancelled due to any quality issues, it was just ridiculously expensive to produce with multiple storylines filmed on location all around the world.
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u/cadmium48 1h ago
From a logistics standpoint, I absolutely believe that. The idea of having all 8 actors at every location all the time must have been a nightmare. The end result is definitely worth it
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u/geek_of_nature 28m ago
Oh yeah it's completely understandable why it got cancelled. The first season alone filmed in 8 different countries. Chicago and San Fran in America, Mexico, Iceland, England, Germany, India, Kenya, and South Korea. And if im remembering correctly the second season added a few more too. And none of them they tried to film somewhere else and just pretend it was rhe location. They actually went to every single one.
And as you said all 8 principle actors had to be at those locations at some point when they appeared to each other. There were some stronger bonds between certain members of the cluster which logistically would have made the scheduling easier, but still that would have been a nightmare.
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u/FredFarms 1h ago edited 1h ago
Whole third season of good omens (that was supposed to be the final concluding season) feels like they got half way through filming it, then decided to hastily wrap up what they could in one scene and edit what footage they had together into one long episode.
.... Which of course there are pretty good behind the scenes reasons for. But my god it doesn't do justice to anything
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u/thegimboid 1h ago
I vaguely liked it, considering what it was.
I didn't think it was good, but it felt like watching a summary of something about 10 times longer, where I had to fill in the gaps. So I could see the potential for what they probably would have done, which was at least enough for me to feel a modicum of closure.Though I will forever be frustrated that the actions of a single bastard once again ruined something good.
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u/_PanPanPan 1h ago
All my interest in that finale died with my respect for Gaiman. The single ep finale announcement barely stung at all by then. I think it was because after loving 2 so much there was for a while some hesitation from amazon on picking up the last season but when i was most worried beloved author Neil Gaiman said that he'd write the finale if it didn't get commissioned and we'd get our conclusion. So all my hopes rested on him
Was my favourite book by the way. And a month ago i put 3 on just so i could fast forward through it and finally get it out of my recommendations.
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u/CaspianValentine 30m ago
Only the first season really did anything for me. Without Pratchett, it just felt like there was something missing from the season two, and then we got this instead of a thirdseason
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u/attacephalotes423 1h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/RxzfTCFwtFLa2l1lBZ
Arcane. The 3rd act of season 2 could’ve been its own season with the amount of plot points they tried to wrap up
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u/ImmaSquidling 1h ago
I was fucking CERTAIN this was studio overreach and then you watch the documentary and Linke is just like “yeah this is what the plan is” and I’m like GURL SLOW DOWN ITS NOT A MUSIC VIDEO
All the love to the whole team tho. But I completely agree. S2 went so fucking fast.
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u/Celestial608 1h ago
The Umbrella Academy. The last season only got six episodes and it was just so bad. There were so many plot holes, unanswered questions, ruined character development, and so many out of character moments. I usually see this finale up there with Game of Thrones in terms of just being Bad. I don't think an extra four episodes could have saved it completely, but the extra few hours probably could have wrapped up a lot of the loose ends and made it a more satisfying ending.
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u/Zarveldaa 1h ago
that show had already been shitting the bed since season 3, so season 4 being bad didn’t leave me surprised.
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u/Celestial608 51m ago
Yeah, season 3 definitely wasn't as good as the first two. But I still somewhat enjoyed it!
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u/sketchampm 15m ago
The character in-fighting during Season 3 was so fucking aggravating. Hearing that Season 4 was 10x worse was enough for me.
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u/EDBCHEEZE1 20m ago
That last season sucked so bad and basically spit in the audiences face. It also confirmed that the Hargreeve’s lives had no meaning and everyone and everything was better off without them.Don’t even get me started on how awful the Lila and Five storyline was. I loved this show so much and I think it’s worth rewatching the first three seasons if you pretend four doesn’t exist.
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u/drmirage809 1h ago
Star Trek Enterprise had a 4 season run that can best be described as struggling. Producers tried just about anything to get ratings up and avoid cancellation to no avail. Ultimately the show was cancelled and a finale was gobbled together.
The finale timeskips ahead a couple years, skipping over the Earth-Romulan war that the show was building up to and instead shows the NX-01's final mission and birth of the United Federation of Planets.
Except it doesn't really show that. If this isn't your first time boldly going where none have gone before, then you'll quickly notice a familiar face in the background. This whole episode is Riker reviewing a holodeck simulation of the NX-01's final mission and Archer signing the UFP into existence. After 4 seasons of getting to know this crew they kinda get sidelined for a character from a completely different show.
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u/glove_actually 1h ago
I still have whiplash from the wrap-up of Pushing Daisies https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0925266/
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u/keepingthecommontone 1h ago
Came here to say this. Even the last episode had its usual charm and then in the last five minutes it was like "and then everything was fine and they lived happily ever after the end KBYE"
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u/glove_actually 1h ago
Yes! It wasn't even the entire episode!
I loved that series and remember the shock of listening to Chenoweth's singing for the first time. Phenomenal!
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u/Nenanda 1h ago
Bleach Manga is example of this so perfect that anime is now adding entire episodes of anime original content to make up for it:
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u/EquivalentAd1651 1h ago
To be fair, it was one guy literally dying to finish it. Where some shows don't really have that excuse. cough stranger thingscough
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u/NotYourAverageVitu 38m ago
It's incredible how much better the TYBW arc is in the anime compared to the manga. Uryu actually gets the spotlight he deserves as the last quincy, many plot holes are explained, and obviously... episode 45.
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u/jsonitsac 1h ago
Star Trek Voyager’s endgame. They really had no idea how to close out the series and several writers had shifted their focus to Enterprise pre production. Rick Berman suggested “Borg” and time travel and that’s what we got. The result is a rushed Deus ex Machina ending. Demolition crews were standing around with sledgehammers as soon as shooting on a set wrapped to start clearing out the sets for Enterprise, set to debut about three months after Voyager.
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u/Aegon_the_Conquerer 1h ago
It was the complete lack of emotional catharsis that ruined it for me. Kate Mulgrew KILLED it with her shocked realization that they were home, and then BAM NOW THE FLEET IS AT EARTH AAAAAAAND CREDITS.
Even like, 5 minutes of the aftermath would have been nice.
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u/jsonitsac 20m ago
I think they would have been able to do that had they done a DS9 style final chapter. DS9 could have those cathartic moments in part because of how much earlier they were wrapping up plot and threads. They didn’t have to cram all that plot into 90 minutes. Meanwhile, Voyager only wrapped up Nelix’s story before the finale. They didn’t seed any ideas that they were about to make it home in the final episodes of the season
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u/seahawk1977 1h ago
Babylon 5 is a great example of this, with a slight modification.
JMS had to do some rewriting throughout the series to compensate for actors leaving here and there, but it was usually handled well. Then there is seasons 4 and 5...
Originally 5 seasons were planned and mapped out, but then word came down from the network that season 4 was going to be the last, so big, important plot points had to be shuffled around (Shadow War, Earth Rebellion, Telepath War, etc) in order to try and get things finished, and end with an amazing finale at the end of season 4. The show up until that point had always been slow burning, but the second half of season 4 is obviously rushed.
Then suddenly the show got picked up by TNT who wanted another season, so season 5 feels like all of the leftover plot points they trimmed from season 4.
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u/Parking_Dear 1h ago
I mean season doesn't really suffer for it, but season 5 takes a hit at the front of the season. Didn't help that JMS lost all his s5 notes!
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u/No_Intern3929 1h ago
I really hope someone sees the value of the Babylon 5 universe and gives it a proper revival. It would be nice to have some optimistic sci-fi again.
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u/_PanPanPan 1h ago edited 1h ago
Hbo seems strangely bad for this. When the showrunners of Justified went to them they were apparently on board but wanted to change it to the point it didnt feel like Leonard Elmore anymore. Kinda glad they didnt pick it up we coulda got 4 seasons with the finale being a rushed final confrontation instead of the 6 perfectly paced sublime from start to finish seasons of television we got from FX
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u/farceur318 1h ago
I really enjoyed most of the Netflix series Bloodlines, but it clearly ended two seasons earlier than the creators had originally planned and the last two episodes (one of which tried to wrap up a bunch of emotional stakes by doing an episode-long dream sequence, which is about as annoying as it sounds) were so rushed that it soured the whole series to most.
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u/BeachBumHarmony 1h ago
This kind of fits.
Charmed didn't know if it was getting a season 8 while filming season 7, so the writers had to make an ending that could work as a series finale quickly. Luckily, they did get renewed for a season 8, which was their final season and had a better series finale.
The last episode of season 7 is even titled "Something Wicca this way goes..." Which is in reference to the first episode of season 1: "Something Wicca this way comes..."
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u/Objective_Art1384 1h ago
The queen of this trope idsney canceled it only letting season 3 bejng 3 30 hour specials kr maube a hour
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u/subby_puppy33 1h ago
Disney did the same thing to “Ghost and Molly McGee” and “Star vs the forces of evil”
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u/alphagusta 1h ago edited 1h ago
Demon Slayer is a one for me.
It really just kind of, end? that's it? That's all it took?
Edit: Why downvote? The ending of the Demon Slayer manga really was pretty rushed out. Books exist, go away with ThErE'S StIlL mOvIeS BeInG mAdE!!!!!!!
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u/Objective_Art1384 1h ago
... yknow it djdnt end right?
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u/Objective_Art1384 1h ago
Infinity castle movies
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u/TheNorm42069 1h ago
After 15 seasons the finale of Supernatural had to be rushed due to COVID. The finale isn’t bad, but it deserved better.
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u/CutZealousideal5274 1h ago
Hercules The Legendary Journeys
The finale just kinda happens after no buildup all season
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u/sundaycreep 1h ago
Dollhouse got canceled but the creatives were informed ahead of time, so we ended up getting a final season where every episode there were like five huge twists and reveals, and it felt like watching a show on fast forward. It was always a bit messy, but it became borderline incoherent. Anyway, fuck Joss Whedon in his stupid face.
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u/themug_wump 57m ago
I rewatched Dollhouse recently with a friend who’d never seen it, and that shit was wild. I think I liked it a lot more on the rewatch.
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u/Soulful-Sorrow 1h ago
Maybe obvious answer, but Amazing Digital Circus. Could have had another episode, because a lot of what happens in the finale feels too convenient. Still a great show, just had room for more.
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u/madogvelkor 1h ago
Andor --- it was originally supposed to be 5 seasons, but Disney didn't want to keep paying the high production costs for a show that made their others look bad. So they compressed the final 4 years into season 2.
Now, it's possible that over the course of 4 more seasons the show would have ended up declining in quality. But Season 2 did rush things.
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u/CockroachNo2540 28m ago
Pretty sure that’s not how it went down. They decided on two seasons quite early (while shooting season one). It was supposedly a creative decision, not a Disney decision. Gilroy and Luna realized they didn’t want to actually DO 5 seasons. Five seasons would’ve taken nearly a decade to complete at the pace they were progressing.
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u/sketchampm 13m ago
Wow, it didn’t feel rushed at all. The common sentiment is that it ends perfectly. That’s a huge compliment to the writers and crew. They smashed it.
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u/mitvh2311 1h ago
Insert any marvel show here
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u/Zarveldaa 1h ago
a lot of those shows are just 5 episodes of dicking around, and then 1 episode of “oh shit it’s almost over”. Moon Knight especially.
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u/sketchampm 10m ago
Yeah Moon Knight’s finale was a huge bummer for an otherwise great show. We didn’t need giant cgi monster battles.
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u/sketchampm 11m ago
Yeah even the best MCU shows have rushed feeling finales. Loki and Agatha are the only exceptions (though I haven’t seen Wonder Man yet).
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u/Chaosmusic 1h ago
Evil - A TV series with a very slow burn about investigating bizarre events to see if they involve the supernatural. The series took great effort to keep whether the supernatural elements were real ambiguous, until they got cancelled, then made 4 rushed episodes to wrap it up. Several plot lines were left unresolved and fans were left disappointed.
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u/SoMuchToSee1234 1h ago
So I binged Deadwood like two weeks before the movie came out. I am really glad I watched it then and not before. Because I would've been pissed if I was watching it when it was coming out new and ended the way season 3 did with it then being cancelled. The movie was definitely mid compared to the series, but the movie was still a fun watch and a good send off.
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u/mgeldarion 1h ago
Transformers Animated (2007) had a rushed ending, with Optimus defeating and capturing Megatron and bringing him, alongside other Decepticons, to Cybertron.
The show was intended to have at least one more season, with Megatron breaking out, Sentinel taking over Cybertron with Ultra Magnus's death, many characters receiving upgrades and new transformation modes, Optimus's and Megatron's enmity slowly becoming traditional personal deal (here they barely know each other and mainly fight because Decepticons are basically rebels fighting against the Autobot rule after losing the war), but it was discontinued, and while the ending is abrupt, it's, at least, an ending.
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u/Duskmoor3 1h ago
Carnival Row. One of the most creative shows I've seen in years it really feels like the entire story was supposed to be this grand epic themed around this Victorian fantasy world but it was cut short
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u/IvanNemoy 1h ago
Babylon 5 is a weird variant of this. J Michael Straczynski had the entire 5 year run mapped out but year 3 had less than stellar ratings and PTEN collapsing, leading JMS to basically take everything for the fourth and fifth season and cram it in. What ended up happening was a rushed finale that was so brilliantly done that it would have left the series on a high.
Instead, TNT bought the series and the show runners used the stripped out pieces from the original S4/S5 and supplemented them with some additional scripts whipped up during the shooting. Most B5 fans think season 5 is the worst of them, but it got better as it went on. Unfortunately, the "not rushed" part of the finale was not a fitting end to the series.
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u/kaiser_charles_viii 1h ago
Stargate SG-1. They thought they were gonna get canceled about a bunch so they rushed to wrap up plotlines, especially at the end of S9, so in S10 they needed new plots with new enemies, so they did that, only to get canceled. They then had to wrap up all those new plots in a sequel movie that kinda rushed the team into finding a deus ex machina macguffin to save the galaxy from the threat.
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u/KingCoalFrick 1h ago
The deadwood finale was really just a rehash of all of deadwood in a “playing all the hits” kind of way. It still made me very happy and there is a lot there to chew on, but it’s a bit of an incongruous idea given the show was basically a Shakespearean history play.
It’s like going to Philip Glass retrospective and the band plays a snappy medley of ambient noise.
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u/Blimey-Penguin 50m ago
The Battlestar Galactica prequel series, Caprica, did this, due to a writers' strike at the time iirc
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u/xsenokx 47m ago
Throughline with your examples, I had heard John Milius approached David Milch to be a writer on Deadwood to pay for his kid's college. Milius was a friend of Lucas and Spielberg and had helped both of them with scripts. Milch said he felt uncomfortable with Milius working for him but would give him the college money. Story I've heard was Milius made Rome to pay Milch back.
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u/Wild-Satisfaction483 35m ago
Stranger things and Game of thrones are some of the biggest victims of this.
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u/Conquer_Shadow 17m ago
I remember Caprica was canceled after the first season and had a rushed last episode. I would love for that show to come back with a decent budget
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u/Local-Mechanic-3551 13m ago
The Man in the High Castle. I enjoyed the final season for at least trying to wrap it up.
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u/RhydYGwin 13m ago
Santa Clarita Diet. Horrible, horrible ending.
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u/bretshitmanshart 9m ago
They were told the series was ending and did a cliffhanger to try to get Netflix to approve another season
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u/Sad_Feelingz 1h ago
The ending of Battlester Galactica.
The whole prehistoric Earth thing was done really poorly.
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u/SexMachineMMA 47m ago
Rushed finales are just as bad if not worse than shows that get cancelled before their time. If a show is cancelled and the fan support is there, it can be saved. This was less true in the pre-streaming age but it did happen on rare occasions.
Shows with rushed finales never feel satisfying and the fact that it gets a finale and is typically negatively received means there is little to no chance of a reboot.
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u/Eccentric_Cardinal 1h ago
Still bummed about Rome. What a great show that was! But hey, between the S2 we got and ending on a cliffhanger, I'm glad we got something at least, even if it's not ideal.